Exactly two weeks after arriving in Fatu-Hiva, we are moving on. We had a great time in the Marquesas Islands, and were able to visit the five largest, most popular islands of the eleven island chain. The photo above really shows its natural beauty off!
So this morning at 7:45 local time, we weighed anchor and headed towards the Tuamotu Islands, about 550 miles downwind (South West) from Huku Niva. For those of you doing the math in your head, that's about 100 hours, or 4 days (3 nights) sailing at 5.5 knots in the light 6-8 knot winds we expect. Some of the western sailors call them the Toots, which makes for a catchy blog title. The Tuamotus' are comprised of 76 islands (actually atolls), but only a much smaller number are accessible to sailboats due to their lack of a navigable entrances. Geographically, they are spread along a distance of 800 miles from the Northwest to the Southeast, so we're only interested in the Northwestern atolls encountered when coming from the Marquesas. Of the 25 or so in this vicinity, few are popular cruising destinations as the passages can be very difficult to navigate or an unfavorable bottom for anchoring. And even fewer are even inhabited. That said, some are big enough to accommodate big ships, so lots of diversity exists. We're planning to make landfall at Fakarava (second largest in the Tuamotu atolls) which is a bit over 515 miles from our current position. Fakarava is still relatively small, measuring only 30 miles long and 10 miles wide. It's location is 16 degrees, 20 minutes South, 145'30 West. We are currently sailing at 6 knots in calmest seas we've seen since leaving Tacoma eight months ago. Oh what a trip it's been!