We upped the anchor yesterday at 1500 and took off for Huahine, about 90 miles northwest of Moorea for an easy overnight sail. The weather forecast was for 15 knot winds out of the East and swells to be to be out of the Southeast. It would have made for a nice downwind sail. Instead, both the wind and swells shifted around to the Northeast and we ended up of a broad reach for sailing and a rollie night as the waves hit us off the starboard stern quarter. We rolled back and forth all night long. Both Blue and Snowshoe were not impressed with Blue drooling like she had a Foo Man Choo mustache.

It was a relatively cloudless night with a full moon shining down so bright that we could easily see everything around us so there were no surprises. I took the 1900 to 2300 watch with Tracy coming up to relieve me at 2300 for her 4 hour stint at watch. The winds were shifty through the night so a constant vigil was needed to keep us on course even with James, our Hydrovane doing all the real work on our stern. He proves himself over and over as an important crew member. We sighted Huahine in the early morning about 0300 in the distance. As day break came, she was right off our bow and we pulled into Passe Avamoa on the West side about 0900 after 18 hours underway.

We dropped anchor twice in the bay off the village of Fare but the anchor refused to bite into the sandy bottom. I guess it was just a coating of sand on a coral bottom. Instead, we continued our journey South along the interior of the large coral reef another 10 miles to the large bay of Avea along the South shore of the island. We dropped the anchor again in 35 feet of water and she bit right into the sandy bottom and has held fast.

We'll be here for a couple of days before we set off for Ile Raiatea about 34 miles west of here. Huahine is a VERY laid back island where big business has been discouraged and time moves slowly. There is no bus system on the island. So either hang out and thumb and hitch a ride or put on good walking shoes. There are a few place near here we expect to explore over the next couple of days and will take Puff(our dingy) around the South end of the island to explore over there as the coral reef makes it impossible to get Zephyr in there.

It's been a great sunny day with the temp in the low 80s and the water coming in at 80 degrees. Amazingly, it feels quite cool when you first jump in. It still beats the 60 degrees or lower along the Pacific Northwest coast.

Stay tuned, I'll post more as we move along. Sorry about no pictures but the internet provider provides a nice strong signal but there is no connectivity once you find his signal. It was the same way at Moorea except that we could connect every now and then. For what we paid for the service, we are not getting our monies worth. So I'll continue to post using our SSB radio till I get good internet.