The trip to from Kauehi to Fakarava is only 30 miles and should only take 5-6 hours to sail there, however sailing is never simple in the Tuomotus. To get there safely one must still time the tides to exit and enter the passes, unfortunately, wouldn't you know it, the slack water high tide occurs at 4 in the afternoon, and the one in Fakarava occurs at 9am. So, instead of leaving in the morning and arriving in the afternoon, we needed to make a 6 hour sail a 16 hour sail.

We exited the pass about 4:30pm and proceeded to slowwww the boat down. We were between 3 islands, so we needed to stay in the middle of the three as best we could. The winds were steady but being between the 3 islands made the seas confusing. The boat was rocking back and forth, because it was not in her normal speed mode. Needless to say, nobody got much sleep that night after being tossed around for hours. I finally hove to for a few hours and that seemed to settle things down.

We entered the pass at 9:00am, right on the tide. The pass at Fakarava is about 30 yards wide, and can accommodate a good size cruise ship, as the channel is nicely marked. The town was about 5 miles from the channel, a nice motorsail over to the anchorage.

Dropped the hook in 40 feet of crystal clear water, with coral heads all around.

John