May 9, 2011 Baie Avamoa (Fare), Huahine to Pass Tohuato, Tahaa (30 miles)

From midnight to 6 am it rained nonstop as if someone was pouring water from a spout right onto the boat. The sound of the rain was thunderous and we could see lightning often brightening the sky. We both kept waking up listening to see if the rain was letting up but it just kept going. Amazing. The catamaran behind us during the beginning of the rain and wind gusts must have had their jib unwrap from the wind because we could see them on their bow with the deck lights on, cranking the sail in the pouring rain.

At daylight, the sky was broken with hints of blue sky here and there. We dinghied to the Supermarche in Fare for last minute provisions and then pulled anchor at 9:30 am. The weather called for 8-11' seas, 10-15 knot winds from the north. We motored through the pass, put up full sails and sped off to Tahaa. Well, "sped" for us is doing 7-8 knots per hour (9 miles per hour). We sailed all but 15 minutes of the 4 hour trip. A few rain squalls drenched us. As we approached Tahaa, we could see the motus (small islands) on the fringing reef. It reminded us of the San Blas Islands, Caribbean, off the north coast of Panama with swimming pool colored water close to the motus. We entered Tohuotu Pass and headed north to two motus close together. We carefully motored off the channel toward the aqua water. It shallowed to 9' in the darker water but once we entered the aqua water (sandy bottom) the depth remained between 13-16 feet. We anchored and after lunch lowered the dinghy into the water to go to the reef. However, between Dream Caper and the reef it became too shallow and our dinghy motor hit bottom. Steve rowed us out of trouble; Portia jumped in the water to drift snorkel with the dinghy until there was no more coral. At the boat, we snorkeled the coral bommies nearby. Lots of small fish.

With no boats close by, we took showers off the swim steps and then drip dried working on our full body tans on the trampoline in full sun. Yes, sun! After 5 days of mostly rainy overcast days, it was marvelous to have the sun visit us again. There are still clouds on the fringes of the horizon but overall we had 50% blue sky. Later, Steve made up some new lures. He is determined to catch some fish on our next passage, to Bora Bora! We dragged 2 fishing lines today all the way across from Huahine, 25 miles, and caught NO fish.