On Saturday morning it rained harder and longer than we've seen so far. But we were able to continue passage chores and left Vaiehu Bay at 1:15 in the afternoon. We'd been keeping track of the weather forecasts, and anticipated light winds on the beam or slightly forward down the southerly passage to the Tuamotus. Therefore we hoisted our 165% jib top, otherwise known as the "whomper." It sheets almost back to the cockpit off the spinnaker blocks, so it's a big sail with a lot of horsepower in light air. The first third of the trip was as anticipated. Wind was very light in the lee of Ua Pou, so we motored. Even 15 miles out we had only 8-10 knots, but behind us with a beam swell, so we kept motoring. About 1:00am on Sunday a small squall came through and in its wake the wind went to a steady 10 knots from the east and we were sailing on a nice tight reach. When squalls blew through we would roll up the jib top, but they were small and passed quickly. We did a 24 hour run of 172 miles, not too bad for half motoring and some main only sailing.

We put the 2nd reef in the main at dinner--good thing because the wind went to 20 knots. It went up and down all night, as squalls blew through, but rarely below 19 knots. So much for the 12-16 knot forecast. We were overpowered with the whomper and underpowered with main only. When the wind came aft a little we could sail the whomper; when it went forward we rolled it up and motor sailed. So much for the weather forecasts. Through the early morning on Monday it blew steady 20 knots until finally about 10:00 am it dropped to 10 knots and gave us a chance to drop the whomper on deck and tie it off to the stanchions. I can hear all you Bay area sailors now...20 knots is nothing; why didn't you just drop the whomper in the evening. Well it's different when you have 1.5 meter swells, two people almost 65 (admittedly still pretty fit, but we're no rock stars) at night in the middle of the Pacific. With 10 knots we made a pretty credible job of it and happily got the small jib up, shook the 2nd reef out of the main and were off and running. Bring on 20 knots now! I said in the log--stupid me, should know better. We had a nice sail through the day, and once again put the 2nd reef in after dinner.

It didn't take long, as the first squall rolled in in about 5 minutes. Most of these had no rain in them, so they didn't show up on radar. It was heavily overcast, so even the slice of moon made no difference; the only warning was a darker shadow to windward. The wind built to 27 knots, so we decided to roll up the jib in order to slow down. The Tuamotus are atolls with passes that can have 8-9 knots of current and standing waves at max ebb or flood, so we had timed our arrival for slack water. But the roller furler seemed jammed, so we decided to live with the jib until morning. On Susan's early night watch the wind direction varied between ENE and SE, and velocity from the mid to upper 20's. Just when you got the sails balanced something changed and you were trimming again. Hey, we're supposed to be CRUISING. About midnight the whomper started dragging in the water, since the lee rail was buried so often. So Steve crawled forward and re-secured it. On his night watch he saw gusts to 32 knots. At least the direction stabilized to E-ENE, and we had a straight beam reach to our waypoint off the Arikitamura Pass. I finally concluded that we were just keeping pace with one big squall--felt like Pigpen. That wasn't the case of course, but it seemed like it. We arrived 3 hours before high water, so we stood off for an hour and then decided to go for it. No appreciable current in the pass, and a smooth ride among the reefs into the anchorage off the village of Pouheva. We were bushed! And once again blessed John and AJ for accompanying us to the Marquesas, and making it a delightful trip.

So we are now anchored in water so clear you can see the anchor in 35 feet of water. We're cleaned up, the whomper is dry and folded in its bag (where it will doubtless remain for some time!), the dinghy is launched, and the shade canvas up. We're back in what cruisers call "hang" mode, and happy to be so.

The Tuamotos are a collection of atolls which look like outlines of where an island used to be. Just a narrow coral strip around a bathtub of water with one or two passes to get in/out. Makemo, where we are now is about 7 miles long and 2 mile wide, and the tallest thing is a coconut tree growing about 4 feet above sea level. The great things are: no swell so the boat isn't constantly rocking, no flies on the boat, there is a constant gentle breeze, and the water is crystal clear. It's wonderful.