Our buddy boats, Imagination and Serenity, arrived two days later and anchored nearby. It was great to see everyone again. They arrived on Friday, May 18, which also happened to be Roy’s birthday, so we assembled on Serenity for the celebration. We spent the afternoon and evening together, sharing stories, drinking, eating and getting haircuts.

The last time Sherry got her hair cut was in Panama when Ali cut it after we transited the canal. It had been five months. Her hair was very long, comparatively speaking. Somehow the topic of haircuts came up and Roy dug out his clippers. Not wanting to miss an opportunity to get a trim, Sherry immediately volunteered to be first. Well, take a look at the pictures in the gallery. She definitely got a haircut. The three guys got in line after her and they all got buzzed. We had a fun time but it’s certain that everyone was a tad bit regretful the next morning when looking in the mirror. Good thing…it will grow back.

Over the next two weeks we did lots of hiking, cleaning the boat, checking items off the “to do” list and relaxing. Ric changed the impeller on our main engine and cleaned up the rust around the cover. We believe that, along with a leaky propeller shaft, was/is causing the water to collect in the bilge. We will address the propeller shaft when we get to New Zealand until then we will keep our fingers crossed that nothing catastrophic happens. We think we fixed the leak in the dinghy as well. Ric put a small patch on a thin spot we found to be leaking air. So far, so good. Sherry ate lots of grapefruit which happened to be in great abundance on the island. And, we re-anchored three times…once because we were too close to another boat when the wind turned, a second time because we were too close to a reef marker when the wind turned again and the third time because we were less than a boat length away from Serenity. We finally found a spot away from pretty much everything (except a shallow area) and that’s where we stayed.

On Monday, May 28 the supply boat arrived (a day earlier than we expected). We quickly made our way to the main dock and asked about purchasing some diesel fuel. It was quite an easy process. We went to the small hut where the lady was taking money. We paid 130 XPF (francs) per liter and procured 152 liters. The total was 19,760 XPF (or $196.70). It was a bit more than we paid in other places, but considering the remoteness and the convenience…it was worth it. At the time we purchased the fuel, the weather forecast was indicating light winds for the foreseeable future so we figured we would have some motoring time once we left the island to continue on toward Tahiti. Sherry’s flight to the US was just under a month away and we still had 1,880 miles to go. After we paid, we carried our seven jerry cans over to the ship, handed the guy the receipt and he filled a drum with 152 liters then gave us a hand pump so we could transfer the fuel from the drum to the jerry cans. Simple!!!

While we waited for a decent weather window, we continued to take hikes, work on the boat, do happy hours with friends and pick up fresh fruit, bread and new provisions when the supply boats arrived.

After two weeks and a couple of days, we felt sufficiently rested and recovered from our anchoring incident so we chose Friday, June 1 to depart Rikitea to head over to the Tuamotus.

Our long-term cruising buddies parted ways with us in Gambiers. John and Lorela were heading north to the Marquesas while we were continuing west to Hao (pronounced how) in the Tuamotus. It was a sad day when we said goodbye. They departed the day before us. We did our hugging and kissing on the town dock then went our separate ways. Hopefully we will see them again in the next year. We really enjoyed sharing our cruising and land-touring experiences with them.

Enroute to Hao, we had three days and nights of little or no wind, motoring, motor sailing and rolling seas. Serenity departed with us as it is our intention to sail with them to New Zealand. The trip was mostly uneventful and, unfortunately, we used quite a bit more fuel than we had hoped. We did catch one wahoo which provided eight fillets of fish for us and was very tasty. As luck has it, we did finally get some wind on the fourth and final day but it came at a time when we really needed to slow our pace so we wouldn’t arrive at the island too early. Well, we did arrive quite early even though we only used a reefed main sail the entire fourth day and night. At about 0600 on Tuesday, June 5 we sailed slowly past the entrance to the Hao atoll. We tightened up the main sail and turned into the wind so we could heave to and wait for the proper time and conditions (slack water) to enter the pass into the atoll. Since the water really only has one way in and one way out, the current running through the passes can get quite fast (5-8 knots typically but sometimes as much as 20 knots) and the waves can grow quite large (1-2 meters typically but sometimes more), especially if the wind and sea have been big for a few days. Fortunately for us, a boat was exiting the atoll shortly before we intended to enter and another boat, Notre Reve (Guy and Marie from California), decided to take a chance on transiting the pass in front of us. We were happy to let them go first and report back on their experience. And, we were able to watch them on AIS. It was to be our first time entering a pass into an atoll and we had heard and read horror stories about cruisers who had really bad experiences when entering and exiting at the wrong time (like getting caught in eddies and their boats turning backward and taking on water). We were using an estimator spreadsheet that had been provided by other cruisers to determine the correct time to enter each atoll but the people on the boat that were exiting Hao shared with us that the estimator was about four hours off or at least it was off by that much when they entered a few days prior. Yikes!!!

Long story short…Notre Reve made it through the pass but not without a little excitement and we made it through the pass but not without a little excitement and Serenity made it through the pass with a little less excitement because they had watched us go through. Really the only excitement was that we got caught for a bit in the middle of the pass where the current is greatest and had to tack our way over to the side where the current was less but where there also a reef and shallow water. After we were successfully through the pass (about 20 minutes later) and out of any danger, Ric sighed relief and said, “I never want to do that again.” Whew!!!

We were pleased to find an old military dock near the village of Otepa where we tied Sheric up to the concrete sea wall. Hao was originally developed as a support base for nuclear bomb testing. There is an airfield and a former military base on the island. Our anchor chain was still not in great shape and since we were less than confident in it, we really liked being tied up instead of having to find a place to anchor and risk having more issues with the chain possibly getting wrapped around coral. The atolls are notorious for having coral heads called “bommies” scattered around the anchoring areas and many cruisers have reported their anchor chain getting wrapped around the coral. Having had a really bad experience recently ourselves, we were quite leery about anchoring in the atolls. Serenity rafted up with us and we spent our first night (in months) very comfortably and without worry.

Once we were tied up to the sea wall, the couple on the boat in front of us warned us about the rat population and encouraged us to gear up some rat guards for our dock lines. After we were settled, we took a walk to the village and found a number of empty plastic bottles along the way that we collected then used to “hopefully” protect our boat from a rat invasion. This is the first occasion we felt we needed to use rat guards although we had discussed it a number of times.