Waiting out the Weather
11 June 2016 | 15 48.19'S:146 09.16'W, Anse Amyot, Toau, Tuamotus
Mark
Six days ago we arrived at Anse Amyot on Toau Atoll, a very nice anchorage that Dee blogged about a couple of days ago. Although it is a great place to visit with a very welcoming family on shore, we really would like to be moving on to our next destination, Papeete. In fact we wanted to leave a couple of days ago but the weather has not been cooperating at all.
A large low pressure system South of us has been producing high winds, torrential rain, squalls with occasional lightning, and 3-4M swells. In our anchorage, we are protected by the atoll from from the waves, but the wind in the anchorage has been a constant 20+ for the last week. Add onto that the strong outflowing current in this anchorage and even a dinghy excursion is extra exciting since if your motor died you would be washed out to sea with the next stop a very long way away. We had high hopes of paddle boarding here, but that would be a definite suicide mission even for the strongest boarder. So, we go for a few walks between rain storms, visit our hosts on shore, and spend A LOT of time on the boat reading. This was great for a few days, but we are really ready to move onÉ
Could we leave and sail today to Papeete? Of course we could, but at best it would be a very uncomfortable 36 hour sail in the large, short period waves. So, we will have to wait a couple more days. If the weather reports are accurate, we should be leaving here on Monday morning, arriving in an anchorage near Papeete on the island of Tahiti on Tuesday evening.
The picture is of our friends s/v Carola, on their mooring in front of Valentine & Gaston's house on shore. The picture is not out of focus - what you see is the driving rain and 30 knots of wind that we are currently experiencingÉ Paradise is not always paradise.