Footnotes from Water Music

The last blog saw us safely inside the reef at Maupiti - some 30 Nautical miles to West of Bora Bora. It was an exciting entrance into the pass - some 30 yards wide, a strong current and a dog leg in the middle - and we were wondering what the passage out would be like. We found out!

With High Water at 1200, that should have been the best time to leave as, on the face of it, there should have been no ebb current through the pass. That would have meant far less swell on the pass and we wanted to avoid as far as possible as any ebb was going to be met by the full force of the South East Trade winds - which admittedly hadnt started blowing by that stage. On further investigation, it appeared that at slack water through the pass, there is about 3-4 knots of ebb flowing already and so we decided to leave early in the expectation of picking up some foul tide in then pass. Whilst this would have slowed us down, at least the sea would have been going in the same direction as the wind and so the height of the swell much less. As it turned out, it was a good decision. We still had a couple of knots of ebb current (3 hours before HW) and they kicked up substantial standing waves of about 5-6ft. It wasnt the height that was exciting - more the fact that they were pretty much vertical. After an exciting 25 minutes we popped out into the Pacific Ocean once more and breathed a collective sigh of relief that we had done our last pass in French Polynesia.

The sail down to Rarotonga was fast but very wet. With between 20 and 25 knots of wind most of the way, it didnt take us long to discover a new weak point in the aging mainsail and so we had to shorten sail down to 3 reefs. (this has now been repaired again and, in doing so, we had to use some old sail material with a sponsor logo on it. Photos to follow...) At one point it got so wet that the autopilot gave up altogether - we believe this time down to dampness in the cables- and so we resorted to manual steering (again!). every time we thought we were just about to dry out, a big wave would come over from the side and go straight down the hatch. Cushions, bedding, pillows, clothes etc all soaked in salt water......

We did manage to get the fishing lines out. In no time at all, the new rod had caught some tuna. Sadly it turned out to be the tin that our lunch had come from. Unperturbed by that, we continued fishing and got a double strike. One dropped off and we were just about to land the second one (a treasonable size tuna) and we lost that one as well. So back to Lamb stew, beef stew and lots of different pasta dishes. Life at sea is not always that hard.

After three wet nights and a squirt of WD40 for breakfast, the autopilot started working again. That was just in time to see Raratonga in the distance and help us in to the small harbour. Avatiu is a delight - although the harbour itself is possibly one of the worst i have been into. A constant swell runs into the bay - meaning that we anchored off with lines ashore and bounced around all the time. Even at the time of writing, the wind has dropped to nothing and there is still swell in the basin. Where does it come from?

Rarotonga - in spite of the harbour - is a delight and very different to anything we have seen before. Still Polynesian, but with a very strong New Zealand flavour. Cafe's and bars everywhere and things going on in the evening as well. They even have a couple of large stores selling a wide variety of wines - so for the first time since Panama, we can stock up on a few bottles of wine and replenish our depleted stock of Chilean white (the red ran out long ago). Our timing has been fortunate as we seem to have arrived in the run up to Constitution Day celebrations and that means dancing competitions every night in the main stand in the Islands. We are all making the most of our land time - using Ross & Cindy's Guest house on the other side of the island for laundry etc.

With no wind, we have decided to stay here until Monday and then leave directly for Nuie. that will mean we miss out on Palmerston Island - but the alternative would end up with us motoring for most of the 600 miles on to Nuie. So tonight we go to the finals of the dance competition, tomorrow we go to the fruit market at dawn and then to the local sailing club. Sunday is probably church and an explore of the island.