Namani at Sea

We put up a new photo album with pictures from our last month in the Tuamotus and on Tahiti/Moorea. The album can be found under this link.

We are now into the first week of July and still in Tahiti. Time flies!

We arrived in Tahiti yesterday morning (Friday, 15JUN) and are now berthed at Marina Taina, just SW of Papeete. On the way in we realized that we had been sailing next to Astarté the night before, at a 3-4nm distance. LOTS of boats around, very busy, a funny contrast to the last 6 month. Made a short excursion to the famous (among cruisers) Carrefour here... very nice, but also made us realize that we didn't really miss anything much during the past months.

Tahiti came in sight at dawn this morning. Now (0630) local timethe rising sun starts to paints the mountain peaks (max = 2200m) in a beautiful orange-pink. We hope to pass Point Venus (where Captain Cook observed the Transit of Venus in 1769) between 0900 and 1000 and then reach the harbour by mid-day. All is well aboard, stay tuned...

We had five wonderful days in Anse Amyot on Toau, enjoying the hospitality of Valentine and Gaston, the company of the other boats in the anchorage and the shear beauty of the location - plus a dinner for the 60 people on the Crusing World Adventure Charter fleet who visited one night (something for another post...). We slipped our mooring there at 1230h local time yesterday (13JUN) and are now about half-way to Tahiti, where we hope to arrive around mid-day tomorrow.

Had a very nice two days at anchor about halfway down the length of Fakarava. The wind has turned southerly yesterday, a direction from which the "inside" of Fakarava offers little protection where we were (a bit choppy but not too uncomfortable). So we noved to the northern end, just off Rotoava (the main little town on the island), in order to catch the outgoing tide through the pass at 0630 tomorrow morning and move on to Toau, the next atoll to the north. We've heard that Toau has great snorkeling and diving (and better protection form the south).

Made landfall at 0815 local time (utc - 10) this morning and are now anchored in Fakarava. No roll in this anchorage for a chenge and we have it all to ourselves. All is well aboard, more after a good night of (hopefully) uninterrupted sleep - stay tuned...

After yesterday's dismal fishing performance (see previous post, "Fish: 3 - Namani: 0) we were back in the game today and had our "Big Fish Day" in two respects:

Earlier this afternoon we saw three female Orca whales repeatedly surfacing about a boat length behind Namani. Luckily they weren't interested in us but some other feeding frenzy that was happening a bit further off our starboard quarter (lots of birds circling, fish jumping).

A good day for the fish and a bad day for Namani as far as fresh supplies of the same are concerned... We were trailing two lines all day today (Sunday, 03JUN). The fish were out there, and we thought were all set when a big tuna struck on one of the lines just before lunch. We already had mouthwatering images of fresh sashimi in our mind when we reeled it in (which means hand-over-hand on our boat), but just as we were about to gaff it it got away - lucky guy! A bit later we looked at the other lure and relaized and the hook had been bent open. Fish: 2, Namani still 0.

Very nice and relaxed conditions... sailing along on a beam reach and averaging 4.5kn in about 10kn of true wind... about 380nm to go to the northern entry channel into Fakarava in the Tuamotus... all is well aboard, stay tuned...