October 4, 2014
Our first evening in Ha’ano, while we were having dinner with Iguana, Tim and Jack hatched a plan to take Exodus for a day trip out to the small island of Ofolanga. Ofolanga is about 10 nm NW of Ha’ano, so the obvious question in my mind was if we were going to do that why not stop on the way down? But even though it was an obvious question, it was irrelevant at that point since we didn’t. I quickly got on board with the idea because it would be a fun day trip with Jack and Camille along, and also the guidebook mentioned something about a volcanic vent warming the waters, and I thought that would be interesting to experience.
We were up bright and early, and Camille made coconut balls, soon to be a Gresham family favorite. It was a beautiful downwind spinnaker run on the way there, but of course that only meant that it was a motor bash on the way back. The island of Ofolanga is entirely enclosed in a reef, so we didn’t actually go to the island, but we found a decent spot to anchor outside of the reef on the NW side and from there we dinghied south along the reef to the vicinity of Buhi Rock, where the volcanic vent was supposed to be. The water did seem to be warmer in places, but I’m not convinced we ever did find the actual vent, but the snorkeling was well worth it. The coral formations were amazing and there were holes and crevices for all kinds of critters to hide. There was also a huge underwater cave with an open roof, but I wasn’t brave enough to go inside. My highlight was following a sea turtle around, and all the breaching whales we saw in transit both ways. Apparently, the spearfishing was pretty good too, because Tim speared a nice trevally and Jack shot a huge dog tooth tuna. They said there was a bull shark in the vicinity, but I never saw it, thankfully.
Overall, it was a great day, and we even made it back to the anchorage before dark.
Gresham Family Exodus 