Highlights of Uonukuhihito

Upon leaving the island of Uoleva, we went around the south tip of the island and crossed the Ava Auhanga Mea pass. This pass is a break in the reef between Uoleva and the small island of Tatafa to the south. Then we cut south through a tiny opening in the coral between Tatafa and a huge coral bombie. Our guidebook provides this warning, “NOTE: VERY STRONG CURRENT. Mariners should use extreme caution. Do not attempt this course unless traveling south to north on an incoming tide.” Well, OK. We were going north to south, but we did it a close to slack water with at most 1-1.5 knots of current and there was no wind to speak of, so there was no issue at all. We also had excellent visibility, so even though the opening was quite narrow, we could clearly see the coral on both sides and made our way south without any problems. Once through, we travelled on a line to the south-southwest keeping an eye out for bombies the entire time.

We anchored off a sand spit between two very small islands called Uonukuhihito and Uonukuhahake (yeah, you try to pronounce them!) It was an amazing spot, and I think the picturesque wow factor as we pulled up was second only to when we first arrived on the eastern side of the lagoon in Raroia (The Tuamotus, French Polynesia). The boys were a bit burned out after all the activity at Uoleva, and they preferred to just sit around and watch movies, but I ventured ashore and walked the sandspit, avoiding the cows (yes, more cows!) however it was impossible to avoid the flies. They were everywhere and it didn’t take them long to invade our boats. I think the flies are one of the reasons we didn’t stay here longer than we did.

The highlight of our stay here was without a doubt when Tim and Jack dinghied a few miles to the south to an island called Limu and came back with 6 fat lobsters and two large dogtooth tuna. Needless to say, we had quite a feast!