Author: cruisingrunner

Prior to leaving Mexico, I did a lot of research on the The Marquesas.  I knew which islands and anchorages were on my “must see” list and I knew what the best route should be given the predominantly ESE trade winds.  However, when it got close to leave The Marquesas, I was still pretty clueless about the Tuamotus.  The options were endless, and it was hard to keep the names of the places straight since they were all so unfamiliar.   Finally, I figured I just had to do some systematic reading, and I went through our two guidebooks and the “Soggy Paws Compendium” and made a list of each atoll along with a few other details like how easy the pass was, how big the village was, and what the fishing was like.  Then I connected the atolls into logical possible routes for us through the archipelago and down the Tahiti.  So, there were still a lot of options, but it was a bit more manageable, since I was able to eliminate a lot.  We decided we wanted to go a little off the beaten path, but not have to transit any passes that were crazy hard.  We also decided to just pick two atolls at this point, because they really are quite big, and there’s no need to rush.  If we ended up with time for a third, then we would revisit our options at a later time.  So, we settled on Raroia and Makemo.  Raroia was listed in the guidebook as a good option for a first stop for those not wanting to go the usual route through the more northern atolls of Manihi, Ahe, and Rangiroa (the capital).  We also liked the fact that it had a small village and the pass diving had been listed among the very best.  Makemo caught my attention because the fishing was supposed to be exceptional, and there was no ciguatera.  At one point I brought up the possibility of Kitiu, but that was shot down instantly by the rest of the gang.  It has a very narrow pass, and you actually end up anchoring IN the pass, so the others thought that a little too risky.  I’m usually quite conservative, but I was drawn to it by the write up of one other boat having an exceptional time interacting with the people in the village there.  Oh well, there’s always next time.  Tahanea, the third atoll we visited, was a last-minute decision after Makemo, and to be honest, I don’t even remember how that decision came about. 

Between The Marquesas and The Society Islands (where Tahiti is) is an archipelago of over 70 small, scattered islands.  Called The Tuamotu Archipelago, this group of islands was unofficially called “The Dangerous Archipelago” for centuries due to the high risk it posed to mariners.  Unlike the young, steep, lush islands of The Marquesas, the islands in the Tuamotus are nearing the end of their geological life cycle.  They are coral atolls, which are basically just a ring of coral, the fringing reef for a volcanic island long ago collapsed back into the sea.  There are typically motus (or islets) along the reef on the northern and western sides, and if there are any towns or villages this is where they would be.  The motus are totally flat with little vegetation except for palm trees and short grass.  The southern sides of the atolls are often just bare, awash coral reefs, so, as you can imagine, they can be difficult to see visually until you are right on top of them. They don’t give off a huge radar signature, so before GPS this entire archipelago was mostly avoided by cruisers due to the risk of going aground and being stranded or worse, sinking. 

Today, a small subset of the atolls have become common cruising destinations on the way from The Marquesas to Tahiti.  Others, while less common, can still find 10-20 boats per season visiting them.  Still, the majority are avoided either because they are way out of the route, because their passes are either nonexistent or too harrowing to consider transiting, or because they are too close to the restricted zone where the French used to do nuclear testing. 

In order to get into the lagoon within the coral ring of an atoll, there must be a pass that is safe enough to transit.  Before I say a little about the passes, I want to point out that some of the atolls are HUGE, like 10-20 miles long and 5-8 miles across.  So, if you are like me, when you think of the word “lagoon” you are thinking of a small pool, but no, these “lagoons” are massive.  The passes are basically just gaps in the coral and they come in all lengths and widths.  Some atolls have more than one pass, but many have only one.  As the tide rises and falls it affects the current through the passes as the lagoon fills with the incoming tide and then empties with the outgoing tide.  The ideal time to transit a pass is at slack tide with little to no wind.   The worst conditions would be with a strong current in one direction and a strong wind in the opposite direction, because this creates the condition of standing waves, and sometimes they can be huge and therefore quite dangerous.  Among our buddy boats (and I’m sure among most other cruisers) a lot of effort and energy went into trying to predict when slack tide would be for a particular pass.  We would take the tide tables for Rangiroa (The capital of The Tuamotus) and then estimate based on difference of degrees latitude and also what the prevailing weather has been like.  For example, if the wind has been blowing hard from the south, the lagoon may be fuller due to water coming in over the reef, so the outgoing tide may be more predominant and slack tide in the pass would be offset from what is predicted based solely on the tide tables.  In fact, we went to an atoll that never has an incoming current in the pass (but that story won’t come until we get to The Societies). 

So, first we would all try to predict, then we would consternate, because of course we would all come up with different answers, then after more stewing and calculating we would reach some sort of agreement on when we thought the best time to transit the pass would be on the day we thought we might arrive.  Then, we had to actually arrive at that time.  That’s a trick.  We learned we could predict fairly close, but nothing beats getting out the binoculars and observing the pass conditions with your own eyes to determine if you think it’s safe or not.  I don’t think we ever transited a pass at exactly slack tide, and we did usually encounter small standing waves, but we never had anything close to a scary moment.

Inside the lagoons is what may at first look like a huge pool clear water to sail about as you wish without the ocean swell to roll you about.  However, in reality, the lagoons are littered with coral heads, many, if not most which are not charted.  So, in order to move about, you need good visibility and a constant lookout posted on the bow, or higher up, if possible.  You want the sun out, not clouded over, and you want it directly overhead or slightly behind you.  The worst sun condition is to have it shining directly in front of you.  Generally, the coral heads, affectionately called “bombies,” are near the surface, large, and easy to spot.  But you never know when that small one not right at the surface but shallower than your draft would find its way in your path, so you had to stay diligent and maintain a good watch.  Alex and Brenden proved that standing on the bow watching for bombies for hours at a time was not exactly their strong suit.  “C’mon Brenden!  At least have your eyes pointed somewhat in the direction of the water!”

May 11 – June 4, 2014

We left Anaho Bay on Nuku Hiva in the Marquesas late morning on 10 May, and we had an uncomfortable yet speedy 3-night passage down to Raroia (write-up to follow).  We timed our arrival pretty well (totally lucky), and we made our way through the pass and across to the east side of the lagoon to a most spectacular anchorage.  After a few nights, we moved just a bit south to yet another spectacular anchorage, but we stayed there only one night, since the weather was looking good for a pass dive, which meant moving over to west side of the lagoon near the town and the pass.  We had a bit of trouble finding a suitable place to anchor, but we finally settled on the north side of the pass anchored on a bombie (a coral head) on a lee shore.  Luckily, the wind cooperated and stayed under 20 kts, so we were comfortable staying there a couple nights before heading out the pass for an overnight passage to Makemo. 

When we arrived in Makemo, we stern tied to the wharf at the village of Pouheva near the pass.  We ended up staying there a full week, because we had so much fun with the people of the village.  Afterwards, though, we spent two days at a more secluded anchorage a bit north of the village to decompress from all of our interaction.  Finally, we moved near the northwest pass to do some pass diving, and once again we had a hard time finding a suitable place to anchor.  It wasn’t the best anchoring situation, so we stayed only one night before leaving on a very slow overnighter to Tahanea. 

We had to go intentionally slow, so we didn’t arrive to early, in fact, we were flying only a triple reefed genoa.  We still arrived too early, so we waited for the sun to come up before entering the pass.  Once inside, we decided that the sun wasn’t high enough to safely navigate the lagoon and all of its coral heads, so we anchored at a nice spot just inside the pass for a few hours.  Later, we headed over to the southeast side of the atoll to a pleasant and protected anchorage where we hung out with a few new kid boats for a couple days.  When the weather window looked right for the passage to Tahiti, we moved back to the anchorage near the pass for one night and the next morning we said good-by to The Tuamotus.

This is actually an excerpt from an email sent out by Steve from Lady Carolina.  He writes much more than Tim, so he’s given me permission to include things like this when he describes things he and Tim do together.

On a completely different note: Catching Lobsters. To tell you the truth, I am not much of a lobster coinsure, I can take them or leave them however Kyle and Carolina LOVE them. This means that we go lobster fishing every now and again.

There are several methods of catching lobsters. One, you dive during the day and look for their antenna sticking out of rocks, you then dive down and spear them in the face with a pole spear, drag them out and put them in a dingy.  There are a few problems with this method. Firstly, they really do not want to be found and tend to hide really well during the day. Tim and I have dove on reefs for hours and never saw any signs that there were lobsters there. At night on a full moon, just before the moon rises however, they do come out a bit more and are easier to spot.

Secondly, when you stab a lobster in the face it’s pretty much game over for them and it is difficult to tell the sex before you stab them. Also, during the stabbing process the lobsters have a bit of a freak out (understandable) make a lot of noise and flop around violently. Freaking out, making noise and flopping around are the top three items on any shark’s ToDo list. In other words, spearing lobsters attracts sharks.

So, what Tim and I do is dive a night with flashlights. Search around for them clinging to walls or moving from den to den (they are surprisingly hard to see and are camouflaged very well) then you sort of gently swim up and try not to disturb the water around their antenna. If you do, they are gone. Right now. Amazingly super-fast. If you touch their antenna? Gone. It is quite a sight to see how fast they go from zero to out of grasp to out of your view.

We dive, locate and grab them. (The big ones take two hands to grab, and you seriously have to use your feet to pull them off the rock after you grab them.) After we have them secure in our hands, we straighten the tail to see if it is a male or female. Females we let go, males, well, sometimes it’s hard to be male. Bring them to the surface and put them in the dingy. Typically, 2 divers down and one person in the dingy floating along close to the rocks.

Oh, yes. And wear gloves, thick gloves. Those prehistoric spiney spear defenses they have are certainly painful……even with gloves if you grab them the wrong way!!!