Yukky Weather in Paradise – May 24
We are on day 6 of not great weather. The last few days we have had strong winds, in the 20 knot range, with some gusts into the 30s. Winds this strong cause the boat to swing from side to side on our anchor, and they also create quite a bit of wind chop, which makes the boat bounce. So even though we are inside the lagoon we are still moving around quite a bit. The wind I don’t mind so much, but it has also been very cloudy. Our own form of May Grey. The dense cloud cover makes it look a bit dreary, and prevents us from getting the solar power we need to charge our batteries. So I have to run the engine, which is noisy and heats up the cabin. Running the engine of course burns diesel, and we have a limited supply of that. We probably won’t have access to fuel until we reach Tahiti in a month or so. If we get some sunshine soon we will be OK, if not we will be searching for fuel on remote islands…
The good news is that the weather should clear up tomorrow (Thursday) according to the forecast. If so we will leave this atoll and head for the Makemo atoll, about 70 miles away. This atoll has a larger village and more access to resources, but still limited in supplies. Shopping here is like trying to do all get all you need at a 7-11 (or worse). You get what you can find.
Our social life is doing very well despite the weather! We are getting to know a lot of the other cruisers around us. We had a birthday party at the Twin Palms Yacht Club on Saturday afternoon with about 6 boats there and lots of kids. The massive jar of peanut M&Ms we brought to the party was a huge hit with the kids! Then on Monday night we had dinner with two families on board one of their 50’ foot catamarans. They were both “kid boats” so we had 3 kids there, 6 adults and Catalina. Of course, Catalina was a big hit with all the kids (and adults)! It was potluck, and we enjoyed fresh caught tuna curry, poke and Dawn’s lentil soup. I was amazed at the popularity of the lentil soup, especially among the kids.
On Wednesday night we had Raffi over to our boat from the boat Wind River. Raffi is single handling his 44 foot Halberg Rossy. It’s a very nice boat built in Germany for cruising the world. Raffi is an entrepreneur from San Francisco. He sold his company about a year ago and is now out on a sailing adventure. Pretty much all the cruisers out how have some very interesting stories, especially those who do it singlehanded. I Have no idea how they have the energy to do it alone. It is so much work keeping the boat operational and safe. Raffi does take crew with him on the longer passages, so that eases the burden a bit, but geez, no thank you!
Some how we managed to leave California with just one snorkel. We have masks and fins for everyone but snorkeling without a snorkel has proved to be difficult. We put a call out on the VHF radio asking if anyone had a spare, and Lisa and Mark on Wild Iris replied back that they indeed had one they could give us. We headed over to their boat to pick it up and gave them a large Trader Joes chocolate bar in return. They felt they got the better end of the deal! Mark and Lisa are from the UK and have been out sailing for the last 7 years or so.
We then took our new snorkel and went snorkeling. We found a beautiful little cover with a nice sand beach that well hauled our dinghy up on. The cove was beautiful shades of light green to dark blue. The water was only 4 to 6 feet deep and was full of small coral heads teaming with beautiful small fish and even a reef shark or two. The reef sharks are literally everywhere. They are about 1 to 3 feet long and are harmless to humans. It was an easy place to snorkel with no waves or current and so much to see. Catalina even decided to swim out and join us. She has become very comfortable in the water, and will just jump in on her own without us having to coax her in.
Thursday was spent preparing the boat to leave for our next atoll, Makemo. It is absolutely crazy how much time you spend out here monitoring weather and planning your next move. The main topic of conversation among boats is when do they plan to leave, and where are they going next. We set up WhatsApp groups for discussing this, as well as morning radio calls on the VHF. We each talk about our interpretation of the weather, as well as what currents we can expect when exiting the atoll and entering the next one. This is such a remote part the world, there is very little formally published information. Most of what we have are notes written by other cruisers on their blogs and on apps like No Foreign Land. Some cruisers have even compiled all the blog notes into PDF Compendiums, which is really handy. Its amazing the work others have put into making this easier for those who follow. One cruiser even build a sophisticated spreadsheet to try and estimate the currents at the atoll passes. I am sure he put a lot of work into it, and it is called the Guestimator, because it really is a best guess and just wrong a lot of the time.
It is really great to have people to share all this with. It nice to get conformation on what your next plans are.
We weighed anchor at Raroia at 3:30 pm and started the journey towards the pass and on to Makemo. We have 3 other boats traveling with us, Camdeboo, Pacific Wind, and Wild Iris. Its nice to have the company!
