Tahaa - 16 38.353S 151 25.774W

Aurora_b
Mike and Liz Downing
Sun 22 Aug 2010 07:25
Headed north from Raiatea through the lagoon, it's well buoyed - European style (the French are really quite good at it out here), up to the island of Tahaa, a trip of only 7 miles or so, and are now anchored on the windward side out towards the reef in beautiful turquoise water. There's several miles of wide lagoon here to anchor in with the main channel within the lagoon behind us, and just 5 other boats in view. There's no shelter on the seaward side of the reef and the sea is continually breaking on it, so the roar of the breakers is constant. Particularly so tonight as the weather has turned squally with winds up to 28kts whipping up bigger seas that are crashing on the reef. It's also raining, so not so nice, but we're quite snug inside the boat out here. We're only anchored in 17ft of water, but have 125ft of chain down, so shouldn't go anywhere! (For the sailors out there, the rise of tide here is less than 6 inches). It might seem strange to anchor on the windward side rather than the leeward side, but with the height of the islands here the wind rushes over the top and down the slopes, sometimes doubling the true wind speed. So with 28kts tonight, we're pleased to be where we are!

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