Under way for Manihi, Tuamotus. 10:25.61S 141:03.62W

Moondance
Alex Belmont
Wed 20 Jun 2012 20:37
We had a great time in Nuku-Hiva. I wish we could have stayed for a bit longer, but we do need to keep moving west. I spent a few more days in Daniel's bay, hanging out with the crews from other boats, tuning Moondance's rig, trying to surf the little break at the river-mouth in Dan's bay, etc. while Rose caught a ride into town for some festivities and dancing. Monday morning I motored through overcast, rain, and some nasty little squalls to get back into Taiohae to throw out some trash and pick Rose up. We wanted to leave Nuku-Hiva on Monday, but decided to wait for the rain to die down and the wind to steady out a bit. Managed to get out of there yesterday around noon, and have been averaging about 4.5 kts towards Manihi, an atoll in the Tuamotus. Manihi is a pretty popular visit for yachts passing through, but it looks like it has an easy pass into the lagoon. I'd rather not get too adventurous and risk stacking Moondance on a reef. Some of those atoll passes can be pretty nasty with narrow channels and ripping currents.

So far, the wind has been very nice, but it is supposed to die today or tomorrow. Everyone in Nuku-Hiva has been getting differing weather reports, and most people are talking about waiting almost a week for decent breeze. I figured the sooner we left, the sooner we'd make our next landfall, even if we took a couple days longer on the way. Let's just hope all those weather predictions turn out to be inaccurate. We'll get there.