Rangiroa
Jackamy
Paul & Derry Harper
Fri 30 Apr 2010 06:26
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14:58.090S 147.38.303W
Friday 30th April
We're here and we have internet so finally
after a few weeks we can eventually sent all our blogs - sorry for the
delay!
We ended up being able to sail through the
night, we only had 10-15 knots but it was enough to get Jackamy going at
4-6 knots, so we had a gentle sail and arrived first thing this
morning. It was a relatively uneventful sail with just one cargo ship and one
squall although Paul spent pretty much the whole night awake worrying about his
sails.
Rangiroa is the second biggest atoll in the
world and the largest within the Tuamotus archipelago. It is 40 miles long and
17 miles wide at it's longest point. There are two passes into this lagoon,
Passe Avatoru and Passe Tiputa, and we entered through Tiputa the main entrance.
It's a very wide and clear pass and also quite deep, much deeper than Manihi
anyway. Getting through the pass wasn't too stressful once we'd
navigated the rips just outside the entrance. This happens when a strong
outgoing current meets an ocean current causing steep, short seas and swells.
The tidal currents are so strong that eddies and rips aren't uncommon. It is
best to enter at or near slack water but as we had no tide tables for Rangiroa
we made a guesstimation and went for it at 10.00 and we were
successful!
  The pass looks quite wide but
it really isn't once you're in it and surronded by reefs on each side. To the
right is the huge reef/bar that we had to navigate around before heading to
starboard to the anchorage.
 You can just about see the
anchorage where we've settled
We could immediately tell the
difference between here and Manihi, there is a completely different atmosphere.
And understandably there would be as this atoll is twice the size if not bigger
than that. We shall explore more tomorrow and see what we think anyway. I think
we'll be spending a few nights here and even move around the lagoon to different
anchorages and then we'll move on to our final atoll to spend a few nights there
too before heading to Tahiti.
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