That’s a blow - Huahine - French Polynesia.
Nina
Steve and Lynda Cooke
Sun 12 Jun 2016 00:47
That’s a blow - Huahine - French Polynesia.
We are stuck!
It had been too good to be true, really. Weeks of great weather, hot and sunny had become the norm for a month ever since we left the Tuamoto Islands, and reached Tahiti.
The periods of rain had been relatively short, normally limited to the afternoons or night times. Although very heavy at times, only lasting a few hours of the day at most.
The GRIB files and the Synoptic charts showed a change last week.
The bad weather and series of winter cyclones that had been streaming out of New Zealand and channelling themselves down through the roaring forties, suddenly showed an upwards pattern. A big swirly nasty low pressure cyclone was going to head north towards Fiji and then east, over Tonga and towards French Polynesia.
Forewarned is forearmed. We upped anchor, and Monday morning saw us heading back up inside the reef, to Bourayne Bay, the cyclone hole, and back to our mooring buoy in the middle of the island.
Since then, we have had nearly a week of wind and squalls, with gusts of up to 30 knots plus. The sun bimini has come down, and the North sea tent has gone up to keep the rain out of the cockpit.
They say in the yacht blogs its reminiscent of a Scottish loch! Well it is a large body of water surrounded by some pretty high mountains…. But its covered in palm trees and coconuts, and the locals paddle around in outrigger canoes.
We are gradually working our way through our provisions, as its pretty tough here with no internet nor local bar or restaurant.
We still have biscuits, beer, wine and crisps, and we have been making cake (banana bread) and loaves of fresh bread.
The film show every afternoon and night has been working its way through our extensive film library, with afternoon 'girly' matinee, or family film, followed later by a 'boys' film (something much more sensible with lots of gratuitous violence).
We have also added all the star wars films, and episodes of the old 'Couplings'.
Breaking Bad and Dexter await if we are going to be here for many more days.
The weekend looks similar, with the wind settling down next week.
We will have to carry out a re-provisioning stop in Fare, up at the north of the Island before pushing across to the next islands in the group, Tahaa and Raiatea, on the way to Bora Bora.
I can feel the waves of sympathy and concern, as we sit here with the last of our stocks of cold beer and wine, in T shirts and shorts.
All together now, aaaaahhhhhhhhh.……………..