Tuamotos - Kauehi

Questionable Logic
Ewan Briggs
Fri 19 Jun 2009 08:46
Postion: 15 49.2S 145 07.1W
 
We've come to Kauehi to meet up with Ewan's parents on Sea Topaz again, and to experience one of the undeveloped atols in the tuamotos before heading on to Fakarava which is more developed.
The tuamotos are all low lying atols - essentially rings of coral that enclose lagoons. Most of them have narrow passes that allow yachts to get into the lagoon, often with a small village nearbye. From a navigational point of view they can be quite hazardous - the passes often have currents in excess of 5 kts and can be narrow and shallow. Once inside the lagoon you need to keep your eyes peeled for coral heads which pop up all over the place.
However, it's all more than worth it, because these places are just stunning. This is picture postcard tropical paradise the likes of which we've only barely seen a glimpse of in Los Roques so far. Within minutes of us having the anchor down and settled we had two manta rays just next to the boat doing loops at the surface. The snorkelling here is great too.
 
After a couple of days exploring in and around the village, we went back across the lagoon to the pass to do a drift snorkel through the pass. However the weather wasn't looking so great, and the forecast was due to put us on a lee shore, so we had a quick snorkel near the pass, and saw quite a few sharks (naturally Tuck saw them first - she has some kind of animal magnetism thing going on - or maybe they can sense that she's the one that's least keen to see them). Mostly white and black tips and mostly about 5-6 feet long.
 
Not feeling that a lee shore was a great plan for the night we decided to head out through the pass and sail over to Fakarava, aiming to get to the pass there at first light. The two atols are pretty close together, and despite us sailing just about as slowly as we could (we only had a jib up, and had that over sheeted to spill power) we got to the pass hours before first light. The drogue went over the back and held us pretty much in place in the light conditions until the morning.