The Tuamotus
Simanderal
Michael Hughes and Ger White
Sat 1 May 2010 17:56
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We arrived in the Tuamotus--at an atoll called
Makemo--on 27th April. The lagoon inside the atoll is big--about 25 miles by 5
miles--and is protected on one side by a series of low lying islands--sand and
palm trees--with coral reefs between the islands--and a long and complete coral
reef on the other side over which the waves from the ocean crash
spectacularly--but the lagoon remains beautifully calm. There are 2 small passes
into the lagoon, through which water--tidal and from the crashing waves--flows
at up to 8 knots. It flows out for about 9 hours out of 12, and in for 3.You can
onlysafely enter around slack water. Away from the passes, there are no currents
to speak of.
The lagoon is generally about 20 metres
deep--beautiful shades of blue--but is punctuated with coral heads which come
vertically up from the seabed like mushrooms and lie just below the surface.
Depth sounders are as useless as the charts here--it goes from 20
metres to zero within a second--it's eyeball navigation and only contemplated
with the sun high and someone aloft to spot the coral heads well before you
reach them.
So we spent our first few days on the atoll
anchored off the village--a few hundred people--very friendly--all bonjours and
bon soirs and wanting to chat--French improving rapidly! The village has 3 small
stores and 3 restaurants so we've had our french bread every morning and eaten
well in the evenings ashore. First night there were only 2 yachts in the
anchorage--ourselved and Bionic, another Blue Water Rally boat that sailed from
the Marquesas with us--lovely Spanish couple, so the 4 of us dined out that
evening. The following day 3 more BWR boats arrived--Spirit of Nina, Peregrina
and Natibou--English, American and Swedish respectively--so we organised a table
for 12 ashore --and the following evening, Miss Tippy arrived--a family with 3
children--so it was 17 for dinner in the 3rd restaurant--very simple, big
tressle table etc--good dinner and turned into a karaoke evening.
But it was getting crowded, so yesterday we
travelled some 22 miles north-west within the lagoon to a remote anchorage off
uninhabited sandy islands within the chain--pretty much to the other end of the
atoll--and this morning I look out on low lying islands of sand and palm trees,
can hear the crashing of the waves on the other side of the islands--we'll go
ashore to take a look after breakfast all is well. I can also look at the other
3 boats that joined us on the trip--Natibou, Bionic and Spirit of
Nina.
We travelled in convoy along the same path--I
agreed to lead if Natibou gave me a couple of his crew--Hans had his brother
(Swedish) and sister-in-law with him for 3 weeks--so we led with first Jan and
later Ger sitting high up on the mast crosstrees looking out for coral
heads as we weaved our way through the dangers--which from high up are easily
seen well in advance. And the 3 other boats followed along the same track. All
worked well and we're now in this splendid anchorage. They all came across
to us last evening for drinks and craic--10 people in all--and tonight we're
all invited to Spirit of Nina for a "bring your own meat" barbecue--steaks
from the freezer for us.
From here we are only 8 miles from the other pass
to the atoll--so we will leave by that route when we go--whenever that is--and
perhaps someone else will take the lead boat risk!!
Goodness, life is tough. This place is
indescribably beautiful. From the boat we can snorkel around coral heads
surrounded by reef fish--I did so yesterday to check there were no heads with
insufficient water near our boat--it's an awesome world down
there.
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