16.59S 153.31W Leaving Tahiti
Mojo 2
Andrew Partington
Sat 10 Sep 2011 23:31
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At last Mojo 2 is sailing west again
after leaving Papeete Harbour on Thursaday afternoon.
With me is my son Robert who is back for his second
stint after his time aboard in Aruba and Panama. I picked Rob up from the
airport at 9pm Wednesday after being entertained and propositioned by a very
leggy boy-girl at the bus stop. The bus never arrived so I grabbed a cab and
just made it to the the terminal on time.
The next morning we headed into town to clear
immigration and show Rob Papeete. Like everyone else I got ripped off getting my
bond back out of the bank. It never ceases to amaze me just how hard countries
make it for visiting yachties. They put you through dozens of hoops
and often relieve you of hundreds of dollars. All of this is despite the
fact that cruising yachties put thousands of dollars into local economies. The
word I have is that Australia is one of the most difficult, we shall see.
Beaurocrats and politicians - ha!! [end of whinge]
We sailed out of Tahiti at about 4pm and set a
course for Moorea. I wanted to show Rob where Blair and I had anchored for a
couple of days but it was close to dark as we approached so we re-set our brand
new autopilot [replaced on Wednesday] for Raiatea and Tahaa some 100NM away.
Had another fairly tough crossing to Tahaa with up
to 28 knots of wind but nothing to compare to the 40 knots seen by Blair and I a
couple of weeks back. We sailed into the protection of the fringing reef at
Tahaa at around 2pm. The winds were still at 20 knots so we gave away any plans
to take a quick snorkel inside the reef and just sailed straight out through one
of the western passes and back out into the Pacific Ocean.
The weather was pretty bad as we set our course to
Palmerston Atoll some 670NM away but as the afternoon progressed the
weather became better and better. Overnight we had a great sail in 16-18
knots of wind directly behind us. The seas were confused at first with swell
lines from the west and south meeting abruptly and bouncing us around.
Toaday we have a cloudless sky and wind up our bum at 12 knots -
perfect!
At around 8am we broke out the fishing gear and
once again Dean's purple lure, that has landed us so many fish, did not let us
down. Within 20 minutes we had a very big strike [sorry Blair!!]. Rob jumped to
the reel as I downed sail and stopped the boat. It was clear immediately that we
had hooked a very big fish. For the first few minutes we were losing far more
line than we were able to gain. The fish had gone deep and kept coming up with
run after run. With Rob and I working in tandem over a period of 40
minutes we were eventually able to bring the fish to the surface. Once this
was done it was all over and we were able to land a massive [for once I'm not
exaggerating] yellowfin tuna. The fish was too big to land on the back steps so
I had to haul it right into the back of the boat. Not sure just how much it
weighed but I would suggest it was heavier than me and not to far off being 6"
long. I was certain the fish was not going to survive a return to the water so
we cleaned it and kept as much of it as possible. To have kept all of the
available fillets we would have needed another freezer. I'm not sure how good an
eating fish they are and would welcome any information. As far a size goes
Dean's sailfish still wins but as far as fight goes this magnificent fish wins
hands down. All up catching, photos and cleaning took 2 hours.
It is now 1.30pm and Tahaa is 116NM behind us and
Palmerston Atoll is 556NM ahead of us.
Andrew Partington.
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