Signs of change in Apataki. Calm in Toau. Fun in Fakarava.

We moored alongside a concrete wharf in the southern village on Apataki. Strolling around in the evening, we came across a dozen children playing noisily in the light blue waters of the shallow harbour, with one or two fishing skiffs moored bow to the low concrete waterside.


The small boat harbour lies in a shallow side lagoon off the main pass, with a couple of pearl industry shacks on stilts on the edge of the deep water. As we approached, one or two of the boys began throwing big black Sea Cucumbers at us, like huge slugs or outsized rotten bananas. It felt really unwelcoming and threatening even though they were only 8-10 year olds. It was the first sign of foreigners being unwelcome.

Charming flower gardens

Inter island ferry discharging at the wharf in the pass.

We've seen a few children who are amazed at our beards (Justin and I that is). The adults here seemed much less interested in us than in Ahé or Manihi too although people are polite.

I set out last night looking for a recycling bin for all our tins. Every house has net receptacles on the roadside made from pearl fishing materials for plastics, glass and tins, plus bags of green waste, and things like old scrap metal or wood are piled separately for collection. No public bins existed so I asked at a house and they let me use their bins.

Today, Friday 12th May dawned calm and after a six o'clock breakfast we set sail out through the pass, narrowly escaping contact with coral thanks to the pearl fishermen who yelled at us just before I went out a dangerous way between coral heads.

 We set sail towards Toau, but with a light headwind we ended up motor sailing for 40 miles all the way to the pass, and to my dismay did not have time to explore Anse Amyot in the North of the atoll.
As we skirted the atoll looking for the pass we could see over the breaking surf and coral to the anchorage where to our surprise we spotted first one and then two, three and four yachts anchored serenely.


The pass was wide and calm and we headed south to an isolated spot and dropped anchor about 14:00  in mirror calm conditions off white coral and coconuts. Looking across the lagoon was like a vast infinity pool on the edge of the world, glassy surface for miles, with one or two tiny islands at the far side, but most impressive was the view of the six foot swell rearing up and curling in great white breakers to crash on the coral, yet with impossibly still water right up to the inner edge.

Within half an hour two more yachts had  arrived and chose the same area, albeit half a mile apart.  We feel that we are coming to much more densely populated cruising grounds.  Indeed the following morning we were amazed to see a small cruise liner or mega-yacht anchored in the pass.
Ashore in the afternoon sun it was very hot and we snorkelled on disappointing coral but saw some little reef sharks which was exciting.

13th May 2017

Anne and Emily did early morning yoga on the foredeck, while I swam to ease my aching back and right hip.After breakfast we saw 3 large reef sharks swim past! Too big for comfort - the largest sharks I've seen!

We sailed out of the pass on th eebb and crashed through heaving overfalls in the tide race. If a big swell had been coming in it would have been suicidal!
Then we had a nice tack towards Fakarava withEmily at the helm, getting good speed out of the boat.

We arrived on the flood tide against a sudden 30 knot wind which raised a rough chop.  Then we bore away towards the village of Rotoava where we dropped anchor in 10 metres opposite the church and the pontoon of Top Dive.

Ashore Emily quickly booked a dive for the next morning.  We tramped the long concrete road into town but found the best restaurant, Le Grill, was closed fo the week!.   So we dragged hot heavy feet back past the shops till we came to La Paillote, which was to become a regular haunt. Here they served galettes and Breton Cider!  Some locals (a fisherman and a pearl farmer) invited us to Boire un Coup so Justin and I accepted a cold beer and joined a rather inebriated chat.

Mysteries abound and today's surprises were the failure of our depth metre and the speed and distance log. Dismantled again, but no apparent problems I could fix. Then wondering if they had got submerged in the bilges I lifted a floor board to find water almost up to the top!. Where is it coming from? Are we sinking? Last time I looked was 8 days ago, so we will have to check daily. Once the water had been pumped out the depth meter started working again, but the log/ speed is a mystery!

The second surprise was when we refilled the diesel tanks from our deck-borne fuel cans. For over 50 hours of motoring and 50 hours of motoring at high speed we only needed 280 litres, so that our fuel consumption seems like only 60% of the published figures, giving 3.1 instead of 5 litres per hour for the engine and just 1 litre per hour for the genset instead of 1.9 published.