Tahiti to Huahini

Well the quick little sail over here that should have been uneventful was a little bit eventful.
At the pass in Tahiti Set Me Free was ahead of us and doing almost 8 knots on a reach (a certain point of sail) but as soon as we turned around Moorea and started going downwind we started speeding. It was pretty fun to watch the lights of Set Me Free get closer and closer then further and further away.

When we turned downwind Ben put up the spinnaker pole as a reaching strut with the genoa and the mainsail on the other side in a wing-on-wing setup. This is a great little setup when things go well and the wind is steady, but this time the swell was just big enough to flop the mainsail around a little. It got stuck under the first set of spreaders and wasn't doing much of anything and we needed to be able to move it around just in case the winds picked up. When Ben tried to get the sail unstuck it just ended up getting a little more stuck on TOP of the first set of spreaders. Well poo, this isn't good.
To get the sail unstuck Ben climbed the mast. In the dark. With a sail plan up that I couldn't change in case he went overboard since the spinnaker pole is too heavy for me. He did at least clip his lifejacket harness to a shroud. And he had a headlamp. So it wasn't completely and utterly insane but I was kind of freaking out. Maybe a little.

He couldn't get the sail unstuck in the dark but we got lucky--the winds didn't get out of control or change too much before daylight. We were in view of Huahine when Ben climbed the mast again and got the sail unstuck no problem and no damage! Well we did lose a batton but that showed up against the toerail during post-sailing cleanup.

We approached the pass in Huahine and the winds were right on the nose which meant we would have to tack in the middle of the pass. So Ben took down the sails and started the engine. I was just starting to sit back and have a nice relaxing trip through the pass when I made the mistake of teasing Ben about turning on the engine. Big mistake teasing a stubborn sailor about not sailing. So off went the engine and up went the sails. And up went the wind speed.

(To our moms: it wasn't a scary pass to sail through, there weren't any coral heads to run into and the water was clear enough that we could see whatever reef we were speeding towards)

On the inside of the pass were our buddies on Compass Rosey--Mark, Rob and Bri (the same Rob and Bri that sailed with us in the Tuamotus). The direction of the wind and path of the tacks we took brought us REALLY close to them so they got some great pictures of Kyanos under full sail, pointed like mad. (Ben interjected just now that we weren't THAT close but I could see the coffee cup in the cupholder in front of their wheel).

We tacked here and there through the anchorage (all the boats we got close to smiled and waived. One might have called us crazy but I was too busy cranking in the sails to listen) and found a great spot near Osprey. The holding wasn't all that great since the sand was really hard, but the water was shallow enough that Ben dove on the anchor and set it by hand. So we were anchored in about 15 feet of water with sketchy holding--did I mention the beautiful reef behind us that would be really bad to run into?

As soon as we got a little settled Osprey came over and discussed the really big winds headed our way. They left and we had lunch and then Set Me Free came through the pass; they were only a couple of hours behind. Osprey's plan is to head over to an anchorage that's a little more protected and out of the wind. We did plan on following them but accidently took a 4 hour nap--we woke up around sunset and decided to stay put. We'll move tomorrow if the winds are that bad here but for now we're hunkered down.