Arrive Kauehi

The Tuamotus are a group of coral atolls (called motus) between the Marquesas and the Societies--but the structure of the coral atolls is pretty cool. When a volcano surfaced from the ocean floor it formed an island and when the volcano collapsed it left an island with a lagoon surrounded by a barrier reef. The lagoons have very narrow channels as entrances, and these channels are bordered by coral. Coral isn't too nice to the bottom of boats, so navigating these channels can be stressful unless you hit the right slack tide.

Approaching Kauehi, we knew that we had missed the sweet spot in the tide, but the wind was good so Ben decided we would approach the pass and make a judgment call. As we got closer we could see the tide RUSHING out of the pass-it looked like a whitewater river with standing waves and big current. Since the wind was in a great direction and we were sailing nearly 8 knots (super fast), we decided to go for it.

Ben fired up the engine (just in case); Bri stayed in the cockpit to work the sails; Rob went up to the bow to watch for coral heads; I went below, manned the chart plotter and tried to stay dry.

Occasionally I heard a shout from the cockpit "Woohoo!!! Did you see that wave!!!" "Holy crap, look at that current!". As Ben throttled the engine I could watch our speed drop from 7.8 knots...6 knots...4 knots...2.5 knots...2 knots...2 knots. With a full genoa and mainsail and engine at 3/4 throttle we were doing 2 knots against the current. Which means we probably battled a 6 knot current.

After we got through the pass I ran up top to get one more look at the rapids we had just ran in a sailboat. Everyone was fired up about it, so I tried to relax, but those sort of situations are really stressful. Especially if you're down in the cabin and all you can see out of the portholes are crashing waves. The sail over to the anchorage in the lagoon was remarkably tame after running the pass. The channel was well marked on the chart plotter but we kept a couple folks on the bow to watch for coral heads or reef just in case.

When we sailed close enough to the island to get a look at it we could barely believe what we saw--long stretches of white sandy beach, crystal clear blue water reflecting the palm trees and sunlight. It's hard to describe the water and how the sunlight made it glow brighter than the sky. After being on passage for 4 days (really not that long compared to the Pacific crossing) we couldn't have asked for a more perfect landfall.

As soon as the anchor was dropped and mostly set (the sand was pretty hard, so Ben and Rob dove on the anchor to set it) we all jumped in the water--didn't even put on sail covers or wrap up the lines--it was that inviting. I did pause long enough to grab a mask, snorkel and fins so I could wander over to the reef near the boat and check out the fishies. Hopefully we can post one of Ben's videos of the snorkeling here--although the camera doesn't do justice to all the colors.