Marquesas to Rangeroa

June 3, 2014
Marquesas to Tuamotos

Time to leave the Marqueses, stunning sheer cliffs covered with lush greenery dropping hundreds of feet into the warm sea.  Even though we are on the leeward side the wind from the open ocean howls down the valleys and across the bay.  Anchor up, we are cautiously under way about 10:30.  When we round the protective spit of land enclosing the bay, we are faced with strong wind, large swells and whitecaps.  For over an hour Rhapsody’s old but reliable Perkins engine pushes us steadily away from the rocky shores and into the open ocean.  Up she goes and then down and up again and down .  The swells are far enough apart and even enough that she just rides them smoothly up and down. 

After about an hour Alan decides that the waves have smoothed out enough and we are far enough from land that he can start putting up sails.  We have decided to leave the main sail down and securely tied so that it does not rip any more.  We hold our breath as he raises the jib.  Will the stitching hold?  We did not get a chance to inspect it after it was repaired so we have no idea how good a job Kevin did.  Up it goes. Looks good.  Seems to be strong.  They left my hand stitching attempt in and just stitched over it and cleaned up the edges.  On one side you can hardly tell it was ripped.  On the other side there is a bright blue line where I used a different color of sailcloth for the patch.  We raise the mizzen and it is time to turn off the engine.  Wow!  We are flying along at 6 knots even without the main sail.  At this rate we will be there in 3 days.  We settle down for a great ride.

Late in the afternoon Alan decides to reef down the mizzen.  That turns out to be easier said than done.  We have only done this once before and cannot quite remember how we did it.  The big problem is that the end of the boom sticks way out over the back of the boat and we cannot reach it without climbing over the rail and balancing on the wind vane assembly.  Not something that we are about to do in this weather in the open ocean.  Eventually we get it lowered and tied, although the middle billows out like a pregnant woman’s belly.  There is too much wind to chance messing with it any more and it does not seem to be under too much strain so we decide to leave it.  Since it is right over the cockpit it is easy to keep an eye on it for signs of ripping.  The wind continues to blow and we are still doing over 5 knots..  This lasts for 2 days.  Just as I am getting excited about getting there the wind dies.  The next 24 hours we only go 35 knots.  We finally decide that it is silly to loose sleep and work so hard  for nothing.  We are not making any headway just wallowing along in the wrong direction   So we heave to and go to sleep.  During the night the wind comes up with a vengeance and it starts to rain, making us even happier that we are hove to. and not outside getting soaked. 

Next morning it is still raining but it is time to get going.  I had backed away all of our foul weather gear when we arrived in the Marquesas, figuring that now that we were n the tropics We wouldn't need it, so now I got to dig it all out again.  The wind had picked up although not like before but the rain did not quit.  This is not a quick squall but a steady downpour.  When it was time to change watches one person would get into whatever dry clothes were still left and go out on deck while the other went down below and hung wet clothes all over the cabin to dry..  My “frog togg “ jacket is doing just fine.  I wish I had the overalls to match.   

Of course we eventually made landfall in the middle of the night again, on my watch.  As we got close I spotted the lights from another boat.  It did not show up on the AIS so I assumed it was a fishing boat.  It was hard to tell which way it was going but eventually I spotted a green light which should have meant that it was going to pass us going the other way.  Since the cockpit VHS radio is not working, Alan got on the radio in the cabin and put out a call to see if they would answer.  Instead of our unknown boat, he got an answer from another cruising boat, Pamela, that was apparently just a few miles away and also going into Rangeroa.  Meanwhile, the mystery boat passed slowly by in the distance.  And then suddenly, when I thought it was completely gone, it was almost on top of us, coming fast and shining a very bright light right at us.  I screamed for Alan, turned on the engine and tried to figure out which way to go.  I was sure it was going to hit us.  Maybe it was pirates and they were going to board us.  After what seemed like forever but was probably only a few minutes they were suddenly gone again.  Just a bright light disappearing into the distance.  I kept a close watch in the direction they had gone for a long time but they did not come back and we never figured out what the story was.

By this time we were within a few miles of Rangeroa and it was time to heave to until daylight.  It is important to enter the pass in the atoll at slack tide, just when it is turning.  Our research had showed that it should be 8:30 am.  Just to be safe, we checked with Pamela to see what information they had.  They were sure that slack tide was 6:30.  After some consideration we decided to go with their information.  That still gave us several hours to sleep.

6am, daylight, time to get up, make spot of coffee and get going if we are going to make the tide.  Thank heavens the rain has stopped.  Pamela is supposed to be just a few miles behind us but we cannot see her.  This is my first sight of an atoll.  Really interesting.  The palm trees just seem to grow right out of the water.  The land is not much more than a few feet above water level.  Quite different from the towering cliffs of the Marquesas.  We can see the break in the surf indicating the pass inside.  We get out the iPad and check the course, turn on the engine and the depth gage.  According to the chart, it is sort of a winding entrance.  We need to avoid the shoal on one side and the reef on the other and then pass the red marker and go all the way around the island just inside the entrance.   I station myself on the bow to keep a lookout.  It does not look like slack water but we are going in.  As we start in we are joined by a pod of dolphins, raising along side and leaping in the waves.  There are definitely waves, not huge but enough to give Rhapsody quite a push. At one point Alan looks over his shoulder and sees a large swell bearing down.  He guns the engine and we surf on in. It seems to take forever but finally we are in.  The dolphins have gone back out to play in the waves and escort Paamela who we now see just starting to enter. 

There is clam water and sunshine inside.  Rangeroa is one of the largest atolls in the world, so big we cannot see across.  We make our way around the island guarding the entrance and drop anchor in front of the bungalows of a fancy hotel.  Anchoring is sort of interesting.  the water is deep but there is a lot of coral.  On our first pass, just as Alan is about to let the anchor go the depth gage goes from 6 fathoms to 3 fathoms.  I yell “no” and turn back out to try again.  The same thing happens on the second pass but I don’t yell in time and the anchor goes down onto a large pile of coral, probably to wrap itself around and make leaving difficult.  Oh well, too late.  We will deal with that is a few days when we are ready to leave.  For now, time to get warm and dry and rested.