American Spirit II - Day 94; Giant Meteor at 4:00 AM, Arrived Ahe in the Tuomotos, Running the Pass, and Anchor Chain Problem; Monday, April 7, 2014

At 12:15 AM Joel and I decided to power up the motor so we could get to Ahe as close to noon as possible. With high tide at 12:01 PM, we needed to get to the pass into Ahe by 1:01 PM. One of our pilot books, Charlie's Charts of Polynesia, stated that slack water occurred 1 hour after low and high tide. So even though we had a good wind to sail with, we needed to make more speed if we wanted to reach our destination in time. If we did not get to Ahe by mid afternoon, we would have to wait until Tuesday morning to enter the pass during the low tide, or skip Ahe altogether and head to Rangiroa 90 miles away. A boat sailing with us, Follie a Deux, decided to do just that. Skip Ahe and sail directly to Rangiroa because they could not make the daylight entry into Ahe.

Its important to enter and exit these Tuomotos lagoons around low and high tide because the current in these passes is less at those times than at any other time of the day or night. When waves collide with the reefs surrounding these atolls, water 'splashes' into the lagoon. Because there are a limited number of passes for this water to escape the lagoon, the water level in the lagoons is higher than the surrounding ocean. Say, 3 or 4 feet higher. The water has to escape, so it goes out the passes. Sometimes so quickly that they can't be navigated by a sailboat. So we want to go thru these passes when the current is at its slowest. Ergo, 1 hour after low or high tide.

A lot of stellar activity during the night. Joel saw 2 meteors, between 1:30 AM and 2:30 AM; and Stephen saw a large meteor at 4:00 AM that glowed orange in color and then when it hit the atmosphere, it turned green with a white tail. Visible for a couple of seconds.

We averaged 7.7 to 8.2 knots most of the night. However, at 5:50 AM our speed had dropped to 6.5 knots due to the wind lightening. When I got up for my 6:00 AM watch, I throttled up from 1,600 RPM's to 2,200 RPM's to increase our speed back to at least 7.7 knots.

Sunrise was at 6:17 AM, and I probably would have seen a green flash but I wasn't prepared for the sudden rise of the sun and missed it.

The bunch of 50 or 60 miniature bananas that we bought on Nuku Hiva had ripened yesterday, turning yellow from dark green on Friday. Due to their 'fragile' nature, we're eating them quickly.

At 9:20 AM I noticed that the lure of the fishing line I had in the water was gone. The leader wire had broken. Upon looking at it, it appeared to be poorly made, as in 'from China.' We're going to have to make our own leader wire in the future, instead of using the pre-made and cut variety with the swivel. We only have so many lures, and some of them are expensive ($28.00 apiece).

Breakfast at 10:00 AM, followed by Joel hosting he communication's net at 11:00 AM.

Our noon position was: 14 degrees, 28 minutes South; 146 degrees, 24 minutes West; and we were 9 miles from Ahe. Two minutes later at 12:02 PM Joel saw land - Manihi and Ahe Atolls. Land Ho!

We didn't see Pass Reianui into the Ahe Atoll until we were 1 to 1 1/2 miles from it, and the first thing we saw after that were a series of large waves breaking what we thought was along the entire entrance to the pass. What you call a 'race,' when waves and current collide. Fortunately, shortly after that we observed that the breaking waves were only breaking along the left side of the pass. So we steered the boat to the right side of the pass. As we made our way thru the pass, we started on the left side of the pass first, staying away from the area where we saw the breaking waves; then to the center; and finally to the left side of the pass, following the deepest depth contours. The entrance to the pass was 450 feet wide, but the exit was only 85 feet wide, or twice the length of my boat. While moving thru the pass, we navigated primarily by the color of the water, trying to stay in dark blue water as much as possible. The shallowest it got in the pass was about 15 feet. While navigating thru the pass, we had a current against us of 2.7 knots. Strong, but doable. Since going thru passes in the Tuomotos is one of the most challenging things we'll do during the entire circumnavigation, I steer the boat in these conditions. My reason is simple. If the boat hits a reef and sinks, I want to be the person responsible for it. Sorry Joel.

Once thru the pass we turned right and followed accurate channel markers for 5 miles until we anchored with 7 other Rally boats just outside the town of Tenukupara. Once we anchored, we hopped in the water to cool off, and to look at our anchoring. Not good. We anchored in 30 to 40 feet of water, but our anchor appeared to be wedged under a piece of coral; and our chain was stuck and wrapped around a gigantic coral head. So before we weigh anchor, we're going to have to dive the anchor and chain to free them. If this can't be done free diving, then we'll have to SCUBA to get the job done. Fortunately, Joel has his SCUBA gear on the boat, and I bought a 40 cubic tank before we departed, just for this sort of problem. Later in the night Stephen, Joel and I discussed how we can mitigate our chances of getting the chain and anchor stuck in the future. Two things we can immediately do is to put a mooring ball on our anchor, so we can lift it up if it gets stuck; and we're going to lessen the scope of our anchor chain. Instead of a 5 to 1 ratio of chain length to depth, we're going to us 3 to 1 if possible. That will allow us to anchor with less chain on the bottom and therefore less likely to get tangled around a coral head. It will be interesting to see how many of the other 7 boats have wrapped their anchor chains around a coral head and will require diving to the chain to free it so it can be raised up to the surface. Tomorrow morning I'm going to look at the anchors and chains of all the boats to see who else is stuck like we are. And to talk to those who are not stuck to find out how they anchored without wrapping a coral head.

Our electronic charts had some interesting notations on them concerning the pass and the Ahe lagoon, with the words 'Voir Nota' typed in the pass; and the words 'Zone Incompletement Hydrographiee" on the left half of the lagoon; and Zone Non Hydrographiee (Voir Avertissement Important) on the right half of the lagoon. Basically, these mean that the charts are either not up to date or completely lacking in any useful detail. Great. We're not in Kansas anymore!

We got the dingy out and after filling it with air and adding the engine, we dingied in to the wharf. Once there, we tied up and walked around the town. Took about a half hour to do so. No restaurants, no dive shops, no retail stores, and one small grocery store with no bread. No bakery on the island. Pretty rare in French Polynesia. Lot of children around, and dogs. No cats. The houses were small with no air conditioning; and each had a giant black cistern to collect and store water in. These cisterns were about 8 feet tall and 5 feet in diameter. I bought one dozen eggs at 600 francs, or about $7.50. Cheaper than the eggs I bough on Hiva Oa, which cost $12.50 a dozen, or more than a dollar an egg, and small eggs at that.

Dinner tonight was spaghetti in garlic sauce, the last of our French bread and chilled fruit cocktail. Followed by a glass of red wine.

The sunset was nice, with the sun setting on top of an island in the lagoon with one of the Rally sailboats framed along with it.

A light rain shower forced us to close up the boat for 20 minutes at 8:30 PM.

The movie tonight was Galaxy Quest. Funny science fiction movie starring Tim Allen and Sigourney Weaver. Of course, we had popcorn while we watched the movie.

I sent an email to two boats about the pass and Ahe, Nexus and Vivo, as they were going to enter Ahe tomorrow morning. I also advised them that there was not much going on in Ahe, and that knowing what I know now, I would have bypassed the atoll altogether.

Brian Fox