Commodore
May 11, 2023

Thursday 11 May – ‘Big Winds’ turn into a mega storm at 3am!

We woke at 3am to howling winds, Rowan went up and found the wind hitting 40 knots. This was not what we were expecting. Rowan hadn’t managed to get a clear view of the bottom holding on our mooring ball as the water was too milky so we had to pray is was secure as the wind topped 43.5 knots. Rowan switched the engines on and he eased us forward trying to take the strain off the mooring ball. It lasted for about an hour with dramatic lightening and thunder roaring around us, plus huge down pours of rain. Rowan hadn’t zipped up the sail bag and the main sail was creeping up the mast which wasn’t good so he had to go on the roof and tie it down, too much wind to attempt zipping it up. We watched in rather stunned silence with an action plan if we came loose of the mooring, I was to run and get the ropes free and on board while Rowan would attempt to keep PolePole away from the reef. Life jackets waiting and head torches on (not much else on!), we sat it out for an hour until the wind started to die, we finally went back to bed relieved it was over.

We woke up to all sorts of news, a boat at North Fakarava pass was on the reef, thank god we left that anchorage yesterday, and to think we so nearly stayed another night. The wind was even stronger there peaking at just over 50 knots. The winds got progressively stronger further south. We got a message from Cain inquiring if we were ok, he had made the wise decision to leave Tahanea and was back at the town in North Fakarava, he said two boats had landed up on the beach there. We have subsequently heard the South African solo sailor who we met at the supermarket, she told us she took our anchor spot when we left, she landed on the coral beach this morning and her boat has had to be salvaged. We also heard the boats in South Fakarava had a terrible time with winds between 50-60 knots. People dragging anchors a hundred meters. Thank goodness it is just the three boats here and it is not crowded as that is when chaos arises, not just looking after your own boats but avoiding other boats that might come loose.

We had a very long lie in and a good recovery cooked breakfast, enjoying out eggs sooo much! The wind was in the low 20’s and the water was quite choppy, but all in all we were in a very good protected area. PitPony were onto the vhf to us around midday to ask if we had heard the news that a second wave is passing through, and that at Raroia the first Tuamotus island we stopped at was predicting 50-70 knot winds and is about 130 miles away, so may reach us in 3 hours. Fred on PitPony has given us some local French Polynesian weather reports to follow, we have learnt a lot. Apparently this is a squeeze of two weather systems meeting and very difficult to predict accurately. Rowan dived on the mooring ball again but it was still too murky to see, so we just got a little prepared, had some lunch and waited. We also warned the French boat of the impending storm, terrifying the poor woman who was on the boat alone, her two male crew were out snorkelling! Luckily they were soon back. It was quite weird waiting as the wind dropped and everywhere was calm. Was this the calm before the storm?

More than 4 hours passed and we decided we must have missed it. The French men obviously thought the same too, as they went off snorkelling late afternoon. They stopped by on the way to their boat, so funny both had big knives strapped to their legs, when we asked what they were for, they replied it was for protection against the sharks! Some people are taking them much more seriously than us! They are obviously very accomplished sailors, they race in France and every year charter a boat somewhere around the world for a few weeks. Now they are both working part time they have chartered the boat for 7 weeks this time. They were not at all put out by the storm, they are used to some pretty tough sailing conditions around France.

We were in bed by 9pm absolutely exhausted!