The knock on swell and winds from the weather system hundreds of miles away has finally hit us. The waves in the pass look unbelievable. There was a solo sailor in a very fast looking racing boat who went out yesterday but came back in again, obviously conditions out at sea were not great. He left today and we watched him leave via the first pass near Cain (I have been spelling his name wrong all this time), his boat was often 3/4 out of the water with each wave he hit, he did it with his main sail up too, seriously ballsy in a very narrow pass. Cain had already clocked he was a very proficient French sailor. It looked terrifying to us. Our plans to leave this week will have to wait until Wednesday when things calm down a bit.
It was just Cain and us in the anchorage but at midday we were joined by 4 Catamarans and a monohull, they had all moved up from the southern corner of the atoll. Australians and Americans with a lot of kids. Incredible how many kids are being home schooled.
Later in the afternoon we went to Spirit of Argo to pick up Cain’s coconut grater, we had a wonderful reception from Quinn who was very pleased to see us. Once Cain demo’ed the grater to us, we had to politely reject it, as it was a labour of love, way beyond the energy levels of Rowan and I in this heat! Especially as we have a little blender which I am sure will do the trick perfectly well.
We have been struggling to sort out our anchor chain with the our fenders as they are so buoyant that they lift the anchor when the wind changes direction. Rowan dived on the anchor earlier and found it had drifted and lifted and is now embedded in a big bit of coral. Luckily with the wind predicted to stay in this direction we are fine for now. Our fenders are too big and Cain and a lot of boats just use the fishing buoys, Cain had a spare one he had found floating around and gave it to us. We had seen one on our last island walk, so we headed off to pick it up, as we will need two as our chain is much heavier than Cains. Of course it was much further on our walk than we remembered, we did finally find it, plus Rowan found an old smaller metal one that has beautiful coral on it. A lot of the restaurants and shops have these buoys with coral grown on them, as display showpieces. It will add to our collection of bits on the boat.
Dreamy waters inside the atoll
The turbulent waves in the pass into the atoll
Give you an idea of the waves in the pass
No sandy beaches just rough coral to walk along
Our foraging walk proved very successful, the buoy on the right is metal and has had coral growing on it. PolePole lurking in the distance
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