Commodore
May 8, 2023

Monday 8 May – back to Fakarava North for provisions

First admission is that the movie I talked about yesterday is NOT based on a true story which is disappointing, but still worth watching as it is well acted and convincingly filmed. The English version is called Turning Tide if anyone is interested.

We left promptly to try and make the fuel dock by 12, before they shut for their long lunch. We were very pleased to get the anchor up without snagging any coral heads. This time we followed the marked route running up the side of the atoll rather than going up the middle and hitting a pearl factory, like last time. All went perfectly, it was calm waters with very little wind, but we did put the sails up, everyone seems to, even though the motors did most of the work! We took a little short cut, cutting off a dog leg, saving ourselves about 6 miles, we were nearing the end, when I looked up from making breakfast and spotted us heading straight for a bommie. Luckily Rowan was at the helm and we managed to miss it! Phew a narrow squeak!!

We finally got to the town at 11:45, and took a little while to settle the anchor. We now have our round buoys that we foraged, to try and keep the anchor chain afloat, so it doesn’t get snagged in the coral. We landed up dragging the anchor quite far when we were reversing to dig it in. We did finally stop and when Rowan dived down the inevitable had happened the anchor was jammed into an old coral head. But it was secure and there is little wind so we decided to go with it. The delivery ship was in and we thought it had blocked the fuel dock, so we charged in on JeldiJeldi to do some much needed provisioning. We are out of tonic water, eggs, bacon, tomatoes, down to our last carrot and a bit of old cabbage! How disappointing to find the shops and the fuel dock are all closed for the public holiday, I had thought it may be the case, but Rowan always the optimist thought it would all be open.

We headed back to the boat, it was sweltering with no wind. Yesterday Rowan very cleverly booked us into the Havaiki Lodge for dinner tonight, as they require 24hours notice as they cater mainly for the hotel guests. We left in light around 5:30pm and had sunset drinks on their jetty, which was lovely, the only unnerving thing was an enormous shark, Nurse shark we believe, swam right under us on the jetty. Supper is only served at 7pm and is a set menu. We had seen the menu with the girls when they were still with us and it had sounded delicious. It didn’t disappoint, such a treat to eat some fish and fresh greens! You can’t eat any fish caught in the atolls as they all have ciguatera, the fish poison, so a treat to eat it at a place that you know will have sourced it reliably (hopefully!).