I was on the 12-3am shift which is always a good time to catch up on the blog. It was incredibly rolly with just Posh Spice up, but we maintained a 3knot boat speed. By 2am Roroia was 7 miles off and we were getting too close, so I furled in Posh Spice so that we were bobbing along with no sails, which still gave us an average of 1.3 knots of boat speed in 10 knots of wind. Han took over from my shift and we bobbed around until day break, when Rowan was awake we made our way slowly to the narrow entrance to the atoll. The other Arc boats all catching up and nearby.
Around 7am we motored to the entrance and it was a bit of a melting pot of current and wind, whipping up very turbulent water, so we circled back and waited. There were at least 5 Arc boats all waiting and at 8:45 after not being too sure when slack tide was we decided to head through. We had 4 knots of current against us in the thick of it but PolePole and Rowan managed it no problem. Once inside it was a case of looking out for the coral bommies. We decided to head to the little village, sharp right after entering the atoll. There were a few other Arc boats already there, some were departing or moving on. We waited there until the midday sun so we could have better visibility to cross over to the leeward side. Some of the boats leaving got their anchor chains caught around coral and had to call in a diver to get them untangled.
Apple maps showing us just hovering outside the atoll in the middle of the night, you can see the tiny pass into the atoll, I cropped off the temperature, but it was 28C at 2am. The light speckled dots are the bommies (coral heads)
We finally spot the land around the atoll
The current roaring through the passage
Turbulent waters
Looking back through to the passage
Gorgeous colour water inside the atoll
The little village
The windward edge of the inside of the atoll
Just before midday we got the anchor up in good sunshine to head across the atoll to the leeward side. I stood on the roof looking out for bommies with both Han and Megan on each hull looking out too. They became very obvious in good light as they are a completely different colour blue, there are plenty of them and it was a case of cautiously weaving your way through them. The two Swedish boats Blue Sunshine and Salt had crossed straight over after negotiating the passage, so we headed towards where they were, it is near the spot where the Kon Tiki was wrecked.
“The Kon-Tiki expedition was funded by private loans, along with donations of equipment from the United States Army. Heyerdahl (Norwegian) and a small team went to Peru, where, with the help of dockyard facilities provided by the Peruvian authorities, they constructed the raft out of balsa logs and other native materials in an indigenous style as recorded in illustrations by Spanish conquistadores. The trip began on April 28, 1947. Heyerdahl and five companions sailed the raft for 101 days over 6,900 km (4,300 miles) across the Pacific Ocean before smashing into a reef at Raroia in the Tuamotus on August 7, 1947. The crew made successful landfall and all returned safely.“
It was an idyllic spot with beautiful waters. Pippin the Dutch boat with their two daughters arrived at the village and we asked them to join us over on the leeward side. They left a few hours after us and got caught in rain and cloud for the crossing, they landed up depending totally on the way points that Petra had been given by someone, not for the faint hearted! Luckily they say they are used to navigating obstacles as they do it a lot in Holland.
We all got invited to Blue Sunshine for drinks in the evening as it was Klaas’s birthday, Salt and Pippin were invited too, it was a fun gathering. Blue Sunshine have 3 kids plus grandfather, and for the crossing 2 crew. Quite something how they all fitted into 3 cabins. The children are fluent in English and very mature which they say is because they lived in Sri Lanka for 6 months and went to an international school which they loved. What an exotic life style they are having.
I was absolutely exhausted from my 12-3am shift and then waking at 5:30am for our entry into the atoll. I was more than ready for bed at 8pm.
Looking out for bommies from the roof, the light blue water
Han on Bommie look out
Beautiful colours around the bommies
Our anchorage, we floated two fenders off the chain, so that the chain was not dragging on the ground and therefore unlikely to get wrapped around a coral head
Pretty idyllic
Klaas’s birthday drinks
Stunning full moon
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