Tikehau - a bad day in paradise...

After a few relaxing days in Mo’orea, we headed back to Pape’ete in Tahiti, to our original anchorage near the airport where we had initially arrived in French Polynesia back in early May.  We wanted to take advantage of passing through Tahiti to do a little provisioning as this would be our last real stop in civilisation before our up-coming 2000 nautical mile passage to Hawaii.  As luck would have it, and as the deconfinement was now well under way, we were able to buy tickets in Pape'ete for the annual Heiva - a festive celebration of the traditional Polynesian dance and music art form.  It was a magical evening of colour and movement, well attended by the local population, glad that life was returning to normality.

Heiva in Tahiti - the colours!

Our plan was to immediately move to the Tuamotus - a large group of atolls in a string from north west to south east, where we would spend 10-12 weeks before making a final move to the Marquesas - the smaller group of volcanic islands in the east of Polynesia which would have marked our originally intended landfall after our Pacific crossing, but now would be the final staging point before the Hawaii passage.  With the south east prevailing winds of winter called the Mara’amu, any movement eastwards requires some planning and often waiting for a gap in the strong headwinds.  Our track to the first of our Tuamotu atolls, Tikehau, was north east from Tahiti, so we just needed the wind to be a little south of east to make the move.  We picked a window and jumped - leaving in the morning from Point Venus in the north of Tahiti for a 24 hour sail.  The wind was a little stronger than we anticipated, so as we settled into the sail we found ourselves with two reefs in the mainsail, reducing the overall sail area and making the boat more controllable in higher winds, and even reefing the Genoa a little.  We made fast and furious progress in the high winds and big seas, and arrived at the westerly pass in Tikehau right at dawn, making the 180-odd miles in under 24 hours.

The pass at Tikehau, like many throughout the Tuamotus, can be tricky.  There are many factors in play that make them easy at times, but potentially disastrous at others.   All the atolls have a ring of coral and sand motus (islets) around a large central lagoon, which can be between 20 and 100 feet deep and many miles wide.  The surrounding sea breaks and washes over and between the motus to fill the lagoon, so the pass(es) - and there are often only one or two - typically have a fast outgoing current all the time as they drain the excess lagoon water.  On top of this, there are local tides adding to or subtracting from that effect, then wind and waves in addition.  And if all that wasn’t enough of a challenge, the passes are always narrow, often less than 200 feet wide with coral reefs and rocky outcrops on the sides, and sometimes shallow.  As it was this morning at Tikehau, everything was against us, including a head wind of 26 Knots, the outgoing current was probably six knots against us, and with both engines at 3/4 throttle we made only about two knots of forward progress.  At that speed it seemed to take forever to move through the pass, although only 1/2 mile or so long, but eventually we broke out from the maelstrom waters in the pass to move into the much more calm interior lagoon.  It was another six miles of relatively calm motoring through the lagoon, in lighter wind and some waves, to reach our anchorage just outside the main village of Tikehau.

As the winds were still quite strong, we found the anchorage to be fairly ‘rolly’ as the motus of the atoll don’t offer much protection against the wind.  The next day we moved north east a little where some heavily palmed motus promised maybe a little more shelter.  We found a few other boats here, and it turned out they were almost all kite boarding fans so we spent a couple of days surrounded by boards whizzing through the waves.  The Tuamotus offer perfect conditions for kite boarding almost everywhere as we subsequently discovered, and oddly enough when it is an activity you don’t participate in yourself, it seems more of an annoyance than anything else.  Having said that, I mean to give it a try before we leave the Tuamotus, and I’m sure will find it addicting.  

My new sport perhaps?

As the winds still hadn’t abated, we went in search of more shelter and after a gentle 15 mile motor sail we arrived at the Garden of Eden in the north east corner of the lagoon.  This area was much more sheltered and with only a few boats a nice, comfortable distance away.  The so-called Garden of Eden in normal times is a vegetable growing farm, with a small resort, where one could buy vegetables on the dock, but since the start of lockdown has been closed and actually looked quite dilapidated.  I hope eventually it will reopen, as I am sure it was a welcome source of scarce vegetables for both the local communities and visiting boats alike.

Aside from crystal clear waters, beautiful beaches and a great kite boarding destination, Tikehau is quiet, with only a small village with few amenities and just a couple of small resorts.  We had our fist real taste of lagoon sailing here, where one of you has to be positioned on the bow at all times on the look out for the potentially boat-crushing pinnacles of coral that rise from 40 or 50 foot depths to lie just below the surface - the dreaded ‘bommies’.  These give away their presence easily in sunlight because of their lime green appearance, and sometimes a wave break, but without constant attention they could easily prove to be the cause of a very, very bad day in paradise…

Pink sand everywhere