Ocean Echo 1: September 2012

Dear friends

I am writing these lines from Papeete the largest city of French Polynesia on Tahiti Island. Last few weeks have been full of surprises and hick ups.
Hakaui valley was a most beautiful place on Nuku Hiva island. Two hours hike to the waterfalls via deep canyon/valley was incredible. It is accessible by boat only from Daniel's Bay.
It is a short sail from Nuku Hiva to Ua Pou island in Marquesas. Someone told me, that Ua Pou was the second best after Bay of Virgins and I agree on that. The mountain towers - spires on Ua Pou are magnificent. My first stop was at Vaiehu Bay. There was supposed to be short trail to next bay and the village, not really. I got lost in dense bush with only wild horses and wild cows around. I ended up returning to "home" bay. Hakahetau B. had quite enjoyable short hike to water cascades with tropical trees and flowers along the trail. View of mountain pyramids - spires was awesome. Hakahau B. is a main settlement of Ua Pou with nice church and some small stores.
Passage from Ua Pou to Raroia atoll in Tuamotu Archipelago was OK except last 80 nm. The wind shift required some hard beating into the wind. This was my first atoll to visit. The wind was forecasted to shift from South-SE, which made me to relocate from village area to East corner of atoll. It was a beautiful spot with nobody around. Clear water, and wild beaches. Navigating in these atolls can be difficult, because there are many coral head islets - carenas. They reach from 20/30 meter - 60/90 feet depth up to almost surface. They are submerged bellow sea level and can be seen only in good light. Sun needs to be above or behind the boat. If the sun is ahead of the boat sea surface becomes large silver mirror. Google Earth was a big help for navigating in these atolls. It shows most of carenas quite well, which made it possible to sail in atolls. Also, saving GPS track to any location is important for the reason of tracking back at bad light or at night.
Makemo atoll seem to have best provisioned store in central Tuamotus. I have enjoyed snorkeling at NW pass and outside in open ocean, when conditions were good. Beautiful corals every where and large fish, including many reef sharks.
Tahanea atoll has no settlement and anchorage is very nice. I have seen large/giant Manta rays and Eagle rays while drift snorkeling NE pass. Learning how to get in and out of the kayak quietly in open water rewards me with some nice sea life encounters. The sharks take a lot of fish from my fishing line. Watching them eating fish heads and leftovers after fish cleaning is a wild show.
Fakarava is a second largest atoll of Tuamotu Archipelago at 35 miles - 70 km length. It was busy there with many cruising sailboats around. Fakarava is well-known for diving in SE and NW passes. Water was not so clear, when I was there. An other SE wind shift was coming up, so I have decided to move to Toau atoll, which had nice shelter in South corner. This SE blow lasted 10 days, main pass turned out to be quite nasty to transit due to steep 5 m - 15 foot waves. Anse Amyot at NW side of Toau atoll is a popular spot among cruisers. It is a small bay inside the reef. Local families have installed several mooring buoys there, which cost about $5 a night to use. There is no anchoring allowed anymore. This was my last atoll to visit for now.
Passage to Tahiti took 2 days and it was interesting to be arriving at famous island. Some urgent repairs of boat equipment made me to stay around Venus Point bay for about 5 weeks. I have learned a good trick on welding without welding machine. Connecting 3 car batteries in series produces 38 VDC, which is enough for nice smooth welding arc.
City of Papeete on Tahiti island is a capital of French Polynesia and it has a few interesting places around downtown. Bougainville Park, The Presidente Palace, government buildings, ferry terminal, Chinese Temple. There is a lot to do outside the city. Tahiti has a beautiful mountains, nice parks with good hiking trails and many water falls. Mount Orohena is 2241 m - 6 700 feet high.
Next islands I plan to visit in this area are Moorea, Raiatea, Bora Bora - depending on the weather factors. I am planning on sailing back to Tuamotus and Marquesas for the cyclone season.

Maintaining this blog could by complicated time to time, because Internet signal/connection for uploading pictures, will not be as good/fast as it is in large cities/communities. Please, excuse my poor writing skills and grammar. Google translate does good job converting text to other languages.
I hope, that you will find something interesting in this blog – enjoy.

Jara (JJ) Holcman s.v. Ocean Echo 1