SALSA UPDATE TUOMOTOS to TAHITI
WOW the internet here is bad! Anyway finally got a few photos uploaded this time through photobucket. Here is the link….
I departed Tahanea atoll in the Tuomotus on 6/17/2009. It was a fairly slow start with light winds but I was still able to sail at a study 3.5kts since the islands blocked the swell for the first day. I chose to spend the first night sailing between the islands on my route in the beginning rather than sailing around them to help eliminate some of the waves and swell, this worked out pretty well.
By the second morning the wind was up to 10kts from the North (so much for the SE trade winds) and once again this worked fine since I was heading ESE and cruising at about 4.5kts now. Just fast enough to entice the BIGGEST fish ever to bite my hook. I was pulling a little pink squid on the fishing pole with 40lb line even though I usually land my big fish on a hand line with 250lb line. So at first I thought I had a shark or something it took the line so fast but then it jumped clear out of water, amazing, a 5’ long Blue Marlin. After dropping almost all of the sail to slow down and fighting the fish for over one hour I got him alongside the boat and even got the gaff into him rather sloppily. The problem is when you gaff a fish it should really be in the head somewhere, especially a lively one like this. I could only manage to hook him on the spine around midway down his body; this allowed him to fight like the devil as I struggled to lift him into the boat. I was trying to hold the pole with one hand and the gaff in the other, afraid to grab him with my hand since he was thrashing around so hard. Every time I started to pull him up he would start thrashing again and he got turned around backwards facing the stern and was splashing water all over the cockpit and even down into the cabin, this was turning into a bloody mess and I decided to change the strategy by tying a rope around his tail to get him aboard, around this time all of his fighting managed to bend and pull the gaff through his spine (poor fish) he got loose but certainly not to live for long, and I lost my dinner, heck it would have been MANY dinners for many people.
Day three uneventful if it weren’t for the fishing, North winds 8tkts, boat speed 4kts wing and wing down wind this whole time. Finally I hooked into two Bonitos (A tuna-type fish) at the same time. I’m even happy to say that one got loose still leaving more than enough to supply all the fish I could eat all the way to Tahiti and then some. By 6PM in the evening I was back up to 5kts and only 70 miles to go and I started planning to finish the next night with an average of speed somewhere between 3 and 4.5 knots to allow for a daylight arrival in Papeete Tahiti, again a rather relaxing dull sail (and believe me this beats the alternatives!). Things started to change a bit by midnight, multiple fishing boats started popping up in my route, right on the rum line, and the wind was shifting from North to NW to West, forcing me to sail closer and closer to the wind all the way until I was close hauled, luckily the wind wasn’t to strong so it was still a rather smooth sail except for not being able to sleep at all as I eventually started tacking my way between fishing boats, at least they were all well lit! If I wanted to use the motor on the last day I probably would have made into the harbor at Papeete nice and early but I decided to tough it out under sail, still tacking against the wind, and my early morning arrival turned into a early evening arrival only a few hours before dark using over 5 hours to sail the last 10 miles fighting the wind and eventually a current as I rounded Tahiti. Not that I really cared, I was enjoying the sights of Tahiti as I sailed around to the Papeete.
The good news was that it was now Friday night and I was able to tie up to the town dock right in the middle of downtown. Too bad I was too tired from the night before to check out the nightlife, at least not for the first night. They had a sailing regatta and were giving cruisers one free night on the dock, but since they were closed till Monday and I arrived on a Friday I figured that entitled me to two free nights, so Saturday I was able to check out the town. I’ll give my Tahiti and the Society Island update ASAP and promise loads of pictures. Once again I’ve fallen a bit behind in the blogging since at this moment I am in Tonga, after sailing nearly 1400 miles non-stop from Bora Bora. THAT was my hardest passage to date, 15ft seas, 45kt winds, but you’ll have to wait till I send the Society Island update before I get that one off even though it is mostly written. Tonga is great, haven’t had much sun to charge the batteries and run the computer for weeks and that has slowed down the writing but I’m trying to catch up. All is well, and will be bound for Fiji in a week or two, then Vanuatu, and finally Australia in just a few months!
Filed under: sailing
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