21h00 UTC 01 July
Course: 200°
Distance covered last 24hrs until 18h00 GMT: 143 nm
Distance to Taumotus: 123nm
Position 14°32' S 144°04' W
All's well on board.
So far so good. The weather has settled a little and we have 15-20knots ESE winds and the sea is 1-2m. It is still a little choppy but far better than what we have had so far. We should arrive off Kauehi some time tonight and at the moment it looks as if we will get through the pass around 10-11am local time (19h00 UTC). With the atolls all the water has to get in and out through the pass which causes strong currents in the pass with overfalls and whirlpools etc. These can run up to 7kn so we need to go in at slack water. Sometimes with larger swells filling the lagoon over the top of the reef even more water has to leave through the pass which makes it more difficult to calculate the slack water. Conditions are good at the moment so it should not be too troublesome. There are three of us all headed to the same pass so we can make a joint decision when to go in. While we are waiting we can motor around with some lures out... now that could prove interesting. The reef around the atoll drops off quickly and you do not have to be very far off it to be in a 1000m of water. At the pass on the chart it goes from 1000m to 200m in about 100m and then to 20-30m in the next 100m. Maybe we should just troll through the pass. Inside the lagoon is deep with coral heads reaching the surface in some areas but in the passage across to the far side of the atoll where we will anchor off the little village they are deep at 24m. One does not want to stray as there are some on the edges of the passage that show as 0.4m.
The atolls themselves are very low and you normally see the trees on them first (in the dark...?). The atoll surrounds a lagoon and many parts of it are submerged reef that you can only see because of the waves breaking on them. We are presently passing two atolls that have large lagoons that are totally enclosed with no pass so no way in and you cannot anchor on the outside. We cannot see them as we are too far off... the better place to be as the charts are not always that accurate. There is one small atoll between us and Kauehi that we have to sail around that is the same. The inside of some of the atolls are over 20miles across. At Kauehi we have seven miles to get to the opposite side to the pass. Well this all leads to an interesting night to night and morning tomorrow. So for now we shall rest and next we will write form inside the atoll comfortably anchored. Hopefully!!!!
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