WOW !!! What a crazy sailing experience !!
That MUST have been the wildest ride we had so far. We’ve got everything: From beautiful sailing with a steady breeze at the beginning. A fast ride with 148nm in 24hours the day before yesterday – and gale force wind with big swell, sailing under storm jib last night. And for everyone who thought: That’s boring ! – We got a really rough welcome to Apataki, where in the northern pass there was of course constant outflow and not too little. We were going in with all sails set AND the engine running on 2200rpm. So to say: everything we’ve got. Just inside the lagoon, the top part of the smaller staysail gave way and it just fell down on deck. Another foresail gone (but easy to repair). Inside the lagoon, just after the entrance, we were greeted by huge breaking waves and after fighting through those, we got to cover the 20 miles to the anchorage on the other side of the lagoon tacking against a nice and steady force six. It took us about seven hours to get there with the small
genoa and the main sail in the 3rd reef…
But THEN we arrived ! And Tony, the son of Alfre and Pauline put the (free !) mooring line into our hands and greeted us with a big polynesian smile. Bruno and Viola liked him at first sight and wanted to go to shore immediately. So they left for the motu while Gui and me had a shower and a nice swim around the ship in turquoise water.
One of the better – if not the best – landfall we had so far.