The “lagoon”, as many people call it, was beautiful, but windy. We sailed on up to Anse Amyot and motored up to a Mooring, next to our friends on SV Summer. Again the east pass was manageable when we heading out, with an incoming current of about 2 kts. You enter as if heading through a pass and grab a mooring or anchor in the middle. It’s a false pass due to its pass like appearance, but no complete pass through. Coffee time on ShawniganĪfter a few days inside the atoll, it was time to make our way back out and north to Toau’s false pass on the north end called Anse Amyot. Spa day on La Cigale Barber Shop Shawnigan, cutting Xavier’s hair off the starboard hull. And it was quiet, peaceful, and beautiful! Here, with La Cigale, and 2 other boats in the distance, there was plenty of room. There were some coral heads, but they were easy to spot and plenty of room to navigate around to find a good anchoring area. This is due to the wind direction, blowing sand over and it settling within the atoll. As a general rule of thumb, the southeast anchorages of most of the atolls in the Tuamotus, you’ll find more sandy holdings. We settled in the Southeast corner (ish), a relatively sandy bottom area. Once through Toau’s east pass, we headed south, along the eastern edge. Not sure one can ever be at compete ease with that. It is still nerve racking when you can clearly see the bottom 7-8 meters (25 ft) below you, and you can see almost every detail of the coral carpet. Many people speak of horrendous passages through it, but we had it blissful. Toau’s pass was cakewalk compared to Fakarava north. We decided to keep with our easterly direction and turn on the iron sail (aka engine) to aid us to arrive at the the east pass of Toau by 11am. We almost gave up entirely and turned back in when we would tack one way to head northwest and get pushed southwest, then tack to head northeast and head due east. Once out the pass we battled the headwind. Yay a circus ride!!! Apparently you can skirt the edges of the pass and bypass this “mess” but we decided to go straight on through, along with our friends on La Cigale. Let’s put two and two together: incoming wind (out of the north) + outgoing current = standing waves. To add more excitement into the mix, the current was heading out at Fakarava North pass. As we left Fakarava, the winds switched out of the north, exactly where we wanting to sail to. All looked good from where we were “sitting”. That way we can see clearly into the water, looking for coral heads and shallow areas as well as timing the tide/current into the pass. Wait a minute, prevailing winds?! We left at 7 am in order to arrive at Toau’s east pass around 11am. Making our way about the Tuamotus with the prevailing winds, next stop after Fakarava, Toau.Ītoll.
Video of SV La Cigale as we’re both heading out of North Fakarava pass. Video of us leaving Fakarava out of the North Pass:
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