Farewell Rikitea, though when we left the conditions were not as nice as this... Instead we could see a squall coming. We planned to get out and around into the main channel and deep water before the squall, which we did. However after that squall we got a monster. 40knot winds, driving rain reducing the visibility to near zero. Our plan to anchor behind the reefs in a nice bay on the NW side of Taravai was not going to work. In fact anchoring anywhere wasn't going to work. So we either loitered in the deep water waiting for things to ease, or just set off.

We chose to do the later. We had already explored leaving direct on Saturday, and knew it would be a bit windier than Sunday. We expected the squall to clear through and be back to a SE6. That didn't happen. The winds and rain continued peaking at 48knots. We were sailing under bare poles and still doing 6-7knots.

This morning the winds have eased down to a 6 and the sea state is much easier. It's downwind so not a bad point of sail. The wind did destroy the cover for the mainsail (in the track of the in-boom furled) but I have a spare onboard so we can fit that once we are anchored in a nice sunny atoll...

So we push on to Amanu, our first Tuamotus atoll. Our friends on Stellar Polaris will get there on Tuesday and with reasonable winds, we may arrive on Wednesday. We can use their firsthand knowledge of tides to help us get in and anchored.