We really enjoyed Tahanea and I wanted to stay longer. Not least because our friends Tom and Cristie on Running Tide were due to arrive imminently. However after much discussion, moving on was most prudent. This is my favourite photo from snorkelling the western pass.
Nautilus, Jadean and Impulse headed off before us for a daylight trip - and motored the whole way. We left at dusk after some fun - we had to do a quick impeller change on the port engine, and then I had to get the scuba kit on to dive the anchor chain which was stuck beneath a bommie. I really felt like action man after all that!
We had a nice sail for most of the way - ended up motoring for about 4 hours in the middle of the night, but sailed the rest of it and hit the south pass of Fakarava spot on low water and we had a smooth run into the anchorage.
Before long I had the scuba kit out and was joining the others for their first dive of the famous South pass of Fakarava. Its famous for the sheer numbers of sharks that congregate in the ‘bowls’ in the pass. We dinghied out to a mooring at the seaward end of the pass and put our kit on and dropped in. Then we freed the dinghies and dropped down to 20m with the dinghies in tow. As we slowly drifted along the pass, we had an aquarium-style view of the sharks massing along side us. Totally incredible, and yet instead of feeling nervous - I felt very calm. We'll be here in Fakarava for a while. Alistair arrives on July 5th but we need to provision a bit before then. The provisioning is at the village at the other end of the atoll - 30miles away. So early next week we will head up there then maybe back down here for more shark diving, returning north to collect Alistair.