Thus is the first island of the Tuamotus, which we saw. It was OBM who discovered it first at horizon at about 1100 seen from MaRe.

Out of the distance – we are still about 5 NM away – it appears as rather high. I’m curious how it looks like when we reach the CPA (closest point of approach) where we will be as close as 1000 m.

Originally I planned to pass this islands at a CPA of 5 NM. However, as the weather is nice and it’s bright daylight, I shifted the CPA to only 1000 m.

Since about 15 min I’m sailing a bit closer to the island.

A sandy beach seems to fully surround it and forming the shore line. Pretty behind the shore, trees grow and cover the island. However, I can’t yet recognize what kind of trees they are. They don’t look like palm trees.

On the northern end there is an mast and several buildings to be seen. Appears to be research station or an outpost of the French navy. The latter one seems to be more likely.

Being now closer it’s to be seen that the unknown trees are indeed palm trees. They are supposed to be the only trees of the Tuamotus.

Now, we are already gaining distance to the island and I put MaRe back on track mode to the next WPT. It’s the one in front of the pass into the Raroia atoll.

It’s now my task to consider the strategy of the approach to arrive there at the right time to enter.