In the night we had a SW wind blowing with about 12 – 20 KN. The waves built up to 1/2 m to a bit above 1m. The wind was the same in the morning. Batteries lost net only 5 Ah compared to about 80 Ah without wind during the night.

Anchor up was a challenge, especially for the OBM who needed to steer according to what I signed signaled from the bow where I was with Ruslana to enable her to get experience in the anchor up procedure on today’s strong wind and waves. Ruslana’s task was to pull up the hook using the remote control whenever there was enough slack in the chain. It was my job to make sure that both, OBM and Ruslana did the right thing the right time.

When the anchor was up, I took over the steering wheel. OBM and Ruslana took positions at the bow pulpits to look out for coral banks.

As expected the wind slows down MaRe a lot. At cruising RPM she moved forward with about 2 1/2 to 3 1/2 KN STW.

With that slow speed I got concerned about the arrival time at the pass. The theoretical slack tide was pretty much at 0800. Considering the long blowing SE wind I needed to consider a later slack tide because a lot of water gets pushed into the lagoon by the strong wind we had and have. At 0830 MaRe still was running against wind.

Did I estimate the delay of the slack tide sufficiently correct?

Will we make it in time to and through the pass?

Will the wind remain blowing from its direction?

All these thoughts went through brain over and over again. The same time I felt and saw MaRe bouncing in the waves she split with her hulls. Her bows go up and dive then into the waves. She works hard and feel her working. We know each other since quite and we sailed a few miles together.

Looking into the pass in saw white waves. They look like the already in streaming water against the wind That makes them step and high. How big they are really?

What will the eddies do? How much will they push MaRe into the direction they want and I don’t want?

Then came the point of no return!

The deep water channel is too narrow to turn her around.

I turned into a narrow angle towards the pass. Wind came more from behind and pushed us now. I had 6.4 KN STW. Now pressure on the rudder helps with precise steering.
“That’s good!”, was my thought

Then the last small change in direction and MaRe was in the channel. STW was up to 7.3 KN. “Even better”, flashed through my mind.

Fully focusing on MaRe’s course. I have to steer her very precise.

The white water I saw turned out to be more on PRT of MaRe rather than in the middle of the pass. Good. But adrenalin didn’t go down. I saw, I have to go through the middle of the eddies. They can push MaRe around because of the strong flow of water from somewhere below the water surface.

Still far above 7 KN STW. Great!

Then we were through the pass. Deep water from our PRT side via the bow to STB side.

Adrenalin went down.

SV Little My called to inquire about the status inside the lagoon. It’s basically fine. Our anchor was down in sand and the long chain gave MaRe the hold she needed.

Then we started sailing towards our new destination Fakarava. For this I wanted first to go with main in reef 3 and the genoa adjusted that she runs as balanced as possible. However, my wind direction feeling was wrong or the wind changed a bit. We got the wind from 170 deg PRT AWA. The genoa was in lee of the main. Thus down with the main and sailing only with the genoa.

This proved to be the best sail in the current wind conditions. 6 Bft from about 160 – 170 deg PRT.

MaRe enjoyed being let loose and ran with peaks of 9 KN towards the next WPT. At the WPT a course correction and kept running.

Now we are on a course with an AWA of 100 – 110 deg PRT. The wind vane is set to 80 deg PRT. AWS is 20 – 25 KN. She runs with around 9 KN towards the next WPT about 2.5 NM south of the Katiu atoll.

The swell increased in the meantime to 2 -3 m, so not constant that high, and she takes these waves easily. She just ploughs through the water. I feel she knows that in about 5 NM and bit the wind angle will move back to a broad reach course. This makes sailing at solid 6 But again comfortable.