At about 1800 I dropped the hook in Tahauku Bay at about 4.5 m of water. Anchor holds perfectly.

I was lucky with the spot I found. MaRe is just outside the area the Aranui 5 supply boat needs to get in and out of the bay.

Sam fixed some fried potatoes, so now our stomachs are filled.

Let’s see what the next days will bring.

…. and we are through the Canal du Bordelais. We made it with 5 tacks.
Top STW was sometimes just above 7 KN.

Always, tacking through a narrow strait of water, it’s a challenge requiring full concentration.

All day long we had wind with strong E component; the trade wind. When we reached the NW corner of Hiva-Oa and had sails changed, the wind decided to almost die and change.

Currently we have SW wind, which 180 deg opposite of the normal trade wind direction.

I wonder now what we will have at the entrance of the Canal du Bordelais.

Can we go with the genoa only through the canal?

Will the trade wind be back when we are in the middle of the canal and we need to set main & genoa & jib to tack through the channel?

Suspense story. That’s sailing as well!

As the swell in the Hanaiapia Bay will not go down enough in the days, this landing is too dangerous.

The alternative would have been an overnight sail with a quarterly wind to Oa-Pou where there are 2 bays where, according to the Marquesas Compendium, there is a dinghy dock. However, Sam was afraid of another overnight sail and did not want to get disappointed if landing in these bays is not possible, she wanted to go already now into the Tahauku Bay, where there is the little town Atuona.

Thus we are heading under sail to the NW corner of Hiva-Oa. As the wind comes from around 150 – 170 deg PRT, I just use the genoa.

Wind shifts a bit, thus, I need to keep an eye on the instruments. I hope that for the last 4 NM to the NW corner WPT the wind doesn’t get too much of N component. Otherwise, we need to gybe twice.

When we start heading south, I will put up the main as well. Thereafter I also will set the small jib for easier tracking through the Canal du Bordelais. It will be my 3rd W – E passage. Each time I tacked it through this canal. It’s a challenge and fun.

First we cleaned the cockpit, which looks good now.

But more important is, we found a cleaner for the cushion at the outer part of the cockpit PRT side. It’s not yet clean because I first need to be more baking soda, which appears to be best to clean this cushion. Once I get backing soda I’ll tackle this cleaning tasks every second day until it’s clean again. It will take several cleaning attempts to get all clean again.

The dirt is mainly dust, which came down with the rain, but there is also something sticky in the dirt, which I don’t know where it comes from.

Thereafter we wanted to go ashore. However, when we came closer to the tiny pier, I saw that the swell it’s much to high to get save at land and dock the dinghy.

It was a pity that we had to abandon going ashore. Sam wanted to do some running and wanted to see a few people I met when I was here at the beginning of September.

I now wonder if the swell goes significantly down over night.

It’s almost 0800 and we have brought morning for the last miles. Right now, 8.5 NM are left.

I made 1 1/2 h overtime watch because I forgot to wake up Sam. When she woke up by herself she took over and I had a 3 h of a good sleep.

On board all is fine except for my stomach, which got empty and wants some food. I’ll give it some.

I’m looking forward being again in the Hanaiapa Bay where I had good days with my OBM .

I’m also looking forward to meet a few local people again.

Normal the weather forcecast from the European Center for Medium term Weather Forecast (ECMWF) is pretty accurate, especially with less than 48 h forecast time.

Today, we were supposed to have very weak to no wind. Reality was that we could sail twice for a few hours. At around 1800 I dropped the sails because the wind shifted and got too much of a S component, which lead us at 40 deg AWA still too much off course. Tacking during the night with a sailing novice I don’t want to do.

Now we are running with engines at only 1500 RPM against a wind of approx. 9.5 KN AWS and AWA of around 20 deg PRT. The checked ETA at Hannaiapa it’s tomorrow morning at around 0930.

With the current AWS, AWA, and MaRe in her night gown, main sail with reef 2, she would not really run. The night gown is a must for safety reasons.

We have, it not real full moon, a moon very close to full moon. Currently it illuminates a cloud from behind. The dark appearing clouds get white edge from the moonlight behind and look very special. I love to sail in full moon nights.

The monkey with the tin tool played his game. It gave us some wind that I put up the main and the genus, but then he forced Me Wind-Ows to stop shuffling wind to us.

Result: sails down and we are running with the engines just below cruising RPM, which gives us an ETA of tomorrow 0600.

I will go down with RPM a bit more to get an ETA of at least 0800.

Had around 1300 a late an Arab style breakfast with tomato, onion, garlic, a bit green peppers and eggs inside. Tasted good.

Now I’ll have a cup of tea and a bird baked chocolate-chips- cookie….

…at 1035 and have only half a NM to go to be at the NE corner of the bay where we will turn to ENE later to E before we are heading roughly SE to Hanaiapa Bay for about 20 h.

Weather is nice. Sunny. Haha the sky is covered with mainly cumulus clouds. A few are cumulus nimbus which indicates a chance is rain. However, as the light wind is coming from ENE, and the Nimbus clouds are already west of us, they will not come closer to us.

I want to get the cockpit cleaned today, thus a nice physical exercise with about 20 buckets of seawater and scrubbing.

… adjust sails or routes.

As the SE trade wind will not be back in the next days, I changed plans.

Instead of going first to Oa-Pou, I’ll first go to Hanaiapa Bay at the north coast of Hiva-Oa. On that route we might get a bit of wind to use the genoa for an additional half a KN of speed for final but small part of the route.

The route is about 90 NM which will take about 20 h.

During the night we will have no wind forecasted at all thus it should become a smooth sail under engines. Arrival will be in the morning hours, thus I have daylight for the night fall.

Spending a few days in that wonderful bay, and give the SE trade wind time to built up again.

Then I want to head NW to Oa-Pou and visit 2 bays over there.

But first today departure at about 1100 from the Hanaho Bay with destination Hanaappia Bay