We arrived in Atuona on the next island Hiva Oa in the morning after a slow but very pleasant night sail.
Busy! Some 30 yachts and the supply+cruise ship Aranui 5 in port, so we anchored outside. The Aranui 5 departs in Tahiti and you can get a ticket: only 1100 euro for a ten day trip around all the islands. Fun uh!
What a pity this beautifull passage has come to an end, we LOVE being at sea! But now we are at anchor in baie Omoa on Fatu Hiva, one of the Marquesas islands in French Polynesia!
Crossed 4 timezones while sailing 4005 nautical miles over the Pacific ocean in 28 days from Panama, an average speed of 6 knots. Fastest sail in a 24 hour period was 180 nm, an average speed of 7.5 knots. And the slowest sail: 84 nm in 24 hours and that is 3.5 knots average.
This will be our longest passage so far, in distance, not in time. Here is a picture of the route and the winds and currents we can expect on the way. No stopping for us at the Galapagos islands, too expensive and complicated procedures. We sail direct to Atuona on Hiva Oa, one of the Maquesas islands in French Polynesia, some 4000 nautical miles to the west.
Yes, we could have stayed on anchor outside Shelter bay marina but we decided to make it easy for ourselves: in the marina its much easier to fill up our cooking gaz, do our shopping with the free marina shuttle bus service to Colon and arrange the transit of the 45nm Panama canal.
We had a beautifull two months here. Not easy to leave this beautifull country and its good people. But still let’s go now! Why? The hurricane season starts end of June in the Carribean and the wet season in Panama starts in May. Still good to cross the equator in May, but there may be some thunderstorms.
There are so many island nations in the West Indies, enough for a lifetime. Where next? Lets go to Dominica, it is interesting because it is mountanious, covered by misty rainforest and not so many boats seem to go there. It is less than two days sailing from Grenada.
The Definition of Arrive.
Do we arrive as we sail at dawn around the northern tip of the island through a channel with reefs? It is drizzling and the squalls on the horizon around us make a dramatic background. Or do we arrive when we drop the anchor?
At night at anchor in Puerto Vueltas La Gomera I wake up in the middle of the night, anchor alarm. The kathabatic wind howls over the mountain. In the morning the same again and we are almost on top of the catamaran that anchored behind us yesterday, much too close for my taste.
On the way to Sidi Ifni and Mirleft as I wrote in the last post? Well.. we are sailors and sailors change their minds all of the time. While leaving Essouaria there was good wind to bring us straight to the Canaries but there was no wind near the coast, so time for a new plan. Lets go to La Palma instead.
The three day passage from Gibraltar to Essouria went according to plan as the winds were very well behaved and we made good time. We were going to leave on 25th but when we checked out, the jolly Gibraltarian, complete with Christmas hat, earrings and red jumper declared the Marina closed to any traffic at all on Christmas day as the boom would be up.