After three months exploring the leeward Society Islands, we headed back to Tahiti to regroup and get ready for cyclone season in French Polynesia. November 1 is the official ‘start’ to cyclone season in the Southern Hemisphere and we had tentatively planned our route to start heading east by late October.
Spoiler alert – no cyclones – but we did encounter a few challenges. Cruising is not always fun and easy. A lightning storm, broken parts, and brushes with some potentially serious medical issues were some of the more difficult challenges. But the incredible cruising grounds, family experiences and new friends we met along the way more than made up for any hard times.
As we looked on at a world still significantly hampered by the far reaching impacts of covid, we felt incredibly lucky to be continuing to explore stunning cruising grounds cruising as a family with close friends alongside doing what we love.
Cyclone Season in the Tuamotus and Gambiers
“So where are you heading for cyclone season?” This was a common question folks asked us when they found out we left New Zealand to head back to French Polynesia. Many naturally assumed that we would avoid French Polynesia during cyclone season during summer in the Southern Hemisphere. And this was our first impression when we crossed the Pacific the first time heading west from Mexico. “It’s not safe to stay here year round” we thought, so we needed to partition our time in the cyclone zone being careful to budget enough time to see everything between Mexico and New Zealand in one season. But after we met several cruisers who have stayed in French Polynesia year round, and we did more research, we were excited about our plan to remain here for our second season in the southern Hemisphere.
Cyclone season and the relative safety of where to go is a topic that could fill a blog post all on its own. Typical advice about staying in French Polynesia over cyclone season is to relocate to the Marquises on the north eastern edge of the French Polynesian archipelago. There has been only one tropical storm recorded in the area since records have been taken (over the last 70 years). This information also shows on our open cpn storm tracker page which has a function where you can show all paths for tropical storms up to cyclones over the past 70 years. There is one ”tropical storm’ path near to the Marquises in all of that time.
The storm paths are still relatively infrequent in French Polynesia as a whole, but they do arrive from time to time, more commonly in the Society Islands as opposed to further east. In general they are much less likely to appear the further east you travel. So the Tuamotus and Gambiers have less risk of a cyclone than the society Islands – and in the cyclone season we spent here – the Tuamotus and Gambiers in French Polynesia had the same risk level as New Zealand of zero to one cyclone estimated for the area (the lowest risk level). New Zealand is a common South Pacific Cyclone haven that we visited the season before and seen by many as ‘safety’ out of the cyclone zone. So the fact we were heading to an area with equivalent risk level, it seemed like a reasonable approach.
Another plus for us was that for the 2020/2021 cyclone season, it was a La Nina year, meaning that the equatorial trades were stronger (great for kiting!) which results in a cooler zone in the eastern tropical Pacific (cooler water from stronger winds brought up to surface) which meant even less risk for cyclone activity (cyclones develop and are fed by warm ocean temperatures in the summers).
See image here from the 2020/2021 Soutwest Pacific Tropcial Cyclone Outlook which shows that there is a 0-1 risk level projected for the entire area of French Polynesia.
So more wind and less cyclone activity? This seemed like a great time for us as a kiting addicted family to be spending cyclone season in French Polynesia!
‘Winter’ in the Tuamotus!
After a very large stock up in Tahitti (the Carrefour grocery clerk had to get special permission from a superior to okay our several cart purchases!) we loaded Slingshot to the gills in anticipation of months in the Tuamotus and Gambiers where provisioning is notoriously challenging compared to the ease and selection in Tahiti supermarkets.
Weather Strategy – Sailing East from Tahiti to the Tuamotus and on to the Gambiers (against the prevailing trade winds)
Our first stop in the Tuamotus was Tahanea. This is about a 350 mile sail from Tahiti. The catch is that we were heading ‘upwind’ again, or against the prevailing south easterly winds.
Our general strategy for finding a good weather window was to look at the synoptic charts and other weather resources (predict wind) to look for a trough. Troughs often break the pattern of the tradewinds and if you’re lucky, you can find northerly and north westerly winds to help propel you east on a reaching or even broadreaching or downwind course to your south east destination.
The catch – yes there is one- is that because we were waiting for the trough to pass, troughs bring unstable weather, and in our experience, we find that the grib files that form the basis for predict wind and windy etc are not as accurate as they are when they are forecasting the prevailing trade winds. This means that when the forecast says light to no wind, there could actually be more or less, and the direction may not be as accurate as forecasted. Also, the unstable weather means that there is likely to be rain and unsettled cloudy and potentially squally weather – but we prepare for this by downloading the rain forecast and cape on our predict wind so we have an idea of what to expect.
So with the above strategy employed, we got lucky and had a great sail the entire way to Tahanea. A little rain and unsettled weather along the way but we were delighted with our ability to sail downwind to the southeast – a win! A light sailing catamaran left a couple hours behind us and didn’t manage to catch the same wind window as us and was forced to motor most of the way. As Slingshot sails well and fast we were able to keep with the wind and reached beautifully with our asymmetrical and code zero sails.
Tahanea – the Atoll We Will be Forever Dreaming About
We arrived in Tahanea through the North West past at daybreak. It was a glorious arrival. Tahanea is a park and therefore no permanent settlements (with the exception of some friendly migrant copra farmers from time to time) which means that the sea and atoll life appears healthy and brimming with life.
We were greeted by schools of fish swimming under our boat and a beautiful sandy area to anchor tucked in behind a motu. Here we spent several days snorkelling the pass at slack tide and we were treated to manta rays, beautiful healthy coral, huge gropers, turtles, moray eels and we could even hear a whale singing in the background. We loved snorkelling here. In fact, we loved Tahanea so much that we returned three times during this season! On other snorkelling trips we swam with dolphins outside the pass, and saw wahoo and dogtooth tuna meandering by.
Shark – That was a mean one!
It was in Tahanea that Nathan saw a bull shark – these are notoriously aggressive sharks and are typically ones you want to be careful around! On one of our snorkelling trips with friends, Nathan jumped into the water as soon as our dinghies had exited the pass – he was so excited to get snorkeling.
As the rest of us are still pulling on our flippers and snorkels I hear, “Mom, there’s a shark!” as Nathan is alone bobbing in the chop drifting away from the dinghy. Not a big deal as we routinely see blacktip, whitetip and grey sharks and they are generally not aggressive, at least during the day.
And then I heard a splash and our friend, Andy who had just hopped into the water pull his head up and said in his typically understated way, “Yep, that’s a mean one..”
Quickly Nathan swam to the dinghy and hopped back in. This was not a usual shark! “I think it was a bullshark” said Nathan, and Andy agreed. The good thing is that the shark was more scared of our dinghies in the pass and swam away quickly. Upon returning to the boat and checking our shark encylopedia we confirmed with Nathan and Andrew that they had in fact seen a bullshark. Wow!
Kiting Paradise
After enjoying the gentle breeze and beautiful snorkeling we made our way east across the lagoon to position ourselves for the tradewinds that were forecasted to sill back in. With a low bank coral atoll with few palm trees for miles, it is a perfect spot for flatwater kiting when the wind blows from the right angle. We were in luck!
We enjoyed weeks of amazing kiting conditions in the most pristine flat water. I’ll always remember multiple kilometer plus long toe-side runs in water so clear and flat with barely a ripple next to the coral bank with perfect clean air and fully powered kite. What a treat to have this all to ourselves and the only thing between us and enjoying kiting this magical place was our own stamina to keep out there as long as we could to enjoy it. Just divine!
We were lucky to be with a few like minded wind enthusiasts and enjoyed some twin tip racing around marks and even a kite trick competition (“the Tahanea Kite Classic”) which Nathan won handedly. He just kept adding more tricks to his arsenal and no one could keep up. He even found the perfect sandbar to jump and repeatedly launched himself sky high over it with gentle controlled landings.
Later when we returned to Tahanea on the way back from the Gambiers (our third visit here) Nathan was doing front and back rolls (twisting turns) and flipping over the sandbar. Having great wind, kiting buddies and warm water really helps with progression!
Motu Activities:
The nearby motus were a perfect spot for evening potlucks, sleep overs on the beach, and a playground for the kids. We spent Halloween on the beach, and Gavin, Nathan and Julia began constructing the next foil board. Julia and her friends on Belladonna had their first sleepover on a Tahanea motu. What fun! And those huge blue coconut crabs – we loved spying them at night!
Quick stop in Fakarava, then Back to guess where?!
After leaving Tahanea on a quick overnight sail to Fakarava we spent a few days enjoying the South Pass and Harifa in Fakaraba. We said goodbye to good friends on Belladonna who needed to head to another atoll to haul out and repaint their hull. T
The next day we met Due South, a New Zealand boat, with four kids who were also planning to spend the cyclone season in French Polynesia. And they were all super keen about kiting. Bonus!
When Due South said that they were headed to Tahanea next and “why don’t you come?” We gladly turned and followed. Despite having just come from Tahanea, we were only too happy to return. And being three and a half weeks since our last stock up in Tahiti, we were still well stocked, still with fresh items and had no need to do the 50 mile round trip to North Fakarava to stock up on more food. We love having great storage and huge fridge and freezer aboard Slingshot!
Tahanea – Back again!
We spent another three weeks in Tahanea with friends on Due South and another kid boat Fat Susan, as well as meeting some other fun cruising boats there.
Due South had recently purchased a whole kit of kiting gear and they were keen to get kiting. The wind was a bit lighter this time around so there weren’t as many prime kiting days. But the kids busied themselves with fort-making on shore and plenty of fun times on the Motus.
Cruising with friends – Buddy boating is the best!
For the next 10 months we cruised with Due South barely spending an evening at anchorage apart. And Belladonna came back to meet up with us in the Gambiers and again on our return trip to the Tuamotus. We’ve been a tribe of three kidboats and its been so fun cruising together.
We feel so fortunate to have met these beautiful families. There is something special when families – kids and parents – all ‘click’ and have so much fun together. Countless good times, workouts, hikes, meals, sundowners and fun times spent together. And each family loved playing in the wind with either kiting or wing foiling and wind-sports which made it even more fun to have so much in common.
After school and chores the vhf radio would crackle with the kids voices – making plans and organizing meet-ups. There was a group of four ‘older kids’ and four ‘younger kids’ and the kids would fill their afternoons and weekends with kiting, play, fort building, swimming, games and water play. With the remoteness of the areas we were cruising, we felt so lucky to be with a great group of friends.
It has been the cruising life we dreamed about when we left Vancouver. Those summer cruising trips on the boat in the pacific northwest when we used to joke about ‘what if we kept sailing out of the strait of Juan de Fuca and didn’t turn around?!” Well, that’s what we did three years ago and sometimes we still pinch ourselves.
Makemo:
It was soon time to make our way to another atoll. Next Due South and us sailed the short distance to Makemo, making the north west pass in the afternoon after an early morning departure from Tahanea.
This is a less visited end of Makemo and the pass and surrounding reef is incredibly healthy. We spent two nights anchored on the north west side of the atoll and marvelled at the many blacktips circling the boat. Maybe it was the skipjack tuna entrails that we’d tossed over the side after catching a tuna on our way to Makemo that excited them. But circling blacktips are a sign of a healthy reef and this reef certainly seemed healthy!
We woke up early and enjoyed some drift snorkeling through the pass. Spectactular! We liked it even more than the internationally acclaimed south pass of Fakarava. Beautiful healthy coral and large fish and it had its share of curious sharks – particularly the white tips. But Julia and I held hands as we ensured to keep an eye on the surrounding whitetips that followed us at a distance and Nathan snorkeled close to Gavin. What a treat to enjoy this pristine and beautiful spot.
Whoa – that pinnacle was uncharted!
After some fun beach workouts and riding out some rainy weather, we wanted to catch the remaining north west wind to sail the 26 miles to the other end of Makemo. We put up our sails and had a beautiful sail -flat water and 12 to 15 knots and suddenly Slingshot was hitting 11 and 12 knots with barely any effort.
With a keen bow watch, we saw that there were bommies that were not charted and we were keeping close attention. We passed by a couple of bommies that were narrow and almost like pinnacles underwater that were hard to see until you got close – because they were so narrow they did not provide an obvious lighter colour of water until what could have been too late.
The wind began to clock around to the West so we took our asymmetrical down and reached along at a more moderate 6 to 8knots which certainly helped with spotting and avoiding the bommies.
We arrived at the main town in Makemo and managed to find a good place to anchor. We ventured into the town to find friendly locals and local kids keen to play soccer and basketball. And we found some good stores to restock some fresh items.
We really enjoyed our daily sport sessions at the local undercover sport area. Due South and our family would go and all participate in a Tabita work out (sometimes the local kids would join) and then we’d play soccer or basketball all together. Some great workouts and it was so fun to all play together. The slight breeze and shaded undercover area made it a very pleasant place to play in the later afternoons.
Kiting Mishap – Uh Ohhh….That was a hard landing
We were looking at windows to try to keep heading east and south to Amanu and Hao on route to the Gambiers, but the trade winds were steady thanks to La Nina. Great for kiting, but a bit challenging to find windows to make our way east. It was hard to find a window where we wouldn’t be beating directly into tradewinds for 100 miles. Sure it was possible but with a whole season ahead we weren’t in any big rush.
And we wanted to explore the kiting in Makemo! So we headed off across the atoll – about 8 miles where we found beautiful beaches and motus and some fun kiting spots.
It was here that we encountered our first health scare. Gavin’s jump went a little too high and he came down with a crash. When he didn’t relaunch right away, Nate and I went over to check on him. Oh no…. this didn’t look good. “I hurt my rib,” said Gavin with a grimace as we delicately eased him into the dinghy. Then, “I can feel it clicking and its poking out,” says Gavin as he covered his rib with his hand over the bulge coming from under his rash guard. Ummmm!!!
Oh no! We had little to no internet signal and it was 8 miles across the lagoon to get help. And it was later afternoon and dicey to navigate the bommies in the lagoon with the falling light. What if Gavin needed immediate medical attention? I’d heard of cracked ribs and recalled the usual treatment is just rest and time. But there were voices in my head from first aid training about the possibility of cracked ribs perforating the lung and that condition can be very serious… Please NO!
After consulting our extensive medical information on board and chatting by sat phone to our insurer a lung perforation seemed unlikely so we decided to wait until morning to make our way across the lagoon to see the doctor in the clinic in the Makemo town. An atoll with approximately 1000 people living there, we were lucky they had a doctor on site.
The next morning, Gavin rested his rib downstairs while Nathan, Julia and I maneuvered the boat across the lagoon and anchored in the town. Cruising friends in the town with whom we’d spoken with on VHF the night before had already alerted the clinic that we would be coming. And our trusty doctor friend Suzanne from home had looked at some photos of Gavin’s rib and provided welcome advice. Thank you to Due South who lead us across the lagoon to help with avoiding the bommies. We were met by a truck at the town to take us to the clinic, and then promptly seen.
Good news! The protruding bump in Gavin’s rib cage that was still making clicking noises as he breathed in and out was displaced cartilage, not bone and he just needed to rest. Whew! We were worried about a potential flight back to Tahiti if there was risk of any damage of a broken rib perforating other tissue etc, but he was given a clean bill of health by the friendly doctor “Michel le Chat”.
We so appreciate our friends on Due South who were so supportive and our friend Suzanne. Happy good news and Gavin just had to tone down the kiting for a while. All good
Dinghy Adventure – a squall, a torn sail and lost communications – Hmmmm….maybe a 16 mile round trip was a bit ambitious..?
After a few days of town life again, the forecast didn’t look good for getting south so we head back to the other side of the lagoon for more kiting. After another week, Nathan and I decided to go on a sailing adventure in the dinghy. We were expecting a package of new kite bladders to arrive in the mail. So we thought it would be fun to sail the byte across to check rather than take the big boat. A 16 mile round trip!
So off Nathan and I went. It was quite an adventure! The first excitement of the day was the huge squall that loomed right near us then unleashed its force right over top of us.
At least 30 knot gusts blasted us along with driving rain and zero visibility. We sheeted out, and kept the boat as flat as we could to avoid capsizing. Wow! We appreciate Slingshot’s dodger! We made it through the squall unscathed but with our hearts beating a little faster.
Unfortunately it resulted in a rip in the sail at the upper batten pocket. Hmmm, we were not even half way across the lagoon yet.
We kept pressing forward, and at this point had lost communication with our VHF radio that had unfortunately become water logged and unusable after the big squall. We thought it strange that we were so quickly out of range with the big boats who no longer answered our radio calls. We decided to continue on and thought we could find some thread and a needle in town to fix the sail.
As is typical, after the squall there was little to no wind and we resorted to rocking the boat from side to side with Nathan on the bow and the sail sheeted in in order to generate momentum and movement going forward. An hour later of slow progress we were still well over 2 miles away. Hmmm maybe this wasn’t such a great idea after all….
We finally arrived in another deluge of rain and wind carried us to the town. Dripping wet we asked at the post office if our packages had arrived? “Non” was the answer of the post office worker. “Nothing here for you.” I’d had a text message alerting the arrival of our packages but it turned out later that the packages were there (at the address of the Air Tahiti representative) not the post office. So a bit disappointed, we went to the store and saw at least there were fresh vegetables that had come on the ship.
We also were helped by the ship who allowed us to climb up and speak to the captian who allowed us to use their stronger VHF radio to call Gavin to let him know that we were safe.
The next adventure was to find some needle and thread to sew up on the small tear on the sail so we could make it back without having the sail rip apart. Luckily we found these in town and were able to quickly sew it while we waited for another massive squall to pass. Hmmmm, maybe we should have waited for a better weather day?
Then we were off, sailing back to Slingshot, another 8 miles. We arrived wet, happy and at least with some fresh vegetables to show for our full day of adventure. Another Byte adventure for the log!
Christmas and New Years!
We found an idyllic spot to anchor on the north side of Amanu and had a fantastic Christmas Eve, Christmas and Boxing day celebrating with our friends on Due South.
We feasted on sushi, salad rolls and a Roast Chicken Dinner. And Julia and I made two decadent Black Forest Cakes with cherries. Wow! We exchanged home made cards gifts and had many laughs and good times.
We even found the most beautiful spots of all to workout (in between all the decadent food!) on a peninsula of beach with the nearby blacktip shark fins circling nearby. They seemed to be drawn towards the vibrations of our workout music.
Such an amazing feast and fun times. We missed our family and friends from home of course and at the same time felt so lucky to be sharing Christmas with such great friends in such a beautiful spot. What great memories!
Then it was on to New Years where we met up with a larger group of boats who had taken advantage of a good weather window over Christmas to make their way to Amanu.
We enjoyed celebrating New Years with friends on SV Jolly Dogs, Due South, Grace, Ari B and other boats nearby. We had a fire and games on the beach then counted down ‘Vancouver New Years’ after dinner aboard Jollydogs – Vancouver New Years being a few hours before new years in FP as its hard for us cruisers to stay up too late – there’s a reason why 8pm is called ‘cruiser’s midnight’.
We tend to rise and fall with the sun while cruising – and its quite a beautiful thing. I don’t think I’ve ever slept this well (well at least after kids, somehow my sleeping as always been a bit off since then) and there is something beautiful about being in sinc with the sun and no alarm clocks needed ever!
A Month in Amanu/Hao
After the festivities, we kept an eye on the weather, looking for a window to make our way to the Gambiers – a 450 mile south eastwards. Again, we were looking for a break in the trades to make our way there. But the La Nina year was making those breaks a non-existent.
The good news is that we were in a beautiful place with friends and good kiting wind so wall was good!
We met new friends Kathryn Del Fuego who transited from Gambier and told us of what beautiful spots awaited us. And we had beach sundowners and many workouts and kite sessions as we spent peaceful days getting school done and enjoying water sports.
We even had a couple of friendly races across the atoll and then over to nearby Hao. It was fun to sail as a group and add some incentive. Slingshot had more firepower with our length and and big sails and it was fun to give the others a head-start and chase them down! And Nathan and I even did a downwinder kiting together 7 miles across the atoll. Another beautiful memory. So fun to zip back and forth next to Slingshot as we all sailed to the next spot. Huge grins and smiles.
Happily, I learned to kite foil consistently in Amanu. I’d tried a few times previously in Makemo and had several tow foil sessions before that. But it was in Amanu with Gavin’s home made foil (900cm2) generating plenty of lift which gave me the confidence to go out for long foiling sessions as I got used to the balance and feel of the kite while ‘flying over the water’. Wow is it ever addictive!
And we loved nearby Hao which had very friendly townspeople and a few stores and frequent ships arriving so we were able to restock our now dwindling stores. More workouts and curry potlucks as we waited for the window that barely showed itself.
Water Maker Trouble in a Remote Atoll – Oh NO!
It was shortly after New Years when Gavin noticed that our water production was down and our salinity readings were up. We make all of our water on slingshot using a watermaker desalination system. Essentially high pressured pumps force water through a specialized membrane letting only beautiful fresh water through. This piece of equipment makes life much easier and more enjoyable in remote spots, especially in the Tuatmotus where fresh water is scarce.
Nearby friends on SV Jolly Dogs and SV Searose provided some diagnostic tools and support as Gavin patiently ran several tests to diagnose the problem. And everyone nearby offered us water which we greatly appreciated. But we needed a fix and fast! There is a sinking feeling that happens when suddenly a critical piece of equipment fails like the watermaker. Life changes in an instant as we all get into high gear to try to trouble shoot the issue. Thank goodness for Gavin and his skills.
We have a spectra watermaker that we’ve been very happy with. But when we found ourselves in Amanu with no nearby source of water it became urgent to find a solution. Slingshot is equipped with huge water tanks (1000L total) and a deck that is designed to catch water and route it to the water fill locations. So we cleaned the deck and rails and opened the fills at every opportunity. But we were used to using water as we needed and we wanted to ensure we got our water maker back in action.
Luckily Gavin was able to narrow down the problem – one of the pumps was tired and needed a rebuild kit. So luckily we were able to order one and Nana arranged shipping to Hao and we had our rebuild kit within a week and a half – amazing!
Gavin put the rebuild kit in and voila – 60 litres of beautiful fresh water pumping out per hour and we were back to normal.
After many diagnostic tests to determine flow rates for various pumps we had on board, we knew our numbers quite well. I loved hearing Nathan excitedly run to the back of the boat shouting out our new production water numbers! Everything was back to normal and we all breathed a sigh of relief. The small things 🙂
Next up? Encountering some challenges on our way to and in the Gambiers, and more exploring and fun along the way.
