Note: While I published this from San Diego in Feb 2023, this is about events on June 9 & 10, 2022
On June 9 we pulled anchor and headed from Tetamanu in the south of Fakarava to Rotoava in the north. We took a route inside the lagoon that is well mapped but fairly narrow and we motored the 29nm.
Route from Tetamanu to Rotoava.
It was a beautiful day with little breeze and great views of the atoll. We arrived at the Rotoava anchorage in mid afternoon. By then it was a bit breezy and anchoring was a bit of a challenge but we got it done on the 3rd try. Our first two attempts were up close to the quay but we ended up too close to other boats so we moved farther down and dropped anchor near Top Dive.
Rotoava village and airport.
Quay near top, Top Dive near bottom.
The pic above shows the anchorage with far fewer boats than when we were there. We anchored near Top Dive which is marked near the bottom of the pic.
Our anchor buoy left of center, Top Dive right of center.
We took the dinghy in to the very nice, well protected quay (see two pics up). Rotoava is a nice sized village, much larger than Tetamanu. It has several paved streets, an airport, a number of restaurants, markets, a school and some gov’t offices. The buildings are in good shape and the town is clean.
Main street with the school and some gov’t buildings on right.
My fav restaurant, the Hirinaki Lounge.
The Hirinaki Lounge is a few yards from the quay. A great place for lunch or dinner, frequented by locals and cruisers. They have a dish of very thinly sliced tuna that I really like!
Our crew walking by the Catholic Church.
On June 10, it was already time for Scott to head back to Hawaii. He bought a few gifts for people back home and hopped in the taxi to the airport. I was sorry to see him go and he is welcome back any time.
Later that day, Don and Celeste decided that they needed to leave as well. They found flights and were off to San Diego. So I went from 4 on Calista to just me in a few hours!
But there were many cruisers in the anchorage that I knew well so I was busy bike riding and playing cards with Bill (a very good card player!) and Ian, having sundowners with Steve and Tawni, snorkeling, diving, etc. That, and some boat maintenance work kept me quite busy for a couple weeks while waiting for Peggy to return.
Market (left), petrol station (center) quay (right).
Mayor’s office.
The Anchorage.
The anchorage looked large but there were quite a few boats and some areas got too shallow or had coral heads sticking up, while others got too deep pretty fast so that it did feel a bit crowded.Edit