Fakarava Snorkeling
Fakarava has great snorkeling!
Author: Pat
Solo In Fakarava
Note: I wrote this from home in San Diego on Sept24, 2023 but it is about events more than a year earlier, June 10 – 25, 2022. As mentioned on the last posting, we went from 4 people on Calista to just me! I had tons of maintenance work to keep me busy and a lagoon full of great snorkeling
Rotoava on Fakarava
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.
Overnight Passage, Makemo To Fakarava
We left Makemo in the morning, caught the exiting tide and had an easy time going out the passage. We mostly motor-sailed the first day but the wind filled in early evening and had a nice sail through the night and were outside the south passage into Fakarava mid morning. The map shows the 135 nautical mile passage. Makemo to
Enjoying Makemo
Makemo is an atoll, about 20 miles long and 2 to 5 miles wide with one good pass and one kinda shallow sketchy pass. The water in the lagoon is about 82 degrees and wonderfully clear. With the wind coming from the north, we were nicely protected, tucked up close to shore. Most of the land is low coral and
Heading To Makemo
It’s almost 2 am June 5 and we’re less than 18 miles from Makemo. We pulled anchor from Raroia around noon (with considerable difficulty, having misjudged our speed when dropping the anchor so that it ended up stuck in rocks) and exited the pass around 13:00. We would love to have stayed longer, enjoying the warm clear water. It also
Safely Anchored in Raroia
We got to the pass into Raroia about 14:00, a bit later than we wanted but the entrance was well marked and plenty wide. Very little current when we went through. Once inside, it was a maze of baumies although the channel was well marked. The real problem was finding a place to anchor. We cruised around for about 45
Going for Raroia
We decided to head into Raroia. It’s about 10:30 am now and we should be able to get to the pass around slack low tide around 13:00 with enough light to see the coral heads. One concern is the stbd engine. Don’t want to go in on one engine so we will need to get it started as is or
Raroia or Makemo?
It has been a good day (June 3). We flew the asym from 10:00 to 17:00, with the wind and seas behind us. Lots of sun (rare recently) topped up the batteries nicely. And we got lucky taking down the asym when we did. After it was socked and down on deck a squall hit us quickly. We hurried to
Bilge pump scare!
A few minutes ago (June 2, 1:30am) a bilge pump light came on and STAYED on. That is one of the scariest things that can happen out here! It means that water is coming into a bilge faster than the pump can remove it, a VERY serious problem. I had to wake everyone (at 1;30 am) and check the two