Moorea To Raiatea

We pulled anchor about 8am March 6 and headed out of Cooks Bay towards Raiatea, a distance of about 120 nm.

The wind was light initially but got to about 15 knots after an hour so we put up the sails and the wind pushed us along nicely – for about 3 hours when the wind died. Sails down, motor on. We would really have liked to sail but on a schedule, we did not have the choice.

Still, it was an easy passage. Around midnight some scary thunderstorms showed up ahead of us with lots of lightning (you REALLY don’t want to get hit and you are the tallest thing around for miles) but after nervously watching them for a couple hours, they disappeared before we got to them. I breathed a sigh of relief. 🙂

About 1am we picked up a passenger.

A Tropic Bird landed in our cockpit but I think it hit something on the way in. It slowly waddled over to a corner in front of the salon doors (I closed them) and hung out there until dawn when Peggy used a pool net (we keep it for picking up trash in the water) to scoop it up and it flew away. It seemed to fly OK. Not sure why it had landed on Calista.

We entered the Rautoanui Pass on the west side of Raiatea at 8:30am and had dropped the hook outside of the marina run by Chantier Naval des Iles sous Le Vent (CNI), our haulout place, by 9.

A couple hours later we motored in and they put a trailer under us on the ramp and started pulling us out. Then they checked and we were heavier than their equipment could handle. Turns our there was a miscommunication on our weight. We are about 40k lbs fully loaded with diesel, water and all our stuff. They thought we were 26k lbs. A big difference. Luckily they noticed in time. We did have minor damage, a scrape about 3 ft long on the underside of the stbd hull. It took off the bottom paint and exposed the fiberglass. It will have to be repaired but it is not a big issue.

So, what now?

Turns out, right next door is Raiatea Carenage, and they can handle a boat our size. But they can’t fit us in until at least March 18, and possibly March 25. The 18 would work, but not the 25. It will take a few days to figure this out. Wish us luck!