Setting Sail for the DANGEROUS Islands- Goodbye Marquesas __ Sailing French Polynesia

It's the moment of truth. Will the engine start? We diagnosed it's not the battery, it's not the engine, it's the starter. Is that forward side? Yeah. Yes. So we're good. Yeah. The cleaning of the little connections, plugging it back in. Yay. No new parts needed. Well, we'll get a spare just in case. Okay, cool. Anchor's away. We are taking off in the sea and I'm so excited because we are leaving the Marquesas and heading to the Tuamotus, which is hands down like the most exciting part so far for me because it is, I've not really ever been to an atoll and it's supposed to just be stunning and fantastic scuba diving and snorkeling and amazing. And I'm really trying not to get my hopes up too high, but I think we're good past that. But anyway, we're going to the Tuamotus. I should pay attention. So I have this line here attached to the shackle for one reason only, to hold the anchor. Because we're going on a longer offshore passage, we don't want to lose the anchor. If something happens, you know, the waves could get bad, knock the anchor loose. This line will in theory keep us from losing the anchor. At least that's the plan. Just a little bowline knot and we're good to go. Jason is over there getting our reefing set up because we're going to go ahead and start with two reefs in the main. Because if you remember, the pin on our traveler broke. Houston, we have a serious problem. Basically this entire piece just ripped straight out of the traveler. And the traveler is the only thing that can hold the boom. Yeah. And so our boom was wildly out of control, but our friend had a replacement part. We kind of rigged it up, but it's compromised so we don't trust it all the way. You know, it's a whole jerry rig system, but I'm pretty satisfied. It's going to get us to Tahiti and that's all that matters. I just found a washer. Hold on. We don't need that. So we are going to sail. Double reefed. And very conservative. And we've got like 20 knots, 20 plus knots of wind. We think. Wow, that is pretty. Here we go. Here we go. Do it like you mean it. In the sky, and I'm like. Don't you know that I'm coming home. Oh, I hope for good this time. Oh, anywhere I run, I can see the sun because you are the light in my eyes, in my eyes. Anywhere I go, I can feel your soul burning like the stars in the sky, in the sky. The Tuamotu is known as the dangerous archipelago, and it's known that because a lot of ships have, well, wrecked there on the reefs because it is just a whole string of atolls. And an atoll, if you don't know what one is, used to be an above sea volcano that has receded into the ocean and all that is left is just the top rim of the volcano. And it is now all coral reefs. It's an incredibly cool aerial view. It is an interesting habitat, but because it is low lying, it is, well, invisible at night, just about. So you want to sail that area during the day. We need to be able to see the reef so we don't hit it. I'm going to do a decent amount of planning for this passage to make sure that we arrive during daylight hours before we get to the Tuamotu, which is the perfect opportunity to tell you how we plan our night. So the first thing I do is bring up my chart and I type in my route. The island that we're headed to is called Nikini. It's the first atoll that we get to between the Marquesas and the Tuamotu. And as I scroll around I can see there's not really any obstacles, no other reefs, islands, or atolls between, well, us and the first atoll. And now that I've got a route punched in I can see that it is 469 nautical miles. Now I go to predict wind because I need to look at the weather. Typed in my waypoints, GPS points, that we are going to have about 12 to 18 knots of wind and it looks like it's going to be coming directly on our beam or beam reach for most of the sail. Which means 12 to 18 knots on a beam reach we should easily be able to sail five, six, seven knots. But we are a double reef so I'm not really sure exactly how great our speeds will be. So I'm going to calculate for all three of them. Figure out our arrival time and take our 469 nautical miles divided by our speed which would be five knots. And we left on Thursday at noon and if we sail at five knots that would put us in Monday at 10 a.m. Be good timing. If we travel at six knots puts us in Sunday at 6 p.m. That's a little late. If we travel at seven knots we arrive Sunday at 7 a.m. Which is perfect again. So we either need to travel at five knots or seven knots. Definitely not at six or somewhere in between. But we really won't know until we're closer to our destination. So we'll keep chugging along. We'll calculate each day how many nautical miles we have left and keep looking at our arrival time. So that way within a day we can really start to fine-tune. We can slow down or speed up as we need to make sure that we arrive at the proper time. And that is how we have planned our passage to the dangerous archipelago. I feel like I need like a man's voice there. It's really intimidating. The dangerous archipelago. We're traveling to the dangerous archipelago. Go, go, go. No. I just don't. Salad eating cat. Salad eating cat. Oh you love this. All right. Coconut oil. Sweet potatoes. Zucchini. All grown in the market. And a little blackening seasoning here. Aged balsamic. Sea salt. Ground pepper. Throw in this lovely tumultu. A lovely vegetarian plate. Produce and baguette all from the Marquesas but lovingly made by me. Do you think you're gonna be able to sleep? It's probably the most difficult job on passage. For you. Trying to sleep. Yeah. I'm joking. Yeah I could sleep. My belly's full. The sun's out. I'm hot. The boat is rocking. Nighty night. There you go. I'll keep an eye on you. If you get hit on the beam too hard you may get smacked in the face with a grapefruit or a mango. I can think of worse things. I can too. Okay. Anywhere I run. Anywhere I go. I can feel your soul. Stars in the sky. In the sky. And I'm a fool inside. Don't you know that I'm coming home. Oh I hope it goes good this time. Technically this is a no-no for nighttime but our choices are the wind's dying. We can fly the spinnaker, motor, or put this preventer on. And this seems like the safest thing to do. Basically it's going to keep the boom over and since we're losing wind it's just slamming and we don't trust the the traveler. We don't trust it at all because it's not a hundred percent. So if the wind was to pick up we'd have to remove this preventer and then send to the main. But it's double reefed so yeah it's not a big deal. It's not that scary. That is New Cahiva there sort of disappearing out into the background. We won't see it again. Thanks so much for watching. If you liked this video please give us a thumbs up and share it with a friend. It helps us out tremendously. And if you're curious about the griddle I used in the kitchen, the sailing apps I mentioned, or even the cameras that we're filming this episode with, then check out our website. I have listed it all out there along with additional notes. The winds are picking up. It's gonna be an exciting night. It is gonna be. Well we'll save that for next time. Thanks guys! Bye! It's gonna be an exciting night. The waves are growing!