303: ARRIVING IN THE MOST FAMOUS DIVE PLACE in the WORLD!!!

We are leaving first thing tomorrow morning. Can I go on his boat? It never gets old, does it sweetie? Woo! Wow! The Maramu is over and we finally get to leave Tahineya for Fakarava, one of the most beautiful places on planet earth. Engines are on! After 10 days we are finally leaving here and heading up to the north pass. That was easy, getting out of here with one clutch working, not as easy. Brown's doing a great job. If all goes well this will be our last passage here in Tahineya. We're going to leave out the cut in two days on Sunday, head over to Fakarava, hopefully the wind and everything will cooperate. It looks like a good passage so far, but we'll have to keep monitoring it over the course of the next two days. There's seven boats in the anchorage right now, plenty of space for everyone. Wow, it was perfect timing. We dropped the anchor and saw a bunch of dinghies heading to the north pass to snorkel, so we grabbed our gear and joined them. We only had two chances to snorkel the pass, so we didn't want to miss it. We jumped in at slack, so we had very little current pushing us through the pass. It was beautiful with a ton of coral, but I was really surprised at how little we saw. Nothing big, very few sharks, and only a handful of fish. So after two snorkels in the pass, we decided to move to our favorite reef where we knew we would see a lot of fish. It's been a big day today. We have done a lot, and we are leaving first thing tomorrow morning at five in the morning, so we've got to get some sleep tonight and be prepared for an early start. We're hoping to get to Fakarava in eight hours, which would get us in in time to drop the hook before it gets dark. It's five in the morning, and we are getting ready to do what we hope is a day passage to Fakarava with our friends on Wild Iris. Maybe another boat going with us, we'll see. But the winds are howling. We normally don't move in this kind of wind. We've learned how to do lots of things. Great thing is we are going through with a couple from the UK that know everything. And this guy is like an ex-racer. He's probably got an IQ of like 150. He's been sailing all his life. That helps us a little bit. Yeah, can I go on his boat? No, you can't. We need to prep the boat, so we're going to start doing that now. We've actually done a lot of prepping up until this point. We don't wait until... Disclaimer, we don't wait until the last minute. We still need to get the sails ready. We've got to get the screens up. I've got to get my coffee made. I need my massage. Wow. Never gets old, does it, sweetie? All right, I'm in my bathing suit, hoping that if I put my bathing suit on and it's wet and nasty, that I'm not going to have to go in the water. If I don't have my bathing suit on, then I'm guaranteed to go in the water. And we have our fins ready, so for sure, you're not going to have to go in the water. I hope not. Check. It took us about two hours to get ourselves set with sails, but we are very happy now we've got the parasailer up. We were only doing about four and a half knots when we had the main up, and now we're doing 5.8, 5.7. We've only got 10 knots of apparent wind. Brown did a great job going through the pass. It was a little squirrely, but we had the outgoing tide. Yes. So we had a couple of knots behind us, plus we had the sail up, so we were doing like eight knots. Big tip, leave both engines on until you get way, way all the way through, because even though you're past the waves, they're still current. So now we've got 40 miles ahead of us, and an estimated arrival of around three, which is good. And a perfect day for sailing. Beautiful day. The seas are really calm. We are pretty surprised at that. After the last two weeks of the Maramu, we thought it would be much worse, so we're really happy, and we're very thankful that our parasailer is up and not giving us any trouble at the moment. So originally, we thought we'd have to do an overnight sail to Fakarava, but because the early morning tide was at five and we could get through at first light, and the tide in Fakarava is late today, we have a good block of time for even us slowpokes to make it. We have to average about six to six and a half knots, and we should be able to do this with the parasail. We always prefer to do a day sail than an overnight. Even though the overnight would be far less stressful in terms of pace, you definitely have the added challenge of night, and if things are going to go wrong, they always happen at night. Also, for safety reasons, we always prefer traveling with a buddy boat, and if we did the night sail, we would have been on our own. So I just checked our lines, checked our soft shackles, and I'm not liking the look of this soft shackle. It looks like it's shredding, and I'm hearing what sounds like a stretch. So, I now have put on a backup, which, if it lets loose, won't be too, too bad, and will save the parasailer. That's the key thing. We are a few hours outside of the Fakarava South Pass, and I'm really excited about getting there. Twenty years ago, I was in Fakarava without Brown, was there to dive, and spent, I don't know, a week or week, week and a half there, and had a great time. So, I'm looking forward to showing the places that we went to to Brown, looking forward to diving the South Pass again, looking forward to getting to Sabla Rosa. He's heard so much about it. It'll be exciting to be back after 20 years. I can't even imagine. We are surfing some really big waves. I would say six feet, six, eight feet, but the result, because it's from behind, is pushing us to nine and a half, ten knots, which is pretty cool. Gotta love that. We're arriving earlier and earlier, which we appreciate, for sure. Lots of great conversation happening on the VHF about the condition of the pass, and it looks like slack tide is going to be about three o'clock, and we should be able to make it by three, so that's good. Maybe we'll actually go in at slack, which would be amazing. It's a pretty wide pass. One of the forks is fairly narrow, but there's plenty of depth in there for us. So, everyone says not a problem, so we're going to hope for the best. This is definitely not an easy anchorage to drop anchor in. We have been told that it is very bomby-laden, and even if you drop your chain perfectly and put your floats on, it is really easy to get wrapped. Once we pull in, we'll have more of an idea. All right, here we go. One knot of current going in our favor. Almost slack tide, which is fantastic. Wow, perfect timing. That was really calm. Man, we're finally here in Fakarava, and we've come through the south pass, which was epic, and now we want to talk about how incredibly unique, especially for a cruiser, that this island is. Overall, we're going to give you a flyover view of it, and then subsequent videos are going to be very detailed as to specific parts. Fakarava is literally in the middle of nowhere. In the South Pacific, it's just overwhelming when you look at where we are in comparison to where we've come from. Also, it is now super famous because of the Wall of Sharks. I was here in 2008, which was before it became famous, but it was already on the radar of scuba divers. There were no sailboats. There were no other divers, but since then, it has exploded in the world of scuba diving because where else can you dive with the largest concentration of gray reef sharks in the world? This is it. In 2018, Loren Balesta and his team of scientists came down here, and they filmed a documentary called 700 Sharks. You need to watch it. It's pretty amazing. That documentary then made it even more popular for divers around the world to come here. Also, June and July, something really unique occurs. There is a grouper spawning on the full moon in both of those months. And during that time, tens of thousands of grouper come in to spawn in the South Pass. So that is something that's really unique, and that's one of the things that they cover in the documentary. So if you show up to that, does it make you a groupie? Oh, man. But the underwater life in Fakarava is not the only thing people come here for. There are many reasons. First of all, it's in a great location in the Tuamotos. It's pretty much right in the middle. So when you're sailing from Marquesas through the Tuamotos to Tahiti, this is a great stop to rest, to re-provision. You can eat at a restaurant. You can get fuel, which is great. There's just enough civilization, but not too much to make it really super special. Yeah, and if you're easting, which is really hard because of the trade winds, most of them going west, this is a great place to do all that Admiral said and also to wait for another weather window. The atoll is quite large. It's 40 nautical miles from top to bottom and 12 nautical miles wide. It has very well-marked ship channels, which make sailing through it that much easier. So you don't have to worry about the bombies. All of the bombies are marked. Of course, you still have to use visual navigation, but it is much easier to get around this atoll than others. It also has the largest entry in the Tuamotos, so the channel in the north to come in by sailboat is very easy. You don't have to time the pass because it really is so wide that the currents either leaving or coming in don't affect you so much. And then, of course, you can get some wonderful deals on black pearls, which are only made here in French Polynesia. Also, they have an airport here, which is great. And I think the first restaurant that we ate in since Americases. You can bike ride. There's all kinds of things without trying to get into the weeds. It's worth coming here, especially if you're a cruiser and you're thinking about expanding to the Pacific or just visiting here, not on a boat. Wanting to know a little bit more about the different parts of Fakarava that are worth seeing. So as Brown said, there are four main areas that we're going to talk about over the course of the next four weeks. We've been here for a couple of months now, so we've been back and forth to all of these because you bounce around with the winds. You really can't stay in one location for too long because you end up having what's called marimoos, these really fortified south or southeast trade winds, which pin you into a place for a period of time because you have to choose the southeast corner of whatever atoll you're in to stay in for protection from these winds. And that's this particular season, the winter season here in the Tuamotos. And then every now and then you just get walloped with a southerly that didn't show up on Predict Wind. We can show you how we find those now. That's going to be some valuable information in future videos. So let me introduce the four locations we're going to talk about. One for each week. One is the South Pass. The main attraction is diving and snorkeling. But there's also a very laid back village called Tetemanu Village, which is really cute to walk around. And then there is the famous Sabla Rosa. It used to be the old anchoring site for boats. And now we're no longer allowed to anchor on the west side of the pass. So most people don't know about it. But it is absolutely stunning, gorgeous pink sand with bright blue water. Yeah, it's definitely worth going to. And I would say probably 90%, 95% of the boats don't even visit there. The second place is the North Pass. This is great for diving and snorkeling. It has easy access to the town. It's only about six miles away from the main town. It's got the easy pass to come into. So if you come in that pass and you want to drop anchor right away, you can do that. It's got great snorkeling at the Red Buoy, which is just a quarter of a mile from the main pass. Half a mile. It's just epic for snorkeling. And there's also beautiful beaches on the peninsula that is right in front of the anchorage. The third place we're going to talk about is Rotoava, which is the main town of Fakarava. And most cruisers will stop in there when they come north for a number of reasons. This is the place to get your fresh vegetables and fruits, which happen only once a week. They come in on a ship. And that's an interesting process to know how to get the best access to those provisions. A lot of cruisers will go there for easy access to the airport. Dropping someone off, picking someone up. There are also some restaurants there, so you get to actually treat yourself to eat out. There is great cycling. You can rent a bike for a super cheap amount of money and cycle the island. And it's really just one road that goes back and forth. But interesting places you can stop at. And we were able to enjoy the church that's there on a couple of Sundays, which is a wonderful experience. And the last place is called Harifa. This is the location that's in the far southeast corner of the Atoll. I have to say it's probably my least favorite anchorage in all of Fakarava. But it is probably the most important one because it is the place where you get shelter from the Maramu winds. And we experienced two Maramus while we were here. It is loved by kiters because it is shallow. So that is a good motivation to be here. There's a kite school. And it is in close proximity to the South Pass, only about six miles from the South Pass. And it's a huge anchorage, so a lot of boats can fit in here. Without Harifa, we would not be able to stay in Fakarava for very long. We're really glad that it's here. And, oh my goodness, we're so spoiled. If you compare this anchorage to many others in the world, it's better. But compared to just the offering here, it's probably fourth on the list. So that's the overview. We're really excited to share our experience here with you. It's pretty epic. Guys, if you hadn't, click the subscribe button. Show us a little bit of love. Please hit the like. It's really good for the algorithms. And share these videos also. Again, we love to hear from you. Make some comments. We'll get right back to you. 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