February 2018

Water, so much water!

While the banks of the river Seine disappear under the flood, we are not much better in the Tuamotu islands, where the sky is dark by the end of January, after days of violent thunderstorms and lightning bolts that had us jump like Mexican jumping beans.



While we waited for a weather window to allow us to sail eastwards, we have reached again with great pleasure, deserted at this time of the year, the magnificent anchoring spot at Hirifa ; Liza, who has created here a small restaurant, wasn't there, but we've been able to fly the Little Drone over wonderful sand banks, known as "Hirifa's pink sands" Strangely they had disappeared about fifteen years ago, and they've just come back in full splendour.

Half way between Hirifa and Rotoava village, Matthieu, the founder of a small yacht club ( a handful of mooring buoys, Matthieu's reliability and Agnès' gentleness are the reasons why, although quite remote, the place is often visited by sailboats stopping over in Fakarava), Matthieu has installed on my boat the radar he had extracted from a wrecked sailboat he had bought for a symbolic amount and repaired and I'm able again to check the movements of rain squalls and guess the moment the thick veils of rain are going to fade...

And then we have benefitted at last a rare window of calm weather to leave Fakarava, heading for our famous "Anchoring spot number one". But even here in Paradise, weather conditions this week leave much to be desired, and we gather rainwater to fill our boat's tanks, while hoping a short clearing of the sky will allow us to sacrifice to the ritual (otherwise quite wet) of a little "pastis" drink in the shade of the coconut trees.


To your health!