[password] pilot25041
[position] 16 29.74s 152 02.86w
[status] Friday ..... an FP bank holiday to celebrate "Autonomy" day, since Tuesday we have left Bora Bora and ar enow on our way back there again! After a very peaceful night off Toopua Motu, Wednesday dawned with a few clouds over the hills ...... we had quite a few heavy showers throughout the night, which gave the boat a good rinse off! Ruth was a bit off colour, possibly due to some tomato juice she'd consumed the day before ........ anyhow, we needed to collect the washing from the yacht club and restock the larder from the supermarket. The washing wasn't ready till mid pm, so the supermarket was dealt with and then after lunch back to the 'yacht club' not quite a 5 minute job, but successfully completed, we then went around the bottom of Toopua Motu and past Paul Gaugin and Wind Spirit cruise ships, to stop fairly near our previous anchorage, so we could see the "big hill" and the nearly full moon rising, by this time Ruth had recovered from her malaise.

Thursday morning, we lifted our anchor after breakfast and headed off to Maupiti, another island with a"big hill" surrounded by coral reefs approx 25nm away. The single entrance through the reef is very narrow and impassable with any wind /swell from SW-SE, as the forecast was for none or only little wind from the north for 3 days, it seemed an appropriate time to visit. We arrived at what appeared to be slack water, easily getting in through the entrance with fairly big breaking waves only 20 or so metres away, once inside there is a clearly marked channel to the main island & town, it needs to be as it winds its way through the rocks & coral. There were 3 other yachts inside, but well spaced out about 1/2nm apart, we dropped our anchor in 4m in flat calm water. The 'motus' here look absolutely beautiful, with white sand beaches and palm trees all over them, the main island has fabulously spectacular rock hills, we all thought we were in paradise and this is easily the m
ost beautiful island we have seen so far...... Allan said it was the most beautiful island he had ever seen, so it must be good!
We went swimming then headed across to Motu Tuanai, complete with chilly bag of cold beers, the wild life was incredible, from land crabs to hermit crabs (so quite large) running around, to the multitude of small fish in the sea, after a walk and explore we sat on the sand and watched the sun disappear behind the hill with a cold beer in hand ......... a fabulous end to the day!

After another quiet night at anchor with the sea like glass, we ventured ashore after breakfast, as it is a bank holiday our expectations of shops being open were low, however, a couple of small 'magazins' were open but didn't stock anything we wanted. The bread shop was closed and wouldn't open until Sunday morning, but you need to be there at 5am or they'll be sold out! At the top end of town, they were holding the children's games, we watched them sack racing and doing tug of war, but they were clearly set up for the whole day, so we retraced our steps and went to the other end of town and new wharf, before getting back to the boat. Over lunch ....... Ruth had cooked Guinness bread, we then debated about moving the boat when the engines were running to charge the batteries, however, once Allan had downloaded the latest gribs with the wind showing increasing to 15kts from SE by Saturday morning and we'd also seen the wave action over the reef, it was a no brainer to depart
back to Bora Bora with all haste. To say we have some spectacular photos of our exit through the pass would be an understatement, needless to say we got through safely and are now halfway back to Bora Bora, thankful that we aren't stuck in a beautiful anchorage awaiting a weather window to depart, as Mitch is due to fly in from Auckland over the next few days!

The heavy clouds have now disappeared, we have 10kts wind on the nose and we're motoring at 6.5kts eastwards to Bora Bora, the swell is from the SW and probably the reason why our exit from the entrance was a bit wild and bumpy!

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