Karen ..please can you text me on my sat phone any new about letting out my apartment in London?
Simon please text me a confermation of dates.... Veronica is flying to LA & july & returning with her mother on the 30th..so we could sail to Bora bora within that time frame. 18-30th.?
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we simply set the sail's, dailed in the heading on the auto pilot, entered a couple of 4 mile safety guard's around "Apple" (yacht) with her radar & Her ASI nav system.. then layback & enjoyed the crossing... the squalls are now becoming a distant memory..the weather in the tuamotu's is pure heaven, dry no humidity, temp constant 28-30C perfect sunny, clear blue skyes...
Arrival... Due to the nature of the "Atolls" being an ocean within an ocean... combined with their lack of any navigation markings & only one entrance channel.... timing your entrance is vital!!! the currents can be as strong as 7 knots,( which could sweep a little yacht onto the reef... So slack water is the preferred time to enter.. thus we had to stand off the night, for the following mornings 6'30 am slack tide...
Ahe is an truly amazing atoll.. very low profile, just a strip of white corral sand 23 miles circular & 500 meter wide, framing the coral garden ocean within.. inside its cerrounded with white corral sandy beaches, framed with palm tree's, all of it's 200 local inhabitance work in the various pearl farms that stand on stilts over the turquoise ocean in the middle of the atoll... just one shop which open's ..well we haven't worked that one out yet.. we've now been here for 3 days, diving, looking for pearls..ummm well the "pearls" actually found us on the second night..when a local fishing boat drew along side APPLE at around midnight, the other "Apple" our Dog..barked to warn us of his arrival.. suddenly a smiling face with a hand's filled with pearls .. saying in French... Well Veronica translated very eagerly.. he want's to exchange his pearls for any Alcohol we might have.. .. so now we're pealed up..if that the expression..OK.. must rush.. as none of these tiny atoll have any internet..however Manahi the island we just about to pass..is the local SSB station..so I'm hoping to send this via my broken SSb system ass I'm going to be so close.. NOTE Simon yes those dates are fine, can't wait to catch up... sorry for the quick blog..
AS another yacht dropped ancor here this morning... we've decided to move to another Atoll 7 another adventure..just 50 miles away..where the diving is supposed to surpass this..?..
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.. So now we're ready to set sail across the south pacific to the Tuamotu islands, a mere 500 miles south east, we were planning to make our first land fall on Manihi, but have now I've decided to sail a little further to AHE... ...due to her deeper channel, All the islands in the Tuamotu group are atoll's, so taking into account, tide's, our yacht's 9' foot draft (ummm...a nightmare in shallow atoll's ..but a dream in the swell's out in the open ocean) . these islands are extremely low, only visible on a radar under 8 miles.. i expecting to find transparent ocean, white coral sandy beaches, with some of the best reef diving in the world....
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