AdventuresAboardAvatar: Sail to Fakarava, music in Hireefa

Before most passages Mike does an engine room check and service. Before our overnight sail he had changed out the fuel filters, checked the oil and water. As we headed out the pass at the change of the tide, our faithful Isuzu decided to cut out right in the middle of the pass! So we quickly rolled out the jib and sailed back into the lagoon. Once we were clear of any danger, Mike ran below to find that one of the fuel filters had not seated right and we had sucked in some air to the fuel line. Hmm, hate it when that happens. Once solved we quickly got the engine running again and headed back out the pass. This is the view of our track on the chart plotter as we circled back and finally headed out.

We left with two other boats just before sunset for the 50 mile trip to the South Pass in Fakarava. That is Restless, with Ted and Anne-Marie leaving the pass just behind us in their Cape Dory 40.

Here is a close up of the pass side of the motu we had hiked to from the shack.

Restless sailing outside the pass.

Cape Dory's are quite fast and he zoomed ahead of us. Actually he beat all of us and left last! Nice work!

Liward is ahead of us in their Hans 48.

The sun was setting in front of Liward leading the pack.

We were all watching as the sun starts to dip below the horizon.

It is very hard to photograph the elusive green flash, but we all saw it that night!

The moon was in his happy face mode, smiling down upon us after returning from the new moon phase. I was not able to photograph it, but the moon set not long after sunset and with a black sky it lit up with stars. I swear I had never seen as many stars as I did that night. It was like the Milky Way Galaxy was painted across the sky!

The sun rose the next morning, a few hours before reaching Fakarava.

We were all anchor down in Hireefa, which is in the SE corner of the atoll. The water here is such a lovely turquoise!

We got together that night aboard Liward (after naps of course). Steve is a great musician and promoter and loves to find other boat musicians to play with. This night we had Mike and Katie from Pangea, Ted and Anne-Marie from Restless and us from Avatar.

Mike looks at his lovely wife as she sings along with Steve on guitar.

Miguel, Anne-Marie and Lili enjoy the music.

Katie is a trained professional vocalist and Ted is a very talented musician, playing his fiddle or violin at this moment.

Later he switched to his sax! What a great night it was!!

The next day Liza had returned home to her cruiser hangout restaurant. It is a great spot, decorated with all kinds of sea debris and flags from various places.

They made a hammock out of this netting (note to self, must come back and rest in that!!)

But we were headed on a hike to the outer reef with Lili on a shell hunting expedition. This is the back side of Liza's house (note cement walls for protection from the ocean!)

Behind her house is this lovely middle lagoon which is fairly deep, but we crossed it on a sandbar up to our knees.

Miguel with his hiking stick checks out the outer reef.

This one big white stone sanding on end with a piece of coral on top marked another path to reach this spot.

Notice how red the coral is out there protecting the atoll.

Lili and Miguel walking ahead of me.

At one of the high tide marks we found a huge amount of sponges!

This really shows that high tide mark!

Later in the day, Steve and Lili came by on their paddle boards all decked out in matching garb. They looked so lovely with in the same colored water!!