Manihi

I stand at the bow, observing the outgoing tide as DOMINO cruises back and forth across the gap.  From the helm, JP verifies all his points, the time, his estimated slack water.  We're at "King's Tide," or the lowest of the low waters, a conjunction between the new moon and the moon being at its epigee.  With a MLW of 7', we're a bit worried about touching bottom as we reach the lagoon side of the pass.  JP keeps an eye on the depth sounder.  Over our last hour of observation, the current that was ripping out of the pass (an estimated 8 kts, according to the locals) has considerably slowed down.  Time to go in.

Amazingly strong this current, even on a calm day where there is hardly a ripple on the lagoon!  JP throttles up a bit and DOMINO glides effortlessly as we reach the bubbling chop at the shallowest part of the pass.  No worries, we still have 2' under the hulls.  JP makes a hard starboard turn at the green mark and we coast inside the lagoon.

Quickly, JP runs to the flybridge and takes a plunging view of the lagoon and its surrounding marked channel--piece of cake to navigate, as long as you remember the TRICOT VERT rule for the lagoon:  green triangle (Triangle Vert) towards the reef... or always to starboard as you navigate counter-clockwise.

 JP has his anchoring point picked out, on the southeast corner of the atoll and makes a beeline for it, plopping us at the edge of the channel.

 (S 14 27.87 – W 146 02.187)

With a cloud menacing to burst over us and the wind piping up, we drop anchor with 12 meters under our hull, hoping to hit sand.  I say "hoping" because the water isn't very clear in Manihi and you just can't see the bottom.  We have rehearsed our anchoring "Tuamotu Style," and drop 25 meters of 1/2" chain, hook a fender to it, then drop another 10 meters and hook a second fender to it, then another 10 meters, and finally hook the bridle adding another 10 meters.  This should keep most of the chain in suspension above the coral head.  Did we keep the right ratio of chain?  We have no idea!  Will we wrap around a coral column? Perhaps... But the winds have been pretty mild, except for a "grain" or 2 (showers) where the wind piped up to 25kt.  At any rate, we have not heard any grinding of the chain.  We'll see tomorrow.

Coral columns!  No small heads, my friends.  Just like we saw in the Abrolhos (Brazil,) giant coralline columns rise from the sea floor, only to bloom into mushrooming coral heads that spread just below the surface of the water.  These are easy to tell by their yellow-green or even turquoise color when they are filled with sand and white coral.  But the nasty ones are the columns you can't see, the ones that rise from the sea floor and never bloom to the surface, (I think they call them "bommies" here) like the one that is sitting right on our stern, about 5 meters under our hulls.  I wouldn't want to have dropped our anchor on one of those.  Hopefully JP kept a good eye on the depth sounder/fish finder and found us a nice sandy patch.  But from the way the anchor hooked bottom, I have some doubts... we'll see as we raise anchor tomorrow.  But, so much for the headaches of technical nature; on to the fun stuff!

How beautiful this anchorage!  We were expecting to find the lagoon filled with pearl farms, but the "pearl bust" has forced most of the farms to close and only a few still dot the lagoon.   Why?  According to the locals, a plethora of inexpensive pearls were indiscriminately dumped onto the market, sending the black pearl prices tumbling.  To produce a quality pearl, one must use a "seed" made with a special shell from the Mississipi. But these seeds are costly.  To save money, some farmers used a Chinese seed, but the result was a fragile pearl of lesser quality.  Bust time!  The small boat harbor at the village, once chock-full of pangas, is almost deserted.  Even the hotel whose wooden bungalow extend over the lagoon has closed its doors.  From our perspective, Manihi has gone dormant.  Only 500 souls live here and the village has the minimum amenities: 2 grocery stores, a bakery, 2 snack shops and an infirmary.  A church and a school... nothing more that we could see.

As for life on the motus, we checked out the locals.  You can find a bit of everything.  Some motus are very well arranged.  Some have nothing more than a shack.

We wanted to visit Cdt. Xavier Michel on his beautiful motu.  A retired commander from the French Navy, formally in charge of the Pacific Fleet, Mr. Michel (or should I say, Cdt?) is the guardian angel of cruisers in these parts.  Not only does he run the SailMail station, but he also monitors the AIS marine traffic and the Open Skymap for ADS-B for airplanes.  He can be reached by VHF on Ch. 16/77 when in Manihi, or by email to xavier.michel@mail.fp for tide info in Manihi.  Unfortunately, he wasn't around during our stay and we were not able to visit him, but he seems to welcome cruisers.  He even put DOMINO on the AIS world map at http://www.marinetraffic.com- Check us out!  Merci, Commandant!

At the opposite end of the spectrum is Terri.  This strapping Tahitian lives in a shack on the motu that stands between our anchorage and the open sea.  Hardly more than a spit of degraded coral and sun-bleached shells, planted with a single coconut tree, the motu affords little protection from the prevailing easterlies.  Yet, Terri welcomed us to his "Chateau."  We slid the dinghy into Terri's little "marina," tied to his 2 buoys, and, loaded with fruits from Monette's garden, met "King Terri."  Under wooden planks and corrugated tin, he lives happily, his cot by the window overlooking the lagoon, the salon's window peeking at the open sea. Let's not forget the 5-gal. jar of "Como Puaka," (Pig Water), Terri's drink of choice.  Water + sugar + yeast, let stand for a few weeks.  Well, I have an inkling that Monette's limes might just find their way into this jug, if only to improve the taste of the "Como Puaka."

For the rest, we've been doing what we love to do: swimming, snorkeling, hunting.  The water isn't very clear, often milky and sandy, even on calm days.  Never mind, we went hunting anyways, shooting a nice grouper every day, one of us spotting the other as a fair amount of black tip sharks cruise around.

At nightfall, we drop a line overboard and are sure to catch a small snapper of some kind, or a small Peacock Grouper, but the fishing is short-lived as the sharks are soon to gather around and we have no need for shark fin soup.  We must have hooked up a dozen of them and let them go!

We didn't "do" Manihi.  We didn't snorkel the pass; didn't visit a pearl farm; didn't swim the Blue Lagoon; we were just too lazy and too happy to drink the inebriating nectar of our first lagoon.

Manihi is one of the northernmost atolls of the archipelago and we intend to work our way southwest, once more, over the next 3 months.

It's time for another spectacular sunset.  Ahe is next and I hope our anchor isn't stuck at the bottom!

Until then...

dominomarie