May 20 - Anchored at Fakarava

Lat S16deg30min;W145deg27min: Weather forecast was for very light to no wind over the next 5 days, so we decided to depart Makemo and motor to Fakarava. We had a rough time retrieving our anchor - I'll write more about that in another blog entry, but it finally came up and we had no trouble exiting the NW pass at Makemo. We motored about 65 miles and a light northerly wind finally came up at 0300, allowing us to slowly sail the rest of the way to Fakarava. We entered Tumakohua Pass at 0715, and anchored shortly after. Several other boats are here, including Soggy Paws, Visions of Johanna and Nakia. This atoll is 32 miles long by 15 miles wide, with lots of places to explore, and the pass diving is reputed to be the best in all of the Tuamotus. We'll rest up a bit and look forward to having fun here! Tonight it's dinner ashore at the family run Pension Motu Aito, with our friends and the guests--an Italian and a Japanese couple. Bill from V of J, John from Nakia, and Dave from Soggy Paws went with our host, Manihi, outside of the atoll on a fishing trip, and managed to catch the wahoo that was served. Talk about fresh!