Squalls

The last few days have seen very unsettled weather in French Polynesia, bringing high winds, squalls, large seas and lots of rain. The Tuamotus can be a bit of a problem in this type of weather because the anchorages are usually only protected in one direction and open to weather coming across the lagoon. So normally you move from one place to the next to make sure you have protection. But here is the rub the lagoons are large, 30 miles if not more, and there is coral everywhere so if you have overcast weather you cannot see the bottom well enough to dodge them.

We were lucky in that the anchorage we had moved to, was in fact protected to the south which was the direction of the worst of the weather. However, there is coral everywhere in our anchorage so it is unnerving to constantly be passing over it and around it with our anchor chain.

There is a pass near our anchorage where the current runs out at nearly 6 knots. Jake has had a blast drift snorkeling the pass, seeing the bottom race along. We counted 6 sharks circling us yesterday and uncountable number of fish, including some Napoleon fish that are nearly as large as Isabelle.

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