Sailing Fakarava To Aratika
After a few lovely days just a short trip to the bakery and shop (of which we fully abused!) we decided it was time to explore another Atoll while we had stable weather.
We left the pass at Fakarava early morning and sailed 40NM north to a small Atoll called Aratika. It’s a much less visited Atoll but we’d heard the freediving is very good and there’s plenty of space for fires on the beach. About four hours in some brown footed boobies decided to go for our fishing lines… once we bought them in (without any birds attached thankfully!) they then started going for our VHF antenna. I’m unsure what they wanted but they continued this endeavour for near on an hour!
Once we arrived in Aratika we made one attempt to enter the narrow pass. We found about 5 knots of current coming out and decided it was best to wait another hour in hope for less current and then try again. After an hour of sailing up and down outside the atoll we made our second run for the pass. This time we had 3-4 knots against us and we very slowly made our way through and into a mooring bouy. Plans have already been made for a dive of the pass tomorrow morning.