Yesterday we started out early from Bora Bora and motorsailed hard on the wind in a light northwesterly. The pass of Maupiti is shallow and very narrow (about 50 m) and has a bad reputation for high surf on each side, breaking waves in the pass and strong currents. When a high swell fills the lagoon the water can only flow off through this one little opening, causing high speed currents, eddies and standing waves. At the satellite picture we downloaded beforehand it looks like a mountain stream where you’d probably consider whitewater rafting with a kayak, but certainly not with a sailing yacht…
However, we had picked the right day to go and in the calm conditions yesterday with just 1 m southerly swell it was no problem taking Pitufa through the pass against only 2 knots of current–piece of cake. After all that sweating and belly rumbling on the way we were almost disappointed 
Maupiti’s a miniature paradise 25 nm west of Bora Bora. The diameter of the lagoon is only 4 nm, the high main island in the middle has 11 square kilometers (1 200 people live along the coast), and the highest mountain is just 380 m high, but looks quite rugged and impressive on the tiny island. The northern side of the lagoon is fringed by an almost continuous motu and there’s another two little motus left and and right of the pass in the south. At the moment we are on a buoy next to the pretty main village Vaiae and there aren’t many other anchoring spots as the lagoon is very shallow, but given the small distances we’ll explore by kayak, dinghy and pedes.
