We spent a week in Hao, first anchored outside the dock, later we moved into the harbour and joined our friends on Ednbal and Raynad who were already alongside there. Apart from daily sundowners on the dock with our neighbours and free (!) internet provided by the mayor’s office Hao doesn’t have too many attractions. The ladies at the ‘mairie’ who I asked about anything to see or do, could also come up with nothing (apart from church on Sunday 
). Over the past few days several planes a day landed to take school pupils from the big college in Hao back to their homes on the different atolls for Christmas.
Today we enjoyed a lovely daysail from Hao up to Amanu. The wind was steady 12-15 kn from the ESE, the seas were calm (not even the cat got seasick), and the sky mostly sunny. Hao flushed us out through its pass with 3.5-4 kn in spite of a rising tide well after low water. We reached Amanu’s pass 16 nm and 3 hours later where a strong ingoing current and opposing wind caused steep waves inside the pass. Amanu has a narrow pass with a reef that requires a turn at the end, so we waited an hour, sailed further up and down hoping to eventually catch a fish, but no luck there. An hour later we had 2 knots of ingoing current, but no problem entering the lagoon.
We sailed directly down to the southeastern corner as the weather forecast predicts stronger southeasterly wind. We’ll start exploring tomorrow.
