Pitufa.at

Our usual advice to new arrivals in the Tuamotus is to arrive at an atoll in the morning and to watch the pass for a while to make sure that the conditions to enter are favourable (no wind against current, avoid the mid section of the pass where the current runs quickest, etc.). Of course we were going faster than expected (we did 6-7 knots in winds of 25+ on the beam), of course we reached Fakarava in the dark at 10 in the evening and of course we didn’t want to wait outside the pass all night, so we did not heed our own advice, but had a go anyway. The northern pass of Fakarava is huge, we’ve been in and out a dozen times, but I still got quite an adrenaline kick as we were surfing down the waves in the dark with no bearing lights except for the green blinky light on the edge of the pass. We made it safely in and anchored right next to the pass on the western side, to avoid navigating at night inside the lagoon.