397: Sailing Into One of the Most Remote Atolls on Earth…if only we could stay; Maupiha’a

Good morning everyone. Today is a big day for us. We are leaving Maupiti heading for Maupihaha. Maupihaha is the furthest west atoll in French Polynesia. It's about a hundred nautical mile journey tonight. It should take us about 24 hours or a little bit less actually. And there are 12 people that live on Maupihaha and they have their own food on the island that they are able to grow or catch. They fish, catch coconut crabs, have a garden, they have pigs, they have chickens, so they have enough stuff there. But we bring a lot of extra supplies and also some fun things too for them. We are also the ones that transport them to and from Maupiti when they come to visit family and spend some months off of the island and out of isolation. But before we head to town, I want to just talk briefly about the last couple weeks in Maupiti. The first week was pretty quiet. It was us and Lickety and we just enjoyed the time with them and very few boats here because the sea state was pretty rough. We also were able to go to church and we loved visiting that church. It was just amazing. It's Easter morning and we are headed to church this morning here in Maupiti. It is a beautiful day. Started out with a lot of rain showers and it's turned out to be beautiful. Todd's going with us and we're excited to see a new church. We just had a great time at the local church. They were very welcoming. The singing was absolutely magnificent. The ladies were dressed up beautifully with their hats including my lady right here. Looking at all the services that we went to, it was the best of the best. In our second week, Ian and Tara from Isla showed up and they introduced us to Wanderlush and boy things got moving really quickly once they arrived. Ian is definitely here. They came right over with a swim and then they went back, grabbed the dinghy and we went out with him to the pass to check out the waves. It's just full of adventure all the time with them around. It's bubbling for sure. Wow. We had a great time exploring the island, walking on sandbanks from one motu to the next, diving with the mantas, having sundowners on beautiful stretches of sandbars and just having a great time together. It was a wonderful, wonderful week before the winds subsided again and people were able to get through the pass into Maupiti. Then it started to get really full and that's where we are now. We have been here in Maupiti for two and a half weeks because we have not been able to find a weather window to head west but one has just opened up to Maupihaha. Tomorrow is looking like a great day so we are going to take that window and today is the day to prep. Our number one task of the day is to get in the water and clean the bottom. The reason is because we have pretty much no paint left and so anytime we sit for any amount of time the bottom gets really really dirty. It's our final night here in Maupiti and we are headed into town to have sundowners with our friends. Tonight is the last time with Isla so we'll have to say goodbye to them. Tom, it's the last morning that we have here in Maupiti and we have arranged with Carrie to bring things to her family in Maupihaha. It's extremely remote, there are no supply ships so they really count on the kindness of cruisers to bring them supplies so it's just a regular drip of people like us stopping there, resetting the weather window while heading to the cooks or Nui. It's not mandatory, we just want to do it just to help them out. Today we're going to spend the last little bit of money we have because you're not going to be able to spend it in Maupihaha because there are no stores there. There are just a few families that live there. I hear some of them live there seasonally. It's supposed to just be a really cool place. Wow, I hate to contribute to that. This is basically the main town of Maupiti. It's one road that goes all the way around the island and it's just lined with houses that are sort of like homestays. Well, most of them are homestays, not airbnbs or anything like that. And then punctuated in between these you have little magazines that supply whatever the locals need. They're actually pretty well equipped considering. Are we allowed inside or not? What's that? Are we allowed inside? I don't think so. It's kind of hard to tell what they've got here because you're not allowed inside but we're gonna do our best to ask what they've got. Try and spend our money. This family was so sweet. They just gave me two pamplamous to take with us for free. That was so nice of them. I told them no we wanted to pay and and they said no no it's for free. So I told them we can give it to the people in Maupihaha which of course they know those families because they come here and visit often. So all right, I am on my way to the port. Brown has gone to try and find some mangoes and I am going to meet Carrie to get the package for the family that is there. Oh fantastic. All right we've got the supplies Miss Carrie has given them to us and we are ready to go and look at those fresh baguettes. They're gonna be so happy. Well it's about time to start the engines and head on out. Our friends on Queen's Dream have already exited so the pass looks really good and it is good so that's nice. Always get the pre-trip jitters. Don't like that but hopefully once we get out there and get the sail up it'll feel a little bit more normal. Goodbye mantas. Goodbye Maupiti. Oh look at that. Wow stunning. Sorry guys. Robbie make sure there's no one on AIS coming into the pass. So it looks like we got a couple of knots current going out with us. Oh once more leaving the tranquility and safety of the lagoon for the adventure outside. Some days I just want to stay in the lagoon. The captain always wants to leave the lagoon. This looks good. We've got Bora Bora way out there. Maupiti in our river mirror now. Headed to Maupiaha which we will not be able to see until we're practically on top of it. Well we've got a beautiful sea state and part of that is because we have no wind. So it looks like it might be a motoring trip. What we were really trying to avoid and what we waited for this window for but now it looks like we might not get anything. Very thankful for completely calm conditions. This is amazing. It's just beautiful. So we've just left Maupiti and we've got 105 miles to get to Maupiaha which will be an overnight passage for us and the conditions are great so the pass into Maupiaha which can be really really dangerous and is super narrow is going to be completely manageable. We hope. We'll see how the weather is tomorrow morning but should be fine. So that's the plan for today and Brown has cooked up some lentils and rice so we've got plenty of food there but of course when you're on a passage all you crave is munchies so that's why we're eating potato chips but we need salt. We just sweated a whole bunch trying to put the sail up and now we need salt so grab the potato chips. Sun is setting. We've got a little bit of rain ahead. Maupiti is barely recognizable. It's been a very very chill day still running our engines because we've got literally no wind so looks like it's going to be that way for the rest of the night. Not a bad thing because then it'll be an easy entrance into the pass when we arrive. Brown's going to be taking over the helm at six. I'm really hoping I can get some sleep since no sails are up and nothing's really going on. There's also no storms on radar so it hopefully will be a dry night. That would be the best if it was. We'll see. It's one o'clock in the morning. I just took over for my shift. We're trying something new. Brown is only getting on at seven now and trying to go to two. I was up so I came on at one but it worked much better for me to be able to get some sleep. It is so calm tonight. I can't believe it. Well we have no wind that's why seven knots behind us directly downwind. We're slated to get in about nine o'clock so not what we hope in terms of being able to sail but what we love in terms of just a calm passage so it's good. Best time of day. Sunrise and we're almost there. We've got another 15 miles or so. Land ho guys. We are back in the land of the Tuamotu-esque atolls. No more mountains and we are about an hour or so from the entrance to the pass. It is super calm which is fantastic and we have our friends on Queen's Dream ahead of us. They're gonna get to the pass before us and hopefully scope it out so it'll be interesting to see what their assessment is if there's enough sunlight and what the pass looks like. Apparently it is supposed to be outgoing all the time so it doesn't matter actually when we enter. It could be up to four or five knots. It's been really calm recently so I kind of think it's going to be less than five knots. It'll probably be a couple of knots and it is super narrow only 15 meters wide so just about double the width of our boat. So yeah a little bit nervous about that but we've got the best conditions to go in so I think it'll be fine and we don't hear people hitting the reef too often so that's good. Our friends on Queen's Dream are going in so it must look really good to them. Must have great light. We're up next. Oh man. Wow this is crazy. Wow this is insane. Wow so relieved to be through that. That is one narrow pass and the birds just make it even more interesting. Wow. Oh it is so good to be anchored down. Perfect spot. Oh I think this is the family coming to pick up all their stuff. Nous avons un cadeau pour toi. Elena and Brown. Wow the local family just came to pick up the supplies that we got from Karina in Maupiti and they were so cute and so excited about getting the baguettes and the boxes from their sister. It's such a cool thing and they invited us for dinner tonight at six o'clock for coconut crabs and we're bringing dessert. Yes we are. We're here out in the middle of nowhere last stop off in French Polynesia speaking the last bit of French. We may only be here like one or two nights too before the next good sale comes so it's a precious time. So many cruisers like this place better than any place. Love this place. Yeah so it's a really unique the relationship the symbiotic relationship that the locals have with the cruisers. They love each other. It's great. Yeah this will be fun tonight. As it turns out after motoring for 24 hours from Maupiti tomorrow is the best day to leave and John our weather router says it's a nine out of ten type of sailing passage and if we don't take it then we either have to motor for three days which I refuse to do or it could be two weeks before we're out of here. So what we're trying to do is keep moving so that we stay ahead of the arc which is a big regatta that pretty much paid to be part of a regatta that goes around the world and what they do is they stop at all the best places and suck all the resources out of the areas that they're in. So we're kind of in a hurry but our heart is full. We've been to so many remote places like this that we can get moving and not feel like we're sacrificing. So that's where we're at right now and it looks like all the conditions are go for a eight o'clock departure tomorrow morning. We're even doing some laundry on the boat so we lighten up the water load so we don't have as much water slowing us down. So that's the report. It's so exciting. Looking forward to moving west. Oh wow. Oh my goodness. Look at all the pots hanging on the tree. I love it. This is the kind of kitchen you want to have. So beautiful. Wow. That's eggplant. Eggplant and zucchini. Okay. Thank you for opening up your home. Thank you. Beautiful people, beautiful place, beautiful environment. So this moment was the one moment in two years I was looking forward to the most. Because many people talk about this. Many people talk about your family and how beautiful and kind. Amen.