Yesterday morning Mike and Renee took the dinghy around the corner to Vaitape to do some provisioning and returned a couple of hours later with a boat load of food. After it was all put away we slipped our mooring and powered south to do some snorkeling at the south end of Toopua. On the way we paused off of Vaitape to hit a fruit stand since the shore crew hadn't found the fresh fruit they were looking for on their first expedition. Mike and Renee took the dinghy in while Rob and I drifted off shore on Van Diemen. Mike took the opportunity to purchase a bag of ice. Our evening rum drinks are civilized again.
There is a great snorkeling spot at the south end of Toopua where the water that comes over the barrier reef as surf flows into the lagoon. We anchored in twenty feet of water on a sand bar close by and swam over. There are normally a couple of commercial boats here full of tourists but we had it all to ourselves. As a result we were mobbed by the fish there that are used to being fed by the divers. There were thousands of disappointed fish (we didn't feed them) around us and I got some great GoPro video.
We have been watching a low pressure system approaching the Society Islands for about a week now. Our grib files showed it passing just south of us today bringing the wind out of the west for about twelve hours. This would be perfect opportunity to head east back to Huahine, so that is our plan.
Unfortunately, gribs do not do a good job predicting the winds in the area of fronts, and apparently there was a front associated with this low pressure system. We anchored in the bay off of Vaitape late yesterday afternoon in anticipation of strong northerly winds last night. The gribs didn't show a front though and true to form didn't predict winds as strong as we saw overnight. It blew over thirty knots in the gusts as the front passed at midnight, but our anchor held and we were fine.
This morning the wind is back down in the low teens and blowing from just west of north, perfect for today's sixty mile dash over to Huahine.
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