Tag: circumnavigation

Baby Sharks in Raroria, in our last Tuamotu

by Scott and Kathy Erwin, Sail the World, posted in Sailing, Scuba Diving

Fun with Sharks!
Okay, we had a little time waiting on the weather, so let’s play!
We gathered (chummed in) a few sharks in the back bay with some day old fish (no hooks) and did some filming with the GoPro(s). Big learning experience!!!! We thought there were only 10-12” babies in the back bay.

The first fish we put out was tied to a 5 lbs dive weight and worked just fine with the small sharks……well…..let’s just say that weight is gone…😳
The next fish we put out was attached to our bucket full or coral and sand. That didn’t last long either. I finally just put my foot in the bucket to keep the sharks from taking the fish. The next round, we got the stern anchor off Sea Bella and that worked great! These are all Black Tip Sharks btw……some much larger than the 12” we were expecting.

Hungry Baby.

Raroria was the last of the atolls we visited. For many cruisers it’s the first one to sail into from the Marquesis. Our highlights were exploring the Kon Tiki monument with our great cruising friends on Fundango, the huge pearl farm and of course our silly fun with the baby sharks. Our good cruising friends on SV Breakaway found these great Octopi:

Sailing through the Tuamotus was an amazing experience, but it was time to say goodby. Thank you for joining Scott and I online these past 6 months in 8 atolls (and Tahiti for repairs). It’s such fun to share our experiences with friends and family. We went on a sporty 3 day sail back upwind to the Marquesas for cyclone season (and for yummy fruit and fun mountains to explore!)

Watch this fun video on our visit in this atoll:

Scuba Divers Dream in Tikehau, French Polynesia (August, 2023)

by Scott and Kathy Erwin, Sail the World, posted in adventure, Scuba Diving

This feels like our Little Private Island…diving the wall outside the pass was breathtaking. We Sailed from Moorea and enjoyed a beam reach sail for over 175 miles. Beautiful, relaxing and pretty simple.
Tahiti and the big city feel were nice for views, boat work and a bit of tourism, but we are now back in “our” sweet spot. Tikehau has about 500 residents, some of the best snorkeling in the Tuomotus…….and less tourists.
Thank you friends on Idefax for the drone pictures. See the black blob? It’s the gigantic bait ball we dive with…take a look at the video!

Toau Tuomotus, South Pacific

by Scott and Kathy Erwin, Sail the World, posted in Sailing

We had a good time in the atoll Toau. Pretty island, but it wasn’t too sunny. Plenty of wind for our new sport of wing foiling. It seems a bit safer than kite boarding, but tricky to learn.

This actually a shot from Moorea

We also invited a sweet local copra farmer out to the boat for crab and pasta dinner. He is 30 yrs old, lives alone and beach walks with his dogs a few miles to the neighbors hut up the way. Marten’ also often goes out lobstering at night which is still on our ‘to do’ list. I her it’s tricky on the outer reef with sharp coral. He said he would carry the lobsters back in his backpack.

It was also very cool to meet young sailors on SVGenesis and Garrett on SVHulligan both sailing here from Hawaii. We had them over for sunset conch blowing and spaghetti dinner. We always like to share our Mexican cruising traditions.

Garrett in front and Ky and Noah in the stern.

Garrett is 19 years old. He recently sailed solo 30 days/2300 miles from Hawaii to Tahiti on a 27’ boat. At 16 he had saved enough money to buy his boat and then spent 18 months getting the boat ready to sail. After learning how to sail it around the Hawaiian islands he made the “big jump”. His last 3 videos have had quite a few views (1.9 mil) and now he enjoying French Polynesia on a few YouTube dimes. We hope to see him often as we have a similar plan to sail west in the next year.
No goal is too big!

Here is link to one one of his videos below. A bit raw and unproduced compared to many YouTube publications but he’s keeping it real.

And, of course, we took many beach walks, it’s always fun to try to identify the strange new creatures. The black worm looking things are actually sea cucumbers. The second photo is yet to be determined. Both were found in the coral tide pools on the outer reef. Kathy’s favorite shelling place.