As our departure from the Societies drew nearer, it was becoming clear the weather was going to make it difficult to get anywhere. The weather in 2025 has been strange. Steady, reliable eastern trade winds have been replaced with squalls, heavy rains, and strong westerlies. Basically, the zone of westerlies in the southern temperate zone has moved north to interfere with the trade winds. This has made it necessary for us to pick our weather windows much more carefully than is usually necessary in this region. It was clear to me, departing Bora Bora, that we weren't going to be able to get anywhere near the Cook Islands without being hit by some pretty bad weather.
With an eye to avoiding this, after an easy overnight sail, we pulled into Maupiha'a for a couple days to wait out the first blow while safely at anchor.
Passage from Bora Bora to Maupiha'a, and approaching the narrow pass to reach the shelter of the atoll for coming conditions
The only real trouble with this plan was that Maupiha'a has a pass that can only be transited safely in settled weather when the swell is low. There is always an outgoing current there. It can run anywhere between three and twelve knots, and the channel is only about three times as wide as Begonia, so there is not much room for error.
We got lucky. As we were plodding along slowly, after reducing speed so that we could transit the pass in the morning, a Finnish monohull passed us and entered twenty minutes ahead of our ETA. Through the binoculars, I could see that their transit wasn't smooth, but it didn't look too bad, either. Once they were in, they reported having to fight a three-to-four-knot current. We had a few standing waves less than a meter high on the approach, followed by the same three-knot ebb in the smooth water of the pass. The coral on either side is so shallow that it is really easy to see where the centerline of the deep channel runs. It was also nice to know that if we did hit anything, we would be going slow enough to bump lightly, with plenty of time to fix the situation.
The really unnerving part was at the shallow spot at the inside end of the channel, where the bottom rose quickly to within a meter of our keels, before slowly falling away again.
We were apparently not the only ones who had the idea of stopping to hide from the weather. Nineteen other boats were either anchored or underway in the lagoon. Since the wind of the last few days had been primarily out of the northeast, most were tucked in behind the hook on the island's northeast side. Since the coming blow was predicted to be strong from the south-southeast, we headed straight to the far, southern side of the island, with the idea of toughing it out there until the weather veered to the windward side of our end.
The next day, they all came to join us. The anchorage at southeast Maupiha'a has few spaces that aren't riddled with bommies. As I saw the fleet approaching, I was worried they would all try to crowd into the same spots and that the carefully selected swinging circle that we had prepared for Begonia to ride out the storm would end up filled with boats anchored without enough scope.
I am pleased to say I was wrong. All the boats spread apart, used lots of rode, and were generally very careful about floating their chains above the coral below. The chain floats, apart from protecting the coral, had the added benefit of helping those of us above the surface know the location of each boat's anchor, which saved the usual guessing, and kept anyone from crossing rodes. For example, when we arrived, we deployed our rode the wrong way, into the wind, so that our anchor would have a better set for the forces of the upcoming storm after the wind shift. Our anchor marker and the string of chain floats leading to it made it easy for nearby boats to plan their swinging circles around us as they arrived.
Even so, the anchorage was still high maintenance. Adding all the floats turned anchoring from a ten-minute job to an hour-and-a-half long project which included lots of deep swimming and shuttling back and forth to the boat to pick up more gear to get everything right. Every time we would swing more than thirty degrees or every time the wind strength changed significantly, another swim was always warranted to make sure the chain was sufficiently high enough to clear the coral beneath. I frequently needed to shorten the float lines or reposition them to keep the sags in the chain out of phase with the bommies. For the end near the anchor, where the chain ran across the sand, I had to go down twice during our stay to lift it over my head and walk it over a coral head that it had been curving towards. This was tough because my impression at the time was that I had used all my air getting to the seabed. I was ready to turn and head for the surface, but instead I had to keep my cool for another thirty seconds doing physical work, all while knowing my next breath is forty feet above me. I often wondered what it would feel like if I didn't quite make it. Even then, I tried to wonder as calmly as I could to keep my oxygen use down. Still, despite all the effort required, when the wind started to build, it was good piece of mind to know that everything down there was in good order.
With an anchorage littered with coral, and forecasts that led us to expect wild swings of the wind, we needed to float our chain; seeing the floats all in line helped us know we were not snagged or damaging any coral
We had a couple days before the winds arrived in earnest, so we took the opportunity to head ashore and see as much as we could beforehand. We did a big loop of the southern end of Maupiha'a, as well as the motu to the south, which we accessed with a shallow wade (at low tide). There are two main groups of structures on southern Maupiha'a. The first is a house belonging to a woman named Hina, who has lived on the island for twenty-five years. Just a little further to the south is what appears to be a fishing camp/getaway for those that live mainly in Maupiti (or even just on the north side of the atoll).
Hina is currently away on Maupiti, looking after a sick relative. In her stead is her dog, Meela. Meela was initially being taken care of by people in the northern village, but she soon walked the trans-island road back to her familiar home. In the meantime, she is being fed by passing cruisers. With so many of us around, she is getting fed something like seven times a day. Still, like all dogs, she is constantly hungry and tries the "Feed me. I'm starving" face on everyone that beaches a dinghy. Then she gulps down everything given to her in three bites. It's quite a racket. She's starting to get where her little legs aren't long enough to keep her belly out of the sand. It helps that she is also super-sweet and perfectly behaved. She seems to not have an aggressive bone in her body. The whole time we were at Maupiha'a, we never heard her growl or even bark. She mostly just likes to be scratched (and fed).
Snorkelling in the nearby shallows
Ashore on our nearby motu/island, we never expected to come across any road vehicles! Life is simple here, and the coconut crabs (seen here in there hermit crab stage) were on a never-ending mission to clean up.
On the windward side of our little atoll island, the scene was very different (no sand is a sure sign of some heavy surf conditions)
We waded across the shallow channel to Petero Motu (the island to the south), such beauty
On the dinghy ride back to Begonia, we stopped at several boats to introduce ourselves. We hit it off especially well with Geoff and Michelle from Midnight, the catamaran nearest Begonia, and also on the direct line between us and the beach. That gave us a chance to break up the row every time by catching up as we passed. The next day, they offered to pick us up in their dinghy for a snorkel trip to some of the more distant coral heads in the middle of Maupiha'a's lagoon.
The snorkel was fun, although pretty much the same stuff we have been seeing lately, only with steeper drop-offs to deeper depths. The real highlight of the day was when they decided that, since we were already most of the way there anyway, we would all head to Bird Island, on the northwestern edge of the atoll.
Snorkelling some of the larger bommies mid-atoll with Geoff and Michelle
Bird Island is the second-largest island of the group and appears to be where the entire population of the atoll's terns resides, possibly in an attempt to avoid Maupiha'a's dogs. As we approached, the density of birds increased to higher than we have ever seen anywhere. Their calls almost completely drowned out the sound of the surf.
Terns lay their eggs on open ground above the high-tide line with no semblance of a nest whatsoever. As we landed, we had to watch each footfall very carefully to avoid treading on one. The only time we could look up and enjoy the scenery, or the swirling flock of birds, was when we were standing still.
Geoff and Michelle had been to Bird Island a few days before. Geoff carefully led us to the nest of a lone booby chick in the bushes behind the beach. It was adult-sized, but still covered in white, fluffy down, and it seemed to be completely unbothered by us. We tiptoed our way back to the dinghy and left the terns to each other. Now we know why we've always seen them flying one way in the morning and the other in the afternoon.
And an unexpected trip to Bird Island (thanks to Geoff and Michelle). We hadn't expected to be stepping ashore, so every step we took on the rough ground with our bare feet was tentative and measured! Did you spot the egg on the ground; it is well camoflaged. The mass of terns is incredible, and the young boobie sits amid the noise.
The next day, we were visited by Simon and Sally from Shimshal. They are fellow OCC members and, despite the fact that we were not flying our burgee at the time, they knew about us because of Maryanne's regular position updates to their site. There were a few other OCC boats in the anchorage as well and Simon proposed we all get together on the beach, along with anybody else who wanted to come, before we are all confined aboard for the storm.
The group on the beach was perhaps a little large to form a single social unit, so after introductions, everybody gradually coalesced into different factions. The three big ones were: The surfers, including a young couple on a slightly older Athena, that was unfortunately anchored too far from Begonia for casual visits. Then there were the ‘kid boats.' They were a very tight clique who always anchored as close together as possible, presumably to make it easier for their kids to go back and forth to each other's boats. This, despite the fact that they are always going full speed in dinghies fast enough to traverse the entire anchorage in twenty seconds. Maryanne and I ended up in a group that would probably be defined as: Retirees with no kids aboard. There were other, smaller groups: The Germanic-speaking Scandinavians, The French speakers, and the Americans who won't shut up about themselves.
During our extended stay we did a fair bit of socializing (ashore aboard Begonia and on others' boats) but failed to take any pictures, here is one snapped by others of one of the beach gatherings, this one organized by Simon from Shimshal.
When the daylight started to fade, it started drizzling lightly, which we all took as our cue to head on home. I managed to get the dinghy stowed just after it started to rain hard.
The first day of the storm was boisterous, but not as bad as forecast. I had a swim to check our ground tackle again and then we hunkered down for the next day, which was forecast to be worse.
Just as it was nearing the end of daylight, one of the other boats made an announcement on the radio that they had just received a tsunami warning following an earthquake in Kamchatka. Using wifi from Midnight and Shimshal, we were able to find out that the Marquesas were evacuating their harbors and the rest of French Polynesia and the Cook Islands were expecting between one- and three-meter surges. Well, that's not good.
The best thing to do in an approaching tsunami is to get away from land and into deep water. The problem for the fleet in Maupiha'a was that the surge, and the reports from locations that the wave had already passed, was on the borderline between mild and worrying. We were all in a protected lagoon with few gaps. I was of the feeling that the rapid sea-level drop that proceeds the tsunami crest would affect us less because water wouldn't be able to drain out of the lagoon fast enough. That meant our main concern was what would happen if the subsequent crest was high enough to come over the top of the fringing reef. We were pretty sure the reef would take the energy out of any breaking wave, but if the atoll suddenly filled with a lot of water, the currents swirling through the lagoon could be really bad. If rising water picked up debris from the islands, we could end up finding ourselves in a ten-knot current filled with palm trees. We weren't sure how many anchors would be able to resist that.
Against this unknown risk were the various non-zero risks of going to sea. The worst of the storm was due in just a few hours. High winds were forecast, but also large breaking seas. We were all pretty well equipped to deal with that, but a big concern was the conditions at the pass. The large waves being pushed ahead of the storm were supposed to be rolling right across the entrance, which might make exiting more dangerous than staying. If we made it through to the outside, we could heave-to in the lee of the atoll until morning, but if the lagoon did fill with water, the entrance to the atoll may be impassable for days. This meant that if we were going to leave, which was a decision we would have to make within the next five minutes if we were going to have any hope of weighing anchor and making it to the pass by dark, we would have to be prepared to abandon the idea of returning and keep going. I knew from my daily weather checks that the storm would not have a long enough duration to allow us to get anywhere. Behind it was four days of headwinds, followed by another storm. While I got us ready to go, Maryanne had one last look at the tsunami height reports at the locations where the wave had already arrived. Almost all were lower than predicted. In the end, we decided not to risk the pass and hope the atoll would offer us some protection from whatever size wave does arrive.
One boat did leave; it was the boat that had made the initial warning announcement in the first place. They pulled up their anchor and left without comment. They didn't call to report conditions at the pass after they went through and everyone else had decided to stay put so didn't request one.
Now that we had decided to stay, we had other problems. The tsunami was predicted to arrive at Maupiha'a somewhere between midnight and one a.m. local time. It was the night of the new moon and a thick layer of clouds was overhead, dumping heavy rain. We had no chance of seeing an approaching wave or a change in current and the high winds made it unlikely we would be able to hear anything either. The only warning we would have would be a rapid change in the behavior of the constellation of anchor lights surrounding us. The strong wind was keeping us pinned to one spot on the end of our rode, so we were able to add our depth sounder as another data point.
As the appointed time arrived, we watched the thing like hawks. It never moved by more than the height of the waves and all the anchor lights around us stayed in their original orientation. We waited another hour and all was still completely unchanged. Harbors further along were reporting mild water level rises, but no damage. I was kind of hoping for a little something where we were, just so we knew for sure that the tsunami had passed and the effect was mild, but, at least on the inside of the lagoon, there was no indication that anything had happened.
A couple of days later, when the storm finally ended, we all emerged from our boats and resumed our pre-storm routines. Despite the fact that the westerlies behind the storm were making beach landings in the dinghy a bit of a wet ordeal, Maryanne and I went for long walks, snorkeled, fed the dog, and visited both Midnight and Shimshal for afternoons aboard.
Of all the other boats, only two or three had been in Maupiha'a for less time than we had by then. Most had already been for a week or a week-and-a-half by the time we arrived. It was pretty clear that a lot of them were champing at the bit to move along. Some boats had family or friends coming to meet them downrange. Some were trying to intercept boat parts. One boat was trying to make it all the way to Australia by the end of the season, so they just needed to get moving in general.
The weather was not helping with any of this. What everyone needed was a solid week of normal trade winds to get where they wanted to go. The forecast instead said: headwinds, storm, storm from the other way, storm again, calms, headwinds. A further complication was that probably eighty percent of the boats stuck at Maupiha'a were trying to go to Aitutaki, including us.
Aitutaki has the same problem Maupiha'a does with having a very shallow, narrow entrance channel that is dangerous to transit in big swell. Thus, boats going to Aitutaki had to time both their departure and their arrival very carefully. We knew from people who had friends that were already there that the small harbor at Aitutaki was already full. That group was waiting for a weather window to leave. When it comes, they will be replaced by us and Maupiha'a will then fill with the next group that is currently pinned down to the east, etc.
After doing more research on Aitutaki's harbor, and since we didn't need to get there like many of the other boats, Maryanne told me that she no longer wants to go to Aitutaki after all. By then, I was relieved. I wouldn't mind seeing Aitutaki, but I didn't relish the idea of being one of twenty boats trying to squeeze into space for eight. Trying to find weather that would allow us to get there and then have an easy entrance was also giving me a headache. The best solutions I could come up with required a dodgy exit from Maupiha'a.
In that spirit, on the day the westerlies were forecast to return to east for a few days, half the boats in the anchorage weighed anchor and headed for the pass. Maryanne and I had decided to wait another day or so for things to calm down, so we went ashore for a long walk. We were surprised, when we returned to the dinghy, to still see a few masts in the vicinity of the pass. We thought that maybe a few of the boats in the northern anchorage had seen the southern group go and decided to follow. A few hours later, every single boat that had left earlier returned and re-anchored in their old spots. It turns out they had all gone to the pass, milled around looking at it for a while, and then all decided there was no way any of them were going to attempt it. Apparently, it looked so bad, no one even tried to go the next day, even though things had calmed down slightly.
By then, a lot of people were starting to complain, or at least apologize, for being low on provisions. Some were on their twentieth day of a three-day stop. We were slightly amused by this, as we had just filled up in Tahiti a couple of weeks ago and would likely not need to start worrying about our stockpile for a couple months. Our previous experience with island scarcity served us well in this regard. One boat, a family of five, was running so low that they were living on a diet that was mostly coconuts, coconut crabs, and reef fish. They insisted they were not really in need of anything – they were just trying to delay making a dent in their stores until they were back at sea again.
Two days after the first attempt, three-quarters of the boats in the southern anchorage, including Shimshal and Midnight, finally weighed anchor and successfully made it through the pass, reporting conditions as no worse than a little choppy. Suddenly, with our anchorage down to only five widely scattered boats, Maupiha'a changed from a buzzing cruising hub to the quiet, remote Pacific anchorage that it usually is. That is, until the next wave of boats arrives…
And because they bring me so much joy on our travels, a few more bird photos from the atoll
Anchorage location >> On google maps
