Dodging Bommies

Hi to everyone. last time we posted we had just arrived in the beautiful atoll of Raroia in the Tuamotu Archipelago. This time we will tell you about our exploration of this atoll and where we are currently in Makemo Atoll.

The first thing you are probably asking is what are Bommies, and why do we need to dodge them?! Well bommies are the technical cruisers term for the towers of coral that grow in these atolls. Some are tiny and some are huge. But all of them will do serious damage to your boat. So when ever you are sailing across the atolls or are trying to drop your anchor, you have to be on the look out for these underwater obstacles. Here’s a zoom in of Raroia on google maps. We use this as we are going along to try and avoid the spots you can see on the picture. These are all coral bommies that grow from the sea floor in towers up to the sea surface. The depth here is about 30 metres. There are a lot of them! One of us stands on the bow too whilst we are sailing so that they can call out to avoid ones that dont even show up on the satellite image. It makes for some hairy but fun sailing!

We stopped in two anchorages in Raroia. The first was called the twin palms yacht club which was a kind of cruisers hang out place on one of the motus. Motus are the little islands that form the edge of the atoll and are generally covered in coconut palms.

After a few days recovering from our three day sail, we moved down further south to the Kon-Tiki anchorage.

The sailing inside the Atoll is magical. Light winds and absolute flat winds and its only ever a couple of hours at most to get anywhere. You can see one of those bommies in the pictures above. That will put a dent in Azimuth if we hit it!

The Kon-Tiki anchorage is named after the famous raft that left Peru in 1947 and sailed 4500 miles across the pacific ocean until it ended its voyage when it crashed in to the reef right next to this anchorage. Its a really interesting story. They made a film called Kon-Tiki (as well as a remake in 2012) which is well worth a watch about the epic journey. We watched it whilst we were anchored here.

Its an incredibly remote place and its hard to imagine what it must have been like to crash on the reef here. The rocks are razor sharp. On the little motu next to the anchorage there is a plaque that has been installed that commemorates the journey.

It certainly is a stunning place to visit. However, its not without its challenges. Most of the time the wind howls over the reef and its hard work paddling our little canoe to shore to go and explore. Well worth the effort though!

After a few days here, we decided to move on to the another atoll and continue our journey onwards to Tahiti. Next stop was an overnight sail to Makemo. Another lovely downwind sail although the seas were quite rough.

It was an amazing sunset on the trip over. It felt like the sky was on fire.

We arrived outside Makemo the next morning just as the sun was rising and negotiated our second Atoll pass. This one was very wide and deep and the current was not too strong so we got in without issue and dropped the hook just near the pass off the village of Pouheva. This anchorage was a little rough and not so protected, but we wanted to go in to the village to get some more supplies and hopefully visit a restaurant.

We chilled for the rest of the day and then the next morning, took the canoe to shore. We took a walk around this really pretty town. Everyone was really friendly and we had a lovely morning.

We went to a couple of the supermarkets and stocked up. Later that day we went to shore again and had chicken and chips at a little restaurant.

It was dark by the time we got back to the canoe and the wind was howling too. It was a wet ride back to the boat and the highlight was a large shark that appeared right in front of the canoe as we crossed a reef!

The next day we decided to move somewhere else in the atoll that was a bit more comfortable. That’s where I am writing this post from now. We have been here about a week and it really is a stunning place.

After a couple of days in our new home, the wind completely died. We woke up to the most serene place you could ever imagine. It was hard to describe what it was like. It was difficult to discern the sea from the sky. The water was crystal clear, where you could see every fish clearly and even see our anchor chain in 11metres of water.

We spent all afternoon that day exploring the anchorage in the canoe and snorkelling. At some point I will put together a video of some of it. We also explored the reef that extends from the shore and saw quite a few black tip sharks in the shallows.

Another great sunset ended that day…

The next day couldn’t have been more different in terms of the weather. There was a huge low pressure depression about 500 miles to the south of us and the tail end of it swept across the atoll with strong winds and waves battering the anchorage. It only lasted 24 hours thankfully!

Yesterday with the weather calm enough to get back in the canoe again we went to shore and went for a fabulous walk along the edge of the atoll. On the outer shore, we were really dismayed to sea so much plastic in a place as remote as this washed up on the reef. The sooner they ban single use plastic packaging and bottles the better in my opinion.

Plastic waste aside, this place is so very special and deserves all our efforts to protect it for future generations to enjoy.

I feel very privileged to have the chance to visit this special place. Check out these really cool fossilised corals. The place is covered in them, all washed up from the outer reef

We’re probably going to chill out here for a while longer and wait for our friends on Coral Moon to catch up with us before we move in to the next atoll. Its such a hardship!

Join us next time then as we continue to explore the Tuamotus.