Target practice.

24^th May 2024

Hakahetau, Ua Poa, Marquises, French Polynesia – Kon Tiki, Raroia, Tuamotus, French Polynesia via Hakahetau, Ua Poa, Marquises, French Polynesia

Whenever we sail offshore we have a target of arriving at our destination in daylight. This is usually a pretty easy target to hit. We had a different sort of target to hit leaving the Marquises. We had to hit one which was constantly moving, unknown in its scale or location and we felt like our firing squad were a bunch of blind geriatric hedgehogs who were aiming from the inside of a bag. With the hedgehogs taking aim our chances of hitting the target seemed unfathomably low.

Before we could take on our water based target we had a land based one to hit, we had pitons to climb and the peaks of Oa Poa to circumnavigate. With the sun still yet to rise above the horizon we were on target with boots clumping into soft mud which had been soaked by the pre dawn dew.

Slowly we made our ascent and walked through eco system after eco system. The arid shoreline gave way to a verdant rainforest and this was quickly replaced by ferns that had eclipsed every other type of fauna. With each step the path became steeper and more precipitous and we quickly transitioned into trees which hung with moss which thrived from the moisture that leached out of the clouds that surrounded us.

Even at this height the pitons still towered above us making us feel like minnows and showing just how far we still had to climb. When the clouds parted we could see the whole majesty of the target, but we could also see the path getting narrower, the near vertical drops on each side of it grow steeper and the the mud changing from nice and grippy to ice rink slippy.

Taking in the last of the viewpoints and cresting our last hill we now had to loose all the ascent we’d worked so hard to gain, and going down is always harder than going up. Extending our trusty hiking poles they sank into the soft mud and we blindly trusted them to stop our descent if the worst happened. Getting through the trees, through the ferns and back into the rainforest the poles were suddenly of no use. Things had become so steep we resorted to the use of ropes and ‘bottom brakes’. After hours of descent we’d finally hit our target. The pitons had been circumnavigated, our quarry was complete and we’d returned to sea level with all our limbs still intact.

Looking at the weather things were looking good for a trip to the Tuamotus, but luckily we had a day to take in all the targets around Ua Poa in the only way that all the targets could be taken in, by Toyota Hi-Lux. Once we’d worked out how to start the huge car* its gargantuan wheels took us along roads that were as sketchy as the paths of the previous day and through valleys that changed as quickly a those hills.

As all our targets had been successfully hit in Ua Poa we now set out to hit our tricky target of the pass in Raroia in the Toamotus. The reason why this target was so tricky was because we could only get through the lagoons pass for the one hour a day when the current doesn’t rip, no-one seemed to know when that hour was and if we got it wrong then things could end disastrously. This was a target we had to hit right and but those pesky hedgehogs were the ones taking aim.

With every mile under our keel our confidence in our new rigging grew and Ruffian just zipped along; and with every mile we tried time and again to make a plan for our entry. Shimshall, who’d set off at the same time as us, were extending and extending and their plan was to clearly arrive at dawn and wait. Thinking this was a good plan we slowed hoping to make an entry the following day.

With more and more research, information from eyes on the ground and working the tidal spreadsheet; enigmatically called ‘The Guesstimator’; our plan changed. If we averaged a higher speed than we’d ever attained before, maintained it for a greater distance than ever, and The Guesstimator guessed right, we could enter at the same time as Shimshall, but without the luxury of hanging around for hours and watching the tidal race develop and then cease. Instead of having slow chilled sailing we now had a target to hit and turned on the afterburners.

We trimmed sails and watched our speed with eagle eyes. With every increase in wind we reduced sail and with every lull we shook out reefs and changed our headsails. All day, all night and the following day we worked like this and finally started to see a whole flotilla of boats congregating off the entrance, killing time and bobbing about blindly. The VHF was alive with chatter about boats trying to enter and getting spat out and all the while our distance to our destination was closing.

Right on cue, just as we were within touching distance of all the waiting boats at the entrance, they started making a beeline for the pass and one by one they crawled their way in. Their speeds that were measured in decimals of knots while we were still closing in at a breakneck pace.

With just meters left to run to the pass our sails were dropped, our engine purred into life and we executed a handbrake turn into the entrance. Our speed hardly changed, our timing was perfect and all this after 450 miles at sea. We’d hit our target perfectly and those blind hedgehogs in a bag had proved to be a crack shot.

* This intellectual challenge stumped everyone until Iain simply moved some carpet and pushed in the clutch. Either cars are getting too cleaver or people too stupid.