The Tuomotos

What a time we had in the Marquesas! Such wonderful people, such beautiful mountains, such beautiful water.

After a few weeks in the Marquesas, we headed to the Tuomotu Islands, a 500 miles, 3 day passage. It was a smooth passage that included landing a 100 lb yellow fin tuna over the course of 2.5 hours. See Ted’s log (on the tracking page) for the best description. In short, it took all three of us (Ted, Calder and me) 2.5 hours of swapping turns and slowly reeling it in, then it was take the line straight down and we’d repeat. We were thoroughly exhausted and a bit sea sick when all was cleaned and put away. We first hooked the fish at 3:30pm and finished all cleanup by 9pm. It was hard to watch such an amazing fish die. But it’s better to eat this way then causally grab a can of tuna at the grocery store. We thanked the fish many times.

The island we made landfall is Makemo Island, one of the Tuomotu Islands. These are all coral atoll islands, perhaps once they were full mountainous islands like the Marquesas, but now they are just a rim of coral with a bit of sand and some palm trees. A small town and the rest is wilderness. Passing from one place to another on the inside we have to watch out very carefully to not hit a coral head. We could only travel with the sun behind us, so that with two people on the bow keeping lookout, we can see the hazards.

The Tuomotu’s are more for wilderness exploration. Our day to day activities involved snorkeling, exploring island, and wing foiling. So much fun. Such a simple existence. Asleep by 9pm. Awake by 5:30am to watch the sunrise – such amazing purple colors in these sunrises and sunsets.