We pulled up anchor in Hane Moe Noa Bay around 9:30am on the morning of Friday, July 22. Our destination was the Tuamotu Islands which were approximately 500 nautical miles away. I was on the bow sprit tying the anchor down as we left the bay when I saw 4 Manta Rays on the surface of the water just under the bow coming to say goodbye. They were so close I was afraid that Ian would run one over! A few minutes later Ian spotted some dolphins and they escorted us out of the bay then disappeared. We motored down towards the village then Ian went out on deck to set the whisker pole up for downwind sailing. Unfortunately the winds were very light in the lee of the island so we motored out to sea on a heading towards the Tuamotus. After half an hour we had winds up to 20 knots so we put the genoa out and got good speeds between 7.5 and 8 knots for the rest of the day and most of the night. We chatted on the radio with Saba who were heading to an island in the Tuamotus called Kauehi. Daniel gave us the lat long of the anchorage in Kauehi so we decided to follow Saba and meet up with them again as they were good company and we had become friends since the Galapagos Islands. Saba was a 50 foot catamaran so a lot faster than us and we calculated that they would arrive at least one day ahead of us. We saw a pod of dolphins in the afternoon and a lot of sea birds. The Pacific Ocean was quite rough and the swells were around 2.8 to 3 metres high. Ian and I both started to feel a bit nauesous but managed to eat lasagne and peas for dinner as the sun went down. We settled into our night watch routine and as the weather was so nice we both decided to sleep up on deck.
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