Blow’n in the Wind

tied up to the pier at Makemo

We were headed out on our second drift dive through the pass at Makemo. Our first dive was with a guide—and was one of the best dives I’ve had. Excellent visibility, loads of sharks, lots of pretty fish, fascinating coral—the works. We were down for about an hour and when we surfaced we were committed to going again.

So we went the next day with Lauren (Piko) and Michael (WGD). Almost from the outset the dive felt different—there was a front looming on the horizon, and the current (which should have been the same slack tide as the day before) was running more quickly. We dove down and whipped past the coral at three knots—surfacing 15 minutes later out in the ocean looking at a menacing sky. An hour later the weather hit.

Rock’n at the dock…

Foiled by foul weather…

This is pretty much the story of everyone in our region right now. It’s not that the wind is particularly fierce or the mer is dangerously agitee, but the strong blow means that the water is too stirred up to navigate safely through the atolls and the strong current means that getting out (and then back in) through the atoll passes isn’t as safe as it could be.

the arrival of the supply ship

 So we’re pretty much stuck.

As far as being stuck we’re probably better off than many people—we’re tied to a pier and the supply ship is unloading as we speak. When our cheery little group isn’t feeling boat-bound and a bit stir-crazy our summer-camp activities continue. I’m running a writing workshop (so all these awesome bloggers can turn their stories into $$), Barb is our morning yoga instructor, and the round robin of dinner parties, movie nights and board game tournaments is keeping us all happy.

 There is also plenty of time to get to those nagging chores. Which perhaps isn’t that fun. The problem though is this is the third time we been stuck in as many anchorages, so while this means we should be good at hanging and have a well-developed Zen about the whole thing, we’re also watching the calendar of our time in the South Pacific tick down…