See Previous 2004 Voyage Logs
Tahiti to the Cook Islands 2004
Captain's Log - V 201 21 June-8 July 2004 - Tod Thompson tells of this voyage's combination of island and ocean sailing.
  Waking up in Cooks Bay, Moorea (arriving the previous night) was a welcome antidote to the hustle n bustle of obtaining our Custom and Immigration Outward Clearance in Papeete. This clearance would allow us to cruise the Society Islands for 8 or 9 days before beginning the next stage of our voyage, the ocean passage towards the Cook Islands.
Sailing through the Society Is gave us a chance to revisit some of our preferred anchorages from the previous voyage V.200 - Cooks and Opunohu Bays at Moorea, Tapu.  Marae in Raiatia, the friendly town of Fare at Huahine, the vanilla farms of Tahaa and of course Bora Bora - as well as exploring new islands.
Haamene Bin Tahaa has a turtle sanctuary. Folk on broad raised enough $$ to ‘adopt’ a turtle (name of ‘Soren’ of course) and released it on the spot - hopefully saving it from the black market for both its meat and shell.
Deeper in to the bay found us in a good anchorage for a cloud front that passed in the night. At the head of the bay a vanilla farm visit was enjoyed and hosted by an ex foreign legionnaire with tales of atmospheric testing at Moruroa. The vanilla recipe favoured by many on board involved 8-10 vanilla beans in a bottle of rum left to infuse for 2 weeks. A long 2 weeks...
 A good sail to Bora Bora had everyone anticipating our looming ocean passage towards the Cook Islands. Two days went quickly snorkelling and exploring Bora Bora and then it was time to set sail for Aitutaki..
Sailing off the anchor in front of the cruise ship Windstar and its passengers was a fitting beginning to our passage and the start of the rhythms and routines of being at sea on square-rigged ship.
Light to moderate, warm tradewinds saw us with most sail set. Sunrises, catching fish, trimming sail, steering, lookout duty, a quiet corner for reading, observing the sun with a sextant and meals in sea watches filled the days.
 By night we were occupied by a large moon, stars, riddles at the wheel and baking bread. Light wind saw us motor sailing the last day to Aitutaki arriving about 2 hrs before sunset. Aitutaki has only one reef entrance that is both narrow and shallow, far too small for the Soren Larsen to enter. Outside the reef it is very deep except for a small area very close to the reef that requires good weather and SE-E’ly wind to anchor there. The next morning dawned with northerly winds making the anchorage unsafe and the reef entrance questionable. The outlook was for the wind to increase and remain in the north.
 With the prevailing tradewinds absent the call was made to head for Rarotonga. The Northerlys did increase but they were the right direction for Raro. Accompanying heavy rain, sailing under reduced canvas gave us an exciting, busy and wet night (with a fresh water rinse!) Raro appeared in front of us in the morning, the wind swung to the Southerly quarter and we entered the small harbour of Avatiu. With improving weather an extra day in hand and a friendly welcome Raro looked inviting…
See the picture gallery from this trip
See picture gallery from previous Society islands trip
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