Bonjour from Wallis Island

We dropped anchor in Gahi Bay, Wallis Island, half an hour ago after a pleasant sail from Asau. It is a small, sheltered bay surrounded by thick forested slopes. The little settlement of Gahi on the shore looks very pretty. Wallis (or Uvea as it is sometimes known) is a French protectorate and the locals are bilingual, speaking their own Polynesian language as well as French. So we have been brushing up on a little French while in Samoa! Wallis is comprised of a huge lagoon, 12 miles by 4 miles, enclosing one large and many small islands.

We managed to get it right in terms of arrival - in fact we arrived early this morning with 5 hours to spare!! We had taken advantage of every puff of wind on the way over lest it should fade out. We hove to outside the pass waiting for slack low water. Slack water lasts half an hour if you are lucky. In certain conditions the outgoing tidal flow through the pass can be as much as 6 knots and we wanted to avoid this!! (There is in fact always an out flowing current because of seas breaking over the reefs and entering the lagoon.) It must have been a very brief slack water today - despite having the engine at full blast and the mainsail up, we were only able to creep through the pass. (Don thinks this justifies buying a larger engine when we get home. He hasn't discussed this with Denise yet!!) The wind also rose to 20 knots dead ahead. We passed many beautiful spots on our one hour journey through the lagoon to our anchorage and are looking forward to adventuring to these over the next week or two.

It is time to rest now and celebrate our safe arrival with a glass of New Zealand wine.

Bonsoir

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