We like to fish while under passage.  On the 140nm passage from Tikehau to Toau we estimated it to take us 25-26 hours at an average speed of 5kts with 12kts of wind from the North of East.  Of course, that is if we didn’t spend a bunch of hours trying to catch a huge blue marlin. 

We decided to leave Tikehau between 0900-1000 so we would not arrive in the dark.  Everything started out as planned, we raised the main to full sail and had a reefed jib as we exited the pass.  Within the first hour we were hit with strong winds (20-25kt) from a squall.  Matt took a reef in the main thinking we could shake it out after the winds died down and after we made our left turn around the atoll.

Weather routing gave a direct path (as the image indicates below) but they did not take into account that we would be sailing over other islands.  So, we went around Tikehau and avoided Rangiroa and Kaukura.

It was a fantastic sail with 12-15kts of wind from the North, North East pushing us along at 8-9kts.  That is wicked fast for us when you consider we usually cruise at 5-6kts.  We figured it would not last and decided to enjoy it while we had it. 

The BIG catch

Matt had all three lines out and a teaser.  I did not think we could catch anything because we were going too fast.  However, around 1415 Matt noticed our teaser bungy bounce and pulled it in to find our lure missing.  Not a minute later the line next to it went “ZING!” We both looked up and saw a marlin dancing on the water.  And then off it went, unspooling thousands of feet of line and filament. And going, and going, and going. 

Since we were under sail, we had to depower the boat and bring in the other 2 lines before we could work on bringing the marlin in.  We reefed the jib and headed away from the wind slowing us down to 5/6 kts.  Matt started the slow process of reeling the beast in as I tried to slow us down even further without flogging the main or making an accidental jibe.  The pressure on the pole was constant between the power of the marlin and the forward motion of the boat making it challenging to reel the fish in.

He was a fighter!  Of course, I can’t blame him.  I must admit I felt horrible bringing him in and watching him suffer (what a bleeding heart).  But we will use all of his meat to feed the locals and other cruisers.  He will not go to waste and will not be a trophy hunt.

Once we got the fish close enough, we attempted to gaff him to help pull him onboard.  The trick is to get him close enough to use the gaff, but far enough away where his nose doesn’t put a hole in our boat.

It wasn’t pretty as the gaff kept coming out.  We had to stick him several times before we were able to finally bring him onboard.

The Marlin

He is about 2.5 meters in length (7.5’) and 70-75 kilos (155-160lbs).  His nose came across our deck and his tail is off the last sugar scoop.  Who is tougher?

A picture of a full reel (top) and the unspooled reel (bottom)

We ended up filling (6) 5x large ziplock bags. I think each bag is 5gal.  Lucky for us the engle was empty so we had a place to put him.  We filled it up and still had to put two bags in the fridge!

Are we sailing?

After several hours of going off course at 1.2-5kts we finally went back on track.  We headed back on course, reset the sails and we were off again at 8-9kts in 12-15kts of wind.  Sweet!  It took Matt another 1.5 hours to cut and clean the fish while I got us underway.

We finished up with the fish just as the sun was setting and as the SSB net was starting.  What great timing.  We both were too tired to make dinner, so we prepared the boat for the evening sail and set into our passage.

It was a totally smooth and fast sail.  We ended up depowering the sails again as we were scheduled to arrive at 0300-0330 in the morning (dark).  At dawn, we turned the motors on and made our way to the false pass of Toau.

Toau

Toau is known for its absolute beauty, remoteness, snorkeling, and serenity.  It is unique in that it has one pass that leads into the lagoon and one false pass.  The image below shows us (red arrow) at the false pass and it shows the regular pass on the right with the range markers and channel.

You may ask, “what is a false pass?”  A regular pass will allow yachts to enter into the atoll into the lagoon inside.  A false pass can either be from the inside of the lagoon to the outer reef or from the pacific to the inside reef.  The false pass at Toau allows yachts to enter from the Pacific to the inner reef (but does not allow us to go inside the lagoon).

We picked up a mooring ball provided by Gaston and Valentine (locals who also run a restaurant), took a quick nap and began our explorations.

Trip Details

• Miles to Destination Total: 140nm
• Total Miles Sailed: 142nm
• Hours Sailed: 20:18
• Moving Average: 7.1kt
• Max Speed: 11.7kt

Events from this blog post occurred around the 3^rd week of November, 2020.  Our blog posts run 8 weeks behind our adventures.