July 8, 2012

Lesser Frigate Bird

0630 off in the dinghy to the third motu which likely has the Atoll Fruit-Dove. We begin walking around the entire periphery of the island searching for . . . Eureka! Got it! Bingo!! The dove flies by, lands in a nearby short tree and poses beautifully in the early morning sun. Do birds fluff up their feathers to let the sun hit their skin? That's what it looked like this one was doing . Then another. We got lots of pictures. We are getting jaded; for the entire walk around, Fairy Terns , Black Noddies, Brown Noddies, Lesser Frigate Birds and Red-footed Boobies were flying overhead, landing in front of us and staring at us and we hardly noticed. We did photograph an especially nice spider web. Most of the rest of the day was spent checking the Tides & Currents Pro computer program in order to calculate high and low tides here at Tahanea and at Fakarava our next destination, what time to leave our anchorage here, what time to leave pass, how long is passage, how many knots of wind are forecast, how fast can we go in those winds, when will we arrive at Fakarava, how does that work with the tide coming in or going out or slack? Should we go in the N or the S Fakarava pass, where to anchor, when does the supply boat deliver fuel and will we be there, which motu offers the best protection from the expected brisk SE wind and what needs doing before we leave tomorrow morning? Today we had to get the grib file (graphic representation of the wind and rain) using the Iridium phone because the SSB propagation was so poor. The phone is cool but it took us about an hour to remember that out of the 4 USB connections on the computer it only likes one particular one and that is the same one the Inmarsat likes. Once we plug it in to its preferred port, it connects fast and easily. Then we checked the Streamline Analysis from Honolulu which we obtain using the weatherfax computer program. Just think of all the things that you land dwellers don't have to worry about. We don't mind though; it's better than crashing on a reef.