We arrived at Fare around 8am to find that the recommended anchorage was fairly full. Moorings has a charter base in Raiatea and at least half the boats were charter boats. Since it was early we decided to tour the west coast down to Baie Avea where friends had reported a good anchorage. We wound in and out of the coast, saw the impressive waves breaking on the reef (the SW swell that seems to defy the trade winds) and enjoyed the view at slow speed. The last mile or so into Baie Avea is oddly charted. The charts show solid reef or "uncharted", but then there are some navigation marks and soundings; there was actually plenty of water, it seems the cartographers just got tired. Baie Avea was beautiful, but with a strong gusting wind coming around the SE point.
Yesterday morning the gusts were even stronger and we eventually gave up trying to get the dinghy off the foredeck for fear that someone would be hurt as the wind kept picking it up before we could get it over the side. A little bit later we noticed smoke on the hillside. This was not unusual since we frequently see areas being burned off for agriculture, or burning trash. But this time it blossomed into a full blown brush fire. To our amazement the fire worked down the fairly steep hill, and to the SE, into the gusting wind.
Twice we re-anchored New Morning further to windward trying to escape the rain of ash that was falling onto the boat, blowing into the saloon. Then just when we thought the fire was moving west with the wind, new areas to windward and down the hill burst into flames. After some debate and indecision we decided we had to move to avoid the risk of having hot embers landing on New Morning and her sails. We motored off into the late late afternoon sun with essentially no ability to see the water depth. Fortunately we were able to follow our plotter's "track" and retrace the route we had followed on our way in.
A few miles later we turned east into Baie Haapu. It's a good sized bay and we were able to anchor in 55' feet of water. But after a peaceful late afternoon we started getting blasted by large gusts every few minutes. First from the east, then the north east and sometimes from the SE. Each time the gust comes from a different direction New Morning heels and then spins around to face her bow into the 25-30kt gusts. It was not a restful night.
Today we'll probably head back to Fare.
