UA POU
My next leg to the island of Ua Pou is 70 nautical miles (130 kms), and the longest crossing of the expedition. I prepared everything the evening before, so I could have a running start at 2 am. I wanted to start in the middle of the night to arrive close to sunset in Ua Pou. For a few hours I slept onboard Dick and Monique’s boat with everything packed already in the water, they also fed me and we had a nice evening talking about boat life, which I’d last experienced about 10 years ago. Having everything ready to go and sleeping on the boat saved me a lot of time packing up the tent and tying all my gear onto the board.
At 2 am I started paddling in the rain with a light breeze on my back. It was pitch black, but soon after I was surprised by an amazing sky full of stars, which I used to keep course without having to look at my compass every few minutes. At one point the sky lit up and I saw one of the longest shootings stars I have ever seen. It is surprising how fast you get used to the movements of waves without being able to see anything in the dark. When the sun came up at 5:30 there was a good breeze, so I rigged up my windsurf sail. This wind lasted only for 10 minutes. Then it started to go down and down until there was nothing left. So I derigged everything and went back to paddling again for the next two hours. It looked like it was going to be a very long day and perhaps night…
But then suddenly the wind picked up and life was good again. My routine is paddle or windsurf for an hour and then take a 5 minute break to eat and drink something, check my position and course and if my tracker is functioning correctly. And so the hours go by. At sunset I was an hour away from the southern point of the island and 2 hours from my destination.
With the moon up this time I kept windsurfing. Windsurfing in the dark is not easy but this was made even harder with the waves bouncing back from the cliffs.