While my original plan was to sail from the Marquesas to the Fakarava atoll, Nature had other plans for me. My wind vane wasn’t working, the TillerPilot was being temperamental, and some nasty weather was on the way. The idea of navigating the dense atolls without a wind vane in inclement weather was not appealing. About one-third of the way to Fakarava I bailed and headed south to the Raroria atoll, which was 100 nm closer. Raroria is known for the location where Thor Heyerdahl’s Kon-Tiki raft arrived after its 101-day journey from South America in 1947. I reached Raroria after dark, so heaved to offshore until morning, when I passed into the lagoon about 8:00, during slack (high) tide. I first went to the small village of Raroria, which has a population of about 200, mostly pearl farmers and fishermen. As it turned out, the once-a-month supply ship had arrived the day before, and the small store was relatively well stocked. I anchored in the small bay with a catamaran that had arrived an hour before me, and took my dinghy to the dock. The dock had a few colorful boats moored to it.
The village consists of a network of narrow concrete roads. Before I went to the store, I took a look around the village. There is an interesting open-air chapel constructed of rocks.
I also visited the cemetery. While there were many graves from the early twentieth century, most of the headstones for those were hard to read due to weathering. There were also some recent graves.
I followed the directions I was given to the store and almost ended up in the living room of a stranger. Although I don’t speak French, the woman figured I was looking for the store and kindly showed me where it was. The couple who ran the store were delightful. They tried to talk me into staying the night because there was always a party on Sarurdays with music and dancing when the pearl farmers on the other side of the atoll returned for the weekend, the party and church the next morning. However, the anchorage at the village was sketchy and bad weather was forecasted. The anchorage is surrounded by reefs and an unmarked wreck, and not much room to swing on anchor in a storm. I decided to move my to the north side of the lagoon, about 10 nm away. And, that was a good decision, because one heck of a gale hit that night.