French Polynesia 4

 The Society Islands

Tahiti skyline

Tahiti

Tahiti is probably the most well-known island in French Polynesia. It is a large, mountainous island surrounded by a lagoon and fringing reef. As we approached in the early morning of 15^th May, we watched the mist slowly rise from the mountain tops, revealing an impressive, jagged skyline. Beneath, the land looked green and fertile. Captain Cook, Captain Bligh and many other early navigators must have thought they’d found Paradise.

Stevenson's lighthouse

We motored on past Venus Point, named by Cook, because it was the place where he watched the transit of Venus on behalf of the Royal Society. The first lighthouse in the South Pacific stands on the point, designed by Stevenson. Once we were safely past Venus Point, we turned towards the reef and entered the well-marked pass into the lagoon close to Tahiti Yacht Club. We had happy memories of time spent here ten years ago with other international boats, so we picked up a mooring a little surprised to see there were no other international boats.

We went ashore to the yacht club office and were told the moorings were private, mainly belonging to charter catamarans that would be back at the end of the day. We were fortunate that the mooring we’d chosen belonged to someone who was away for a week or two and so we could stay. The yacht club was a very busy place, doing lots for children and young people. As well as the catamarans, a fair number of sports fishing boats used the pontoons and there were local yachts there as well. There is a fuel berth for diesel and petrol, a restaurant and a snack bar. A large Carrefour store is only 10 minutes’ walk away.

Rays

The manager told us we could hire a car at a nearby Shell garage, so the next day we hired a Peugot for four nights. Between the yacht club and the garage, we were advised to go to Sopom in Papeete with our worn out prop shaft coupling. First, we needed to go to Immigration and Customs to check in. Things change in ten years and we soon found out that the handy office on the quay was no longer there and we would have to go to the airport at Faa’a. The Immigration officer was surprised to see us as we’d already checked in at Hiva Oa. However, we had to report to the Harbourmaster back in Papeete. We found Sopom near the port buildings and they could have a new part flown in for us in about 10 days. They knew a man called Jean Pierre who might be able to fix the old part, but we needed a local phone number so he could phone us to make arrangements.

Eating out at the Coconut Station

Off we went to Vini, the local mobile phone network only to find the shop was closed for refurbishment. A friendly and helpful member of staff came in our car and took us to another shop where we bought a SIM card. Jeremy phoned John Pierre and met him later at the yacht club. He revulcanised the prop shaft coupling, so we now have a spare.

Although there is a washing machine and tumble drier at the yacht club, we had lots of bedding and towels to wash as well as clothes. We learned there was a laundry about a mile down the road, so we took it all there and it was washed, dried and folded for us for 6000PCF (60USD). I had an expensive hair wash, which included a head and back massage, wash, cut and blow dry. The hairdresser had spent seven months in New Zealand, so it was very pleasant to chat in English. It had been my birthday a few days earlier and it felt good to treat myself.

Rent a car with essential baguette

The rest of the time was spent provisioning for the next half of our trip, buying bits and pieces for the boat at marine stores, catching up with messages from friends and family, writing and posting the blog, eating out at lunchtime and enjoying candlelit suppers in our cockpit. I made good use of the hot showers on shore. Our granddaughter, Ellie, had her 6^th birthday and we were able to make a video call the evening before to wish her “Happy Birthday”. We were also very happy to chat to our son, Simon, and daughter, Emily, who had been so worried about us. Thank you both and special thanks to our daughter-in-law, Erin, who spoke to the Coastguard in French.

Cockpit candlelit supper

Today, 21^st May, we motorsailed to the island of Moorea, just under 20 miles away. In the afternoon we snorkelled a reef and saw rays resting under Sal Darago.

French Polynesia 3

The Tuamotus

The trip to the Tuamotus took us four and a half days. We had told our shore contacts, Emily and Simon, that it was a five day trip. There was no telephone signal when we arrived at Raroia Atoll and no WiFi. We experienced very mixed weather on the journey of wind speeds from 4-34 knots blowing from all the eastern sectors of the compass. Worse was the swell that varied from almost calm to big and boisterous with waves breaking over Sal Darago. Almost all the windows and portholes began to leak. Many squalls passed over us, some of them taking the wind away, others increasing it to gale force accompanied by heavy rain. It was rarely possible to tell which type of squall we were going to have, so we kept two reefs in the mainsail most of the time.

Stormy weather on the way to the Tuamotus

Raroia Atoll

Sal Darago anchored off the village

This atoll is famous because the Kon Tiki raft crashed on to the reef there in 1947, ending its Pacific voyage from South America. We had GPS, charts and a chart plotter, which enabled us to find the pass through the reef. We knew that we should arrive at slack water and not attempt entry on the ebb. Unfortunately, slack water lasts about 10 minutes and it is almost always ebbing, reaching 8 knots, if you’re very unlucky.

Kon Tiki Memorial

We approached the pass under engine avoiding the worst of the washing machine of overfalls to the south. Our speed went down to 1.5 knots, but the pass was short and we were soon turning to starboard and heading for the village, where we anchored on a lee shore in sand and coral. It was mid-day, but we were so tired that lunch and sleep were all we wanted.

Walking on Raroia Atoll

In the evening, after dark, the anchor drag alarm went off, scaring both of us. Visual checks on lights and a quay showed us we had changed direction and were not dragging. The next day we had a walk around the village. The people were friendly and the children seemed to be having an idyllic childhood with the freedom to play safe from traffic. Back on SD, we weighed anchor and motored across the atoll, marking the coral heads or bomies on our GPS as we went. We anchored off the motu where the Norwegian Thor Heyerdahl Museum had erected a monument to the epic voyage of Kon Tiki. Several other yachts came to see the monument as well. Further on there was a protected anchorage where we anchored on our own and enjoyed a quiet and peaceful night.

Relaxing at anchor

Makemo Atoll

We needed to sail overnight to be sure of arriving at Arikitamiro Passe at 0800. This meant leaving our anchorage in Raroia at 1400. We knew the sun would be ahead of us and we would not be able to see the bomies. We followed our marked track carefully and exited Raroia two hours later. The log was not working. We made good progress at first with the genoa poled out to starboard and no.2 jib poled out to port. The first squall hit on my night watch giving me a soaking and winds to 20 knots from the north and the east. Worse was to come for Jeremy with torrential rain and winds up to 30 knots, followed by no wind at all, so we had to motor.

Burning our rubbish

We reached the pass at the “right” time and it looked awful. Give me the Scottish Sound of Luing, the Dorus Mor or the Cuan Sound rather than the turbulent, white water I saw before me. Still, a yacht had just entered safely, so we continued under engine bouncing along with Jeremy steering and me with my eyes glued to the depth sounder, shouting out the depths. Our speed dropped to 0.5 knots at the worst part but we made it in safely and headed for the village. There were six yachts anchored off the village already, so space was limited. We had poor holding at the second attempt at anchoring and Jeremy’s shoulders were killing him. We’re so sorry now that we didn’t think about our shore contacts as we launched the dinghy, dashed ashore, bought supplies at the supermarket and returned to SD.

The northern pass looks calm here

We weighed anchor and motored NW up the atoll to an anchorage, 15 miles away, off a place called Punaruku. The sun sank lower in the sky and the bomies became harder to see even with one of us standing on the roof and the other one watching the depth sounder. Two and a half miles from the anchorage, Jeremy came back to the cockpit to say, “We shouldn’t be doing this.” I agreed, glanced at the steeply rising depth sounder and shouted, “Depth. Where is it?” I was out of gear and reaching to switch off Neco, our automatic pilot, when Jeremy shouted, “Go left!” BANG! We hit the bommie. We reversed away and checked the bilges. There were no leaks internally. Two and a half miles further, we dropped the anchor, snorkelled and checked the keels. Quite a bit of paint was missing from the starboard keel’s leading edge. For those in the know, it was a similar experience to hitting the sewage pipe concrete support near Limerick on Sarah Bell. The log started working! Later, we snorkelled a beautiful bomie behind us with pretty, coloured corals, plenty of reef fish and rainbow lipped clams.

Water cistern

The next morning, with the sun behind us, we motored to a little bay off a copra camp near the northern Tapuhitia Passe. There were no other yachts and no people. We explored ashore, burnt our rubbish and snorkelled the nearby reef seeing fantastic coral pinnacles and shoals of parrot fish amongst many other types of reef fish. Having marked the pass the previous day, we left Makemo Atoll at 0600 and arrived at Tahanea Atoll middle pass and anchored half a mile away at 1600. We had motor sailed all the way to make the trip in daylight, but there were serious vibrations coming from the prop shaft.

Tahanea Atoll

On Friday morning, May 10^th, we sang a special Happy Birthday to Patrick. We made bread, collected coconuts and snorkelled. The wind and waves came up later and the anchor chain was stuck on a bomie making a dreadful noise, even with a snubber. On Saturday morning, Emily’s lifejacket exploded in the cupboard! (Now why would that happen?) Jeremy decided to change the prop shaft to gearbox coupling, putting on the one which had been revulcanised in Panama City in 2010. We snorkelled to free the anchor chain, but several black tipped reef sharks became interested, so we withdrew to Sal Darago.

Odd shaped coral

The following day, having made bread, we left this national park, Jeremy receiving a soaking from the breaking waves in the pass. There was no vibration on the prop shaft. It was a good night sail until 0400 when we were hit by 36 knots of wind and heavy rain. By 0800, we were at the Anaa Atoll “anchorage”. Two supply ships were drifting in the bay and we could not find a place to drop the anchor. We sailed on to Tahiti bedevilled by wind shifts and heavy rain.

The rubber is disintegrating so the coupling had to be replaced

On Wednesdsay 15^th May at 0500, Jeremy had had enough of the genoa violently slapping, so he put the engine on and we arrived at Tahiti Yacht Club at 1100. We learned that Emily and Simon had contacted the Coastguard to report us as overdue. We contacted the Coastguard to tell them of our safe arrival and were very contrite as we had caused our family unnecessary distress. We were pleased that they had followed the correct procedure.

French Polynesia 2

Nuka Hiva

Nuka Hiva Yacht Services, conveniently situated on the quay at Taiohae Bay, provide a laundry service, WiFi, book exchange, boat repairs and many other services to boaters. We left our laundry with them and went to check in at the Gendarmerie. When we arrive in a port after a week or two at sea we usually need the following: gendarmerie or immigration and customs; bank or ATM; diesel; water; food; laundry; tourist information; WiFi; rubbish disposal. All these were available at Taiohae Bay and we made good use of them.

Jeremy replaced the stuffing in the box that lets sea water on the prop shaft to cool it. No water had been coming through and the prop shaft was very hot, exacerbated by the vibrations. Perhaps the shaft would stop vibrating now?

The entrance to Daniel's Bay.

We weighed anchor on 25^th April and motored 6 miles to Daniel’s Bay. I was surprised that we were the only visiting boat as it’s usually a popular place for yachts to go to take on fresh water from the mountain stream.  The next day we loaded our dinghy with empty water bottles and went round to the adjacent bay, where we had to surf into the fresh water stream, motor into a lagoon and tie to a palm tree. Close by, we found a hose and a tap and started filling our containers.

The river is in the corner on the left of the photo.

We met Koua. Her family owns the land. She spoke good English and told us there was no charge for the water and for walking round the village, but we would have to pay 1000PCF (10USD) to walk to the waterfall. She would make us a meal for 1000PCF each. She was happy with our gift of two cans of Sprite and a can of Coca Cola.

Garden of Eden?

It took two trips in the dinghy for us to fill all the boat’s tanks and all our drinking water bottles. Boats started to arrive in Daniel’s Bay including Andrew in his 39ft Moody called Shelagh. He came on board for sundowners and we had a long chat about the UK, our families and our sailing experiences. Thanks for the cream crackers and cheese. Andrew told us the weather in the Tuamotus was going to be awful for almost a week with near gale force winds and 3-4m swell. We decided to defer our departure and stayed in Daniel’s Bay for a few more nights.

Don't land your dinghy here!

We walked through the forest to Koua’s house the next day. Her husband barbecued some pork and she prepared breadfruit and a salad of grated mango, papaya, pineapple and ginger. Afterwards, we shared a smoothie of mango, pineapple, papaya and banana. We paid for our lunch, but realised we should have taken a gift as well. I gave her a set of coloured pencils which I had in my rucksack, which she said she would give to her nephew.

Daniel's Bay. Can you spot Sal Darago?

On Monday 29^th April, we motored back to Taiohae Bay. There was a very big swell in the entrance to Daniel’s Bay and much less in Taiohae Bay, but enough to make anchoring too near the reef fringed shore too risky. We had to anchor twice and ended up next to a British man, Chris, on his yacht, Sagacious. We learned that the supply boat was coming the next day. We had to wait until 1600 hrs to go ashore and buy provisions for our trip to the Tuamotus.

At 2100 hrs, in the dark, we weighed anchor, negotiated our way past numerous anchored vessels and out to sea. We had reefs in our mainsail and genoa, but made good speed.