Blessed by a mellow and uneventful overnight passage, as our crew got the necessary sleep to feel better from COVID; we pulled into lovely Huahine, dolphins greeting us at our bow.
Huahine, with only 6,400 people, is lush and scarcely developed.
Unfortunately, we also had some fishing line wrapped on our hull, but were thankful it was only on the rudder and not wound into the prop.
We picked up the last of the four mooring balls off Motu Muhimaroa, some of us (Chris and Cora slept at boat) to shore to go for a walk, try out some fly fishing, and simply sit in the shallow turquoise bathtub.
Back at the boat, no rest for our guests, as they scrubbed the growth off the hull. This is a common theme; be warned guests!
Though we had planned to stay here a few nights, then move along to Bora Bora, the weather and firefighters conspired together to throw all plans out the window, making it challenging for our guests to get home as planned. Who is in control? Ah, yes, the ocean and weather are in control (more on the firefighters later). First, the incoming weather showed strong reinforced trade winds (Maramu) and we realized that we needed to leave the next morning to get to Bora Bora on time, where we planned to check out of the country and drop off our friends. Bye, bye lovely Huahine!
Up early and on our way with a great sail to Bora Bora, we realized we didn’t have quite enough daylight to make it in; also, it appeared to be quite packed there with only mooring ball options and we weren’t sure we could get to one in time (if at all) before dark. The winds and seas continued to build throughout the day, as we sailed along.
Luckily, there are the lovely islands of Ra’iatea (population 13,000) and Taha’a (population 5,000) encircled by a common reef and lagoon on the way; so there we stopped. In Ra’iatea, we loaded up on diesel, gasoline, groceries, and worked through the French Polynesia check-out process at the very friendly and helpful Gendarmerie.
Tucked into nearby Motu Ceran anchorage where we anchored in 7 feet in sand for the night, gusts overnight making us happy we were tucked into the lagoon without a passage to do, waves building even in our lagoon anchorage. Anchor up, we sailed downwind in 25-32 knot winds around top of Taha’a to the more protected west side of the island, where we tied to a mooring buoy at Love Here Pearl Farm.
On a walk, Calder found us a coconut to enjoy and, back at the boat, he tried out his new gear, tow-foiling at sunset with the silhouette of Bora Bora in the backdrop.
The next day we enjoyed our tour of the pearl farm, took a walk, and moved to another pearl farm bouy in the next bay.
The underwater world was a highlight of Taha’a. We went two different times to Taha’a Coral Gardens, unique with sand and coral bommies in shallow water between two motus where the current flows in at all times. One can get intimate with the beautiful fish all around, living in the aquarium, and can magically fly in the current through coral mazes, stopping in eddies to look closer. Such a huge variety of fish so close and curious, very intimate snorkeling at times having to suck in one’s abs to avoid touching the coral!
The next underwater feast for our eyes was swimming with MASSIVE manta rays in green phytoplankton soup, at first nervous about seeing these massive filter feeders then watching them emerge into our view, dwarfing our size. It was eerie and beautiful all at once.
In Taha’a we also enjoyed local tapas and distillery rum drinks at Fare Miti floating restaurant, a delicious local lunch of poisson cru with tuna (a favorite) at Snack Matahina, a few more pearl farm tours (Iaorana and Champon), and Fare Vanira (House of Vanilla) Vanilla Plantation tour of a family-run vanilla farm.
As our guests tried to change their ticket from the planned Bora Bora to leaving Ra’iatea, they were met with the next challenge beyond weather, a firefighters’ strike that grounded all local planes. Daily, they would be on the phone to figure out if the strike was still occurring and then adjust their tickets, hotels, and transport accordingly. This took quite a bit of grunt work to make it work, but we’ve received word that all is going well so far after we dropped them off on a dock at 6am this morning in Taha’a to catch a cab, water taxi, ferry, and plane to get home!
We are underway to Maupiti, an island about 40 nm away whose entrance must be attempted only during south swell less than 2 meters. We are waiting out a massive low-pressure system marching its way across the Pacific, creating a “weather bomb” in the Southern Cooks where we were planning to travel next. We will wait for a good weather window to make the final jump of 1,300nm across the Pacific to Tonga. We have a variety of options for this journey – direct to Tonga, through the Cooks, through Nuie – but it will ultimately depend on the weather (and hopefully not the firefighters too).
SV Terikah Adventures 