The Cook Islands

So much has happened since our last blog post: two days at Taha’a snorkelling in the coral gardens and playing more Scrabble and cards with Dancing Walrus (by the way there is usually always an interesting story behind the name of a boat. In this case Dancing Walrus bears its name as the result of an award Ken won plus he and Joni feel the big cat lumbers along like a walrus trying to dance). We had a fast sail under the genoa over to Bora Bora, only 15 miles away. Two nights here on a mooring ball at the Bora Bora Yacht Club, a yacht club in name only as it really is just a bar, restaurant and cheap mooring balls. While Bora Bora was nice enough, there were lots of skinny, barking dogs and traffic so we decided to limit our time there in order to keep moving west and to give us more time in other places that beckoned. After concluding the endless paperchase of checking out and retrieving the bond we had had to pay for Louise to be in French Polynesia, and topping up with diesel, we bade farewell to these French Society Islands. We set sail at 3pm on Friday 10 August for Aitutaki in the Cook Islands, some 478 miles away. Our passage to Aitutaki started with steady winds from SSE of about 12 knots. The winds started to ease in the first evening and then continued to lighten over the next 2 days so by Sunday night we had furled the reacher and started motoring. We motored for around 36 hours in order to keep an average speed of 5 knots that would ensure we would arrive at Aitutaki in both daylight and high tide – essential for entering the narrow, shallow pass through the coral reef. On Tuesday afternoon the wind came in from the south so we were able to douse the motor and unfurl the genoa. Ironically, after all that motoring, as we closed in on Aitutaki on Tuesday evening and into the graveyard hours of Wednesday morning, we had to reduce sail to slow ourselves down so we wouldn’t arrive before daylight. We had a relatively small window of opportunity to enter the pass as sunrise was at 7am and high tide was at 7.30am, but we arrived in good time. It is recommended that only boats drawing 6 feet or less attempt to enter the pass and even then it should be at high tide and with good visibility. Brio draws around 5 ½ feet when loaded so we figured we’d be fine and we were, but it was still a little nerve wracking seeing the coral so close. The Aitutaki anchorage is tiny with space for around 4 yachts. We manoeuvred into a pozzie tying our bow to the nearest palm tree and putting out a stern anchor. Aitutaki is a low island, fringed by coral reef and on its way to becoming an atoll. It has a population of about 1,500 people and thousands of wild hens and roosters of all colours and sizes scurrying everywhere. Surprisingly not a dog is to be found on the island. The story behind this is that many years ago one of the chiefs sons was bitten by a dog and so he decreed all dogs be banned from the island. As an introduction to the Cook Islands Aitutaki was fabulous. The islanders are relaxed, welcoming and always happy to have a chat. We rented a motor scooter while we were there to get around and visited the marine research centre where they are breeding clams from the Great Barrier Reef to restock their own reef where the clams have died out (apparently due to chemical run off from banana plantations). We ended one afternoon watching some soccer matches “Soccer Friday” where village plays against village in various age groups. We noticed a similarity between this island and that of Moorea in French Polynesia: grandma is often in the front garden – 6 feet under that is! It seems it is more usual to bury one’s family on the family land than to put them in a graveyard. Many of the graves look like well kept shrines. It is also interesting that you can’t buy land on the island, it is passed down through the family line. We had an excellent time at Aitutaki. One of my lasting memories will be of flying my kite in the late afternoon sunshine with a couple of young boys who were screaming and giggling with pleasure while the beautiful singing from the church service nearby came floating across on the wind. Go there before it’s too late for there are plans to expand the harbour to cater for 100 boats. After 5 days taking it easy on Aitutaki we pulled in our lines and anchor at about 10.30 on Monday morning and left on the high tide, again making it through the pass without incident. Our next destination was the even smaller island of Palmerston about 200 miles NW of Aitutaki. The forecast indicated we should have one day of reasonable wind before easing to light winds. However it was not to be as we experienced winds of below 10 knots then petering out to nothing. While it meant we ended up motoring virtually the whole 2 days and nights of the passage, at least being in the middle of a high meant we also saw some fantastic sunsets. We also tried out our new 100m line and caught a nice big tuna along the way. We arrived at Palmerston at around 8am on Wednesday to the sight of a whale breeching. Louise’s first ever sighting of a whale in the flesh. If the Pacific is like a blanket of turquoise and royal blue with islands strewn like jewels across it, then we have found the brightest gem of all. Palmerston is unique, there’s simply no other word to describe it…..well actually we could describe it as we would other islands: brilliant white coral sand, surrounded by water all shades of blue, coconut palms swaying in the gentle breeze under a cerulean sky. What sets Palmerston apart though is its interesting history and local culture, including how visitors are received. Palmerston was uninhabited in 1862 when Lancashireman William Marsters came to live here with his three Polynesian wives. He divided the island and reef into parts for each family and fathered 26 children. 73 people live on the island now and all of the families are descendants of Marsters. When you arrive at the island you are met by someone in a tinny who will guide you to a mooring ball or anchor site. That person and their family then become your hosts for the period of your stay at the island. There are 6 moorings balls outside the reef and when we arrived they were all taken so we were directed to an anchoring spot (fine as long as the wind didn’t change to the west and push us onto the reef). As yachts come and go regularly we were able to move onto a mooring ball that evening. In our case Edward Marsters guided us in and once the anchor was down he chatted with us for a bit and then said he would be back at 11 o’clock to take us through the reef and to the island for lunch. The hosting is taken very seriously and responsibilities include providing us with meals whenever we are ashore, ferrying us to and fro the island, navigating the tricky, shallow pass and generally looking after every need we have. In return we cruisers scour our boats for food and hardware items, books, cd’s, clothes etc. that we can give to our host family as they only see a supply boat every 3 or 4 months if they are lucky. We were actually transporting a bag of tomatoes, a cabbage and tobacco and papers for Edward as a result of a request we had received over the SSB radio. On our first day we were also happy to hand over some of our freshly caught tuna to contribute to the lunch. Lunch was a big affair, the womenfolk preparing the food in their outdoor kitchen and about 20 people comprising Edward’s immediate and extended family and cruisers from about 4 yachts partaking of the feast. For a small island Palmerston is well appointed with a small school, a health clinic run by one nurse, a church (of course!) and a telecommunications office where you can pick up internet, phone home and check the timetable for what will be on the satellite television that night. The island generators run for about 6 hours in the morning and 6 hours in the evening to power the batteries that provide the island’s power supply. Continuous power is important as so much of the food must be kept frozen with little fresh food able to be grown here. You would think a walk around the few ‘streets’ on the island wouldn’t take long on an island that only takes 30 minutes to circumnavigate. But wherever you go people invite you to stop and have a drink or share some food or simply sit for a while and have a chat. Usually they want to give you something to leave with too – fresh eggs or wholemeal bread. Such is the generosity and open interest that people display here. We are not naïve enough to think that in such a small community there are no divisions and issues, but overall there appears harmony and a pretty united community spirit. We were sad to leave Palmerston on Saturday morning for our 3-4 day journey to Niue, but other lands, including Australia beckon.

Raiatea for Repairs, Repairs and more Repairs

We were not confident that the salt water pump would continue behaving so we pulled out of Huahine on Monday morning, to sail the 24nm to Raiatea, where we knew we could have it repaired or parts replaced. The sun was shining, the wind was a light northerly and we started off motorsailing on a close reach, averaging 5kts. We had the reacher up for the first time since we had broken our forestay on the Galapagos to Marquesas passage. After about an hour we cut the engine and sailed gently along at 5-6kts, aiming for Passe Toavapiti which would allow us to motor up to the dock or anchorage near the main town of Uturoa. We sailed into the pass at about 2pm and then furled the reacher and started the engine to motor the couple of miles up the channel to the anchorage. About halfway up the water pump seized again and so, unable to continue under motor for fear of overheating it, we turned the boat around, put a small amount of reacher out, and sailed back down towards the pass. So near and yet so far! We knew we could anchor off a small motu (islet)just inside the pass. One of the difficulties in these parts is finding somewhere that is not too deep to anchor in. Depths of 50, 60 feet and more are common. The 30 year old cruisers guide we have for the area might be a bit dated when it comes to population numbers, hotels and restaurants, but it’s still good for anchorages and depths!

Motus at Passe Teavapiti

Also at anchor off the motu for the afternoon was Unama, the one and only yacht we saw on our Galapagos to Marquesas passage. We couldn’t raise them on the VHF radio, so we left a message on David, the skipper’s, phone and within a few minutes David and his girlfriend had snorkelled over. Unama was about to move from the motu back to the town anchorage and David, who knows the area well, showed us on the chartplotter the best place to take Brio. He also called us when he got to the anchorage to let us know there was a mooring ball free if we were able to get to it. Ivan spent the rest of the afternoon installing a temporary electric water pump that Renee and Cheryl from Gypsy Blues had given us when they learned of our troubles. They had no use for it and thought with some adaptation it could help us out. I am forever amazed by the helpfulness and generosity of people who are cruising, and even those who are not cruisers, but who sail. It’s not why we do it, but I guess we all figure it is good karma and doing someone a favour one day will bring us returns another day

We spent a windless night at the motu, but the wind came in from the north before dawn and we realised we had dragged a little towards the motu. As dawn was breaking we started the engine and motored up towards town. Thank goodness for Renee and Cheryl: the temporary water pump worked, keeping the engine cool enough for us to get to the mooring ball. Little did we know then what further repairs we were in for!

After walking around to check out the Uturoa town dock and to drop off the water pump for repair, we moved Brio off the mooring ball and onto the dock for easier access to town. The dock was pretty full, but we found a place where a charter yacht usually docks. To cut a long story short, then began a

succession of four moves on the dock until we tied up to where we are at present. The two moves we made where we needed to use the engine alerted us to the fact that all was not happy in the motor department. First the engine struggled to fire and then it would turn over at all. To cut another long story short, it turns out by using the temporary electric water pump we were letting seawater into the engine. It wasn’t the actual use of the pump that was the problem, rather that we should have turned the pump off before we turned the engine off to stop it from continuing to cycle water through the engine when the engine was stopped. While Ivan and a wonderful local electrician/mechanic, Richard, set about draining, refilling, draining, refilling the engine oil ad nauseum and checking all sorts of other aspects of the engine, I vacated to the cockpit for a 2 day reading session until order was restored to the boat.

Exposed engine

Our engine is highly inaccessible, requiring most of the galley to be dismantled before it can be accessed. To work on the engine usually involves lying on one’s back, head torch attached and arms disappearing into very small, very dirty spaces. Grunting, skinning knuckles, swearing and hearing the tinkle of parts descending into the abyss of the bilges is all par for the course when working on our engine.

I couldn’t help but think of the similarities between fixing a boat problem and going to the doctor…….Take a pill to cure an ill, cause a bigger problem still. Ivan couldn’t help but mutter the mantra “Cruising is just boat maintenance in exotic places”.

Since we arrived in Raiatea the wind has picked up from the east and feels like it is blowing 20-30kts. We have made some noises about moving to the west coast of neighbouring Taha’a Island for a bit more shelter, but are reasonably snug here at the town dock and are enjoying a nightly scrabble challenge followed by ‘Oh hell’ card game with Joni and Ken on Dancing Walrus. The high wind is likely to persist for a few more days, but we will probably move on to Taha’a tomorrow regardless.

Taha'a from th top of Raiatea

Huahine the Hard Way

After beers and conversation with Tooria and Laurance we returned to Brio at about 4pm and decided the time and the weather were right to depart for Huahine, about 80 nm away. We were soon underway, motoring out of the pass when we heard the now too familiar sound of a belt slipping. This was quickly followed by the engine’s high temperature alarm going off. A quick look revealed the salt water pump belt was broken and the pump had seized. Not wanting to destroy the engine through overheating we unfurled the genoa and shut the engine down. There was a very light breeze, barely enough for steerage, so Ivan paddled with a dinghy oar while Louise steered us between the marks of the reef. It was not the perfect getaway from an island! We made it out the pass and away from the reef, but we were in the island’s wind shadow and unable to clear it. We wallowed about 5 miles offshore with little or no steerage for the next 8 ½ hours. Others who had left around the same time as us were reporting 15kts of wind and travelling at 6-7 kts. Even the half-moon had left us just after midnight; it was frustrating to say the least. We finally reached wind at about 2.30am, set the monitor to hold our course and started to feel like we were making progress.

Having been at anchor or docked for the past 4 weeks or so, we were both suffering from seasickness and so were looking forward to arriving at Huahine as quickly as possible. The clock was against us as we sailed towards Huahine; the closer we got, the lower the sun was in the sky. We knew it would be foolhardy to risk entering the coral pass without an engine and in the gusty headwinds we would encounter as we turned into the pass. We discussed our options: see if the water pump could be freed up so we could run the engine and enter the pass before nightfall or bypass Huahine and sail on to Raitea, another 24nm on, meaning another night at sea and slowing right down so as not to arrive in the dark. We preferred the former of the two options and Ivan set about removing the water pump, soaking the partially disassembled pump in hot water and working the pulley to and fro to free it. It seemed to work and he re-assembled and installed the pump with a new belt, finishing about an hour before sunset. Not sure whether the repair would hold up, we gunned the engine and motorsailed towards the southern pass (Passe Avapeihi) that would take us to the small anchorage off the town of Fare. All went well; we entered the pass at sunset and dropped the anchor behind the reef on dark. Suddenly we were both starving hungry, so we heated up some leftovers and turned the lights out at about 7pm for a good night’s sleep.

Outrigger fisherman

Early the next morning we re-anchored much closer to the town so it was an easier row in to the dock. It was a good anchor spot in about 4m of clear water and no coral heads to worry about. We spent the day relaxing and doing some boat chores, ending it at the waterfront café’s happy hour with lots of other cruiser folk.



Forget about thegood looker with the bike...check out the colours of the water!

We rented bikes for the day to explore Huahine. The island is only about 15 km in length and made up of two parts joined by a bridge. As with the other Society Islands we have seen, the main road mostly hugs the edge of the island where it is flat, with only a few roads going into the very hilly interior. We figure we did about 60 or 70 km to get around the island, including a torturous 15% incline (which was very fun on the descent). We were fascinated by the ancient stone fish traps put across the inlet in one place. They are apparently still used today. We also saw some giant ‘sacred’ eels in a river posing as a drain. Not sure why they are sacred. Maybe something to do with them being across the road from the Seventh Day Adventist church!



Fish trap in idyllic surrounds



Moving on to Moorea

Our replacement chartplotter and tillerpilot arrived on Wednesday so there should have been nothing holding us in Tahiti. We had however booked tickets to see the Heiva finalists on the Saturday night, so we stayed on in Tahiti for them. To make it easier to get to and from the Heiva, we motored Brio the 5 nm back up to the town quay from where we had been staying in the mooring field off Marina Taina. To do this one has to pass the airport and is required to radio the Port Captain requesting permission to go past. Presumably so one’s mast doesn’t tangle with the undercarriage of an ascending or descending plane. Both times we did this Louise used her best radio enunciation and listening ears, but still found the Port Captain’s instructions confusing. Suffice to say, both times we made it past the airport without connecting with a low-flying jet.

As with the previous Heiva performance we saw, this one was also spellbinding. The dance and singing troupes who performed were the winners of their categories, so they were the best of the best. The ‘singing sunflowers’ were back again! It rained a little during the show and a kindly woman in front of us held her very large umbrella so we could shelter under it. The rain didn’t stop the show though and even enhanced it as the rain slick stage area reflected the colours of the costumes wonderfully.

Before the Heiva we had Lindy and Michel aboard Brio for drinks. Lindy and Michel’s son, Lio, was in one of the Heiva groups and we had met him at a rehearsal. He is Tahitian, but has lived in the US for 12 years and is studying there. Lio had given us his and his mother’s phone number in case we needed any help while in Tahiti. We actually rang Lindy, not for help, but to find out if Lio had made it into the finals. Lindy was one proud Mum of her boy who was just now starting to show an interest in his culture. Michel is a politician with the Independence Party that is currently in power. While we weren’t able to spend long with them it was great to meet them and learn a little more about the French Polynesian culture and Franco/Polynesian politics.

What Ivan would look like if he was in the Heiva

The next day, Sunday, we readied to sail to Huahine Island, approx 100 nautical miles away, so an overnight sail. By the time we got away it was well into the afternoon and with little wind we motored, deciding to go the few hours across to Moorea and stay the night there before continuing on to Huahine. As we entered the pass to Opunohu Bay, Moorea, the wind picked up, rain started to fall and the light was fading. We dropped the anchor among about 15 other yachts, not far from where we had stayed when on Water Musick for the Pacific Puddle Jumpers weekend. We spent the next 3 days at anchor due to there being big seas and winds outside the island. Much nicer to wait for some settled weather. It also gave us a chance to explore Moorea and do some ‘must do’s’. The main ‘must do’ was a trip to feed the rays. James and Sophie on Paramour III kindly offered us a lift in their dinghy as it was too far for us to row (our dinghy outboard is kaput). There is a certain ambivalence in feeding the rays: it’s nice to feed them so they come up close and brush their soft bodies by you, hanging around like a dog waiting for pat, but they are becoming more and more habituated to humans feeding them, so ultimately it is not good for them. I had to cast my biological morals aside as we offered the rays tinned sardines. While they would come up to us for sardines, anyone who offered them fresh fish pieces was soon surrounded by frenzied rays. It was quite an experience watching them and the black-tipped sharks that hung around the edges.

Ray whisperers

The next day we did the ‘Three Coconuts Walk’. We hitched a ride with a local woman, Tooria, who dropped us not too far from the start of the walk. She was an interesting and articulate woman, keen to give us her view of the French/Polynesian political situation, and insisted on our return we drop into her place for a beer. Was it not hot and are we not Australian?! Of course we said we would drop in! Three Coconuts Walk was a shaded path winding up the mountain through enormous and vibrant green ferns, huge mape trees, a forest of bamboo big enough to use as scaffolding and across a creek. The 1½ hr walk ended on a ridge where we could see one side down to the bay where we had left Brio and on the other side another bay. After baguettes for lunch we walked back down to the start of the track and hitched a lift back to Tooria’s house, recognising it by the blue pareo (sarong) she said she would leave on the hedge.

aiming for that on the 3 coconuts walk

Louise checks out the bamboo

Mape trees

Tooria introduced us to her husband Laurance, an art dealer. Laurance only spends 3 months of the year in Moorea, their home base, while the rest of the year he is either in Paris or New York for work. The sort of art that Laurance deals in has names like Picasso, Matisse and Gaugin attached to it! We spent a lovely couple of hours in Tooria and Laurance’s beautiful waterfront home, covering all sorts of topics, including the fact that Tooria’s first husband was good friends with famous sailors such as Bernard Moitessier and Eric Tabarly. For those of you who hero worship him, Ivan and I can now say we have met someone who washed Moitessier’s underpants!

As with meeting Lindy and Michel, we felt very lucky to have met Tooria and Laurance; to have spent time with ‘real’ people who live here and gain a further insight to life in French Polynesia. It’s not all coconut milk and hibiscus…..many people are feeling the pinch of constantly increasing prices and unemployment.

Still in Tahiti

More than 3 weeks since we arrived in Tahiti and we are still here. Although it is a lovely island and we have been having a great time, we never intended to stay this long. What has been holding us here is the expectation of our replacement chartplotter and tillerpilot arriving from America. It all sounded so positive when we arranged it with Tuckker, our friend and manager of a West Marine store in Florida: 3-5 days delivery to us. Seems things slow down once they hit Tahiti though. We have now engaged an agent to try to track the package down for us and if we don’t have it by the end of this week, we will press on into the Pacific without it. Paper charts and hand steering all the way!

We have moved from the town quay to a mooring field off Marina Taina, about 5nm from the centre of Papeete. Like little chickens coming home to roost, many of the friends we have made along the way are also here. Once again we are being social butterflies, meeting people we have only known previously by their voice on the radio; marvelling at couples who live aboard boats smaller than Brio. For about a week now it has been blowing 25-30kts all around the area, but not in our very calm mooring field. So, although we are ‘stuck’ here, we are also glad to be here and not trying to sail in such wind.

Apart from dealing with our postal administrivia, we have been making the most of our time here. We took a day trip around the island by car with another couple. Compared to the islands of the Marquesas and Tuomotus, Tahiti is very built up and busy. Most of the population lives on the coast, but there are a few roads that follow valleys inland. Turning in from the coast, one gazes skyward at steep, green pinnacles with their tops covered in cloud.

Papeno'o Valley

We went into town one evening to watch a performance of the Heiva competition. We saw 3 dance troupes and 2 singing groups. It was an amazing spectacle: about a hundred people dancing on stage at any one time, dressed in the most exquisite costumes, with drumming and other musical accompaniment. The singing groups are not quite as spectacular and the dancers and the locals in the audience show it by leaving their seat to go outside while the singers perform and then returning for the next dance! I found the singers a bit mesmeric actually as the song is quite repetitive and the group sways as it sings. One group dressed in bright yellow looked like a bunch of sunflowers swaying in the breeze!

Blurry, but amazing

We visited the Musee de Tahiti which has a good display of artefacts from the area. While there we found out about the traditional games they were holding there on the weekend. We went along last Sunday, easily hitching a ride there as the public transport system here is not good. Local people seem quite used to picking up hitch hikers and delivering them exactly to their destination. The traditional games were fun to watch, especially the javelin tossing. Not like we are used to seeing: these javelins are aimed at a coconut positioned on top of a pole some 9 metres high. All the competitors throw at once and they are all kitted out in colourful team outfits (bien sur!).

Above & Below: images from the traditional games

Tahiti

Our passage from the Tuamotus to Tahiti was a quick one. We went through the Fakarava pass at 3.15pm on Monday, a bit after slack water. There was a little turbulence and we used the engine as well as sail just to ensure we stayed clear of the reef. The south easterly breeze was 20-30 knots and we were all (Good2Go, Slick & Gypsea Heart were also out there with us) reefing sail to both stay under control and slow down so we didn’t reach Tahiti in darkness. We tried to have a game of Scrabble during the day, but gave up as the sea was just too lumpy. We motored into Papeete Harbour at about 7.30am Thursday.

We are tied up at the Town Quay on a floating dock with quite a few other cruisers. It’s a very convenient place to be as we are less than 5 minutes walk along the waterfront from the centre of town. I, Louise, have been in ice-cream and shopping heaven since we arrived. The clothing stores are having sales in the lead up to Bastille Day (July 14) so it has also been a great opportunity to replace some of my fetid banana stained tops and shorts. It takes a cruise like this to discover just how badly banana sap stains clothes!

Just near the Town Quay is the area where the ‘roulottes’ set up each evening. These are vans from which you can buy your dinner and sit at the plastic tables they also provide. The food is reasonably cheap, good and plentiful and we have eaten there a few times, enjoying the Chinese food and crepes with ice-cream. It’s nice to dine out in the mild evening and take in the sights and sounds. Speaking of which, each night we hear drumming or singing or music. We think it is the local people practising for the Heiva which is a major cultural event for French Polynesia and goes from about now to Bastille Day.

It’s really nice to see how the traditional culture is also everyday eg. Men and women wearing flowers behind their ears, vibrantly coloured pareus (sarongs) and amazing shell and bone jewellery.

Moorea

We spent last weekend at the neighbouring island of Moorea. There is a mob here who put on events for the Puddlejumpers (us mob who are crossing the Pacific by sailboat). They organised a great weekend which started on the Friday night with cocktails, dancing and fire sticks. On the Saturday morning about 30 yachts sailed over to Moorea – they kept calling it a rally, not a race, but everyone looked like they were racing to me! We left Brio on the Quay and went over with and spent the weekend aboard ‘Watermusick’. The Musick family, Bill, Becky and kids Joseph, Raymond and Melody were very kind to let us ‘invade’ their space for the couple of days. But honestly it feels like such a big boat compared to ours, we never felt like we were in anybody’s way.

Team Water Musick

We did pretty well in the ‘not-race’, coming in at 7^th place. The anchorage at Moorea is beautifully clear and has a stunning mountain backdrop. On the Sunday, we had a day of cultural sports and other activities, including outrigger races, tie-dying a pareo, banana carrying races, tug-of-war and dancing lessons. I just can’t seem to manage bending my knees one way while swivelling my hips the other way. The Polynesian women look so much more graceful and gorgeous when they do it.

Love that colour and movement!

Ivan's team won the outrigger races - Happy chappies!

Louise makes a pareo

Today is a public holiday in Tahiti for Independence or something like that. They call it the day of internal autonomy - sounds more like a surgical procedure to me. There are outrigger races going on just next to where we are on the Quay. People seem to have come from all over French Polynesia to participate and it is wonderful to see all the ‘colour and movement’ (as Dame Edna would say). The bodies, the costumes and the spectacular backdrop of Moorea island are all gorgeous.

Boys lining up for their race

Gorgeous girls - tres jolie



Tres jolie aussie

Tuomotus

We moved on from the verdant mountains and towering granite monoliths of the Marquesas to the Tuomotus group further south east. The geographic contrast couldn’t be greater: The Tuomotus comprise low lying, palm tree fringed coral atolls. The lagoons within the atolls are turquoise and aqua and lap upon brilliant white beaches. It is classic Pacific postcard and travel magazine cover imagery.

classic coral atoll scene

Our passage to the Tuomotus was 4 days and 4 nights to reach our chosen destination of Kauehi atoll. The sail across was fine, starting off in little or no wind and by the end of it dealing with squally, 30-40 knot winds. I mozzed us when I said as we were just about to enter the atoll through the pass in the reef that at least we hadn't had much rain with the squalls. As we motorsailed into the anchorage the skies thickened, the rain came in and it was grey all around. Not great conditions for seeing and avoiding the notorious coral heads that are in the atolls. But we knew it was a pretty easy pass to enter and could see most of what we needed to see on the chartplotter.

Speccy snorkelling

We celebrated my birthday here  -the big 50. I didn’t have the gourmet experience I was hoping for as there really is nothing but coconuts on these atolls, but I managed a chocolate brownie 'birthday cake' and we had a couple over from another boat to share a couple of bottles of red wine. The next evening a bunch of us got together on a catamaran (aka a palace) and feasted on fish and salads. Another chocolate cake was produced and I was sung 'happy birthday'.

a new 'do' for my 50th

After 4 or so relaxing days at Kauehi we moved on to Fakarava atoll. To ensure we got out the Kauehi pass as near to slack water as possible, we sailed up to the pass in the late afternoon to anchor just inside the pass for the night. There were 2 other yachts there doing the same thing. We had been undecided as to whether it was better to stay at our anchorage off the Kauehi village for the night and leave at 4.30am in the morning to get to the pass, or to spend the night anchored inside the pass, therefore only requiring a 6am start. To our regret we chose the latter. It was a very rolly anchorage and we got hardly any sleep, mostly because of the worry about whether the anchor would hold or the anchor rope would chafe, potentially letting us loose on the reef less than 20 metres behind us. As it turned out we survived the night, raised the anchor, still in the bucking seas, early the next morning and motored easily through the pass. We sailed in a south-easterly breeze of 12-16 knots, with quite rolly seas, the 30nm to Fakarava. As we were aiming to reach the northern pass of Fakara by about 1pm to get the end of the incoming tide, we turned the engine a couple of times to maintain an average speed of 5 knots. We came in through the pass at the expected time and sailed down to the anchorage off the town of Rotoava, dropping the anchor amongst about 10 other yachts at around 2.30pm.

As with the previous village we stayed at and in the Marquesas, the people who live here are very welcoming and generous. The villages are very clean and neat and while it is hard for people to grow a garden on the coral base in the Tuomotus, many houses have some bouganvillea, frangipani and assorted other plants around them.

the local boys gave Ivan a fishing lesson

We hired bikes for a day and rode the length of the bitumen and beyond. In one direction from the town the sealed road stretches for 16km and then continues for about another 5km. There wasn’t much to see along the way other than some houses and pensions and of course the ubiquitous coconut palms! We enjoyed the exercise though. Because the nature of coral atolls is that they are circular and narrow, we could usually see either the lagoon side or the ocean side of the atoll at any one time. The width of the atoll is probably only about 500m on average. In the other direction from town, the sealed road only goes for about 3km – to the airport. Most people come to the Tuomotus for the diving and snorkeling. I came for the chance to ride a bike on an airport runway – not many places in the world you can do that!

another baguette about to be devoured

After a really interesting tour of a pearl farm, including the purchase of a belated birthday present for me, we set sail for Tahiti.

Miss allie pic