Huahine - Beautiful!

Our crossing from Tahiti to Huahine was interesting because of the big water and the fact that it was dark. There was a quarter moon on but it didn't show because of the rain clouds. But our first glimpses of Huahine were in bright sunshine. The Avapehi Pass was wide and well marked and Smooth! The lagoon to the south of the village of Fare is also well marked. The water colors are unbelievable, the depths are beautiful dark blue and the sand shallows are the loveliest shade of turquoise. The water visibility is at least 90 feet in most places. We parked up on the reef side of the lagoon and immediately prepared to snorkel the reef beside us. The current runs pretty strong in this part of the lagoon channel as I was swept rapidly away from the boat when I jumped in the water and had a difficult time swimming back to the boat. This method of getting to the reef was not going to work so we lowered the whaler and drove ourselves over, anchored the whaler in a sandy spot then spent the better part of the morning viewing the many little fishes and coral heads. We found two eels. A cyclone swept the area in February and the evidence was in the many huge coral rocks that were broken or upside down in the water. After our snorkel we took an exploratory trip on the whaler back to Fare and south to Aveo Bay. Along the way we found Port Bourayne which is a large sheltered area that resembles a bay but is open to the east side of Huahine. Huahine is really two islands in the same lagoon. Anyway, because Port Bourayne was so nice we hoisted anchor on the big boat and moved in to Port Bourayne. This is bar none the nicest anchorage we have been in yet since leaving Canada's west coast. No swell, no current, no noisy town, no boat traffic, no wind, no waves - only smooth blue water with lovely lush forest lining the sandy beaches. You get the picture - right? We did a shake down dive once we were all set up just to get Georgia acquainted with our equipment, sadly our nice anchorage does not have great diving, but we got all the wrinkles out of our gear. The next day as we were enjoying our morning coffee, Oso Blanco arrived in Huahine from their travels in Moorea and Tahiti. This is the first we have seen them since the Marquesis. We had so many stories to tell each other. They anchored beside us and when they were all settled in we all headed out to do a dive on the outside of the reef. The dive was O.K., but we are still sorry to see so much coral damage. There was one lone black tip shark as we entered the water, we came across two eels and we found two large anemones with the resident clown fishes. Next time we will try the pass to see if we can find more life. To finish our day off, Anne, Eric and Bear came over to our boat for Happy Hour then we all hopped into our whaler for the 10 min. boat ride to the restaurant Mauarii in Aveo Bay. It is a great restaurant and we had a lovely evening. The full moon lit the way home and we were forward thinking enough to put a trail on the GPS as we went to dinner so that we could follow the red line back to the boats in the dark. Today was another sunny day. Oso Blanco moved their anchorage to Aveo Bay to join some of their other boating buddies and we took our whaler into Fare to pick up our rented scooters for 9:00 am. As we were tying up to the quay in Fare, I remembered my driver's license. It wasn't with me! Great, now we will have an issue - it has taken us 10 min to get here. (Georgia had forgotten her license too) Luckily, even though we rented through Eurocar car rentals, they did not ask to see our driver's licenses, they only asked if we were familiar with driving scooters. Well of course we are. I think I drove the scooter at the race track once, that should do it! Thank God there isn't too much traffic on this island, because I'm dangerous on a scooter. It takes four hours to circumnavigate the two islands so off we headed to explore. We stopped at an archeological site, toured several artisan's shops, found the sacred blue eyed eels, marveled at the clever design of the ancient fish traps and enjoyed a sunny day surrounded by magnificent scenery around every turn. We stopped for lunch at the Mauarii and had a great fish sandwich with coconut/vanilla sauce and fries. The fries are stuffed in your sandwich! Weird, but tastey. It was fun to travel around the area on land, we saw Oso Blanco in her new anchorage and admired our boat sitting in her great anchorage and so on, just a nice change of perspective.

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