Bora Bora

Having Georgia on board insures that we don't just idle our time away looking at scenery. We have explored each island of the Society group that we have landed on - thoroughly, and Bora bora is no exception. We have done a couple of dives, one on a very healthy coral reef inside the lagoon and one with the "sharks" on the outside of the reef - the visibility was crystal clear and the fishes were large and numerous. The fish are also very used to being feed so gather as soon as a diver enters the water - this includes the sharks - which can be a bit un-nerving. What if they get upset because you didn't bring them a snack? Snack on you????? We tag along after the Lagoon cruise boats and get in on such easy thrills as feeding and swimming with the rays. T(hey feed them with their tourists (meaning they feed the rays with squid, not the tourists) and move on and we slide in and swim with the still expectant rays. Needless to say, this was one of Georgia's trip highlights. Bora Bora is a small island, the circling road is only 32 km. so our day rental of the car turned out to be only a half day (lunch time included) Most of the posh resorts are on the Motus surrounding the main island, which is O.K. as we can reach anything with our small boats. We have the Hilton Bora Bora just up the coast from our anchorage and they allow outside reservations for all of their facilities - nice. Of special note here in the Tahiti area was the total solar eclipse that happened at 7:13 am July 11 and lasted for roughly two hours. We bought our special solar viewing glasses, available at any store on any of the islands and were perched on top of the boat, waiting in giddy anticipation for this astrological event to occur. .....And the rain clouds rolled in! Then the mountain in the centre of the island seemed to be in the way, were we even going to get a glimpse? Yes, we saw the whole thing very clearly. In Bora Bora, it was only 90% coverage, but still very impressive. We are all shopped out, don't want to see any more pearl stores or paero stores (the universal wrap around dress/skirt/whatever) but we are still very happy to swim and dive in the beautiful blue water (good, because that part is free and shopping is getting pricey). The weather here has been pretty windy, but the rains come during the night or early morning and the days are sunny and hot. So no complaints on that.

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Oh My God!

We have done the ultimate Polynesian picture perfect thing today! We followed Oso Blanco over to the west side of Tahaa to the motu (small island) Tautau. The channel is 100 plus feet and the reef is about 8 to 12 feet of pure white sand. Oso Blanco bravely pokes his nose onto the sandy reef and reports that he still has 2.5 feet under his keel, so come on in. Wow - 2.5 feet under the keel!! This is picture perfect, these two, 100 ton boats, suspended on the turquoise water over the pure white sand, their shadows perfectly reflected on the bottom and mere feet away, the dark blue depths of the channel. We immediately don our snorkel gear and plunge into the water, yep, only 2.5 feet under the keel. It gives Glen goose bumps to see the boat's bottom so close to the ground (me too actually) big problems if we drag anchor. But it is too pretty to even contemplate this kind of problem. We find a ray gliding around on the sand, some large white puffer fish and a couple of huge cow fish. Our own swimming pool.
We spend the balance of the day snorkeling. We head over to the motu as there is supposed to be wonderful snorkeling there, but we must have missed the spot as mediocre is the best description for it. We try to get a reservation for dinner at the resort on the island (the best in all of Polynesia - supposedly) but they can't get us in so we have the Oso bunch over for snacks and drinks and a good visit.

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Sunshine At Last!

Whining works after all, we have some sunshine. In fact we have beautiful calm And sunshine. We awake in our precarious anchorage on the west side of Raiatea in "glass" calm water and a beautiful sunny day breaking. We lift anchor and head to the north of the island by going out one pass into open water and then in another pass to enter back into the lagoon and anchor by Marina Apoitit by Uturoa. being Sunday (hence the sun!) nothing is open in town, but we do manage to catch the dive shop guy and sset up a dive for tomorrow with them. When we say nothing is open, that means nothing, so no restaurants either, we have a quiet evening on the boat. Georgia seems to be going stir crazy?????? Our dive is on a three master sail boat sunk on the reef in early 1900. It is very well preserved and we see some new creatures living in it's shell. Georgia's first wreck dive. I have to admit, it was a good one. We stock with groceries in the afternoon and ready to head to Tahaa the next day. Tahaa is in the same lagoon as Raiatea, but is a separate island. Tahaa is a very beautiful little place. It is pretty windy the day we head up but we find a good anchorage in Haamene Bay, which is good as all of the touristy things we want to do here are located here. The first two numbers that we call for the sites we want to see don't speak English. Oooh, not a good sign. I muster as much French as I know for the next call - "Ahlo?" and it works as the lovely lady on the other end responds in English (as my French is obviously going to be bad). She was a good contact too as she set us up on a tour to see a Vanilla Plantation, a pearl farm (for Georgia) and the Hibiscus turtle foundation, everything we wanted on one phone call. As we were waiting at the dock for our ride, we see Oso Blanco anchoring up next to us in the bay and call on the VHF to see if they want to join in the tour - Yes, of course. So a little trucks comes for us with seats in the box and a canopy overhead and away we all go. the vanilla farm was very interesting. Tahiti produces the best tasting vanilla in the world, but not the most expensive and not the most available. It takes a very long time and a lot of hand work to get this exotic spice/flavor perfect. We of course buy a bunch of vanilla flavor products which are very yummy. The pearl farm turned out to be informative for everybody. When we were in the Tuamotus, we got to see the nets in the water and how the oysters are managed there, but at this farm, the fellow explained in classroom style the types of oysters, how the colors (black,green,purple) are achieved and how the pearls are created. Very interesting. The Hibiscus foundation rescues turtles from the fishermen (the turtles get caught in the fishing nets) rests them up and feeds them for a bit then releases them back into the wild. We had dinner at the Hibiscus restaurant (thankfully - no turtle on the menu) it was good not to have to cook ourselves for a change.

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Raiatea

The day we left Huahine for Raiatea was not the "best" weather day. It was rainy and windy and there were very large waves/swells in the small 20 mile channel that separates the two islands. It is comforting to know that this boat thinks nothing of this type of conditions and that weather watching is just a formality. Georgia is feeling the effects of not being on the boat regularly so spends the trip down below trying not to be too sick. It is not one of my better days either as through what I have done or what I have failed to do I leave a path of loss and destruction. I didn't put every thing away for the trip so there was a gouge in the teak floor from a falling object and "my" dive suit blew overboard because they weren't properly stowed and I burnt the bottom out of my frying pan making lunch. That's three bad things right? Well, no. I was able to scrub the burnt stuff off of the pan. Once we reached Raiatea our search for a quite place to anchor near the town of Uturoa resulted in our dropping and retrieving the anchor no less than four times (once was by the airport runway and the officials made a personal boat trip out to ask us "MOVE" in the polite way that only the French can do) and during one of these times, I managed to whack the anchor onto the boat and that big chip in the gel coat was number three for bad things. We did find a reasonably quiet spot though and we even had internet so we could all catch up on our business. Day two - we rented a car to tour the island, we were going to rent scooters again, but it looks like rain and it did rain. The island is lovely of course, not very commercialized, there are a couple of small resorts. We did stop for lunch in a quaint little resort on the south of the island, Opoa Beach Resort, very nice lunch and very nice little resort. We did some roadside shopping - gathered some papaya from trees that we are positive were growing wild???? and an avocado and some pommelos. Stopped at one of the little "magasins" and bought some bread (baquettes - really hard to make toast from these). It is still blowing at the boat when we get back and raining. Day three - we head south in the lagoon in search of a quiet anchorage and we do find a perfect spot and wonder of wonders, when we head out for a snorkel adventure, we actually find a beautiful coral garden with multitudes of colorful small fish and live coral! Day four - we suit up and go diving in our coral garden, there is a drop off to 60+ feet and we have a really good dive. There is even an eagle ray here, though very shy, we only catch glimpses of him. I do have a second dive suit, so am lucky to not have to dive without. The diving in the Society Islands has not been very good at all so this spot warrants a second dive the next day and it is just as interesting the second time around. Day five - we moved the big boat around the west side of the island and had to scramble to find a shallow enough anchorage before the daylight left. The bays look lovely, but they are very deep and have very shallow reefs extending into them, so you need the light to be able to see the variances in the water depths as deep to shallow is immediate and we would run the boat aground using our depth sounder. But despite the rush, we managed, as we always do, to get the job done. It is raining and raining and raining here. We mop up the boat and close the windows/doors then open them all up again, hide the outdoor seating then set it all up again. The rain is getting tedious to say the least. Well we are diving anyway so salty wet or rainy wet, I guess it doesn't matter. When the sun does peak out it is definitely beautiful and today the whole afternoon has been gloriously sunny. We have watched waterfalls be born in the last couple of days. The evenings are quiet dinners on board and sadly a series of really bad movies, but good wine makes up for that fact. Tomorrow, we will head back to the north end to stock up on supplies and do a wreck dive before moving on the Tahaa which is the second island in the same lagoon as Raiatea.

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Market ? What Market?

So we are all pumped up to go to Fare on Huahine for market day. According to the guide books and the girl in the scooter rental place - Yes, there is a market on Saturday. All day! Down by the cargo dock. Well, long story short, we bought a few supplies at the regular grocery store and were back to the big boat in an hour. Quite disappointing, there were two tail-gate trucks with a few pieces of fruit and the other one had some veal. Our afternoon was spent burning up fuel in the whaler, boogey boarding in the bay where we have the big boat parked. It took a few times for Georgia to get back into the groove and because I'm lucky today, I get up first time. But I'm not a very good boat driver and I couldn't get the throttle right to allow Glen to stabalize the board so that he could get up. So before we ripped his arms out, he promised I could try driving another day and he got back on board and drove for Georgia again. When we finished that craziness, we took a tour in the whaler to the other side of the island in search of a smooth snorkel place as the wind had picked up on the west side making it too rough to snorkel there. we saw some neat things from the water, but curiously, it was rough on the east side too so we headed back to the Mother ship and soothed our soar muscles with papaya smoothies for Happy Hour.

Sunday was a dive day, Eric and Anne came from Oso Blanco and we headed for Avapehi Pass for a spectacular dive (according to the dive books). We anchored our boats by the local dive boat (good sign - there is dive activity here) and descended to the dead coral below. It will get better as we go into the pass - Not!. We found a couple of eels and saw a few more fish than usual, but diving here is not very good to say the least. To top the experience off, we mis-judged the current and almost got ourselves swept out to sea (not a sign of experienced divers as we like to think of ourselves). So we called it a day and headed back to the big boats, chatted for a bit before Eric and Anne took off for their big boat then cleaned our gear. Tomorrow, we will head over to Raiatea, a two hour trip.

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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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Impressions of Tahiti

Finally we have dropped our mooring lines at Marina Taina in Papeete, Tahiti and are headed for the island of Huahine. We have been in Tahiti for a week now and are bored stiff. First, there was major concern as to whether we were even going to get to Tahiti from Calgary on June 15 as there was a big general strike here in Tahiti that had everything - literally everything closed down. But as we entered each new phase of our flight schedule, the planes were flying so we made it as initially planned. Georgia is with us, a grad gift to her for finishing one phase of her education - she is an Animal Health Technician now. Because of the strike, we delayed having some repairs done on our whaler because we needed to be here to have it done, so that kept us until Friday and then the weather decided not to play along with our game and heavy rain, winds and seas kept us tied up. We broke out one day and rented a car for a driving tour of the island of Tahiti. It only takes 4 hours to circumnavigate, but we stopped for lunch and to see the botanical gardens and to hike up to some lovely water falls, so we filled the day. There are a few beaches along the way, they have black sand beaches, but it was a rainy day and nobody wanted to get wetter. The vegitation is of course very lush as all we have seen it do is rain, so now we know why it is so green. The grocery store is very nice, things from all over the world, but because this is an island i the middle of the ocean, everything has to be shipped by boat or plane and so everything is very expensive here. The down town Papeete is rather small and after 10 pearl shops, you pretty much have covered it (or rather don't want to see anymore). We have been filling our afternoons/evenings by visiting new boat friends from Italy/Australia and swapping boat and travel stories. But now as evening is closing in, our boat is wobbling along in 11 foot seas with a three foot chop on top (great fun). The boat is handling it very well and we are contemplating having a nice plate of kokori (pearl oyster meat) for dinner with a bottle of wine. We are very excited to set our eyes on a new place when dawn arrives tomorrow.

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