Taha’a, Society Islands

13. Jul. 2015
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French Polynesia
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3 Comments

Author: Pete

Location: Taha’a, Society Islands

Date: July 9 – 12, 2015

Sailed out of the Fare pass in Huahine and headed west downwind with following seas, running wing-wing to Taha’a….a….ah.. a… ah.. aaaa. Ugly clouds obscured the island as we crossed the twenty easy miles, but thankfully never hammered us. I love weather that’s “All-Bark, No-Bite”, or as my buddy Hal puts it, “All Hat and No Cattle”.

Once through the easy Toahotu pass we cut slightly south and into the deep Haamene Bay. We’re not sure what’s up with the island’s obsession with unnecessary vowels; I bet they’d get along well with Brits when they visit. I’m think they’d love the flavour, colour, and granduure of the island. We picked up a mooring in 100 feet of water courtesy of Hotel Hibiscus who we heard did great tours of the local vanilla and pearl farms on the island. We radiod them to see if they’d show us around the next day, then settled in to enjoy the huge empty bay and clearing skies.

The next day we met up with Marke, whose French father and Polynesian mother ran the pension. In my mind, Marke is spelled like that in following with the unnecessary vowels. You think I’m kidding, but when he showed us around the island, all of the signs seem to be missing all the consonants. Like when we drove through the town of Faaaha. Sounds like something I’ve shouted in front of my students when I forget to move the decimal and end up with completely the wrong answer twenty minutes later. “FAAAHA!”

Our first stop was at a local vanilla farm. Apparently, 80% of the French Polynesian vanilla comes from Taha’a. Teva, our host, showed us his covered grow house that keeps birds and other pests out. He said each vine takes 3 years to mature and give flower. The beans take nine months to develop after the flower is pollinated. Then the beans need to be sun-dried which takes another five months. So it takes over a year to go from flower to sellable bean. One kilogram (2.2 pounds, you lackey) of dried beans though goes for about $400-500 USD.

It’s a hybrid of the Bourbon vanilla from Madagascar, and needs to be pollinated by hand since the insects that normally do the job weren’t brought to the island with the first plants. So our host, Teva, showed us how to pollinate the flowers. It made me blush, but it’s all in the name of science and fine cuisine!

The whole thing was run out of his house with his wife. Sounds like it takes a good deal of time and capital to set up, but then runs pretty smoothly. Teva said he sells mostly to local and foreign restaurants looking for organic, independently grown vanilla. Great niche.

Then it was off to the pearl farm along the winding coastal road. Gorgeous weather and a great view of Bora Bora.

Out on the docks our hostess, Magda, showed Miranda and I the process of making a pearl. The oysters are mostly a breed from the Tuamotus and are now grown here, hung in baskets under floats in the lagoon. Oysters will coat foreign objects in their iridescent mother of pearl. When that happens in nature you get a gorgeous object the size and shape of a Nerdz candy, but certainly not your gramma’s pearl earrings style.

To get that shape the oysters are grown for a couple years until they’re big enough to handle a nucleus, or sphere cut from a swarthy clam from the Mississippi river. So a white marble is put into the oyster, and twelve to eighteen months later the thing is coated to an appropriate thickness with mother of pearl. Seems like cheating, right?

If an oyster spits out the nucleus or coats it only partially, which happens about half the time, the oyster will never be a pearl bearer and is thus is eaten with lemon and garlic. If the oyster coats the nucleus well, which can be discerned through careful, non-destructive surgery, a larger nucleus is inserted and the oyster is returned to the farm. Most productive oysters can make four pearls before they’re tuckered out. Magda showed me all about where to squeeze to get the pearl to pop out. She said I’m pretty good at it, but I’m sure she says that to all the guys. Geeze, here I thought vanilla pollination would be the only thing that made me blush on this excursion.

The next day the good weather held and we were off to the other side of Taha’a. On the northwest side of the island are a couple motus; we anchored just off Ilot Tautau, encrusted with expensive palapa-style bungalows stretching out across the water. They had a really lovely view until we showed up and plunked our anchor just offshore in the eight feet of crystalline water and clear sand. Suckers!

Between Tautau and the next motu north, Mararare, there’s a pass out to the reef that’s 300 feet wide and a quarter mile long. The channel is only three feet at the deepest and it’s a snorkeling gold mine. It’s called the Coral Gardens, but Coral Maze might be more appropriate. The corals are healthy, colorful, and dense. And the fish must be used to getting fed by the tourists because upon entry they swarm you. If you open your hands to them they nip at your empty palms. I lost sight of Miranda a few times behind clouds of Pacific Double Saddle Butterflyfish and Convict Surgeonfish.

Even though we didn’t bring any bread to feed the fish I still think they were happy to see us.

Two days of almost constant immersion and then we were off to Bora Bora, purportedly the most beautiful island in the world!

Moorea, Society Islands

30. Jun. 2015
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French Polynesia
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2 Comments

Author: Pete

Location: Moorea, Society Islands

Date: June 25, 2015

We decided to make the most of our down-time waiting for the autohelm part to come in by sailing to Moorea, three hours from Papeete. We had spent a few days ordering our autohelm part, salvaging data off a dying hard drive, and working on a dinghy cover. The sun does wicked things to the material over the years, so often canvas covers are put on to extend the lifespan of the noble work horse of Joe Schmoe Cruiser. Gringos call the covers ‘chaps’, but I like the Spanish equivalent, ‘pijamas.’ I love the idea that the dinghies tied up at the dock in their pajamas are really attending some sort of nautical sleepover with terrycloth robes, slippers, and night caps.

It was a lot of work; we made a pattern out of clear plastic in Galapagos and worked on the real thing on the mooring at Marina Taina. It’s tough to work on a project like that on a rolling boat with limited space to maneuver meters of fabric. At least that’s going to be my excuse if anyone calls me out on a few spots of rough tailoring. Most of the time we worked with the dinghy suspended from the davits and occasionally I had to get in it to work. I only once fell out of the tippy dinghy into the harbor. Miranda thought that was great.

Several of the days were pretty windy and rough when we were on a mooring ball in Taina. We had gusts to thirty knots and once breaking waves in the mooring field. One afternoon as we were working on the dinghy cover, a big catamaran broke free from its mooring and went zipping sideways downwind through a dozen moored boats. No one saw it until it was right next to us. I put the dinghy in the water and went tearing after it, without thinking about what I was going to do in my poorly idling, nine horsepower dinghy once I caught the 30 ton catamaran in 20 knots of wind. Miranda was smarter than me, as usual, and called the marina. They dispatched a launch and with the assistance of another dinghy we wrestled the boat to another mooring ball and tied it up. Miraculously, the vagabond boat didn’t ding a single other vessel out of the dozen it zipped by in the mooring field.

Then it was happily time to piss off to Moorea for a few days while we awaited the autohelm part. We motorsailed the fifteen miles across because the wind was on our bow. Of course it was the first day it had blown from that direction in a week. It was light and the going was easy. We passed Cook’s Bay, named after the popular Captain Cook who explored the area, and turned in at Opunohu Bay a few miles west. The two bays cut deep into the island of Moorea, making it look like a heart with two divots in it.

Had to hand steer the three hours over, which seems pretty easy, but is a chore when you’re used to someone else driving for thousands of miles. Motored easily through the pass with the backwards French buoy marking. The pointed teeth of Moorea’s peaks made for fantastic scenery.

Oop. That’s fanny-tastic scenery! We anchored just inside the protection of the coral reef in ten feet of water.

We put the dinghy down with gusto and took off to go snorkel. It had been three weeks since we’d been in the water. Well, except for the time I fell off the boat working on the dinghy cover. Three weeks?! We LIVE on a boat for crying out loud. How does that happen?! It was good to be back down undah. A couple chill sea turtles paddled by near the drop off and we saw some of our old friends from other boats out there too.

Came back to the boat in a nice flat anchorage and slept like babies.

The next morning we met up with friends who knew the low down of the island. Paul and Andy from Talulah Ruby showed us the secret snorkeling spots. The first spot hid seven sunken carved tikis. Legend has it that the first missionaries made the craftsman throw them in the lagoon when they came. Snorkelers keep them free of marine growth so they are in great shape. A little spooky to see under water!

Our next delight of the day was Stingray City, a sandbar in the lagoon where the stingrays (and reef sharks) congregate in the shallows. We anchored our dinghy in chest-deep water and the rays came out to play. They swam in and around us, looking for handouts. Apparently some dive operators feed them, so they were very cordial with us. They nose around you and are happy to be petted. Their skin is velvety, an unparalleled combination of smooth, slippery, and soft without feeling slimy. It’s a cool enough sensation and interaction to dissolve your speech into unintelligible, involuntary chortling. From all across the sandbar the sound of our group of friends giggling like school girls though their snorkels rang out. It’s a precious thing to hear a posh, collected fifty-year-old British man tee-heeing giddily at the thrill of a natural petting zoo.

We ended up going back the next day armed with tuna. The rays were really excited to see us then! Reminds me of a great Mitch Hedberg quote: “I find that a duck’s opinion of me is heavily influence by whether or not I have any bread.” That guy was a genius. We brought our gringo friends Rick and Lara from SeaKey, and Dutch friends Pete and Liz from Suluk.

The 28th we sailed back to Papeete with the hopes of picking up our much awaited part!

Papeete, Tahiti

14. Jun. 2015
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French Polynesia
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2 Comments

Author: Pete

Location: Papeete, Tahiti

Date: June 5 – 13

Alright! Back to work! I guess that’s how it’s felt in the last week in Papeete. We got set up in the new marina in town which is half price until the end of June. They’re still working on things so the marina isn’t a well oiled machine yet, but hey, neither am I. It’s a treat to be at a dock, to be able to run out and pick up something you forgot, to walk to dinner without being sprayed with sea water in the dinghy, hose salty kite and dive gear down without being a water Nazi, and also to take a real shower. I haven’t taken a real shower since Panama. That’s not to say that I haven’t taken a shower, or even a hot shower. The boat provides hot showers when the engines have been running. I’m talking about real, hot, soapy, soaker showers. 3000 miles long past.

Our first night in we went out to eat at the plaza that features all the Chinese food trucks in town. The place was teeming with people and steaming with food blazing over mobile propane grills. The food was great, and most importantly, not cooked by us! We also stumbled upon a great Polynesian dance performance. I was ready to get my coconuts and grass skirt going.

The town of of Papeete gets a bad rap from the cruising community. If one expects a pristine settlement on a tropical island, one shouldn’t expect to find random Harken jib car parts there. We were pleasantly surprised by Papeete. There’s a beautiful park and promenade along the waterfront, nice restaurants, and more chandleries than you can shake a spinnaker pole at.

The styles of the tattoos have been changing little by little as we head west through French Polynesia. In the Marquesas the tattoos were generally animals, sharks, dolphins, and rays. The Tuamotus had more geometric designs, angular and repeating. Here in the Society Islands we’ve seen more flowing ‘tribal’ designs with more Asian looking influence. Pretty neat.

Liza and Felix spent a day planning and packing before they headed to the other side of Tahiti to catch the big waves coming in there. It was an emotional send off; we were happy for all the help they’ve been aboard in good weather and bad, happy for all the incredible experiences we’ve been able to share together, but sad to see them go. C’est la vie.

No time to get glassy-eyed, Susan, time to get busy! We have a TO DO list about a mile long, nothing critical, but it’s like bailing water, if you don’t keep up, your boat is going down. For all the running around town we busted out the baby blue, sparkly fold-up bike that was stashed in the starboard crash box back in Fort Lauderdale. She was still in impeccable shape with not a spot of rust! We bolted her together and found some pegs in the local hardware store. I pedal, feet a blur in tiny circles, and Miranda stands on the back, holding on, skirt flapping in the wind. It’s comical. If I didn’t have a cute girl holding onto me, I’d feel like a big knob and get beat up by way more muscley Polynesian men.

On the list, propane! Dragged seven, ten-pound propane tanks to the gas filling station some miles north of town on the blue bike. Then it was onto replacing failing exhaust hose and dinghy fuel line connections, running to the Port Captain and Customs Offices for clearance paperwork, and general cleaning and work on the boat. Miranda also got her hair cut by ‘professionals’ in a ‘salon’ because she doesn’t trust me with the ‘trimmers’ to give her a ‘fashionable haircut’ on the ‘transom’. Geeze, some people have no adventurous spirit at all.

We also destroyed the blog by updating the WordPress software and it took a good couple hours of freaking out in an internet cafe, but Miranda figured it out. For you gurus, we couldn’t login to our admin site because we got the White Screen of Death (technical term, promise!) from our outdated theme’s incompatibility with the new version of WordPress. So she updated the WordPres theme by overwriting the current version via an FTP client called Filezilla. Merg? It’s sort of like getting your Michigan driver’s licence renewed when you’re not allowed back in the country because you have too many DUIs. Tough going. It’s amazing what you learn out here, even when you don’t want to.

We loaded up with new provisions, fresh produce at the market, a good deal of booze, watered up, and filled the boat with diesel, before heading out of Papeete! On to new horizons!