Society Islands – HandsOnDeck

Maupiha’a – life on an isolated atoll

Spending three months in French Polynesia was a dream. There are not many people who are able to travel as freely as we have in some of the most beautiful and remote places on earth. We know how lucky we have been to have the time to enjoy and explore over ten islands and numerous atolls in our time here, but that doesn’t take away from the feeling that we have only scratched the surface and, in hindsight, I wish we had decided to apply for the longterm visa while in Panama as having that extra time would have made all the difference, exploring more, visiting more atolls and really getting to know each place we visited. French Polynesia covers such a vast area, it is impossible to do it justice in three months! One lasting impression was how wonderful it is to see a region that has not allowed major development to detract from the natural beauty of the place. Big hotel groups are limited to single level chalets – usually built over the water, offering exclusive accommodation to those able to pay US$3000 per night, but we also saw a number of failed operations with chalets being left to decay over the crystal clear waters that once attracted wealthy guests. Towns are kept very traditional with no big stores or multi-national fast food places dominating the landscape. I think the only place we saw a MacDonalds was on Moorea and that was a sad sight to see!

It felt like The Society Islands were not ready to see us go as we made very slow progress in light winds, taking almost all day for Bora Bora to fade out of sight. The wind picked up as the sun sank below low cloud on the horizon in front of us, as we picked up speed and headed west. It turned out to be a lovely sail with flat seas and a beam reach in about 10-15knots of wind – the perfect conditions for Cerulean and us! We were headed to a small atoll, still just in French Polynesia, called Maupiha’a where eight people live, farming copra (coconut). They are completely cut off from civilization, apart from visiting yachts who bring supplies and help where possible. A supply ship comes once a year to ship the cobra to Tahiti for processing, but will only come when there is 14.5 tons to collect. Eight adults work six days a week to cut, collect and dry the cobra and have a satellite phone to call the main administration centre on Maupiti, a small island 100nm east, to request the ship comes to collect. (We later discovered there had been a fallout and one family had been ostracized by the other three couples, meaning only six adults were collecting coconuts and processing them). In the meantime, the eight residents live off fish, coconut crabs, coconuts and fruit and vegetables grown on the island. We had been told they would welcome certain items so had stocked up on flour, sugar, mayonnaise, instant coffee, rice and onions to give to Norma, the Mayor of the island.

The low lying atoll is hard to see and we didn’t get a sight of it until we were about five miles from the most eastern point. As we approached the narrow pass into the atoll, it started to rain, making visibility hard, so we waited for the cloud to clear before attempting the narrow, challenging pass.

With Steve on the bow and talking to me in the headphones, we started our approach, keeping in the middle of two visible white sticks which mark the edge of the reef. Waves broke on either side as we motored through the channel with large eddies trying to pull us to one side of the channel. We increased the revs on the engine as the outgoing current increased at the same intensity as my stress levels! We crawled through the pass at about 3knots, weighing up going faster to have more grip in the water v’s being cautious incase we hit the reef! We made it through and Steve was able to see obstacles below us to guide us into deeper water – a huge relief to be in the calm blue waters of the atoll.

We headed to the north where we could see one other boat anchored and a few houses hidden in the trees. Along the way terns screamed their welcome and brown boobies attempted to land on our pole which we had left out, seemingly believing it would be a perfect perch for them to view unsuspecting fish we disturbed in the water below. It was very amusing watching them attempting to land and, when they won that battle, trying to stay on the slippery pole as they had to continue to fly to stay still – obviously not what they were expecting so soon disappeared with a disgruntled squawk!

The other boat in the bay belonged to Elaine and Crawford from the UK and later, on board their boat, we met Mayor Norma and Harry who were using starlink to call their daughter in Maupiti. It was lovely seeing the delight on their faces to have a rare conversation with family and then receive photographs of grandchildren they have not seen for some time.

The next day was Saturday and, as Seventh Day Adventists, it was their day of rest when they stop harvesting coconuts and preparing copra, so they invited us to visit their home. It felt like they were real life Robinson Crusoe’s as we approached the small tin shack they call home, with internal walls of mesh hung from rafters, decorated with shells. The kitchen is outside with the sink and workbench facing the blue clear water of the lagoon – a view that would be hard to beat anywhere!

Harry guided us through the coconut trees to the other side of the narrow stretch of land they live on, to the wild windward side where the deep ocean crashes on a small reef and coral beaches. The sound of the sea moving washed up coral was only drowned out by the screech of hundreds of Sooty Terns that had been disturbed by our appearance. The Terns spend most of their lives at sea, returning to land only to breed and lay their eggs on the ground, sometimes not bothering to attempt to make a nest while others had gone to great efforts. Eggs and chicks were scattered everywhere so we picked our path carefully as we followed Harry along the beach. It felt like we were in a scene from a horror movie as birds filled the sky above us, screaming at us as we moved through their nesting area. I was relieved when we left them in peace to raise their chicks, chicks that when full grown would return to land in a few years – it was an unforgettable experience. One Harry does most days as he collects their unfertilized eggs as part of their regular diet – if placed in water, fertilized eggs will sink. They explained that a dog killed all their chickens so now Tern eggs are the only kind they eat. I mentally added eggs to the list of provisions I would give them!

Returning to the house, Norma showed us a huge coconut crab they have been fattening up for the last three weeks. The underbelly was blue with a sac Norma excitedly called Froie Gras so must be a huge delicacy. Later we returned to Norma and Harry’s for dinner with fellow cruisers, Elaine and Crawford. Norma had decorated the table in her house with beautiful flowers and proudly welcomed us into her home as we sat down at a table ladened with food – some we had brought, but most included ingredients foraged from the environment we were in. The coconut crab we had met earlier took pride of place on the table as it easily fed six of us, cooked in coconut milk and spices which was delicious. After clearing the remains of the crab off the table, Norma took the lid off a large pan with a flourish and proudly presented us with a whole lobster each. It was delicious and we felt very honoured to have been invited, not only to share the wonderful food, but to be in such a stunning location as we watched the sun go down over the lagoon.

There is a tenuous link to my home town of Lyttelton on this small atoll. There is a wreck on the outside of the reef of notorious German first WW warship Seeadler that ran aground in 1917, captained by the colourful Count Felix von Lucknor, who was later imprisoned on Ripapa Island in Lyttelton Harbour. He has an amazing story which is too long and unbelievable to write about here, but worth reading about – why has no movie been made about this man? He was the real German equivalent of Hornblower!

We decided to extend our stay for a few days as our friends on SY Freya were arriving and the winds looked quite light – it was not a hard decision to make! On our last full day a humpback whale came into the lagoon and entertained us for a while. As night fell we heard the now familiar sound of a whale surfacing close by and the black shape of a large mammal in the calm water behind the boat. It was a wonderful final gift from this magical atoll!

A full moon sank in the clear morning sky and, as we watched the sun rise, we pulled up anchor before heading towards the pass with SY Freya. We waved to Harry and Norma as they stood on the beach watching the last two boats in the anchorage leave. Now they would be on their own again until the next adventurous cruisers arrived, hopefully bringing more supplies and speaking better French than any of us! This was a perfect farewell to The Societies as we headed out to our next destination, an even more remote uninhabited atoll 600nm NW in the middle of the Pacific!

High Society

We left Fakarava and headed to another atoll, Faaite, 15nm to the south with our NZ friends on Te Kinga. There was no wind and the sea was flat calm as we motor sailed towards the low lying atoll, entering the narrow pass on slack tide. Numerous small fishing boats created a slalom course for us as we approached the entrance, forcing us to slow down and admire the crystal clear water as we glided over healthy looking coral close to the land. We negotiated the entrance, meandering round boomies into an anchorage close to the small main town of Hitianau, except it really wasn’t an anchorage due to the shallow patches and boomies everywhere not giving us enough room to swing a cat, let alone a 43ft boat! Together with Te Kinga we circled around the bay numerous times, trying to find a clear patch of sand, big enough to drop our anchor and for us to circle around it without hitting anything under the water. Eventually we found a patch we hoped we suffice, dropped the anchor and floated all our chain so only 10m was on the bottom, the remaining 30m was floated using our fenders but fortunately no wind was forecast so we felt confident we would be fine.

The settlement of Hitianau has a checkered and interesting recent history. In 1987 a cult moved on to the atoll with the religious leader convincing locals that the devil was amongst them, resulting in six deaths when members of the community were burned alive by being thrown into a fire. The next time the atoll was thrown into the spotlight was a few years later when a yacht ladened with cocaine ran aground on the reef. Police were informed when a fire started on board and over half a ton of drugs were discovered, believing that more had been lost in the fire. In a scenario similar to Whiskey Galore, it was later discovered that locals had raided the boat and hidden the drugs. It only became apparent when the Mayor noticed a number of locals acting strangely and called in the police from Tahiti to investigate, resulting in the discovery that a number of the 250 residents were addicted to cocaine.

Walking around the sleepy town today, it is hard to imagine its colourful past. People mostly use tricycles as their main mode of transport, everyone smiles and greets you in passing, neat houses line the dusty roads and fishermen take their small boats out to catch just enough fish for the locals to eat. On the day we arrived the supply ship was in, so we joined a small line of locals on the dock and bought fresh fruit and vegetables from the boxes displayed by the ships crew. We even bought fresh eggs which was a bonus as we were fast learning to buy them whenever we saw them! We ordered fresh baguettes to collect the next day and were invited into a local home by a father and son who proudly showed us around there waterfront property. In exchange, we gave them the fishing line we had collected when crossing the Pacific and were very happy it was going to good use!

The weather forecast showed some significant wind and building seas were coming, so we decided to leave with Te Kinga and head back to Fakarava for a few nights. We had originally intended to stay another night and leave for Tahiti from Faaite but with seas building it meant the pass could become treacherous. As it was, we left with the outgoing tide and were swept through the pass at speed, waving to the fishermen at the entrance as we were carried past them. On the passage back Te Kinga caught a couple of tuna which they generously shared with us, donating a large steak which fed us for four meals!

Tahiti was calling us, so we reluctantly left The Tuamotu’s ahead of a front bringing strong winds and enjoyed a 36hr passage, arriving in Tahiti mid morning. My son, Jak and his wife Juliette, were due to arrive in a few days, so after doing laundry, a big shop at Carrefour and mandatory clean, tidy and sort of the boat, we moved into Papeete Marina. The marina operates on a first-in-first-served basis so securing a berth feels like winning lottery, particularly when you listen to others hard-luck stories and pleas for a space. We were lucky as our friends on Freya were leaving and we arranged a smooth exchange which, even though we did this with military co-ordination, another boat waiting in the wings almost tried to swoop into the berth ahead of us!

The marina is located in the centre of the biggest city in The Society Islands so getting fresh produce, doing laundry and preparing for Jak and Ju’s arrival was easy. While we waited I was invited by our friends on Cygnus Cygnus to attend Heiva, an annual festival of Polynesian Culture and we enjoyed a night of traditional dance and music with mesmorising drumming, fast knee knocking by the men and impressive bottom wiggling by the women.

While in Papeete we caught up with lots of friends. On one occasion we were meeting an Aussie/Irish contingent for lunch in a restaurant and were hidden away upstairs catching up on a couple of months news. On coming up for air, we noticed that a group of other friends were sitting at another table having lunch and we called them over. You know when you are with fellow cruisers when one of the friends walks over is carrying a bucket and, on noticing this, one of the Irish/Aussies says, “That’s a really nice bucket…”! I wonder what we will consider important in the real world!

Jak and Ju’s much anticipated arrival happened at 5am one morning, just as it was starting to get light, and I ran into their warm embraces with huge excitement much to the amusement of the marina security guard who was alerted by my squeals of delight! As we were having breakfast on deck a friendly turtle popped up beside the boat followed by a pod of dolphins that joined in the celebrations as we were leaving the harbour later that day! A great start to their visit with levels of excitement high which would continue for the duration of their two weeks stay with us. Together we explored Moorea where we swam with sharks and stingrays, went on long dinghy rides, explored some of the inland region, snorkeled in clear waters and introduced Jak and Ju to some of our friends. We did an overnight sail to Huahine in conditions that were far from the perfect seastate I was hoping for with Ju, always cheerful and positive, incapacitated with seasickness, only emerging from her uncomfortable looking cocoon curled up on the saloon seating, once we were safely in the blue protected waters behind the island. We hired bikes and circumnavigated Huahine, pushing the old one-speed bikes up the one steep hill on the island – Jak breaking his bike as he tried to pedal up the sharpest incline! We watched blue-eyed eels as they stared back at us in a shallow river, were mesmorised by brightly coloured fish from a dock and marvelled at the shades of blue in the bay. We sailed down to the most southerly bay and watched an octopus change colour to match the coral around it, spending a very windy night on a mooring buoy which we had raced to pick up ahead of another boat I was convinced would try to beat us to it, only to discover they had picked up a much better mooring further inland!

On we sailed to Taha’a, inside a large reef it shared with its neighbour, Raiatea. We enjoyed sundowners watching beautiful sunsets over nearby Bora Bora, drift snorkelled the Coral Garden, tasted local rum at the nearby distillery, listened to a local band play with local women joining in the dancing, visited a pearl farm and a vanilla plantation with processing plant, celebrated Bastille Day by visiting a festival in a small village, played games and laughed together. Finally, we sailed to Bora Bora – a place I had wanted to visit since the early 1980’s when I watched a TV show called Tales of the Gold Monkey set, apparently in Bora Bora and I was mesmorised by its beautiful scenery and handsome lead! When researching for this blog I discovered it was actually set in Bora Gora – wherever that is – and I must’ve been hearing the place wrong!!! Well, it made me look up Bora Bora, stick a pin in my imaginary map of the globe and dream of the exotic location! Now we were sailing there, and I couldn’t have been more excited. As we rounded the south westerly corner of the reef, Bora Bora presented itself in all its beauty and travel brochure glory! The emerald blue waters set against a dramatic crater rim of an extinct tall volcano was breathtaking.

We met up with Tomas and Corine who guided us through narrow channels to a stunning anchorage in Baie Tehou. We took the dinghies towards the reef and stood chest deep in water as numerous black tipped sharks and huge stingrays circled around us. In the evening we had sharks around our boat and we swam in the clear warm waters, soaking up the extraordinary sights and experiences of this truly magical island. Tomas’s friend, Corine, was leaving the next day so the six of us went into Vaitape, the main town, to explore and have lunch. There is very little in the town, which shows that even with the many luxury resorts on the island, very little of that money spills over into the local economy – yes, there are jobs for the locals, but most of those are menial with the majority of the well paid jobs going to French or other nationalities.

Having said that, The Societies have not been spoiled by large, ugly hotels. Most of the buildings we saw were single, or at most, two storied buildings which were built to fit in with the landscape although did restrict access to some beautiful parts of the lagoon. It is not possible to fully circumnavigate the island as the far south is not navigable, so we meandered our way to around the island and stayed in the south east corner, visiting a French Canadian who had established a Coconut Factory. It was really just a small shack where he lived with his local wife and two gorgeous young children and operated a press to extract oil from coconuts grown on Bora Bora. He added essence of other plants to the oil to make medicinal cures for burns, bites and increase energy levels. His property stretched the width of the motu from blue lagoon to the battered windward side and he allowed us to explore, walking through his tendered garden and tall trees to the thunderous waves on the Pacific side. We collected shells, watched crabs, waded in a huge rock pool where sharks hunted the trapped fish and coral broke the surface of the water.

All too soon we were preparing for Jak and Ju to leave us. It had been a wonderful, memorable and fun time together, laughing, exploring, playing games, doing quizzes, talking and sailing. We needed to get fuel so suggested we drop them at the fuel dock for an easy walk into Vaitape where they could catch a free ferry to the airport – the only way to access the airport is by water. Our attempts to get fuel turned into an unhappy series of events as the cashiers would only allow us to use our tax free certificate if we provided copies of the certificate, boat papers and entry permits. They didn’t have a photocopier, would not accept electronic copies and didn’t know of anywhere who would copy them, so we left without filling our tanks! That’ll show them! It was not the final goodbye I had pictured for Jak and Ju but at least they were able to have an unfiltered insight into the trials and tribulations of cruising life!

We waved to Jak and Ju as we motored away from the dock and headed out the pass, back into the rolly, unprotected waters of the Pacific Ocean. We were headed for Raiatea as we had an appointment with a tradesman who could try and discover what was wrong with our steering as I was very concerned about a grating sound that occasionally caused the wheel to jerk. We had unsuccessfully and frustratingly been trying to find the source to no avail and now needed to urgently have the steering assessed to see if it was safe to continue to New Zealand. So a few days later we had a shipwright named Fred scratching his head too, trying to find the source of the problem, resulting in us getting hauled out the next day to check the integrity of our rudder. We only just fit in the slipway where three men dived into the clear water and positioned slings under Cerulean. As we were lifted we were pleasantly surprised by how clean Ceruleans bottom was – Steve had done a great job keeping the growth off and while we could we scraped barnacles and weed off the harder to reach places, cleaned the propeller and shaft and checked the anodes – all looking good! The rudder was jiggled and wiggled hard, resulting in the noise becoming apparent, thankfully not from the rudder but, after a thorough check, found the offender to be our autohelm! We were happy to have found the culprit – an easy fix – and hugely relieved there was nothing wrong with our steering, in fact the opposite as it was given a big thumbs up as being in perfect condition! Our time in French Polynesia was coming to an end. We were given 90 days in the country when we arrived in The Marquesas and were told the only way to stay longer was to apply for a longstay visa prior to arriving in French Polynesia. As it turns out, getting an extension is easier than we believed, all you have to do is tell the Gendarmerie you have a problem with your boat and it will take a couple of months for the parts to arrive – bingo! Although we had all the supporting proof that we had an issue with the boat, we decided we would not ask for an extension as time was ticking and there were still lots of other exotic islands to visit.

We filled with fuel, reprovisioned and started the long process of checking out. French Polynesia has a quite antiquated check in/out procedure. We were told that, after checking in at The Marquesas, we had to complete the process once we arrived in Tahiti, which we duly did and were emailed a form as proof of this. We were then advised we needed to seek permission if we were leaving Tahiti/Moorea to go to the outer islands and intended checking out of those islands, which we also did and were sent confirmation back. We stayed the night in Raiatea’s main town of Uturoa on the town dock in the town centre, ignoring the advice we were given on arrival that we had to leave by 4.30pm, as we had been told we were allowed to spend one night there for free. On Saturday morning we headed to the gendarmerie, completed numerous forms and were asked to return on Tuesday to collect our zarpe – no one asked for the other forms we had been given in Papeete.

We decided to spend a few days exploring Raiatea and headed towards The Botanical Gardens which are located down a meandering river edged with palm trees. After walking through the gardens we crossed to the other side of the river and met Andre, a local man who has been creating a large fruit and vegetable garden on land he leases at a peppercorn rent from the government for the last 35 years. He has created a fabulous food basket, offering his hard won bounty to anyone who shows an interest in his garden. We came away with bananas, beans, ginger, turmeric, pumpkin and plenty of exotic fruit which Andre encouraged us to try. We gave him a donation which he accepted with a smile but he often feeds people who are unable to give money.

We received an email on Monday telling us our exit papers were ready so on Tuesday we returned to the town dock and completed our check out with the gendarmerie. It was quick and easy with them stamping our passports and presenting us with our zarpe. We were now officially checked out of French Polynesia and ready to sail west for the next leg of our journey back to New Zealand. We had been lucky enough to spend three months exploring French Polynesia. Every place we visited had its own special feel and memorable moments. To share these places with friends and family made them all the more incredible and as we sailed away from The Society Islands, we felt a mixture of sadness and excitement. Sadness as we would have loved to have spent more time in these beautiful (but expensive) islands, but excitement at the adventures that still lay ahead of us.

Diving into the Tuamotus

Our new windlass purred as it pulled up our anchor at 5am on a Saturday morning and we slipped out of Nuku Hiva, heading south to The Tuamotu’s. We had timed our departure so we would arrive at our first atoll at slack tide as the narrow entrance can be treacherous with a strong current if timed incorrectly.

The Tuamotus are a group of sparsely populated atolls, spread over an area equivalent in size to Western Europe but with a combined land area of only 850sq km’s. They are located just to the north of Tahiti and are part of French Polynesia with probably the atoll that New Zealanders are most familiar with, Moruroa, where the French conducted nuclear weapon testing from 1966 until 1996. It’s hard to believe anyone would consider it a good idea to destroy these beautiful atolls and the ocean around it. The 80 islands and atolls had been on my destination list for a long time as the marine life is exceptional in and around the atolls, particularly the abundance of sharks, colourful fish, stingrays and mantarays. The islands are, in effect, coming to the end of their lives as they are slowly disappearing beneath the sea, accelerated by global warming, with nothing but a line of palm trees and breaking waves on an empty horizon indicating their existence.

Our course took us past the small island of Ua-Pou the last island in the Marquesas chain, with its magnificent rock formations dominating our view for a few hours while we skirted around its eastern side, temporarily sailing into a wind shadow caused by high hills. Our speed picked up again to over 8knots as we enjoyed some great fast sailing being expertly steered by Hilda the Hydrovane as we continued our passage south. On day two, after an uneventful but lovely night of fast sailing, I started to feel unwell again and spent the rest of the passage nursing the start of a migraine – this has now become a regular occurrence and I have decided to take preventative measures in future in the shape of strong medication!

Steve and Hilda took care of the boat and me, while I tweaked the sails, made small adjustments and generally sat in the corner of the cockpit feeling crap! After 48hrs of sailing the batteries were in need of topping up so we ran the engine to give them a short boost. I was looking at the monitor to check how many amps were going in and was pleased to see the battery voltage slowly increasing when suddenly all positive input stopped and, although the engine was still running, no charge was going into the batteries. We discovered that a bolt had sheered on the arm that tightens the fan belt to the alternator so Steve rigged up a temporary fix until we could extract the broken bolt. Relieved, we continued our passage, maintaining good speed covering over 160nm in 24hrs, moving our expected arrival time forward a few hours so we decided to go as fast as possible to arrive at the slack tide 6hrs earlier than we had originally calculated. Our timing was perfect and at 5am we were approaching the northern part of Raroia, ready to enter the atoll on the western side at 6am slack water. Close to the entrance we furled the jib and I turned the key to start the engine ……… nothing happened! Steve tried to figure out what had happened and together with our good friends on Escapade of London, who were anchored inside the atoll and whom we woke up with a plead for help on the VHF radio, we were able to identify and resolve the issue. By this time a few hours had passed and, although other boats were still entering the pass, I had lost confidence in the engine and aborted one attempt as we followed another boat towards the pass. I needed to settle my nerves and regain confidence in the engine, so we motor sailed outside the atoll for a while, deciding to make water while the engine was running and the batteries charging. It was at this point Steve reached the bottom of his despair as the watermaker refused to build pressure – infact there was probably more pressure in Steve than in the watermaker pump at this moment. We had reached the lowest point and we were stuck outside being bounced around in the sea where even a pod of big whales that surfaced very close to us, could not raise our spirits. We needed to get in and sort things out. After watching another boat enter the pass, I decided to go for it and we lined ourselves up with the markers following a route given to us by another cruiser. The boat ahead of us radioed to say he was seeing 4knts of current against him, so I knew we had to power up and be prepared for a little bit of skidding as we moved out of the strong flow. With Steve at the bow, looking out for any bommies (coral heads) and me watching our track, depth and heartrate, we sped into the pass. To be honest, we have been through worse but when people talk about sailing in the Tuamotus the main topic is the entrance into the atolls so I had been a little overly cautious than was necessary. We were through and now just had to weave our way through bommies, shallows and disused sunken pearl farm buoys to get to the northern anchorage. Raroia is 20nm long, surrounded by a reef that is, in the most part, above water level. These stretches of land are covered in Palm trees with white, coral scattered beaches dominating the intense blue waterscape of the lagoon. A few houses are hidden in the trees with the islands residents (about 200) surviving, in the most part, off coconuts, seafood and collected rainwater. A supply ship occasionally visits but times and dates are erratic and any fresh produce not grown on the atoll, is a real luxury.

Raroia is probably best know for the raft, Kon-Tiki which made landfall here in 1947 having sailed from South America with a crew of six, running aground on the shallow reef. A small monument was erected by locals to honour the men who successfully steered their small raft from Peru to attempt to prove that Polynesians originated from South America, not Asia as was the widely held view. Although the journey was a success, the theory was not accepted and it is still thought that Polynesians have their ancestry connected to Asia, not South America.

There were already five boats in the northern anchorage when we arrived, all well spaced out infront of a long white beach and stretch of tree covered land. We could see the sandy bottom easily but the bay was scattered with bommies and rocks which we could also see below the surface, with some of the bommies raising to just below the surface. We needed to make sure we had enough swing room to avoid any shallow patches and rocks, so spent a long time scoping out the area in an attempt to find a large enough space in sand for us to feel confident we would not hit anything submerged. Eventually we dropped the anchor, attaching fenders to our chain so it floated off the bottom to avoid getting wrapped around under obstruction below the surface. We had arrived and heaved a huge sigh of relief after an eventful morning.

The anchorage remained quiet and we enjoyed a few days of relaxing in a beautiful environment, spending time with friends, exploring the narrow strip of land that separates the internal “lake” from the rolling surf of the Pacific Ocean. Huge crabs scurried from the water and under trees as we crunched our way across a coral beach to reach the northerly exposed coastline of the island. A wide coral plateau gave the island protection as waves broke further out to sea and then gently rippled across the shallow waters, giving the water colours of blues and green in the afternoon sunshine. Sadly plastic bottles were scattered along the beach having been washed ashore and left to decompose in the hot sun. I started to collect them and made a small pile of the jetsam on the beach, but could not remove the rubbish as we had no idea when we would be back in a place where we could dispose of it.

Curious black tip sharks swam around the boat, only about 1 metre in length, but big enough to keep me out the water for the time being until I could overcome my fear of swimming with them, something I was determined to do, as seeing sharks in the water in the Tuamotus is inevitable, so I had to get over my irrational fear of them!

We spent a few blissful days in quiet isolation, apart from our wonderful community of cruiser friends. When it was time to leave Raroia we went in convoy with two other boats – Traveller and Saoirse – heading out of the pass an hour before slack time with an outgoing tide, being swept out with a 5knot current before being deposited off the sleigh ride in deep water – It felt like a ride on WaterWorld as we saw our speed increase to 11knots at one point! Sails were raised and we set a course for Fakarava, nearly 200NM due west and one of the largest atolls in The Tuamotus’s. The wind was blowing 10-12knots from the south east and with a current helping us we made great speed, just keeping pace with the two faster boats as we all enjoyed one of the most memorable, special and magical sails of our trip so far. We were treated to a beautiful sunset, watching as the sun slowly disappeared over the western horizon while in the east, an incredible moonrise with the full moon lighting up the sky as it appeared over the ocean’s horizon. The night sail under a full moon and clear skies in flat seas and steady wind was perfect and our speed hardly dropped below 6knots as we seemed to glide over the water, remaining in VHF radio contact with both our other buddy boats.

The entrance into the north pass of Fakarava is well marked, deep and easy to navigate and we arrived at 3pm while we still had good light and a favourable current sweeping us through the pass. The anchorage is in the atoll’s main town of Tokelau and is about 5nm from the entrance and is large with lots of space and good hold in sand with the occasional rocks to avoid. A supply ship is scheduled to come every Wednesday and the anchorage normally fills up on the Tuesday as cruisers try to stock up on fresh vegetables and produce, but it hadn’t arrived the week we were there so supplies were very limited in all the shops. Eggs are delivered twice a week so we ordered a dozen of the precious items from the boulangerie, which we collected on a Monday along with fresh baguettes which we needed to order the day before as they ran out very quickly! Fortunately, as our fresh fruit and vegetable stocks were almost gone, the small town had some excellent restaurants and we enjoyed a number of meals out with friends at a variety of places along the beachfront.

Together with our friends, we headed to the Pearl Farm to listen to a free talk which takes place on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays at 10am, giving excellent information on how the pearls are created and farmed. It is a complicated process over 12-14 months, starting with a “Master” selecting an oyster with the boldest, blackest colour inside their shell. That oyster is sacrificed and its flesh is grafted into the shells of 20 others along with a “seed” made of mollusk shell from the Mississippi River. These seeds are implanted into the oyster who will then act as the surrogate host, coating the seed with a shell which matches the colour of the grafted flesh. The oysters are then returned to the farm for between 12 – 14 months, the time it usually takes for the seed to be coated to create a round black pearl. Not all the pearls are perfectly round or completely black with many having imperfections or sometimes the seed is not completely coated with pearl. We were given the opportunity to buy an oyster of our choice and keep the pearl that was extracted, so took our chances and selected a large shell which we hoped housed a happy oyster and black pearl. It’s not really a great life for an oyster as not only are they implanted with a foreign object which they are forced to coat with the DNA of another oyster that was murdered infront of them, but then they are eaten after giving up the pearl they have been nursing for a number of months!

We motored south, following a channel that hugged the thin strip of land, to Hirifa – a cluster of houses but no village – on a beautiful sandy beach and a real tropical paradise in clear blue water, dropping the anchor in a magical spot with million dollar 360 degree views of long sandy beaches, turquoise waters and palm trees leaning over the clear water . There was a fabulous community of cruisers here with children boat hopping and sailors enjoying beach BBQ’s and socializing together plus there was the opportunity to learn to free dive, which Steve eagerly enrolled in together with our friends on Traveller and Saoirse. Steve turned out to be the star pupil, staying underwater much longer than his classmates and enjoying the experience.

The Southern Pass, located a couple of miles from Hirifa, is a world heritage protected area with the most incredible diving and drift snorkelling in pristine coral amongst plenty of colourful fish and lots of sharks. I was nervous on the first drift, not knowing how I would react when seeing a shark, let alone a big shoal of them, but once I was in the water and able to see the amazing world below the surface, I relaxed and enjoyed the experience of being pulled along by the strong current as lots of black tip sharks swam past us and schools of colourful fish weaved through the coral. The coral shelf stretched out below us for as far as the eye could see, and groups of sharks swam against the current, heading out of the lagoon not taking any notice of us or the other fish. It was an amazing experience, which we repeated numerous times with friends each time seeing different fish and creatures as we were washed down in the current, gathering speed as we followed the stream around the corner towards our anchorage. It was a life moment I will never forget – a magical carpet ride over a world below the water! Fakarava was proving to be an incredible place but we had one more atoll to visit before moving on to The Societies and this one will be remembered for quite different reasons!