M/Y Iron Lady

Next we were off to the iconic Bora Bora where Daria would be leaving us so we let the gals program the activities. One of the things we had hoped was that Daria would get a chance to catch a nice fish – which she did enroute.

The approach and pass in to Bora Bora are straight forward – cruise ships come here (and we studiously try to avoid them).

A quick visit to town and the katabatics off the basalt peaks convinced us it was time to move on so we anchored around the corner. The girls did the town thing but the plan was to hit Blue Lagoon in the morning – home to more 5 star resorts than you can count (or afford).

The passage to Blue Lagoon passes around the north end of the island inside the reef and down to the southeast corner. It is straight forward except for one short stretch where the water shoals to 3 meters with coral heads everywhere. Several sharp 90 degree turns are required and the guides suggest that vessels over 20 meters should not attempt it. We agree – and add that you still need good light to manage it.

Activities in Blue Lagoon featured beautiful beeches, snorkelling, resorting it and more. I liked the iconic shots of Iron Lady in front of the basalt peaks of Bora Bora.

The girls like the beeches and resorts – with there $17 coconut drinks.

Speaking of coconuts, Daria found a few and Kim took a shot at opening them with our machete. The result was a fairly substantial mess on the back deck and no coconuts to eat or drink.

The next day was off to snorkel for Daria’s last day before heading home.

It’s amazing how fast 2 weeks goes out here.

Cheers

After Raiaitea, it was off to her sister island, Tahaa.

Plans called for the girls to goon a tour which included pearl farms and shopping. Steve and I decided to forgoe the tour and go fishing instead. Unfortunately, we didn’t catch anything, but it was better then a day in the black pearl shops.

So here are some shots from the girl’s day out.

Say hello to their little friend.

At the pearl farm, they were shown how the oysters were seeded to produce cultured pearls.

Then a trip to the vanilla plantation where this gentlemen is showing the girls how the vanilla plants are grown in coconut husks. The vanilla plant is actually member the orchid family and is the only orchid that produces a fruit. Each plant has to be individually pollinated by hand and it takes over 5 years for the plant to produce mature vanilla pods.

This is followed by a lengthy drying process where the beans are exposed to sunlight for just a few hours a day.

Tahaa, apparently, is known to produce some of the worlds best vanilla.

After the tour, the girls went swimming while Steve and I worked on a balky outboard. Never a shortage of things to fix around boats.

Then it was off to dinner at a typical (and very expensive) island resort. In talking to some folks who were traveling about the Societies and staying in some of these resorts, the daily rates they were paying were as much as $650. Yikes.

Next day was snorkeling in a coral garden near the resort where we had dinner. More about that next time.

Cheers

About mid morning, our guide, Cedric, arrived on his boat with paddle boards in tow. First were a few lessons on how to properly board, stand up, and stay aboard a paddle board. If it looks like we were concentrating, we were. Lesson 1 is not to look down, one of us who won’t be named did and was the first casualty – at least the water was nice.

The river itself is protected and flows thru a series of plantations which use the water for irrigation but maintain the shoreline in its natural state. It had the look and feel of the Amazonian rain forest without the assorted nasty critters that inhabit the Amazon.

It takes about 3 hours to paddle up to the headwaters of the river and paddle back. I would rate this as one the highlights of our trip so far and certainly a highlight of Raiatea and her sister island Tahaa.

Deb has had some issues with her arm so she did not join us but did try out paddle boarding back at the boat. One of our missions is to see if we can acquire two inflatable boards to keep aboard Iron Lady. It is great fun and the boards are really very stable once you adjust to using them and relax a bit.

Lest you think this is all gentle stuff, Cedric races paddle boards competitively – from Huahini to Raiatea – a distance of some 30 miles. He says its best when the trades are blowing around 25 knots as they surf a good part of the way over. No thank you.

And a happy crew at the end of a great day.

Our next stop after Huahini was Raiatea.

Like most of the Societies, Raiatea is volcanic with a surrounding barrier reef with a few passes in to the lagoon side. We entered thru Passe Toamaro and anchored off the small motu of the same name adjacent to the pass.

The crew went ashore for a walkabout.

Later in the day, we moved to Baie Vaiaau to spend the night and enjoyed a bit of time in the water. Next day we had scheduled paddle boarding on one of the few rivers in French Polynesia that supports such activities. More on that next time.

Many of you probably remember the movie “Castaway” with Tom Hanks. In the movie, he is stranded on a deserted tropical isle after the crash of a FedX 747 on which he was riding went down in a storm. One of a few items that survived the crash was a Wilson soccer ball and in his desperate need for companionship, the soccer ball became Wilson, and with the addition of facial features and hair, his non verbal friend and only companion.

Somewhere along the way, we purchased a monster Pamplemous that lived by the fruit basket in the galley while we waited for him to ripen. It was taking an inordinate amount of time and Dar ended up drawing a face on him and named him Wilson 2.

Finally the day came when it was time for Wilson to be carved up for breakfast. Steve was responsible for despatching Wilson (poor fellow).

Now pamplemouse here are just wonderful. Unfortunately, Wilson had the last word. He was absolutely awful.

And like the final scene of Tom Hank’s rescue in the South Pacific, we all watched as Wilson drifted off as the sun set.

Day two was tour day and Armando, our local guide picked us up in a modified pick up truck.

First stop was a quick visit to the Post Office to send postcards home that will probably get there around Christmas 2013.

The flowers and gardens here are just spectacular.

These are actually vanilla plants. Tahaa, a few islands down the road is noted to have the best vanilla in the world. The plants are actually grown in piles of old coconut husks which fertilize the plants. The vanilla plant is actually a member of the orchid family – the only orchid which produces a fruit. The plants have to be hand pollinated and take over five years to yield there precious fruit.

Next stop was an ancient reconstructed Marae. Various structures were devoted to specific purposes such as cooking, canoes, sleeping and religious ceremonies.

These are ancient fish wires which are still in use today. “V” shaped channels constructed from rocks are set up to funnel fish into holding areas on the incoming and outgoing tides. The owner of the weir then blocks the exit and scoops the fish our with hand nets. Pretty ingenious.

Another Marae – the largest on Huahini.

And a visit to feed the “sacred” eels. I still don’t have any idea what makes them sacred other then the fact that they have escaped the fate of other eels on Huahini – a trip to the dinner table.

Some views from around the island.

We were told that these rock structures were named after various parts of our sexual reproductive organs – I’ll leave it to you to figure out which is which. I wasn’t entirely clear about this, but the name Huahini, apparently is a reference to part of the female anatomy.

Any way, here are some pineapple plants but it is the wrong time of year for the actual pineapples.

And a view of Fare, the main town on Huahini.

And Iron Lady sitting at anchor just off Fare.

After dinner and the Tahitian dance review in Moorea it was off to bed early as we were bound for Huahini with a midnight departure.

More about that, but first, a bit of local geography. French Polynesia is composed of five primary island groups. The Society Islands, the Tuamotus, the Marquesas, the Australs and Gambier. The Australs and Gambier are well south of us and we will not be visiting them. We are presently in the Society Islands which are composed of 6 primary islands – Tahiti, Moorea, Huahini, Raiatea, Tahaa, Bora Bora and Maupiti. From the pictures so far, you can see that these islands are primarily volcanic in origin.

The Tuamotus – which are well east of us – are primarily low coral atolls and will be our next stop after the Societys. From Bora Bora, our likely departure point for the Tuamotus, it will take us about 1.5 days to make landfall on Fakarava.

The Marquesas will be our next stop after the Tuamotus and lie about 2.5 days travel time north and east of the Tuamotus. The Marquesas are again volcanic in origin and are generally reputed to have some of the most beautiful vistas in the South Pacific.

Back to where we are in our blog – we are actually somewhat further down the road as I am behind as usual. In the Societies, most of the islands are within a 1/2 days journey but the leap from Moorea to Huahini takes us about 12 hours. Hence the midnight departure from Moorea to arrive with the sun high in the sky for the passage thru the reef which surround Huahini and all of the Societies for that matter.

Steve and I negotiated our way out of Cooks Bay at dead idle . Although we had a good track from our entry to follow out, Cooks Bay is a busy place and there was a substantial number of anchored boats to avoid on the way out. Once at sea, I stood the first watch until 0200. Kim and Daria also wanted to experience watch keeping so after some basic instruction, they were on from 0200 to 0400 and 0400 to 0600. Steve slept on the salon settee and I was just below in the master with the door open.

Primary instruction was how to interpret the radar screens and to wake up either Steve or me if there were any alarms or any traffic on the radar. The radars, one set to 4 miles and one set to 24 miles, deserve particular attention on these inter island transits as most traffic is following the same pass to pass courses that we were on making head on encounters likely. Such was the case on Kim’s watch with a cruise ship leaving Huahini for Moorea.

From New Zealand to Tahiti, there was a stretch of over 1900 nautical miles where there was nothing but us and the ocean – no traffic at all. Around the islands, it is everywhere including small, unlit fishing boats which calls for extra vigilance (along with a bit of nerves when you consider what Iron Lady’s 80000 pounds and solid aluminium stem going 10 knots would do to a small boat if we were to strike one).

Deb took the morning watch and Steve and I were up well before our passage thru the reef. The first time we transit a reef pass, our standard procedure is to have Steve on the flybridge with radar and charts running (including my iPad with a separate chart program on it for verification). I am at the lower helm station also with radar and charts running on the Furuno Navnet but I also have our underwater scanning sonar running. The scanning sonar is like underwater radar – very useful but it takes a good bit of experience to run it and interpret the image.

We talk to each other over the VHF and discuss everything we are seeing. The radar usually pick up the breaks on either side of the reef, the chart programs show us marks, ranges and lead in lights thru the pass and the boats position relative to same and the scanning sonar confirms the location of the reef and underwater obstructions. And finally, good old eyeballs out the window with polarized glasses are just as essential as all the high tech stuff.

We anchored up for an afternoon swim and snorkel off a nice little beach where a picnic lunch was in progress complete with Polynesian music. Now I like Polynesian music as much as the next guy, but 5 hours of what sounded like “Red River Valley” sung in Polynesian by a Ukelele player who knew just two chords was a bit much. By evening when they finally quit playing, all of us were ready to shoot the Ukelele player. We actually went ashore after they left hoping to find the bloody thing and steal the strings off it. No such luck so we decided to move no the next morning before they came back.

On tap for the following day was a tour of Huahini. Will cover that in my next post.

Cheers