Slideshow French Polynesia 2006
We’ve enjoyed a relaxing week here in French Polynesia – basically more of the same activity schedule as all our trips, but with different scenery. The temperature is ideal for this lifestyle – spend the day in a bathing suit (and sunscreen!) and jump into the water off Raven’s swim step whenever we feel like cooling off. We’ve done some diving, snorkeling, and moderate walking. Today looks promising for skurfing as where we’re anchored the water is currently flat calm.
French Polynesia covers an area in the Pacific some 1860 by 1550 miles in area, and has five main island groups. The best known islands (Tahiti, Mo’orea, Bora Bora etc.) are in the archipelago called the Society Islands. 75% of French Polynesia’s 200,000 inhabitants live on the island of Tahiti. Compared to Fiji and Tonga, the scenery on the islands is spectacularly beautiful and lush, and the South Pacific infrastructure is charming rather than primitive. The fact that everyone here speaks French continues to surprise me (for no good reason) and I have to bite my tongue to remember to say “Bon Jour” instead of “Bula” in greeting. We are really fortunate that Elize is fluent in French, so communication is no problem. Rod is taking French lessons from Elize, and Mike and I are somewhat surprised by what we can actually understand (in print, however – not verbally).
Our plane landed last Saturday morning in Pape’ete but we only spent a couple of hours there wandering around downtown while Raven filled her water tanks. Then we sailed off to the island of Mo’orea, about 12 miles away. This is a much quieter island than Tahiti, ruggedly beautiful with a jagged mountainous interior draped in greenery, and a narrow necklace of civilization on the island’s perimeter. After a couple of days in Mo’orea, we left at midnight on a moonless night sail to the island of Huahine, some 100 miles away. We had a nice wind of about 20 knots most of the way, but hit a couple of squalls with rain and gusts up to 30 knots that convinced us to reef the mainsail and slow down to a boat speed of 8 knots instead of 12! By the way, we have a brand-new mainsail shipped out to Tahiti from North Sails in Seattle just a week before our arrival. The old mainsail self-destructed on the passage from Samoa to Polynesia and needed an emergency replacement.
Here in Huahine we spent our first night anchored in a pearl farming lagoon. There was a very charming Tahitian home right in the middle of the lagoon, built on stilts with thatched roof, potted plants on the deck, and a boat garage! We then moved around to the other side where the main village Fare is located – a low key South Pacific setting, and the town covers a couple of square blocks at most. Elize’s cooking has been outstanding, but we had dinner out in a casual café, our table on a covered porch overlooking the beach and the harbor with a view of Raven at anchor only 100 yards away. The menu offered good French wines and 3 pages of fish! This is off-season for cruisers and it is working to our advantage, as the harbors and anchorages are not crowded. Raven’s previous owners, Jan & Signe, kept a log of their visit aboard Raven to Fare…then the harbor was so crowded with yachts that they didn’t stay. On our visit, there were only two other sailboats, plus a mini cruise ship that departed the same afternoon.
The underwater scenery however does not compare to what we’ve become accustomed to during our past trips to Fiji and Tonga. It is still entertaining nevertheless and there’s always some highlight of each dive to keep us interested. Yesterday’s feature was a butterfly fish (cute yellow and white reef fish, about the size of my hand) who apparently considered divers to be his ticket to a free meal. Of all the thousands of reef fish out there, this particular one swam boldly right up to me, close enough to touch (and I did touch him, deliberately), and looked into the camera lens with his snout just about touching the glass. I got some fun photos of him from head-on.
A previous dive was noteworthy for the eight black-tipped reef sharks who were already hanging out directly under our dinghy before we even got into the water. They accompanied us our entire dive, also hoping for a free handout. The professional dive guides here make a habit of trailing little bits of food for the fish on all their dives, and as a result the fish are very approachable.
We finally got the courage to put together the new underwater housing for my big Nikon camera and haven’t (so far) sprung a leak. It takes wonderful pictures and as soon as the photographer (me) gets anywhere up to speed, the underwater photos should be vastly improved. My hand is achy this morning from lugging it around, however.
Last night I took a night snorkel with an underwater flashlight. The scenery was disappointingly nothing but sand, but there were several Starry Pufferfish sleeping on the bottom. The light confused them and I could swim right up to them and pull their tails.
We plan another day or two here, then a sail to Raiatea for a few days (to dive with manta rays, we hope) and then on to Bora Bora, arriving a few days ahead of Michelle, who is flying in on December 7 for a quick visit. The airport in Bora Bora is only accessible by boat, so we plan to meet her by dinghy!