Date First Posted: May 8, 2006
Log Entry Start Date - April 23, 2006
Log Entry End Date - May 12, 2006
Locations Covered - Tuamotus and Tahiti
Present Location: Marina Taina, Tahiti, Society Islands
Latitude: 17 Deg 35.2 S Longitude: 149 Deg 37.0 W
Weather: Partly Cloudy, 86 Degrees
Distance covered since last entry: 771 nautical miles
Total distance traveled since departure from Antigua: 6,370 nautical miles
Commentary:
While
we had considered spending more time sailing around Nuku Hiva, we were
anxious for a change of scenery and the opportunity to go swimming and
snorkeling in the atolls of the Tuamotus, and on the 25th of
April we weighed anchor and left. We decided not to install the new
bearings for the anchor windlass until Tahiti, so we’re keeping a closer eye
on how the windlass performs. As we left, the visibility was so great that we
could see Ua Pou from over 40 miles away. This photo was from a
distance of 20+ miles.
In
contrast to the steep mountains of the Marquesas, the Tuamotus are an
archipelago of dozens of atolls (coral islets formed in a ring around a
lagoon that can be many miles in diameter) that stretch nearly a thousand
miles from the northwest to the southeast, in a band that crosses the route from the Marquesas to the Society Islands where Tahiti is
located. They are one of the largest archipelagos in the world. They used
to be known as the “Dangerous Archipelago” because of the hazards of
navigating through poorly charted waters with coral reefs and atolls that
may only be a few feet high and visible only when you are very close.
Strong currents made navigating before the days of GPS even more difficult,
and many sailors opted to go around the north end of the Tuamotus rather
than risking going through them.
With better charts and our GPS, we would be comfortable sailing to any number of the atolls on the path to Tahiti, but have decided to first go to Manihi, perhaps the easiest island in the Tuamotus to find at the northern end. The chart below shows a few of the atolls around Manihi at the center top. We may stop at Ahe, the atoll just west of Manihi, and then cut south of Rangiroa to go to Tahiti. We stopped at Manihi and Rangiroa in 1997 and know our way into these lagoons. By the way, Rangiroa is claimed to be the second largest atoll in the world, over 40 miles long, and too wide to see across. Atolls are the coral reefs that used to surround an island that has eroded away or sunk. The original island of Rangiroa would have been larger than many of the island countries in the Eastern Caribbean, nearly all of the Marquesas combined, and most of the Galapagos Islands. Many of the smaller atolls do not have any opening to their lagoon, so visiting them is nearly impossible as the water depth on the outside of the atoll is usually very deep. In fact, the water between the Marquesas and the Tuamotus is over 14,000 feet deep in places, and just a mile or so off of Manihi the water is still over a mile deep. What this means is that these atolls that are only 10 or 15 feet above sea level are really nearly 6,000 foot mountain peaks measured from the ocean floor.
For the atolls that have openings, it is still a challenge to enter. The ocean swells frequently break over the lower edges of the atoll making the sea level inside the lagoon somewhat higher than outside and causing a current going out of the narrow passes that serve as entrances. Add to this the effect of tidal currents, and entering (called “running the passes”) can be against a fast current against you, or with a current that pulls you in toward an opening that might be less than 100 feet wide. The guidebooks recommend entering about one hour after low tide when the current is likely to be the least. This requires guessing when low tide is based on tide tables for locations potentially hundreds of miles away, and then timing your arrival to the hour after a passage in our case of nearly 500 miles. We are planning our arrival at Manihi around 1 PM on Friday the 28th, by averaging 6.25 knots.
Before
we left, we heard that there was a tropical storm headed for the Gambier
Islands, which are also part of French Polynesia. We checked on the
Internet and called our son, Geoff, to get details on the weather before we
left. This unusual late storm doesn't appear to be very strong and will not
pass closer than 500-600 miles from us, as it heads southeast toward the
opposite end of the Tuamotus from us. It is expected to bring unusual winds
from the northwest for our passage versus the standard northeast
tradewinds. We are looking forward to these winds as we will have better
sailing. In the meantime, the winds so far have been very light and right
behind us, so we are motorsailing, charging batteries and running our
watermaker to refill our tanks.
Night passages can be the most satisfying part of a voyage, especially with good sailing conditions and a full moon. Our timing wasn’t so great this time as we left just before a new moon, and won’t have any help from the moon for the three nights at sea. The stars are bright when you are hundreds of miles from any land, and with clear skies, you can still see pretty well. We are seeing Jupiter as it rises in the east around sunset and Venus rises just an hour or so before dawn. These are bright enough to have reflections on the ocean. We can also see the Magellenic Cloud, an area of thousands of distant stars similar to the Milky Way that is in the southern sky. Of course, we also see the Southern Cross, a prominent constellation low in the southern sky that provides a reference for steering similar to Polaris, the North Star.
We’re now into our second afternoon of motoring and the expected winds from the northwest still haven’t arrived. Instead, we have light winds, dead astern, and putting up any sail would be futile. Luckily the seas are pretty flat, so we aren’t rolling, and we have plenty of fuel, however if we don’t get any wind between here and Tahiti, we will be getting lower than we’d like. We’re tempted to turn the engine off for an hour just to let it rest, and allow us to do checks on the coolant and batteries, perhaps later today. We have completely refilled our water tanks; so long showers can be taken and appreciated as the cabin temperature is now 97 degrees.
By
the end of our third afternoon our winds appear to be shifting to the normal
easterly tradewinds. Earlier the winds had picked up a little from the
northwest, enough to get us to raise our mainsail and pull out our genoa,
but it only let us turn the engine off for an hour. This did allow us to the checks
we had planned and everything seemed OK, in fact we’re no longer noticing
any coolant leaks. We are noticing more vibration from our propeller
and suspect that the cutlass bearing which supports the shaft outside the
boat has become worn out. With winds down to less than 2 knots at sunset,
we don’t have much choice but to motor at least slowly, and we’re still
looking forward to reaching Manihi before it is too late in the day
tomorrow. With any kind of wind for sailing, we should pick up enough time
to be OK.
We are having our usual main meal during early afternoon so the chefs don’t have to work down below while the sun is setting. Then at dusk we have a light snack. This evening Nancy prepared a platter of fruit from what we had been given in the Marquesas including papaya and pamplemouse (huge grapefruit). We still have a stalk of bananas hanging off our radar arch, but they are pretty ripe. We’ve eaten the avocados that we were given by Etienne; they were twice the size of what we buy at home. We are also trying to use up some of the canned goods that we have a surplus of from our earlier provisioning. This means more beans in our chili.
Well,
once again we arrived late in the day, going through the pass at Manihi
around 4PM and we then motored for a mile through the lagoon to anchor off
the Manihi Pearl Resort. In the lagoon there are very large coral heads
that lie just below the surface in water that is otherwise close to 100 feet
deep. With the sun high in the sky, they are easy to see and go around.
Late in the day, and in particular when we are going a bit into the sun,
they are difficult to see and we had to be very careful. Some of these
coral heads are 50 to 100 feet in diameter, while others are only 5-10 feet
across. As we crossed the lagoon we also noticed large cables with floats
on them suspended under the water. The cables appear to go from shore out
to the pearl farms, and probably carry electricity and perhaps fresh water.
It was strange seeing them and wondering if we would get caught on them, but
we think they were at least 10-15 feet under the surface. Jennifer
climbed partway up the mast in order to help look out for the coral.
As
we got to the area of the resort, we dodged a couple of coral heads and
decided to anchor where we were rather than hunt for a better spot as it was
getting too dark to see more coral heads. The next morning we seemed to be
in a good spot about 100 feet from a large coral head behind us, 100 feet
from a smaller one to our side, and 200 feet from another large one in front
of us. The anchor seemed to be holding pretty well.
After having no wind and no rain for our passage, the weather turned rainy and squally after we arrived. A French boat, Jacabel (named after the owners Jacque and Isabel), arrived and anchored behind us. They had gone through the same calms as we did for the first couple days, but then had strong winds and storms. By the third day, the rain had stopped and the tradewinds picked up. We were exposed to 5 miles of open water in the lagoon with the wind, so it was pretty choppy, making dinghy rides into the town and resort very wet.
The
resort, originally built by Air Tahiti Airlines to promote travel to the
island, is the only hotel on Manihi. Other than Rangiroa, which has a
couple resorts, this is the only other resort in the Tuamotus. It hadn’t
changed much since our last visit and still deserved its four stars. It has
about 20 bungalows built on stilts over the water in the lagoon, with coffee
tables inside that have glass bottoms. This allows the guests to watch the
tropical fish under their room.
The
infinity style pool goes out the edge of the lagoon, where they have docks
for the skin diving boats and ferry boats to the town on the other side of
the lagoon. There is a small landing strip for planes nearby; we saw about
one plane per day. We went into the resort and had a great lunch near the
pool and spent an hour online getting caught up on email.
This is about as remote a resort as you can find, and you must be willing to take some pretty long flights to get here, and then be willing to pay as much as $600 or more per night for a room.
Because
of the wind and chop, we stayed on the boat most of the time we were in
Manihi, catching up on our project list and simply enjoying the beautiful
surroundings. An old, somewhat strange, Frenchman came by one afternoon in a
boat and stopped to chat. He said he was an engineer that worked at one of
the pearl farms nearby. We asked if we could visit and he told us to come
at 9 AM the next day. When we arrived, he was there with a couple of other
men, but nothing was happening. It seemed that they were doing maintenance
on some of the equipment and we weren’t able to get a tour. That was OK
since we had gone to a pearl farm before, but we hoped to maybe buy some
pearls “from the factory.”
The
black pearl industry is second only to tourism in French Polynesia. Started
in the Tuamotus in 1963, now there are thousands of workers employed on
dozens of pearl farms in the atolls. A few farms are elsewhere in French
Polynesia, but basically all “Tahitian” black pearls, really are from the
Tuamotus or the Gambier Islands. The book we read, dated from the mid
1990’s, said that pearls represented more than 10 times the dollars of
exports of the second largest export, which was coconut oil. We don’t know
how the new “noni” fruit industry compares.
The farms are a collection of one story buildings on stilts located inside the lagoon. Next to the buildings are caged in areas with racks that have hundreds of the giant black lipped oysters suspended on strings. The cycle of growing a pearl starts with an oyster being pried open slightly and a round ball made from the shell of a Mississippi river mussel being inserted. The oyster is put back in the water for three years to grow the shiny black coating around the starter ball. The oysters are checked from time to time to see if a pearl is being developed or not. A flawless black pearl can be worth over $1000 at retail, and 60% are bought by the Japanese.
After
our stop at the pearl farm, we went on to the town at the entrance pass to
the lagoon. It is home to several hundred islanders, and is the only
settlement of any size on Manihi. It took less than a half hour to walk up and
down all of the tidy little streets in the town and visit the
dock alongside the pass and both
grocery stores. The town hadn’t changed much in nine years, although
the very large satellite dish and cell phone tower was new.
The
satellite dish is used to relay phone calls as well as possibly receive TV
programs that are then distributed by cable to the town’s residents. Calls
made back to Papeete or the USA have a several second delay. We also saw
many individual satellite TV dishes.
Later
in the day we went snorkeling around some of the coral heads in a nearby
bay. Because of the strong winds, there was still a lot of chop and
visibility wasn’t as good as we hoped, but we still saw a lot of fish
including whole schools of parrot fish that were a foot or more long. We
collected some shells including these in the picture. We also took the
opportunity to check out the bottom of our boat and propeller shaft. In
spite of the vibration we’re feeling, the cutlass bearing seems to be OK, so
we’re at a loss to explain the vibration. Maybe we are just more
sensitive to it when we are in our cabin trying to sleep at night than in
the past when we would generally only motor during the day.
Nancy had seen a shark go by our boat a few days ago, but we were assured by the dive master at the resort that they weren’t a problem. We did have a handful of remora fish hanging around the bottom of our boat. These fish are about 12-18” long and skinny with a flat area on the top of their head. Usually they swim alongside of sharks and are scavengers. They must have liked the thin layer of growth on the bottom of our hull.
We’re still waiting on our boat agent in Tahiti to get us quotes for leaving the boat while we return home, and it is leaving us a bit undecided about staying put or heading on toward Tahiti. We don’t want to arrive in Tahiti too soon if we’re just going to leave the boat there, but do need to arrive soon if we are going to leave the boat elsewhere. A phone call from our son Geoff helped us with the decision. He reported that an earthquake in Tonga might have triggered a tsunami that would take about three hours to reach New Zealand, and by our estimates, maybe five to six hours to reach us. Being out at sea in deep water is where you want to be if a tsunami is coming, as the height of the wave while it is in deep water is barely noticeable. As it reaches shallow water it increases in height, and we were concerned that being in the lagoon at anchor might be risky, especially with coral all around us. We decided to haul up our anchor and head for the atoll of Apataki, about 50 miles closer to Tahiti. By leaving at 8 in the morning, when the tide was high and the pass would be easy to navigate, we would arrive in mid afternoon at Apataki at low tide and when that pass would also be easy to navigate. We also calculated that any risk from a tsunami would have passed. Well, that’s the theory before Murphy ’s Law is applied.
As
we started to bring up the anchor, we found that the secondary trip line we
had tied to the anchor to help get it up had gotten twisted around the chain
as we rotated around the anchor with the wind shifting. All we could do was
to bring a little chain up at a time and then try to unwrap the line. To
our surprise, as we got the chain up, we saw a large black and white shape
next to our chain. When it got closer, we could tell that it was a giant
manta ray that had gotten caught in our rope and chain. At that point, the
chain was caught on something on the bottom and wouldn’t come up. We tried
calling the dive shop at the resort to see if anyone was there that might
come out to help, but there was no answer.
Just because of the possibility of having our chain caught on a coral head (which had happened the last time we were in Manihi), we carry two SCUBA tanks and dive equipment. In addition, this past year we bought a long extension air hose so that we could dive from the boat without having to take the tanks off the deck. This is a lot easier than putting on all of the SCUBA gear if we are going to be near the boat.
So this was our opportunity to check all this gear out. The first tank didn’t have a lot of air in it, so all we could accomplish was to untangle the manta ray. It was 4-5 foot in width, and it is a shame it got caught. We think that similar to a shark, they have to keep swimming in order to breathe, and being tangled up, it couldn’t move. With the second tank we were able to follow the anchor chain down to the bottom, which luckily was only about 35 feet deep. The chain had gotten caught on one small coral head, and then was completely wrapped around and under a second small coral head. The anchor was simply laying on the ground. We would have seen this situation earlier, but the visibility was not good enough. Working on the bottom holding on to the chain in one hand to keep from floating up to the surface, it was possible to unhook the chain from the first coral head and then unwrap it around the second. At this point the anchor was lying on sand, but in the middle of more coral, so we had to be careful to start bringing the anchor and chain up before it got wrapped some more. After a couple more trips in the water to get the trip line unwound from the chain, we were able to get the anchor up and start out of the lagoon. Nancy had timed the operation and it took over two hours from the time we started to leave until we were actually on our way. We were happy to have solved our problem and be on our way, but had lost too much time to be able to reach Apataki before dark, so we adjusted our course and headed straight for Tahiti. It is almost a straight line, passing between two atolls just after dark this evening, and if we only average 6 knots, we will arrive in Tahiti in two days, around early morning.
The
wind started out light and we thought we might have to motor some more, but
by noon, the wind was ten knots and we were able to make 6 knots with our
main and genoa. All afternoon the wind varied in direction and was
generally light, but we kept up some speed and continued under sail.
Nancy prepared another dinner with the tuna we had caught back before the
Galapagos, and we saw the "green flash" at sunset, while watching rain squalls
from towering clouds pass by to our south. The "green flash" is a rare
phenomenon that happens just as the sun sets on the ocean with a clear
horizon. The last rays of the sun appear green for a fraction of a second
before the sun goes completely below the horizon. We’ve seen it on average
two or three times a year.
This evening we’re passing between two atolls before we leave the Tuamotus. Without our GPS, this would be dangerous given all the currents around these islands. The gap we’ll pass through is about ten miles wide, and we’ll double check our position by radar as we get close to the atolls.
The rest of our passage to Tahiti was uneventful, completing the 281 miles by 1 PM on the third day, about 75 hours in all. It would have been difficult to have gotten in before dark the day before, so we had the luxury of sailing most of the time even when the winds were light. Every night we had heavy rain squalls including some with lightning develop all around us, but we never got caught in one. Just at dawn as we approached Tahiti, some of the clouds and storms made very spectacular views with the tops of the clouds very high and what looked like solid columns of rain coming down over an area a mile or more wide, with clear blue skies between the squalls. Within an hour or so after dawn all of the storms had dissipated and most of the clouds disappeared, revealing Tahiti’s sharp mountain peaks in the distance.
We
decided to stay at a newly expanded marina a few miles from Papeete, the
main town on Tahiti, and were surprised to find it so large and modern.
Although Tahiti is pretty, it isn’t at all like the Marquesas or the
Tuamotus. Tahiti has over 170,000 people with most mainly in or around
Papeete. Tahiti has dozens of major resorts, and around Papeete there are
traffic jams, and noise. The cruise ships dominate one part of the harbor
along with ferry boats that go to the nearby island of Moorea.
Being
in the marina away from the city, it is a bit more tranquil, plus we have
this great view of Moorea from the deck of our boat. Moorea is about 15
miles away. The boats in the picture are anchored inside the reef near
the marina.
The
marina has high speed Wi-Fi which allows us to get our email and update the
website. There is a young man who lives on a boat in the marina who set up
the Wi-Fi networks here and in Papeete. He stopped by and set up our
computer to make phone calls over the Internet. We paid $10 for four months
of phone service, and the actual calls are free to most parts of the world.
Our first test call was to Jennifer’s boyfriend Matt. The only cost is for
the Wi-Fi airtime. There are several fine restaurants (French of course) at
the marina, and a shopping mall just a short walk away. We hadn’t expected
to see any boats from the Blue Water Rally as they were supposed to be at
the town quay, and then leaving for Moorea the next day, but instead many
had just returned to the marina to get fuel and spend an extra day before
leaving, so we got to visit with lots of our friends.
The major news from the Rally was that a second boat in the fleet had gone aground on the reefs of Rangiroa, the largest atoll in the Tuamotus. Earlier in the year a boat was completely lost when it ran aground in Los Roques, the islands off of Venezuela, and the early report was that this boat might be lost as well. The boat was Gipsy Moth IV, a very famous boat that Sir Francis Chichester had sailed single-handed around the world decades earlier. The boat had left Rangiroa just before dark and we were told that the captain was down below while someone was steering the wrong course by mistake. In the dark, the boat ran aground. The crew was able to get off the boat and apparently walk on the reef to shore. By the time we heard about this, the crew had all been flown home to the UK, and the insurance company was deciding about trying to salvage the boat. Perhaps because the boat was so famous and had many prominent companies and organizations providing sponsorship money, the insurance company arranged for the boat to be towed off the reef and taken to a boatyard in Tahiti. We understand that the boat will be taken by ship to New Zealand or Australia for extensive repairs and then will rejoin the Rally. This just confirms the old name of the Tuamotus as the Dangerous Archipelago.
Having
arrived on a Friday afternoon, and Monday being another French holiday, we
can’t arrange some of the work we need to have done until Tuesday. In the
meantime, we spent a day in Papeete doing some shopping and revisiting one
of the cafes we remembered from 1997. This picture is of the covered
market in Papeete.
We also visited the Tahitian Pearl Museum located next to Robert Wan’s Tahitian Pearl Store. Robert Wan was one of the first developers of the pearl industry in French Polynesia and has perhaps the largest business. He owns several pearl farms in the Tuamotus and Gambier Islands. The museum was very interesting, outlining the history of pearls dating back to prehistoric man and the Egyptians, replicas of the pearl garments and jewelry worn by kings and queens, and a replica of the pearl rosary and cross that Robert Wan gave to the Pope when he visited French Polynesia. In addition there was a history of the industry, the technology used in growing the pearls, and exhibits of various types of pearls including the world’s largest black pearl (called the Robert Wan). In the shop, pearls were for sale starting around $100 and going up to $90,000 for a necklace made with many large pearls.
Taxis charge $25 for the 3-4 mile trip between the marina and the town, so we opted for the bus at $1 per ride. The buses are known as “le truck” because they really are a red boxed carriage mounted on a flat bed truck. There are two long bench seats on the sides and one long red bench down the middle. They aren’t very comfortable for a long trip, but the price was right.
On the way back to the marina we stopped at the shopping mall and the hypermarket (Carrefours). This store is like a Meijer’s or SuperK back home except it is even bigger and it shows the French influence by having the largest selection of wines we’ve ever seen, long aisles with hundreds of types of cheese, and of course, lots of crusty bread. The only complaint we have is that the prices in Tahiti are pretty high, the local beer is $5/can, and even meat and vegetables are expensive. At least the quality of everything was high.
Our
friends on Blackbird ended up near us again at the marina for one night and
we got together with them aboard Zulu, a 78 foot sailboat on our side.
The three young crew aboard this boat are waiting for the owner to visit.
The owner is a very successful TV commercial director from California who
visits while the boat is at a destination. Again we were surprised by
how small the world is when we learned that Tasha, who is the chef on board the
boat, is the daughter of a man we know who owns a popular restaurant
(Alberto’s) in Antigua. She told us that he was just about to sell the
restaurant. We showed her pictures of us eating at the restaurant.
Jennifer asked her what it was like trying to provision the food on the
boat. She said that she simply makes up a list of whatever she wants,
sends it back to the owner, the food is purchased in the States and then
flown to wherever the boat is. Nancy invited them over for dinner and
Tasha will roast our leg of lamb in her oven since it is bigger than ours.
Other
than in Manihi, we hadn’t done any snorkeling, so we took our dinghy to
a nearby pass in the coral reef that encircles Tahiti. The visibility was
over 40 feet, and the fish and coral were great. We saw sea anemones that
have a red body and white tentacles that were the size of watermelons.
Some of the fish we saw we couldn’t identify and we’ll have to ask our son,
Geoff, for help.
Being a long holiday weekend, the local boats were out in force, with dozens anchored over shallow areas of the reef where people could walk and play in the water. It looked like Strawberry Island on Lake St. Clair at home during the summer.
We
plan on staying here for a few more days and then we will take
the boat to the island of Raiatea, about 100 miles north of Tahiti. They
have a large boatyard and moorings there, and it should be a good spot to
leave the boat while we are home for a couple months. We'll stop at Moorea
on the way and visit Geoff's faculty advisor, Pete, who has been doing
research there this Spring. Geoff spent several weeks at this research
facility when he was completing his master's degree in marine biology.
This will be our last update before we get home. We will miss the spectacular sunsets but we are looking forward to seeing our family and friends.
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This site was last updated 05/12/06