Happy Halloween and the Botanical Gardens

This morning, I was once again impressed to find that our anchor held. The water was darker but clear enough to see fish swimming around at the bottom amidst low lying coral. Our anchor was ok and did not appear to be caught.

I kayaked to check out the private island to read the sign. It said "guard dog." A dog started barking.

There was supposedly good snorkeling around the area but I didn't find any, at least none that was good as Tautau's coral gardens or Bora Bora.

Here is Shannon working the anchor!

We went back to Uturoa which was a whole different town. Still not hustling and bustling, but as busy as a two street town could be.

Ben went to pay the doctor and hospital for seeing Chantelle and buy crutches, Chantelle kept watch over the boat knitting, and the rest of us checked out the floral market, the artisans, but most importantly, the other grocery store in town, Legault, and bought subs for lunch and a few more supplies.

With Ben at the helm, we set off on an uneventful motor to Faaroa Bay. We anchored near the mouth of the Aoppomau River in 10 meters waters. We've been trying not to use the rope on the anchor since the last time and all the trouble we had raising it afterwards.

We set off up the river on dinghy and kayak and had a great cruise up the river. We got a little wet as the weather was overcast all day, and it started raining. It was like a theme park ride almost, many different plants on the banks, various fruit trees, some docks and old kayaks and dinghies belonging to locals.

On the way back, we came across a local named James who kayaked up to Mike who was paddling ahead of us, and started chatting. Next thing you knew they became best friends!

He told us that he was the "Guardian of the River." He offered to take us up to his botanical gardens. So why not? There was a little side stream we went up until it got too shallow, then walked up the rest of the way leading right to the botanical gardens as promised. Most of us didn't have sandals, but surprisingly all the foliage and leaves didn't give the feet too many problems.

So James took us all around this garden, showed us tons of flowers, plants, fruits. We sampled the hottest chili pepper Shannon and I ever tasted and cocoa fruit. James pointed out coffee, star fruit, and papaya plants. Mike tried to climb a coconut tree.

After the tour, we returned to the river and made a stop at his dock. James went into the bush and returned with a stalk of bananas for us to eat. He then proceeded to cut up young green coconuts which were full of coconut milk. I don't mean a little bit of juice like the ones we hijacked from the Barcelo trees in Mexico, but it had like a liter of milk each. There was so much that two of us couldn't finish one coconut. He also prepare two coconuts full of milk for us to go.

The meat in the young coconuts are soft. James cut up a brown fuzzy coconut that had already fallen to the ground. This was the one that had the crispy white coconut for eating.

It appeared that James really didn't expect anything in return. There was no waiting for us to tip him, no selling stuff at the end of his tour. That was it. Back at our boat, we didn't find that it was burglarized. It seemed like Guy said that the island people, it was still small enough to have genuine friendliness. Maybe James was bored and wanted to show us around. Whatever the reason, we were extremely grateful.

We invited him to our boat and fried up some of his bananas and gave him a bottle of rum.

That was such a good river tour and so much better than expected with James randomly showing us around. I wondered how many other tourists got the botanical gardens tour.

After a swim and a rain shower, we made some delicious fish steaks that we got from Uturoa. Eating Halloween candy and cookies, we played a game of Pocket Cranium before hitting the sack.

Until Next Time Bora Bora

I was just thinking about the really interesting people that you meet while traveling. Last night was no exception. What made yesterday more interesting was that the people I met were also sailors or interested in sailing in one way or another. Now I'm a part of that community (international community?) of sailing enthusiasts, swapping stories, this charter experience being my first one.

We were supposed to pay our tab this morning but to our dismay, the Yacht Club didn't open until noon, as it was Sunday. Because we had to cross over to Raiatea, we left and later send an email to give them our billing information.

We had full sails out on close reach half of the way and motoring into the wind the other half. It was actually quite a great sailing day and the only thing that could have made it better was if the winds could have carried us all the way there. We were doing a constant 6-6.5 knots with sails.

Everyone was pretty wiped out from the night before except me, so I helmed most of the passage. This time around now that I had experience, I trusted the autohelm which made things much easier.

Ben was partially functional and felt better after he heaved over the side. All of us decided not to mess around and take the ondansetron Mike brought which really helped. I never really had a problem with sea sickness, but then again, I guess I had never sailed unprotected waters. Today's crossing was no as bad as going to Bora Bora, but you could definitely see the swells, like huge gigantic waves in an enormous bathtub.

Everyone else pretty much slept the entire way and didn't emerge from the cabins until Ben and I had docked out boat in Uturoa about five hours later.

It was a ghost town. The only activity was singing in the church being a Sunday. The Shell station where we were hoping to fill up our outboard tank was closed at 11:30am, about two or three hours ago.

Us guys walked about the two main streets of Uturoa and discovered the hospital immediately south of the Shell station on the roundabout. The emergency department was staffed by one doctor and the radiologist was just on his way home, but insisted that we bring Chantelle in for an x-ray.

So it worked out pretty well that we got an x-ray right away. Chantelle won the ankle lottery an didn't have a fracture!

On the boat we had prepared Shannon's famous shrimp linguine for dinner. Flies tried to share in our meals, and each time a motor boat would speed by our yacht would pitch against the dock. We couldn't wait to get off the dock. Some old guys, probably drinking buddies, were sitting along the dock the entire time, just watching the day go by. They were here since we docked to us leaving and hadn't moved from under their tree. I guess this is island lifestyle.

As we were sailing south towards Ile Tauro to anchor for the night, we passed by a Princess cruise ship docked at Uturoa. It wouldn't have been a great stop since nothing was open on the Sunday in town. We waved at the passengers looking out at us on board.

I imagined that they totally wanted to be on a catamaran like ours sailing themselves, being their own cruise captain rather than being stuck on the cruise ship. When Ben and Chantelle were checking in at the St. Regis, the receptionist told them that she had always wanted to sail around the Society Islands. Which reminds me of how lucky I am, and how lucky all of us are.

There were three areas of around 5 meter depth soundings just east of the pearl farm on Tauro. We chose one of them and anchored for the night. 

Mount Pahia and Halloween Party at the Yacht Club

Saturday started off good. We had not drifted at all actually and were anchored at exactly the same place when we went to bed. The gusts disappeared actually, soon after midnight.

Our plan was to climb Bora Bora mountain. The peak that you can ascend is called Mount Pahia. People recommend climbing early in the morning because it can gt quite hot. There's also a sign at the entrance to the trail that recommends having a guide with you.

Well, we had a slow start to the day. Had some breakfast, then half an hour of free time in the water. The water is just so beautiful in this area. We did some snaps of us diving off the boat, doing cannon balls and climbing up the anchor bridle.

We got a mooring buoy near Total, and took the dinghy into town. It was already hot! By the time we used the bathrooms and were all set to hike, it was already 12:30.

The climb up was definitely not the easiest hike. Good footwear was essential. I wore my closed toe Sketcher sandals with socks and it continued to serve me well. Shannon's new Merrell sandals had no grip whatsoever and she was having a lot of trouble. Chantelle traded her for her shoes because she was more nimble which helped a lot. Mike had reef shoes on which weren't so great either.

Good thing Shannon prepped for doing some rope hiking because there were 6-7 parts to the trail that required climbing a rope. Scaling up paths holding on to roots were not uncommon and sweating like pigs was a given. The path was not too difficult to follow and we had no problems with getting lost.

The view up top was spectacular. We didn't have the clearest of days but regardless, the colors were beautiful and we could see some of the other islands in the distance. 

Ben and Chantelle continued on to the very peak another twenty minutes away, but the rest of us were tired and started heading down. Slowly. The decent was just as difficult with several slips and slides on the butt. Jennie and Shannon were definitely not having a lot of fun and questioning whether it was worth the trek for the view.

We were really looking forward to sitting down at the cyber cafe for a smoothy once we reached the bottom, but we heard a scream behind us. No one answered our calls. Shortly after, we see Chantelle piggybacked on Ben coming out of the trail. Right at the bottom in a grassy area, Chantelle twisted her ankle with an audible snap! It was really tender and Ben thought it was broken.

A local came out right away with some cream for Chantelle to rub over the ankle. We found out that there were no doctors today because it was Saturday and that we'd have to wait until Monday for an x-ray.

Shannon and I went off the the pharmacy to buy an ankle splint while the others got Chantelle to the dock.

We got back to the catamaran and after a quick swim to get all the grossness and sweaty grime off, we motored around the corner to Bora Bora Yacht Club as we were completely out of water and we saw a sign at the Chin Lee grocery store about the Halloween party there.

It was like the best decision ever especially after the Bora Bora climb. We docked and were welcomed by the owner of the club who set us up with water. He convinced us to abort our shrimp linguine supper and eat at the club for $12 a plate, mooring included. Sure, why not? While we were filling the boat we took advantage of the free showers.

We moored just off the yacht club and came back in for the party. It didn't matter that much that we didn't have a costume. We planned on buying some after our hike, but it didn't work out. Dinner was not bad, being a homemade special Turkish meal.

The owner of the Yacht Club turned out to be a cardiologist. Him and Mike instantly hit it off and talked all night in French about making 100,000 euros a month being the only cardiologist and internist in Bora Bora. He moved here from France five years ago and bought the Yacht Club five months ago. He was quite a bit drunk and his wife very young looking. He had a 10 month old who was really interested in the Halloween decorations and lights. Mike said to me that we picked a great place to stay for the night. I couldn't agree more.

The Club started off slowly but eventually picked up and was quite happening. There was a mummy which was quite a hit and they made grave sites just outside.

Guy the Brazilian sailor who gave us bananas earlier showed up later which was awesome. He brought along Hanne, a Belgium girl who was "couch surfing" and ended up being crew for a Canadian skipper who wanted to sail the Pacific. Guy's brother and mother left two days ago leaving him behind to sail on his own. His next destination was the Cook Islands tomorrow. He had just finished his PhD in management at McGill and had a job to go back to in January.

It was really neat to meet someone like that after learning about sailing and reading books on races and such. This guy was a genuine solo sailor, and he was working on making the third reef on his sail better. He said he liked solo sailing and that he and his brother built this sail boat over several years together. He told me about some of the places he traveled to where the entire population of an island might be 60. Here he was welcomed as a guest and provided with fruits and food. Money was not used, unlike in Bora Bora where locals might sit out with a table of fruit, waiting all day to sell. He said that the longer he traveled, the more tempting it was not to return.

People often say how lucky it would be to go sailing or travel for months at a time. They might say they wish they could do that, but for whatever reason can't get away. The truth is, it is not luck, but a choice that you make.

Guy delayed his career to sail. Hanne is sailing the Pacific pretty much for free in exchange for chores on the boat. Ben's parents raised him on a sailboat for during his first few years of life. Natalie in Vancouver traveled from Switzerland to Vancouver, picked up sailing and planning on crewing on a boat as well.

 

We all had several drinks that evening during the festivities. Shannon had a good time, probably one of the best nights I've seen her have at a bar. We talked to some of the locals, a cross dresser bought me a Heineken, and we all had a good time dancing with the mummy, even Chantelle when we got her a stool in the middle of the dance floor.

 

Lazy boat day

What a lazy day today, at least for everyone but Ben and Chantelle. Those two started off the day with a scuba dive. They called last night from Bloody Mary and were picked up by the diving boat this morning from our boat.

While they were gone for several hours until 12:30, the rest of us took naps, read a little, cleaned up. We discovered our pizza dough had unfortunately grown mould and some bananas were getting too ripe. Actually, I think we were all tired and didn't mind the rest.

The weather today was actually quite crappy. It rained on and off and the skies were mostly overcast. Gusts of winds came and went as well, but we were well moored to Bloody Mary's buoy.

I didn't even put on my sunscreen until mid morning, but even before I was sticky from the humidity.

Chantelle and Ben came back from some amazing dives. Lots of big sharks out in the ocean, and a place with tons of manta rays.

We ate lunch then went back to Vaitape. We had a hell of a time finding a parking spot though. All the mooring buoys north of town were taken. We tried stopping off at Total for some gas but Hilton Bora Bora shuttle snuck up in front of us and prevented our docking.

We eventually anchored nearby in 30 meter waters and dropped rode down to rope and went to town.

Chantelle and Ben did a run part way up the mountain while the rest of us strolled town, going to Super U and Chin Lee for some supplies.

I'm not sure, but I think a little boy gave me the fist. Ben told me the first time here that he got the finger from a woman. I wonder if there is a lot of tourist resentment here on Bora Bora. I guess that wouldn't be surprising since this place depends so much on tourism yet all these people are in your village all the time.

At five when we returned to the dock, it was raining, but this time, it wasn't a quick in and out rain, but a continuous rain that would last the rest of the night. This wasn't entirely unexpected because More Mike had checked the weather forecast earlier and today was supposed to be a thunder showers day progressively getting better the next two days.

We gritted our teeth and set off in the dinghy back to the yacht, tourists laughing at us from the dock, and us laughing at ourselves.

Because we weren't sure about the anchor scope, we motored off to where we anchored the first night we were here in Bora Bora. It was getting relatively late by this point being around six when our anchor was in place.

We had a nice dinner with the rest of our burgers topped with mushrooms and goat cheese.

Ben and Chantelle were obviously wiped. And it was only eight thirty. Then the wind started blowing in gusts again. Strange and ominous sounds came from the boat. We checked the GPS to find that we were about 65 meters from the mark that I placed upon anchoring. At one point during a gust the boat seemed to have snagged something and jolted a bit, followed immediately by the bilge pump going off. Strange. Then the bailing device we made by cutting a water bottle in half blew inside the galley. Are these omens?

Ben told us stories about sailing when he was younger with his family and that fateful Friday the 13th when their monohull was knocked down shredding sails and such. I shared some stories about races that I've read about.

Watching the GPS, Ben said he now knew how his father felt when anchored and how he would always have a drift alarm and double anchors. The GPS never drifted further than the 65 meter radius fortunately. I double checked around the boat. There were no snags, the anchor appeared proper and there wasn't any coral within headlamp range. I was actually impressed that the water was clear enough for me to be able to definitively say that.

So we decided to set alarms throughout the night just to check on the GPS and make sure we hadn't drifted. 

Lagoonarium and Bloody Mary's

Despite a night of drinking, I still got up at ten to seven this morning before every else and sat out the back of the boat writing yesterday's journals.

I could tell everyone was tired as we dragged ourselves getting ready to do anything. The inertia to get going was incredible.

I think the swimming pool colors and mystical volcanic background has now become more mundane. I try to just find a place on the boat to sit and watch the scenery without reading or other distractions just so that I remind myself of the present. Here, I try not to find things to distract myself from the beauty of the lagoon and islands. Instead of my usual hustle and bustle, I am trying to do more of nothing.

While it's fun being skipper and sailing, there are times when I think it would be really nice not to have much responsibility and just enjoy the ride. Like having someone else be in charge of navigation and finding places of interest, or someone to care about provisioning and meals. I'd like to lie back during some of the more shallow and difficult passages with Shannon and watch the scenery go by.

We motored back to where we were just the day before. It turned out the lagoonarium was right there! It's not marked at all and there were no responses to our hails on VHF neither on the general channel 16 nor channel 72 that was indicated on the map TYC provided to us.

We anchored close to where the blue water became white and had a lunch of chicken wraps making sure that the anchor didn't drag.

We donned snorkeling equipment and swam / walked to shore avoiding patches of sea urchins. The only indication of a lagoonarium is the black fencing in the water that penned up the fish. A sign said "Private island, open from 10-3."

They charged 2500 CFP per person and only took cash. We tried negotiating to no avail because we only had 5000 CFP between the three of us. After a phone call, she told us that she could take credit card and telephone the authorization in.

In the end, the others weren't interested enough to pay the $30 per person to check it out leaving Shannon and I to go alone. I thought it was a worthwhile experience and something I was looking forward to and read good things about. The excursion to this place from a hotel cost 6000 CFP, but we swam up so it wasn't as expensive. That's one of the benefits of sailing around here, that you don't have to rely on excursions to get you around from your over the water bungalow, not that you'd really want to leave it anyways.

The lagoonarium was not all that big, but they managed to stick turtles, sharks, eagle rays and a whole bunch of fish in there.

The first fenced off pool had lots of fish that were happy swimming just out of reach from you. We stood in waist deep water and watched curious yellow fish come right up and check out my rippling swim trunks.

Shannon was really nervous about the main section where rays flew around the sandy bottom and sharks that didn't look that much unlike mini Jaws sharks swam just in the distance.

I checked it out first while Shannon waited at the beach shore watching to see if I would get eaten. A ray would swim close and Shannon would already have turned around and be two steps from being completely out of the water.

After a lot of coaxing and promises to hold on to her tightly while swimming, Shannon finally got her fins and mask on and we swam among these scary looking fish.

Afterwards, one of the staff came out and we joined a feeding tour around the lagoonarium that was a lot of fun. The animateur got Shannon to get up and personal with one of the rays kissing on the mouth.

We were there for about two hours before rejoining the crew enjoying the beach starting to get bored kayaking around and tossing the Frisbee. Hermit crabs scuttled around and stand offs between island dogs took place.

We took the reefs out on the cat and sailed with full sails right around Bora Bora towards Blood Mary's. The sailing was great actually. We practiced a couple of gybes, did wing on wing. Near Bloody Mary, a squall came in making the sailing really exciting. You could see the rain come in, where it ended and began sharply demarcated on the water.

We got up to 9.1 knots at one point with Ben at the helm before it started getting a little too crazy and we headed up taking the sails down. Then the squall passed and it was over. Oh well. Better safe.

We moored right up by Bloody Mary, took a dinghy out and made a reservation for seven.

We took an hour to get dressed up nicely and went in for a honestly delicious meal of fresh fish.

The place was really cool, with a sandy floor, funky bathrooms and their famous visual menu, which was just the meals set out on ice, and you could choose from it. I read some reviews on the Internet saying it wasn't all that great, but I thought ever was delicious the fish perfectly cooked at medium.

We had ahi tuna sashimi and a salad to start, followed by mariner (the special of the day), mahi mahi, tuna and more ahi. Mike had a craving and got a side of ribs too.

The bill came out to about $60-70 a person including wine. We were all stuffed and happy, and it was a great evening out for everyone.

St. Regis and More Coral Gardens

Day four out at sea. We ate a simple breakfast of yougurt, cereal and fruit with Mike and Jennie with Bora Bora serving as our background. Killing some time reading and laying on the trampoline, we took the dinghy out to St. Regis where Ben and Chantelle met us.

We got the grand tour of their suite 103: it was huge! There was this huge living room which was equally as large as the bedroom and bathroom combo. I wondered who came to Bora Bora and watched the two large televisions. The deck had a sun warmed jetted tub and led to off the lagoon which was over six feet deep.

We had a lot of fun tubbing, and doing dives off the deck while the girls took pictures. Soon, it got close to noon, and thus check out time, and we returned to "reality" (?) back on the dinghy to the catamaran.

We made a short motor with the jib out to the south eastern bay near Pointe Faroone. The trip was at points quite shallow and out depth sounder read 1.6 meters at one point with our draught at 1.2 meters. We anchored for the night.

We took the dinghy out to Pointe Faroone which was a bit of a disappointment. There was only a meager beach to throw around a Frisbee and an artist's studio that we browsed. The problem is knowing which parts of the island are supposedly private, and further more which are private and friendly to tourists and which aren't.

Ben and Chantelle stayed behind for some frisbee and kayak sailing. Mike, Jennie, Shannon and I went to the Piti uu motus in search of the coral gardens. It took us a couple attempts but finally discovered them right between the two motus, and tied up on a rock on the southeastern  shore of Piti uu Uta. We were rewarded with some great snorkeling around corals and schools of fish.

The trip back to the catamaran was really rough against the wind, and Shannon didn't think we'd make it. Ben said he could see us coming back and every time we hit a wave there would be this big splash of white. Quite a lot of water got in the dinghy and all our stuff started floating around like the oars, the snorkeling equipment and the fuel tank.

Mike had the crazy idea that taking out the hull plug would allow us to drain, and despite Jennie occupying the space across from me beside the motor, climbed over her and unplugged. Because first of all we weren't going fast enough, and second that all our weight was now at the back of the dinghy, we took on more water I'm sure.

Safety was never a problem because our dinghy was inflated and it wouldn't sink, but I was worried about drowning the motor.

We did make it though, with Mike bailing with his hat. It was a pretty exciting trip. We found both Ben and Chantelle burnt to a crisp with their own near death experience. The sail kayaking worked, but their arms got tired holding the towel up, and for some reason, the kayak was taking on water so that they nearly sank!

But once back on board, all is well again. We had chicken tacos for dinner and ended off the night with several rounds of Sociables and drinking.