Riatea and Bora Bora with Nitidus
11 January 2012 Moorea to Riatea
The gas came, as had been promised and at the price quoted, so we left Moorea at about 1100 hrs. If we had to be stuck anywhere this has been quite a good place to be stuck. The weather has been dreadful but I think I have probably made the best of what good days we have had. However the general mood is that we have had enough of this place and need somewhere new.
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| Genady goes forward |
We set off on a fine reach for Huahine or Riatea depending on what the wind decides to do. We had intermittent SUNSHINE and morale rocketted. It was an easy day and easy into the night but Genady managed to conjure up another squall at 0200hrs which required a main drop in freezing wind and rain.
12 January 2012 Riatea
The entry to Riatea was well marked and easy, and very beautiful. We went through the reef pass between two little motu with the rising sun behind us illuminating this green island with pale pink streamers of mist lifting off the hills of the main island. It was a beautiful sight and as we turned to approach the town, Bora Bora was framed by Riatea and Tahaa rising above the lagoon. After the rain and grey skies of the last week it seemed a magical place. I was so entranced that I forgot to take any photos.
We squeezed into a slot in the marina and eventually the authorities decided we could stay. The marina looks clean and quiet and should suit us very well for a few days.
The town didn't take much exploring, just a couple of streets, which was probably just as well as I returned to the boat early to nurse Sergiy's cold which he handed round in Moorea. It was a pleasant easy day lazing, swimming and lazing again. Slept like a log!
13 January 2012 Riatea
I felt better after the sleep and decided a short outing to Tapioi Hill which overlooks the town would be a good thing to do. Kosta and Genady went there yesterday and were full of praise for the view. It was a short, easy climb up a zig-zag track to a ridge which overlooks the town and the lagoon and all the surrounding islands. The views were indeed spectacular, North across the lagoon was the greenness of Tahaa with it's many bays, West was Bora Bora cloud capped and majestic, to the East was Huahine and South the ridges of Riatea lifted away enticingly. I sat and gazed at the colours for about two hours eating my papaya and feeling very contented. Eventually I came back down to the more usual activities of getting weather off the internet, asprin from the chemist and pineapple for lunch. The afternoon was spent swimming lazily in the sea and lazing about the boat and harbour. This is truely the Land of the Lotus Eaters!
Kosta came back from one of his wanders with a great slab of indeterminate fish so it is sushi and fried fish for supper.
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| The view over the Lagoon to Tahaa from Tapioi Hill |
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| The view across the lagoon from the seafront just beside the marina |
14 January 2012 Riatea
I thought that I would take the bus which the Information Office said would leave a 0900hrs and go to another group of 3 waterfalls. I was up early, breakfasted and shopped for lunch but no bus showed up! It was only about 5-6kms so I started to walk. About half way there I got a lift with a French teacher and his wife who were just back from France. "The news there is universally depressing. It is better here where we hear less and can ignore more!". I tend to agree with him. He was exteremely worried for the employment prospects of his children who were finishing university in Bordeaux. They dropped me at the end of the track to the falls and I was soon trying to shelter from a thunderstorm. Some tropical vegetation makes a tolerably good umbrella but it is not a match for a tropical downpour!. After the rain the waterfalls in the distance had gone from white to brown and the river beside the track was roaring along. I thought that the falls would be spectacular, but the track ended at a river crossing and the river in spate looked more than I could handle, so after casting about unsuccessfully for a crossing I turned to go down. When I was taking one last picture I noticed that the falls were once again white so I went back to the crossing and the water was lower. After about another 30 minutes I thought it was low enough and I wadered across though not without some difficulty. I picked up the path on the other side but after only 400m this ended in another river crossing and a banana plantation from which there was no obvious exit. I tried wading up the stream but progress was slow and not with out it's dangers so I decided on discretion and retraced my steps.
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| The falls I didn't get to |
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| The river which stopped me initially |
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| And the one I tried to wade up |
I had lunch by the lagoon and walked all the way back to the boat. It was hardly my most successful expedition but it was not without interest and a peverse sense of enjoyment.
15 January 2012 Riatea
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| The coast West of Uturoa |
After yesterdays excitements fording swollen rivers I thought a quieter day was in order. I was up early for a swim before breakfast and then took the road West from Uturoa to the marina where most of the charter companies are based. It was prettily done and full of catamarans. Cats seem to be the charter vehicle of choice around here. We are parked at the end of a long line of them in our marina too. They vary in size from very large to grotesquely enormous, are universally sumptious inside, have enormous amounts of space both inside and out, and are, I am sure, the perfect boat for chartering here with their shallow draught suited to lagoons and reefs. However they leave me with an impression of ugly ostentation which depresses rather than lifts my spirits. I swam off the marina breakwater and had my lunch sitting on the lawns around the basin. A Polynesian family came down and the children played in the water having a marvellous time. It was very peaceful and relaxing so I did a few yoga stretches to try to keep everything moving. I then noticed that the clouds were building omminously so I started the hike back to the boat. In fact the rain held off until the evening so need not have hurried back.
15 January 2012 Riatea
The weather looked a bit iffy in the morning and no-one seemed interested in doing anything. I think Genady is still suffering from the cold which Sergiy generously passed around. Kosta is talking about paying until the 19th so we will not be going off to explore the bays of Tahaa. There are lots of ferries on the quay which go to Tahaa so I thought a day trip would be good. The 0900hrs boat finally got going at 0935hrs after a hurried visit ashore to borrow a battery to start the engine! I went to Patio at the Northern end of Tahaa with the intention of walking over a col to Hamene and getting a ferry back from there. The ride out through the lagoon was lovely, all turquoise and aquamarine blues with a ribbon of surf pounding on the reef and a string of motu to give it that true desert island look.
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| A motu similar to those on the reef North of Patio |
At Patio I asked when the last ferry back to Riatea was, and was told that I was on it! I didn't feel like just going back and thought that an overnight on Tahaa would not be the end of the world should that prove necessary. Optimistic fool that I am I thought that maybe there might be a later ferry from Hamene. The Gendarmes at Patio sent me the wrong way along the coast road for the track over the col, it was left and they sent me right! I was eventually put right by a chap in a road mending truck who backed up, turned round and took me to the start of the track. He made sure I knew that 'It was a long way' (12kms), that it would be muddy and that I had water. Such kindness.
The track itself was just that, a track rising to a low col with good views N and S. Along the way I collected mangoes from the roadside and was given 'beanpods' where you eat the padding which tastes like sugary cotton wool. I had lunch at the col and then set off for Hamene which was obvious below. I took a more direct route down a steep muddy path and found myself in an area of cultivation with 4 men and a girl tending what looked to me like marijuana plants. I thought it judicious not to show too keen an interest and continued to Hamene through a wild mango forest. I can taste them still. At Hamene it was confirmed that the next ferry was at 0500 the next morning and it would leave from a quay about 7 kms out of 'town'. There was a pension close by the quay so there should be no problems about a bed for the night. However all along the road to ther quay were moored speedboats so I enquired about a 'taxi' back to Riatea. Soon we had a deal and I came scuding back across the lagoon to everyones satisfaction.
Kosta collected a stray from the town quay, a chap called Andre from a boat called Symbiosis. He was originally Hungarian but left with his parents when the Dubchek regime was put down by the Soviets. I cannot say that enjoyed his company. To my mind he was a totally self-centred incompetant masquerading as a self sufficiant idealist. Over the course of the evening it transpired that:
His boat was leaking from the stern gland and needed to be pumped for 2.5 hours daily!
That in crossing the Pacific from Mexico to Marquesas the propellor of his boat fell off!
That he had been struck by lightening and his instruments and earth bonding had fried and had not been repaired!
That he had an electrical fault, which had nothing to do with the earth bonding, but which prevented him from using his engine!
And when he crossed the Pacific he ran out of gas because he didn't carry a spare bottle!
What else was wrong one can but wonder. His Mexican ex-girlfriend apparrently got off at the Marquesas, I can only wonder why she got on in the first place!
17 January 2012 Riatea
This morning we pumped up the dinghy and Kosta and I chugged over to the motu by the entry pass to do some snorkelling. It was a good place, interesting coral gardens in the shallows and reef in the entry channel was alive with fish of all shapes and sizes and colours. There were fish in red, orange, yellow, green, blue, black and white; in stripes, spots and quadrants and any mixture of the aforegoing that could be thought of. At one time I thought the visibility had changed and when I checked why, I found I was in the middle of a vast shoal of tiny almost transparent fish. We saw a live ray and in the shallows and a Stone Fish, oops beware! I also had some more Spanish conversation with a young French girl who worked in Barcelona and was here visiting parents, she paddled over to the motu in a little green canoe. The island was open to public access and various huts and barbeques had been built, but we were the only ones there, and nothing was being maintained so it was in dire need of some TLC. I found a hat which I kept and a broken surfboard which I used to paddle out to the reef. It was an interesting morning and we were back in time for lunch, and to avoid the afternoon's rain.
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| A very similar motu to the one where we all went snorkelling |
18 January 2012 Riatea last day
All the others wanted to go out to the motu and snorkel so I volunteered to do the shopping and supper.
A very lazy day.
Ann will be on her way.
19 January 2012 Riatea to Bora Bora
It was a lovely day and we were away shortly after 10am. The exit was easy and the channels in the lagoon were well marked.In the lagoon we ran on the engine and set the jib once we were out of the western pass. It is the first bit of real downwind sailing that we done in fair weather. We gave the Hydrovane a try and it worked fine when reaching but was not so good further off the wind. It was a very easy trip and was in fact quite boring after many of our passages. At Bora Bora Kosta handed the steering over to me but then started making what I considered unnecessary instructions which so confused me that I gave the boat back to him.
The hotels on the shore seem virtually empty. We anchored in a very secure pool behind an island and next to another Hilton Hotel which is mostly huts over the water. Bora Bora is beautiful and impressive but from our anchorage we cannot see the main island. If they stay here for a long time I think they will be bored.
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| Bora Bora from the pass through the reef |
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| Just before we entered the pool where we anchored |
Looking forward to Ann's arrival.
20 January 2012 Bora Bora
Another fine day, this must be a record for the trip. The other 3 were keen to go off and look for snorkelling sites so I volunteered to stay behind and do a sort out of the money/shopping credits and debits, and do a collection of my gear ready to leave tomorrow. The money transfers were not worth bothering with which is the best possible result and I got most of my packing done. They all came back just before lunch without enthusiasm as the underwater is nothing like as good as Riatea. However during the morning I had noticed collections of trip boats out in the shallow part of the lagoon behind the reef. These I guessed were the feeding sites for the rays and sharks so Kosta, Genady and I went to investigate. It was a feeding point and the sharks and rays were very impressive in the water at close quarters. The sharks were 2m long reef sharks and although harmless nevertheless produced a sharp intake of breath and a quickening of the heart as they swim towards you only to sheer away at the last minute. The rays were about 1m wingspan and 1.5m mouth to whip, and they brush against you as you stand in the water. OOH ARRR.
I have doubts about the advisability of feeding wild creatures but it was a never to be forgotten encounter.
That evening I took the crew to the Hilton for farewell drink which we all enjoyed. The hotel is nearly empty, only about 20 people in a 200 bedroom hotel complex which is beautiful, the prices are however astronomic $500+ per night. How can it be economic ? If they reduced the prices and upped the occupancy rates would it not be better and provide more employment as well?
I do not understand, but it is not my problem!!!!!
Ann arrives tomorrow.
