We arrived at the entrance to the channel in daylight but were met by a huge departing cruise ship which had already started making its way through the channel. We decided that prudence is the better part of valour and let him have the channel all to himself while we waited outside the entrance. For those of us who have lived for months on a yacht, these cruise ships look like floating multi-story office blocks – quite intimidating.

Bora Bora - as seen from the Marina Restaurant in Raietea

 

Chart plotter view of Bora Bora. This is a good illustration of the reef, lagoon, Motus and the main island.

 

Waiting to enter the channel

 

You can just see the gap in the reef (channel entrance) at the bottom of the peak

We eventually came through the channel at sunset.  John and Gavin were busy navigating while I played the tourist with the camera. Well, someone had to capture the beauty! Like all the French Polynesian islands, Bora Bora is volcanic.  It is made up of the main island, surrounded by a lagoon and circled by smaller islands, or Motu. As we came in through the channel the sun was setting over the motus in spectacular fashion.

Miriam and Paticia – posing!

Gavin looks worried - very unlike him. Maybe I should be too?

 

We had a berth booked in the Marina in Bora Bora but because it was so dark we decided to drop anchor for the night and tackle the docking in daylight. And where better to anchor than right in front of the world famous Bloody Mary’s bar. This is where all the stars go to eat when they visit and the food and ambience is American. There are 2 massive bill boards outside with the names of various visiting celebs carved into it. In the evening the restaurant lay out all their meats and fish for you to choose from and then cook the food in front of you.

Bloody Mary's

 

Some of the famous visitors

  

Lunch in Bloody Mary's

 

Most unusual/impressive chain for toilet flush

 The following afternoon we made our way to the Marina. There was just one slot left, which meant docking was going to be tight, especially given the length of Sapphire.  And to make things even more difficult, our berth was right in front of the bar and it was a Med mooring so we would be backing in. We had a rowdy audience of Arc folk who had been at the bar since opening time – it has been quite a while since all boats were gathered at the same location so all were in high spirits. Suffice to say, we made it in without damaging the pontoon, the bar, the neighbouring boats or ourselves – but there were a few hairy moments, lots of shouting and an endless running commentary from the bar terrace.

Sapphire docked in front of the Marina Bar

Jerry and I had only a couple of days left so we decided to rent a car and do our own tour of the island. The people in the car rental place couldn’t understand why we wanted a car for a whole day! It turns out you can drive around the island in a couple of hours and most people choose to cycle it.  As with a lot of these atolls, the road runs along the outside of the island and you can only go inland in a 4X4. . The reef in Bora Bora is renowned for great snorkelling and diving. Jerry and I had planned to go out in the early morning of his last day, but due excesses of the previous night, this didn’t happen.  Since this was to be my last few days as part of the Arc I spent most of the time socialising with the other boats. Given where we were docked it was hard to avoid people anyway. We literally stepped off the back of the boat onto the bar terrace.

The island is beautiful and I would have liked to have spent more time there.  I would have rented a bike and cycled around for sure.  There is only one hill of any note along the road and most people just pushed their bikes up that.  You can cycle the perimeter of the island in about 4 hours. The main island is not as touristy as I expected. There are a couple of restaurant, supermarkets and souvenir shops, but most tourists stay in hotels and resorts out on the motus.  These are pretty self-contained in terms of excellent restaurants, water sports, spas and also have their own water transport to and from the main island.

Jerry brought me breakfast in bed and was shocked to find I was up, bed made and in the shower. I have an undeserved reputation for lying-in!

This is the life !

 

 

For Jerry’s last night (and my second last) we went to the Black Pearl Resort for dinner and a show. To get out to the motu from the main island we went to a bamboo hut on the side of the road where there was an internal phone link to the resort.  They sent a ferry to get us.  This place was pure luxury. The bars and restaurants were under grass roofs with open sides, looking out over Bora Bora lagoon.  The rooms were tiki huts on stilts over the water on white sandy beaches. All very tastefully done and leaving the island/motu unspoiled.  Each hotel/resort e.g Hilton, Meriden, etc are located on their own motu.  I can see why it is popular with honeymoon couples.

 

Waiting for the Black Peal Resort ferry

 

After Bora Bora next stops for Sapphire are Tonga, Noumea, Fiji and a couple of other remote islands.  This means the usual provisioning, laundry etc needed to be done in Bora Bora.  No rest for the wicked.  A new crew member, Richard, also joined in Bora Bora and Scott arrived to do a handover to him. The majority of ARC boats were leaving from Bora Bora on the day I was flying home so I got to join in the activities organised by the ARC – all except the fancy dress dinghy race which we didn’t take part in.  This was a chaotic fancy dress affair where you had to use oars instead of an engine.  Our dinghy was way too heavy to compete. Most participants ended up in the water when other competitors got close enough to tip them over and the Glamorous  Gallahs (Ozzie boat) mooned all on-lookers. (One photo I won’t be posting!!).

Arc dinghy race

 

Arc boats getting ready for the next leg to Fiji

 

Parasailor being launched...

 

Parasailor up - they made it look easy

Over the start line - I wish them all fair winds and following seas

Last day.  Dreading going back to “civilisation”. Final farewells. Last minute gathering of email addresses. Promises of keeping in touch although I am notoriously bad at following through on these promises. However, I hope this time I will be different.  I have met some truly amazing, adventurous people on the Arc. Most of them have another year to go before they reach Europe again.  Sapphire will go as far as Fiji with the Arc and then split off for New Zealand, hoping to arrive near Aukland in October.

The Bora Bora airport is out on one of the motus. There is a ferry from the main island but only flight passengers are allowed on board. So I had to say my goodbyes to John, Patricia and Gavin before boarding the ferry. It was hard to leave.

Bora Bora airport ferry

It was all running far too smoothly. Until I got to the airport that is. I needed to get to Tahiti by midnight in order to catch my flight back to LA and onwards to NY. But when I got to the airport in Bora Bora they had no record of my booking even though I had a booking reference. I had to go on standby and finally, after 3 false starts got the last flight out of Bora Bora.  Part of me secretly hoped I wouldn’t get out and I’d have to let fate dictate that I return to Sapphire.

The End

But two serious incidents have occurred out there, since I left, bringing it home to me the constant danger at sea and how fortunate I am to be here and in a position to write.  So for that reason and also in order to finish the diary for myself, I’ll attempt the last two blogs.

Since I’ve mentioned that there have been incidents, I’d better say straight away that Sapphire and all on board are fine and reached Fiji this week without any problems, apart from some rough weather. However, one of the Arc boats, Ensemble, was blown onto a reef while at anchor during a storm in Niue, and almost sank.  Luckily, at the very moment they were blown onto the reef, John, Patricia and Richard, the new skipper on Sapphire, were on their way to Ensemble in Sapphire’s dinghy for a dinner date. Although they were all anchored in a lagoon, the sea was very rough. At the exact minute that Ensemble was blown aground, the guys in the dinghy were looking for some way to board. Realising that Ensemble was likely to sink, Richard tore off his jacket, jumped into the sea and swam over to Ensemble to help.  He cut the anchor and drove the boat off the reef while she took on gallons of water.  Eventually they re-anchored and with the help of the other Arc crews working through the night, they pumped out all the water and patched up 3 large holes in the hull. The crew of Ensemble are a couple and could never have saved the boat if not for the help of other Arc crews. One of the many advantages of travelling in a group.

Sadly, the second incident was much worse.  After Niue, the Arc boats made their way to Tonga.  There, they were anchored in the same bay as a 2-handed Australian boat, Navillus. Navillus was heading to Oz via Fiji- same as the Arc. They left Tonga the afternoon before the Arc boats. It appears that at 1am it hit a reef and sank. Their EPIRB was activated at that time and an air search was carried out.   The life raft was found but hadn’t been deployed so it must have sunk very quickly. One of the men managed to get a call out to his family from their sat phone, but unfortunately neither man has been found and after 6 days the search has been called off.  On their way to Fiji, Sapphire passed a companionway door and a locker door floating in the sea.  Must have been a sad and frightening sight.

Anyway, back to the blog. When I last wrote we were leaving Raiatea for Tahaa.  We anchored in Bay Hurepiti, a small, peaceful bay where there were just 2 other yachts. The bay was flanked on both sides by very green high peaks. The breeze was channelled down from the peaks into the bay making it very pleasant to sit up top late into the night. Since it was to be my last night on anchor, Gavin, Jerry and I took our iPhones, speakers and most of the beer on board, up to the bow and took turns playing music into the small hours.  This is a great way to be introduced to artists you wouldn’t otherwise listen to. Somebody was playing saxophone on a Russian boat beside us. Beautiful.

Somewhere along the way we had a found the phone number of a French man who organised tours of a vanilla farm on Tahaa.  The next morning, hangovers intact, we headed for land and met up with Alain and his wife.  They had sailed this way 30 years ago, from France and ended up in Australia as planned.  When they got there they decided that Tahaa was where they really wanted to be. So, they sailed back, sold their boat and bought a piece of land.  They never left. Over the years, Alain learned the ways of the Polynesians and now might well be the only person in the area who knows the old arts, crafts and medicines.

He has built his home in the traditional way. Originally, the Polynesians lived in communal groups.  One building for sleeping in, one for eating and one for socialising. All his buildings are made from palm trees with hand-thatched roofs. This means that the roof has to be replaced every 5 years, which explains why most houses now have corrugated iron roofs. He also planted fruit trees, vegetables etc and is now fully self sufficient.  We spent the first hour of the tour going around his house and gardens. The one thing that sticks in my mind was an amazing star fruit tree he had.  I’d only ever seen star fruit in some of the posher branches of Tesco.

house walls - such as they are - made from palm wood

Star fruit tree

With the history lesson, and tour of the house and gardens over, we got into his 4X4 and headed inland to visit a vanilla farm.  French Polynesian vanilla is said to be the best in the world and its export is an important part of the local economy. Vanilla originated in Mexico, grows on vines, and in Polynesia, is said to smell like liquorice. I thought it smelled like chocolate, but by this time, having been months without it, I often imagined I could smell chocolate. It seems that when the vanilla was brought to French Polynesia from Mexico it woudn’t polllinate. Some young kid discovered a method of manual pollination and that is how it is done today.

Our jungle transport. Looks a wreck but was very sturdy.

Patricia wanted to get a T-Shirt made for me with “I NEED Wifi” printed on it. Which I think is a bit rich given that we were in the middle of a jungle trek when I took this photo.  Guess who was NOT on the internet!

Alain showing us a vanilla vine growing on a tree stump

Vanilla pods

This was growing on the ground in the vanilla farm.  I don’t know what it is but it reminds me of my all-time favourite artist, Salvador Dali.  In his house he has a couch called Lips.  Looks very like this.

This guy was hunting wild pig. Most of the islands have wild pigs. I was jealous of his long socks as I was being bitten by all sorts of flying things.

Alain was the most interesting tour guide I’ve ever met.  He was a mine of information on the flora and fauna. He picked fruit from trees and painted my nails, he pulled the stamen off a gardenia and gave it to us for lipstick. He gave us lemongrass to keep the bugs away – didn’t work for me of course! He showed how to use hibiscus to clean our snorkelling masks. And to top it all provided us with an amazing lunch, all from his garden, except the coconut which he cut from the trees around.

Grapefruit and Star fruit from Alain's garden

Using a machete to cut up coconut

Coconut milk (nothing like our hairy Halloween version) is really tasty

All chickens in the islands are wild. They are let roam because they eat giant centipedes which can be deadly. They love young coconut because the flesh is soft.

Jerry - even the straws were natural. Some sort of wood.

If you ever happen to be in the Society Islands I can definately recommend this tour.  However, you can only get to Tahaa by boat. There is no airstrip and no commercal boats visit so I guess you’d have to be sailing by! After lunch we battled our way to the top of the island where we got a stunning view of our next destination – Bora Bora.

View of Sapphire from the top of Tahaa. Great shot of waves breaking on the reef behind her.

John - pity it's such a dark shot.

Poser!!

No such thing as health and safety here.

Copra drying in the sun. Bora Bora in the background.

On the evening of May 6th we left Moorea and headed for Raiatea, a 14 hour overnight sail away.  This was to be my last overnight run on Arc World and it couldn’t have been better.  That night was the 2012 “Super Moon” night.  As I’m sure most of you know, once a year the moon is full at the same time as it has its’ closest orbit to the earth.  This year the moon was 15,000 miles closer than average, and was full, on my last night at sea in the South Pacific. I’m being specific about the Pacific here because I will shortly have another night at sea when the O’Connor siblings – except John – do our annual trip overnight to the Isle of Mann on the June Bank Holiday weekend.  I will not be wearing shorts and T-shirt that night!!

Anyway, back to the Pacific. We have had some beautiful full moons on this trip and I have mentioned before how the moon and low lying planets cast floodlight type beams across the sea.  Well, none compared to this. Back in the late 90’s I was lucky enough to be sitting with David, in France, directly under the path of a solar eclipse. At the moment of total eclipse it was if someone had just plucked the sun out of the sky – not at all the same as the light at sundown. In the same way, the Super Moon was not all the same as any old full moon. It was more like hours of silvery daylight. It wasn’t until the moon was very high in the sky that we had any real sense of night-time. Amazing. Along with this, we had true Pacific Trade Wind conditions – 15kts of wind, calm seas and a clear starry sky. No sail or navigation changes to be made during my shift. I had a peaceful 3 hours – just me and the elements. I’ll miss my night shifts.

Raymarine navigation mapped (will need to zoom)

Sitting on the "dolphin seat" - where I go to grab some quiet time

We arrived in Raiatea at dawn and anchored in a bay at the mouth of a river.  Remember the Rio Diablo in San Blas where we went upriver and through the jungle looking for a waterfall that never materialised? I remember it well and was somewhat anxious when I woke to find the dinghy being lowered and bottled water and bug spray being loaded up. Here we go again. As before, John had taken all the information we needed from a book. The river forks in two, we take the left fork etc. Before we even got to the mouth of the river Faaroa, the dinghy engine walloped into a submerged tree trunk. From then on Jerry sat at the front of the dinghy with an oar stuck in the water in an effort to head off any further debris. It was a nice enough trip up the river but nothing as Apocalypse Now-ish as the Rio Diablo. Also, after about only ½ a mile the river was completely dammed with logs and we could go no further. On top of that, when we got back to the boat we discovered that there were lots of flies on board so we had a killing spree, upped anchor and moved off to where some other Arc boats were anchored in front of the town of Uturoa.

Jerry on log duty

Young girl fishing along the Faaroa river. Not sure who comes to buy at this stall. Not a lot of passing trade!

Raiatea is known locally as The Sacred Island. In the Tahiti blog I described a Marae (temple) where human sacrifices were made to the Gods. A lot of the Polynesian islands have Maraes, but it can only be a true Marae if it contains a stone from the Taputapuatea Marae on Raiatea. This island is the second largest of the Society islands, after Tahiti. A local man told me that Hawaii was populated by settlers from Raiatea, but I read somewhere that Raiatea was the main stopover for settlers from Hawaii.  I’ll have to look up Wikipedia cause we all know it never lies!!

We visited the Taputapuatea Marae and it is indeed an awesome site.  I don’t have good photos because it is quite extensive and the light was fading when we got there. It’s clear that the islanders still hold the site in great religious regard. There were many recent offerings of coins, shells, clay pots, coconuts etc laid out on the ancient altar. We saw something at Taputapuatea we hadn’t seen before.  Wood carvings called Unu.  Maraes are always surrounded by trees, probably for privacy during the sacrifices, and the Unu, carved on bark, are illustrations of dogs, fish and geometric designs.  It seems that they are very rare as they have not been preserved over time.

Unu

Offerings on the altar

Complex root formation on this tree.

Our last stop in Raiatea was at the visitors dock in Apooiti Marina where we spent the night. Most of the boats here were charters from Sunsail and Moorings, for those of you who might be interested in a weeks sailing here sometime!!  Business was less than brisk and at least 20 charter boats were lying idle. We loaded the tanks up with water – again. We were also approached by a woman from one of the other Arc boats looking to jump ship.  Seemingly the crew problems continue. We politely declined.  From this dock we could clearly see our next destination, Taaha, a mere 4 miles away. The only downside of the marina was its really good restaurant.  Since arriving in the Society Islands I am slowly undoing all the healthy eating and associated weight loss of the previous months. I am a sucker for French cooking, unfortunately.

On our last night in Raiatea, Jerry, Gavin and I made our way into the main town, Utuora. We had been told there would be nothing open but out of sheer determination we managed to find the one and only open bar-restaurant, which turned out to be Chinese!! We met the crew of Glamorous Gallah, Ozzies, who can de depended upon to find an open bar.  As the evening progressed other adventurous crews wandering around also found us and in the end there were about 20 of us holding up the bar at closing time. Gavin used his not insignificant charm to blag some takeaway bottles for us stragglers and we adjourned to the quayside for a deoch an dorais. This is my favourite time of day as the temperature sinks to a cool 30 degrees!

Sapphire moored at Apooiti Marina. She barely fit!!

Me, sitting down on the job of filling the port water tank.

More pina coladas in Apooiti marina

I stopped the car to photograph this coconut in the middle of the road. Clearly no traffic. The coconut was still there when I returned 30 minutes later.

View of Taaha from Raiatea

The following day we left for the short trip to Taaha.  On the way we passed a Black Pearl farm. We had hoped to visit a pearl farm while in Tuamotu after which I would give some details in a blog. But because the snorkelling and beaches there were so good there we didn’t get around to it.  However, we were given some information in Ahe, from 2 young lads who dive for pearls.  So here’s what I’ve gleaned and it may not all be accurate….

Pearl farms tend to be owned and run by Chinese settlers.  It seems that it takes 2 years to learn the art of cultivation and harvest. There is now a school on Rangiroa where Polynesians are being trained to run their own farms. French Polynesia is the ideal place to set up pearl farms because of the large lagoons within the atolls. The lagoons have almost no tides and with the exception of in the actual passes, there is no current. The farm buildings are large stilted huts placed in about 20 meters of water. Thin ropes are suspended from the floor of the hut. The oyster shells are attached to the ropes with a nylon mesh. An oyster can be seeded only when the shell reaches a particular size and some internal organs are sufficiently developed. When the shells are about 30 months old they are taken up from the ropes and the delicate grafting process can be carried out.  It is all manually done and as I understand it this is the process that takes 2 years to learn.

The shells are prised open and a bead is placed into a pearl pocket. (I’m sure there is a technical name but this is how it was described to me). The pearl pocket sounds like a tiny flap of some sort that is lifted, the bead inserted and the flap replaced.  This has to be done in 15 seconds or the oyster will die. The grafters work 12 hours a day, live in the farms, do about 400 shells a day and are well paid. Only about 30% of the grafts produce pearls and the quality varies.

After the grafting is done the oysters are put in wire mesh baskets for 45 days. I think they are then opened again at this stage and if a pearl has started they are put back on the ropes for another 2 years.  You can see why they are so expensive.  About US$200 for one good quality Black Pearl. The one vital piece of information I didn’t manage to get is what makes the pearls black.  Sorry about that. I’ll sign up for French lessons this winter.  Might be more useful than Bridge!!

Pearl Farm in the Raiatea lagoon.

Next blog will be from Taaha.

On 2^nd May we filled the boat with fuel and water and left the Taina Marina,Papeete, heading for Moorea. Moorea is a small island 10 miles away from Tahiti. Between one thing and another we didn’t get out of the marina until 4.30pm and arrived in Moorea in the pitch dark. The Society islands are similar to the Tuamotu in that they are volcanic and are encircled by reefs. The pass in is not very well lit and we had to use a spotlight to get into the bay and anchor.

After the disappointment of Tahiti, Moorea was an absolute delight. Being so close to Papeete (30 mins by car ferry) I expected it to be densely populated and basically a suburb of Papeete.  I know if I worked in Papeete, this is where I’d live.  I couldn’t have been more wrong. The island is beautiful. It has a small town with a number of nice looking restaurants and a couple of supermarkets. It also has a number of very nice resorts perched along coral beaches. It is clean and pretty and not at all overrun.

The next morning we took the dingy along the coast to see if there was somewhere on the island we could rent a car.  Dan had told us this was the best way to see the island rather than just sail around the outside.  Just by pure chance we came across an Intercontinental hotel with its own dock.  As part of the hotel we discovered a dolphin centre offering two different packages. One where you could swim with the dolphin by holding on to it’s fin and belly and diving down 2 meters.  The other option was to attend a short lecture on dolphin followed by what they called a meet-and-greet session, where you stand in shallow water and “meet” the dolphin.  I had a brief few minutes of arguing with myself about the ethics of this type of thing. But having seen so many dolphin playing in our bow waves along the way, I couldn’t resist the opportunity of getting up close to one.

I opted for the meet-and-greet while the remainder of the crew, being better swimmers than me, went for the swim and dive. It was an amazing experience. The guys doing the swim got a DVD so I don’t have any still underwater shots of them.  But having watched the video it doesn’t seem to have bothered the dolphin at all.  The dolphin I met was retired from the US Navy. His job had been to patrol ships and warn of any potential intruders by pressing a button to sound the alarm.  So, I think he was no worse off now than before!!

Heading to Moorea at dusk

The following day we hired a guide to take us snorkelling. We had been told that there were sting ray and black-tipped or lemon sharks along the reef in the north of the island. Apparently, sting rays are not dangerous unless you stand on them!!  Not much consolation really.  Anyway, we were taken out to the reef in the guide’s boat and stepped off into about into about 2 feet of water. There were sting rays everywhere.  They were obviously well used to people since this is a popular spot with tourists. Initially I was afraid to move because you couldn’t turn around without bumping into a sting ray. But having been smacked a few times by their tails as they swished past, and surviving it, I decided to put on my mask and have a look at them below water.  It’s amazing to see them move around.  They really use their bodies as wings and flap along gracefully in a bird-like motion.  Once I had the mask on I could see that the reef dropped off suddenly a few meters from where we left the guide boat.  In this deeper water there were at least 20 sharks swimming up and down checking out what all the commotion was. Having swam with the sharks already in Rangiroa Patricia and I were perhaps a little blase about it. But for Jerry and John this was a first.

A Moray eel peeping out from the coral

We managed to hire a car. The island is only about 40 km around by a coastal road so we spent the afternoon exploring the island. We had been told in Papeete that local people often eat from food trucks that have BBQ’s alongside and that the food is very good. Up until now we have avoided them, but on Moorea while driving around, we passed a number of them before deciding to give one a go.  We choose one that was in a grassy area right next to the sea. The menu was limited to whatever fresh food was available on the day. We had poisson cru, BBQ’d mahi mahi and BBQ’d chicken. The food was great and cheap – generally these islands are very expensive. They set up a picnic table and chairs for us and we ate lunch under a palm tree with the waves lapping beside us. Wonderful.

Supermarket - we must be getting close to NZ!

Since Moorea was so nice and we had so much to see and do, we stayed on an extra day and skipped out on Huahaine.  Our next stop was Raiatea, a 14 hour sail away.  From here we will go to Tahaa, to visit a vanilla farm, and then on to Bora Bora. That will be my last stop. But, it’s not over yet. So you’ll have to endure one or two more blogs.