Rangiroa – last of the Tuamotus

Our last stop in the Tuamotus was Rangiroa. This is the largest atoll in the archipelago. Each atoll in comprised of a number of small islands called motus. Rangiroa is made up of 415 motus. Out of those only 2 are populated. Mind you some of the motus are just a mound of white sand with a single palm tree in the middle!! We decided to come through the Tiputa pass since it is relatively wide, is renowned for its good diving and snorkelling and has the largest village.

While the pass is wide it is still dangerous, with a reef spreading into it from both sides. There are also coral heads inside and outside the pass so we had to pick our way through carefully. On the way we saw a wrecked yacht up on the reef. We reckoned it was damaged further out and dragged up on land for safety reasons. It put the fear of the bejaysus into us none-the-less. Once we were safely through and at anchor I realised that John must have a lot of faith in us to allow us bring Sapphire to all these atolls in his absence.

Heading for the pass into Rangiroa

Watching for coral heads. See reef on either side of the pass.

One of the unlucky ones.

Once through the Tiputa pass we turned right and found 5 other ARC boats anchored outside the Kia-Ora hotel. A lot of boats use Rangiroa as their jump-off point for Tahiti since it is only a 24 hour sail away. As this is the largest atoll I was expecting, not quite a shopping mall, but certainly more than we found. The village is mainly made up of Dive Centres and Black Pearl shops. However, there were 2 supermarkets, one of which stocked BOTTLES of Heineken. I would have been happy to see Heineken of any kind but actual bottles. We had a well stocked drinks fridge that evening.

One of the must-do activities in Rangiroa is to take a snorkelling trip to the Blue Lagoon to swim with Black Tipped Sharks.. This is not the same Blue Lagoon of that atrocious 80’s film with Brook Shields. That was made in Fiji I believe. This Blue Lagoon is a lagoon within the main Rangiroa lagoon. I presume it is a volcanic crater within a crater. Not sure. Since it would have taken hours to get there on Sapphire, Patricia and I booked ourselves into a tour group on a speed boat. This was an especially brave move by me for two reasons.

The first reason is due to an incident that happened outside Mr.Assam’s house on Apatiki. You might remember he feeds a huge Nurse shark there everyday. The day before we left Apataki Patricia and I went snorkelling not far from his house, but far enough not to be in the way of his “pet” shark. As we were snorkelling I could feel something gently pinching my leg. I, of course, thought this was Patricia trying to freak me out (as she often does) and so I ignored it. Then I heard her screaming (sort of – since we were both under water). I popped my head up to see what was going on only to be told some huge fish had been following me and nibbling my leg. I shot out of the water like a nuclear missile. Both of us screaming our heads off. Some of the Assam family came down to see what all the commotion was about and told us that these were Remora fish and were perfectly harmless. So, back in we went. Within a minute, my friend was back, latched on to my stomach and hitched a ride. That was it. Friendly or not it was too close for comfort. I later found that these fish have little suckers on the tops of their heads which they use to latch on to the underneath of sharks. I’m not sure why they do this. I must look it up. Either way, I wasn’t sure whether to be flattered or upset to have been mistaken for a shark. And it did nothing for my confidence in the water.

Patricia feeding a Remora from the safety of the boat.

The second reason that swimming with sharks was a brave move for me is because minutes before we were brought to the shark-swimming/snorkelling spot, I fell on the reef and was bleeding profusely from both legs and one hand. Earlier, the tour guide told us that these sharks are known locally as “plastic sharks” because they are so tame and uninterested in eating humans. But you know yourself, there’s always a lingering doubt. However, I’m never going to get the chance to do this again so I hid my bleeding legs from the tour guide and hopped into the water along with everyone else. Patricia was fearless and immediately snorkelled right into the middle of them. I hung back at first to see if any of them were interested in fresh blood. There were about 25 sharks, 3 meters long, swimming above a shoal of about 100 red snapper. Both were beautiful. Unfortunately we only have video footage – no photos. We were still coming to grips with the new underwater camera at that stage. Earlier though we did take one shot of a baby Black Tip which I have below. It was an amazing experience. The sharks are so graceful but boy can they move fast.

This is the life!! As I often told Michelle - we deserve a treat.....

Walking from the boat to the motu for lunch in the Blue Lagoon

Baby Black-Tipped Shark (you'll need to zoom in)

As some of you are already aware, Patricia and I booked in to the Kia Ora hotel for a night while we were in Rangiroa. The hotel was putting on a Polynesian show during dinner that night and a number of the boats were attending. Staying in the hotel meant no dinghy to negotiate at the end of the night so I did the dog on it for once. Cocktails, wine, digestive, more cocktails….. A great night – but one I’d live to regret. Later that night we had a thunder storm with high winds that lasted 6 hours. I was happy to be in the comfort of a really nice hotel and not be out at sea. We were in a bure hut, the roof made out of palm leaves, and not one drop of rain got in.

Kia Ora hotel bar. Handy dock on the front.

Next morning we had to be up at 7 and on board, ready to lift the anchor by 8. (Orders from the skipper!!). I had had my long awaited tomatoes the night before (no chips) and was determined to see if there were oranges with the breakfast. Not only were there oranges but, also pancakes and syrup, boiled eggs and croissants. Had to be done. Nothing better than a good breakfast to cure a hangover. We made it back on board on time.

Another boat, At Last, had left an hour before us and they kindly radioed back to us the conditions in the pass. This was really helpful as the water in the lagoon was very agitated from the storm the night before. This was nothing, mind you, compared to the sea conditions outside the lagoon. We had a horrible trip. We started out with a reefed main and full Genoa. As the winds increased we decided to pull in the Genoa a bit only to find the furler was banjaxed and it was going to be quite a job to roll in the sail. So the decision was made to leave it up. This meant we were going to be travelling quite fast. The sea was very lumpy and the waves coming broadside which meant we were being pushed over and rolling a lot. I was never so sorry to have eaten pancakes!! For the first time on the trip I was sea-sick all the way. Maybe not entirely due to the pancakes of course!! But since we were down 2 crew, I had to grin and bear it. We flew along. Passed 4 other yachts along the way. Encountered 2 cargo ships that were not on AIS and only appeared on radar long after a visual spotting. On the plus side the wind never got above 27 kts and while we had rain we missed all the surrounding squalls. Some of the other boats we passed didn’t miss them and got winds up to 35 kts. And because of the sea state a number of people were sick.

At about 7am we finally spotted Tahiti. We will spend about 10 days here doing repairs, re-provisioning and taking on my replacement. Originally I was to leave from here but am now staying on to do the Society Islands. Most of the Arc boats are staying in the town dock. It is dirty and noisy but cheap. We, and about 4 others, are staying in the beautiful Marina Taina, about 7 kms from the centre of Papeete, the capital of Tahiti. The marina has 3 bar-restaurants, a couple of shops, laundry etc. Now that we have shore-power we are running the air-conditioning all the time. There’ll be parties on boats. We’ll have a great time.