Taha'a, Ra'iatea & Bora Bora, Society Islands.

Tuesday 1^st August, Vaitape, Bora Bora, Society Islands, French Polynesia.

Oh dear oh dear oh dear. August already and we're still in French Polynesia and rapidly crossing islands off our onwards itinerary as we run out of time. Cook Islands? Nah. Fiji? Nope. Vanuatu? Cancelled. At least we've finally made it to the island of Bora Bora (population 10,000), our last French Polynesian island. We've started the checking out process with the local Gendarmerie who will send all the (considerable) paperwork to Tahiti where it will get processed and then sent back and we'll pick it up on Thursday. Easy. Then it'll just be a matter of making the most of the last of the baguettes, poisson cru and long French lunches while we wait for a weather window.

Death by a thousand forms at the Gendarmerie in Vaitape.

So part of the reason we're still lingering in this part of the world so late in the season is that after being tempted by Huahine we then got distracted by the neighbouring islands of Taha'a and Ra'iatea. All up that's three islands that had never been on the itinerary to begin with but have actually turned out to be the highlights of the Society Islands.

As we eventually left the lovely Huahine the dolphin welcoming committee were again on hand to farewell us and escort us out the pass. One of them had a hole, like a large piercing, right through his dorsal fin – I assume he has an interesting story about an encounter with a spear fisherman. We had a delightful half a day's sail across to Taha'a and then a quite narrow pass through the reef and a bit of swell which Karl loved (he's still trying to make up for missing out on the Tuamotus) but I wasn't too keen on. And then we had enough breeze to sail right up the long and narrow Haamene Bay to the village of Haamene where finally, for the first time since Panama City, Silver Chief wasn't able to escape before we arrived. Haamene is another of those little villages that you take to for no particular reason. We went to the hardward shop and bought a mini jerry can (since christened Vuupe, don't ask but watch the Christmas film Rare Exports if you want to understand). Then we went to the supermarket. Then we went to a restaurant overlooking the bay for a lovely lunch. We got talking to a local with the best life: he lives in the big smoke across in Uturoa, the capital of Ra'iatea. Three mornings a week he takes the ferry over to Haamene to work a half day at the vet clinic right beside the ferry, then he comes to the restaurant next door for lunch and to sample one of their 100 or so whiskies and then he takes the ferry back home. Nice.

Haamene's dinghy dock. Immediately endearing.

How could you not love a town where this is the police station?

And the bank.

Spot Gráinne anchored in Haamene bay - on the horizon towards the left.

After sampling the joys of Haamene and catching up with Silver Chief we popped out of the bay to anchor on the reef off Motu Mahaea in beautiful turquoise water. There is a pattern here – ever since we skipped the Tuamotus Karl is obsessed with anchoring in places that look like the Tuamotus. So if there's a shallow patch of reef with a motu on it we're there.
Here Karl learned a lesson about the dangers of using a scissors to cut open a tube of superglue – I couldn't understand why one morning I'd suddenly lost the power to use a scissors. We were both very puzzled by the non-opening scissors until Karl said "Oh! I superglued it together yesterday!" Genius. Then he tried to dissolve the glue with acetone and melted the plastic handles off the scissors and onto his hands. Such are the trials of life in paradise. We also noticed we were being stalked by Wind Spirit, the sailing cruise ship we had accompanied from Moorea to Huahine. Ugliest ship in the world. We kept waking up in anchorages to find that it had appeared overnight.

Me (snorkeling) and Gráinne pretending to be in the Tuamotus.

It's getting nippy around sunset. Time to dig out the Guinness slippers.

Next we had to attend to the anchor chain. The first 30 or so metres (the bit that gets used all the time) had stretched so much that it was slipping in the windlass and Karl was having nightmares about the day it wouldn't work at all and he would have to manually raise the anchor. So we needed to get ourselves on a mooring and swap the ends of the anchor chain around. We went to Apu Bay where the Anchorage Angel (Karl prefers to call him the Anchorage Fairy) on Silver Chief, having just finished climbing another boat's mast, gave Karl a hand with the tricky task of disconnecting a thing that probably had not been disconnected in 40 years. And it was all a great success. The mooring we took happened to belong to the local pearl farm so we just had to go and visit. And after learning all about pearl farming (actually very interesting: https://www.lesmerveillesdupacifique.com/en/5-etapes-de-la-formation-de-la-perle/) and watching their grafter at work it would just have been rude not to buy a pearl. So I got myself a pearl.

The Champon Pearl Farm dock and workshop at Apu Bay.

Their grafter doing the delicate oyster surgery.

Choices choices choices.

Anchor chain fixed, next stop: Apooiti Bay on the next door island of Ra'iatea. Taha'a and Ra'iatea share a single lagoon so it seemed silly not to visit seeing as we were already in the area. We took a mooring at the Apooiti Marina and marvelled at the strong, green, piney smell of the island. Then time for a moped circumnavigation of the island. On the wettest day in history. Therefore there is minimal photographic evidence of this day.

Ra'iatea (previously known as Havai'i) is an important centre of the Ma'ohi (Polynesian) culture and history. It was probably colonised from Samoa and Tonga around 200BC. Then somewhere between the 10^th and 14^th centuries onwards migration occurred from here to Hawaii, New Zealand and towards Easter Island. Traditionally it was seen as the centre of a giant octopus (Tumu-Ra'i-Fenua) whose tentacles stretched outwards to Hawaii, Marquesas, Easter Island, New Zealand, Tonga and other island groups. By the 17^th century the great marae (temple) of Taputapuatea, near today's village of Opoa, was the most important in Polynesia and leaders came across the ocean from the other island groups for ceremonies here. It certainly has an impressive setting on the coast near a pass in the reef. This pass was considered a sacred ceremonial sea gate (I'm going to start calling all passes sea gates from now on) guarded by The Great Mythical Octopus Tumu-Ra'i-Fenua.

Ra'iatea is also where Tupaia, Captain Cook's Polynesian navigator and translator (who travelled with Cook to New Zealand and Australia before dying in Batavia), was from - he joined the Endeavour here.

One of the three marae on the Taputapuatea site dating from different eras and serving different ceremonial functions.

Marae Hauviri - for the coronations of the chiefs. Visiting craft could pull up to shore right beside it having come over the ocean and through the sea gate.

The capital of Ra'iatea, Uturoa, is a surprisingly bustling little town of about 3,800. It's the biggest town in French Polynesia after Papeete in Tahiti and felt like it the morning we were there - battling traffic jams of all things. The rest of the island is very pretty and green (from what we could see of it through the rain) with some beautiful bays. 

After Ra'iatea it was time to head back to Taha'a to be close to the sea gate for an easy exit to Bora Bora. Still not being quite over the Tuamotus thing we anchored at the reef off Motu Tau Tau in......yup, beautiful shallow turquoise water. Despite the presence of an overwater bungalow resort this was a particularly quiet anchorage. Absolute silence. The buzzing coming from the electrics on Gráinne started to sound deafening. It was quite disconcerting. There was yet another "Coral Garden" to snorkel which actually turned out to be very good and we saw another octopus! This one was wandering around a coral bommie all wobbly and tentacly. A magnificent creature. Ashore in the village of Tapuamu we found two (two!) rhum distilleries. So as not to show favouritism we visited both. And we found a floating tapas bar for lunch. A pretty good spot all in all.

Sailing up the coast of Taha'a inside the reef on flat water with just a hint of breeze.

Still pretending to be in the Tuamotus.

 

Forget my previous recommendation of the Sofitel Moorea, this is where you want to be, Le Taha'a Island Resort and Spa.

                                                                         Octopus!

The very pretty still at the Pari Pari distillery.

"Rhum Bar & Tapas"? You don't have to ask twice.

Vuupe now comes everywhere with us. Time for rhumerie number two.

Karl testing the sugarcane crusher at the Mana'o rhumerie.

Their little still for experimental batches, every home should have one.

And then finally onto Bora Bora. We had a fantastic sail across, 25-30 knots of wind, beam reach, we even got the mainsail up! Gráinne was hooning along at 7 to 8 knots and loving every minute of it. Things went downhill rapidly on arrival at the Yacht Club anchorage though when we picked up one of the two remaining moorings (challenging in the strong winds) to discover it said "Ne Pas Utiliser". Grrrr. Then we headed for the last free mooring only to be waved off by the neighbouring boat. Grrrrrrr. Making uncomplimentary comments about Bora Bora (a.k.a. Bora ****ing Bora) and with visions of having to anchor illegally in 30m in 30kn gusts we headed south to the Bloody Mary's mooring field. The first mooring we tried had no attachment point. Grrrrr. The next mooring was all good. Phew. Bora Bora did not make a good first impression. In the afternoon we went for a walk to allegedly the best beach on the island (to check it out for the following day's Sunday Funday) but after a not very pleasant walk on a fairly busy road we came to a pretty underwhelming beach. Bora Bora still not impressing. Finally we decided to stop at the Bloody Mary's restaurant (allegedly a Bora Bora institution and a must do) for happy hour (we were in need of a happy hour) before dinghying back to Gráinne. And do you know what? It turned out to be great! We got there early enough to install ourselves at the bar which quickly filled up with locals enjoying a Saturday night out. We watched all the tourists, bussed in from the surrounding resorts, selecting their seafood from the display and being seated in the restaurant for dinner. Meanwhile we enjoyed the surprisingly good music and the barfood with family and friends of the band at the bar. We talked to a very enthusiastic local surf-skier who had been to Perth to compete in the Rottnest race. So after a very good evening, including a particularly good Bloody Mary, we had started to forgive Bora Bora.

Absolutely flying across from Taha'a to Bora Bora.

Got a prime spot at the bar at Bloody Mary's before it filled up.

The next morning we arranged with the crew of Freya, who were leaving a precious mooring at the Yacht Club, to come and hover close by them until they slipped their mooring so we could quickly snaffle it before anyone else got there. So we relocated. Then, instead of Sunday Funday at the beach, we had lunch at the Yacht Club which was very pleasant indeed.

Sunday 6th August, Bora Bora (still), French Polynesia (still).

Okey dokey we have our clearance paperwork, we have circumnavigated the entire island of Bora Bora by moped (which used a whopping 1.3L of petrol, this is not a big island, and at US$2 that petrol is the cheapest thing we've found since getting here) and exhausted all tourism possibilities so now it's just about keeping our fingers crossed that this coming week's weather window doesn't disappear. 

Overall Bora Bora's not bad. They've managed to corral all the tourists in resorts on the offshore motus and one little bit of the mainland so the rest of the island just has a lovely quiet, rural feel. We made a second attempt on the beach yesterday and, in all fairness, it was quite pretty and pleasant now that the wind has died down. And the public beach has the best toilets  - absolutely, definitely the best public toilets I've even seen in my entire life and rivalling the best toilets in fancy restaurants.

Karl insisted on climbing a hill the Lonely Planet describes as "If you're really fit you can try the arduous climb....six hour hard-going return hike....difficult uphill scrambles....treacherous sections" but panoramic views"!

Guns in paradise. There were thousands of American troops stationed here during WWII (clearly some people had an easier war than others) so Karl had to do the pilgrimage to the pillboxes and guns. He loves a good pillbox does Karl.

We kept walking past the guns to Fitiiu Point and down a (very!) steep track to a beach for a final snorkel near a manta cleaning station. Of course we didn't see any actual mantas.

And finally back to give Matira Beach a second chance. It was in a more charming mood this time around. 

And really finally - the story of the Bora Bora BBQ Miracle. We'd been bbq-less for a while since Karl "released" a fused gas bottle from the bbq, after leaving it in situ during a passage, thus rendering the bbq unusable. Here in Vaitape he was bemoaning his misfortune (once again), this time to the crew of the Cairns boat Arakai. Arakai, being very sensible hoarders of spare parts, were confident that they probably had the part we needed. They produced their box of gas spares, rifled through it a bit and lo and behold - the exact part! A Bora Bora BBQ Miracle! So if you come across Arakai along the way and they need something please help. Or just cheer and give them a high five.