16 June 2014 Anse Amyot, Toau, Tuamotus
We love it here in this anchorage, but it getting time to move on to Tahiti. I downloaded a GRIB file this morning and there looks to be another trough around the area in the middle of the week, so we’re planning to stay for a few more days and leave on the 18th or 19th. It’s an awkward distance of 220 miles, which will take us between 36 to 44 hours, so we’ll probably leave late afternoon and spend two nights at sea.
After breakfast, we went for walk on the island. Initially, we walked along the leeward side hoping to find some sandy beaches, but the shore is lined with mangroves and other shrubs, so the going was difficult. We had three dogs come with us who led the way for a while until they decided to abandon us and go fishing, leaving us a bit lost in the thick undergrowth. We found our way back to the coconut groves and made our way across to the windward side looking for shells.
Glenys noticed some strange Sea Cucumber creatures in a rock pool, which appear to anchored in holes in the rock, but then extend themselves like snakes, with their mouths sifting through the sand. We saw two different species.
After lunch, we went snorkelling on the south-west side of the anchorage again. I’m getting so desperate to take underwater photographs that I took our small Panasonic “tough” camera. It’s supposed to be waterproof down to 5 metres, but I’ve not used it in the water for a couple of years, so I was nervous that it might not be waterproof anymore and we’d lose our only camera. However, it seemed to survive and, in shallow water and bright sunshine, the photographs that it takes are okay.
There are lots of varieties of colourful Butterflyfish here, but without photographs, I’ve been unable to identify them because the differences are rather subtle. I've now been able to identify quite a few including the lovely Ornate and Recticulated Butterflyfish.
“Lil Explorers” arrived in the afternoon and had caught a King Mackerel on the way in. They kindly gave us a couple of huge chunks, so Glenys made us a Thai Fish Curry for dinner.
17 June 2014 Anse Amyot, Toau, Tuamotus
Glenys went raving mad and spent all morning baking because she was tired of having lots of bits of food hanging around in her fridge and wanted to make some things to eat during our two night passage to Tahiti. She made Empanadillas from some left over fish, a loaf of bread, Cinnamon Rolls, a Quiche, Oven Baked Vegetables and even a Pizza for tonight.
After lunch, we went snorkelling again and I spotted a Network Pipefish, which is a tiny, thin fish like a straightened-out seahorse. It was incredibly well camouflaged and only 10 cm long.
“Lil Explorers” gave us a Coconut Crab that they had been given by a family on a motu at the other end of this atoll. These are very strange creatures, like a kind of land-based lobster, which live in underground burrows and come out at night to eat coconuts. They use their powerful front claws to rip open the coconut and get at the meat.
I went ashore to ask Valentine how to cook it and she offered to cook it for us, so we went ashore just before dark. Gaston boiled it for fifteen minutes until it turned red like a lobster. After letting it cool for a while, Gaston dissected it and showed us which parts to eat. The legs and claw hold most of the meat and it tastes fabulous - like very tender crab infused with the flavour of coconut.
The tail is weird. Gaston showed us how to remove a small patch from the tail and then pulled out the intestines. The remaining “gloop” is an unpleasant brown colour and is considered a delicacy on bread -they call it Foie Gras. We didn't like it very much - it’s very oily and bitter and definitely an acquired taste.
18 June 2014 Anse Amyot, Toau, Tuamotus
It was a miserable overcast morning with heavy showers. The GRIB file showed light winds today, picking up to 15 knots from the south east overnight. After that the winds should pick up to 20 knots which will be ideal for our two night trip to Tahiti, so we decided to stay another day and leave tomorrow.
Motivated by being able to take underwater photos again, I worked on a set of web pages to display my underwater photographs on our web site. It’s a little bit clunky at the moment, but I’ll be able to refine it over the following months - it gives me something to exercise my atrophying brain.
In the evening, we went ashore for another meal - Valentine gave us a big discount because it was our second time and she wanted to fill seats because she only had six other people attending. They served up Poisson Cru, a chicken curry and barbecued lobster, which Gaston had collected by wading on the outer reef shallows at three o'clock in the morning.
it onto the davits. Unfortunately, as I was getting the foot pump, the hose end that fits into the valve snagged on something and pinged into the water. I immediately jumped into the water to try to find it, but couldn't see it. Glenys threw me a dive mask and then I saw the ominous, ghostly shapes of half a dozen sharks circling below me, attracted by the bright light and my “interesting” silhouette - I flowed out of the water into the dinghy at high speed.
19 June 2014 Anse Amyot to Papeete, Tahiti (Day 1)
It was a beautiful morning with clear blue skies, so we got on with a few jobs getting ready to leave in the afternoon for Tahiti. Glenys made a fish stew to eat on the passage, while I ran the water-maker and recharged the drinks fridge which was gurgling and due its bi-monthly fix of refrigerant.
I checked the bilges and had to pump out a couple of gallons of water. I thought that the leak was coming from a sea cock in the engine compartment, but after further investigation found that we had a leak in a fresh water filter above the sea cocks. We don't use this filter and I've had problems with it before, so I disconnected the pipes and simply re-joined them with a plastic connector. Hopefully that will sort out the problem.
Back at the boat, I put on our rear spotlight and stepped into the dinghy to pump it up and lift
All the other boats in the anchorage departed later in the morning, leaving us in splendid isolation. We went for a snorkel at the edge of the anchorage, which once again was lovely. For a change, we didn't see any sharks while snorkelling, but as I checked the bottom of the boat, I found over twenty Remoras and hundreds of reef fish under our hull, with ten or so Blacktip Reef Sharks circling the shoal - with no other boats in the anchorage, they'd obviously gathered under Alba.
After lunch, we went into say goodbye to Valentine. Glenys gave her a bag of coffee that we bought in Costa Rica and Valentine gave us both a black pearl, which was a nice surprise. While chatting to her, I noticed a ukulele and found out that Valentine plays - we wish we'd known before because we could have brought our instruments ashore and had a session, oh well.
Back on the boat, we put the dinghy on deck and tidied up, ready to leave before dark. I hate leaving port late in the afternoon - all the hanging around makes me nervous and we never have time to settle down to sailing before dark.
By four o'clock, there was a huge bank of dark clouds approaching, so we dropped the mooring and scurried out to sea before the rain arrived, which it did fifteen minutes later, giving us over 25 knots of wind. The huge squall passed over us by the time the sun set at half past five, but the seas were very lumpy giving us a horrible motion and making me feel queasy after a week in a sheltered anchorage.
The first half of the night was horrible - pitch black, with a constant stream of squalls. Each squall gave us winds as low as 10 knots and as high as 30 knots and constantly changing directions, so it was very uncomfortable, especially when the rain came.
To make matters worse, the autopilot was playing up and twice changed course over 90 degrees, causing us to luff up into wind the first time and to have a crash gybe the second time. Fortunately, we had a preventer on the main and our boom brake to stop any damage. I'll have to buy a new flux-gate compass in Tahiti.
After the second time the autopilot freaked out, I turned it off and set up our Hydrovane which struggled in the very variable conditions, but it was much better than worrying about another crash gybe. At our watch change at one o'clock, we had a cracker of a squall, which gave us winds over 30 knots and torrential rain. Despite having our rain screens zipped to the bimini, I got drenched while I stood at the wheel, helping the Hydrovane through the worst of it for fifteen minutes - I was not a happy bunny.
Once the big squall had gone through, the wind settled down to 20-25 knots from the south east and the remainder of the night was pleasant (in comparison).
20 June 2014 Anse Amyot to Papeete, Tahiti (Day 2)
The morning brought brighter skies with intermittent cloud bands, which varied the winds, but not as much as yesterday. I had a three hour sleep in the morning dragging myself out of bed just in time to have lunch. Glenys had a couple of hours’ kip in the afternoon.
By early afternoon, a blanket of grey cloud had crept across the sky, bringing with it the occasional shower and strong 25 knot winds. The wind direction stayed pretty consistent for most of the day putting us on a beam reach, which was rolly in the 8-10 foot seas and not very restful.
As we ate dinner at five o'clock, the sky brightened to the south and east of us and a line of clear skies approached from the south-east. We even got a glimpse of the two highest peaks of Tahiti, which were now only 55 miles away.
The wind dropped to 10-15 knots overnight and the skies remained clear, so we had a lovely night sail sliding along at 4-5 knots in rapidly calming seas.
21 June 2014 Anse Amyot to Papeete, Tahiti (Day 3)
By dawn, we were still ten miles away from the port entrance, so we left the sails reduced and slowly sailed along the fringing reef watching the sun rise over the mountainous island of Tahiti and gazing at the impressive silhouette of Moorea only fifteen miles away. We arrived at the channel into Papeete at 0700, which was perfect timing.
We called up the port captain and he gave us clearance to enter the channel, but as we approached, I saw a fast catamaran ferry approaching from Moorea and decided to let them in first, turning the boat 360 degrees to show them our intent. I'm glad that we did because they went screaming into the narrow channel at over 30 knots.
Dodging the numerous outrigger canoes paddling across the sheltered port waters, we motored to the town dock, where we found only one other cruising boat on the floating pontoon. We were expecting to find the dock very busy, but the other boat said that they’d been there for three days and hadn't seen anyone else.
There’s building work being done on the waterfront and there have been some minor thefts from boats, which seems to have scared other cruisers off. To us this was a great bonus as there was plenty of room for us to moor side-to the dock instead of having to mess around with a med-moor.
The Town Quay. is right in the centre of the town close to a big supermarket and the central market as well as numerous other shops and parks. There’s an industrial area about ½ mile away, which has hardware store and chandlers - our credit cards are going to take some serious damage.
We wandered along the pleasant sea front to the Dockmaster, but his office was closed because it’s a weekend, so we walked to the Central Market, which has a fruit and vegetable market on the ground floor and an artisan market on the first floor. Continuing our reconnoitre, we trudged out to the industrial area and found out where the hardware store and chandlers are located - everywhere closes from midday on Saturday until Monday, so we bought a baguette and headed back to boat for lunch then a siesta.
Later on in the afternoon, we walked towards the supermarket and spotted a very exclusive pearl jewellery shop called Robert Wan, which has an excellent little museum. It’s free to get in and the exhibits show the history of pearls from early free diving to modern pearl farming techniques. They obviously want you to buy some of their fabulous jewellery, but the prices are outrageous - tens of thousands of dollars is an average price tag.
The supermarket was a sensory overload being the biggest and best stocked supermarket that we've seen since Ecuador. We said that we wouldn't go mad buying food, but then I saw a lamb shoulder and just had to buy it. This just had to be accompanied by a bottle of wine or three…
In the evening, we strolled along the waterfront to an area where mobile food trucks called Roulettes are set up every night. This is a big operation, with twenty or so Roulettes each having tables and chairs set out for 50 or so people. After wandering around for a while, taking in the happy atmosphere and watching some of the ukulele bands playing, we shared a huge, tasty Chow Mein for only 15 dollars.