Pitufa.at

Yesterday we started out early from Bora Bora and motorsailed hard on the wind in a light northwesterly. The pass of Maupiti is shallow and very narrow (about 50 m) and has a bad reputation for high surf on each side, breaking waves in the pass and strong currents. When a high swell fills the lagoon the water can only flow off through this one little opening, causing high speed currents, eddies and standing waves. At the satellite picture we downloaded beforehand it looks like a mountain stream where you’d probably consider whitewater rafting with a kayak, but certainly not with a sailing yacht…

However, we had picked the right day to go and in the calm conditions yesterday with just 1 m southerly swell it was no problem taking Pitufa through the pass against only 2 knots of current–piece of cake. After all that sweating and belly rumbling on the way we were almost disappointed

Maupiti’s a miniature paradise 25 nm west of Bora Bora. The diameter of the lagoon is only 4 nm, the high main island in the middle has 11 square kilometers (1 200 people live along the coast), and the highest mountain is just 380 m high, but looks quite rugged and impressive on the tiny island. The northern side of the lagoon is fringed by an almost continuous motu and there’s another two little motus left and and right of the pass in the south. At the moment we are on a buoy next to the pretty main village Vaiae and there aren’t many other anchoring spots as the lagoon is very shallow, but given the small distances we’ll explore by kayak, dinghy and pedes.

Most cruisers on the way west and hundreds of Tahiti/Raiatea-based charter boats visit the Leeward Islands of the Societies in daily hops sailing from Huahine to Raiatea and Tahaa (only about 20 nm), on to Bora Bora (another 15 nm) and some continue then to Maupiti (25 nm). We usually avoid daysailing as the preparations for a short ocean passage are just as time consuming as for a long one (deflating dinghy/kayak and storing them on deck, securing all the stuff on and under deck, drugging the cat so that she won’t get seasick, etc) and the effort just doesn’t seem worth it for a day. We therefore considered skipping Raiatea and Tahaa (we were there a long time last year) and Bora Bora (which has a reputation for mass tourism and private beaches/motus) altogether and to sail straight from Huahine to Maupiti. The problem with Maupiti is that it has a narrow and tricky pass facing south, which is only navigable in calm conditions without southerly swell. Sailing somewhere and h
aving calm condition’s a bit of a contradiction and during winter there’s almost constantly a swell coming from the south, so in the end we decided to split the trip into three legs just like everybody else.

On the first passage from Huahine to Raiatea on Thursday we had strong southeasterly winds on the beam, a quick, but rough ride and caught a Bonito just before sailing through the wide pass on the east side of Raiatea (despite its width quite impressive with high seas from the stern and huge breakers all along the reef). We then continued under sails through the calm waters of the lagoon up to the sister island Tahaa and spent the night in Tapuamu (where we spent a week sweating with dengue fever last year). The next day started rainy and squally, but we set out anyway and sailed goosewinged (the mainboom on one side and the foresail poled out on the other side) with gusting winds over to Bora Bora. Once again the fishing line straightened out just two miles from the pass and Christian pulled in a medium-sized yellow fin tuna. The wide pass was also easy to enter despite 2 knots of outgoing current and a howling cat sitting between the feet of the helmswoman demanding tuna sa
shimi–when she smells fish blood she goes into a feeding frenzy like a small, furry shark.

Today we’re enjoying a day in the turquoise lagoon of Bora Bora, just scrubbed the propeller in the crystal clear, calm water and later on we’ll put some jars with fish meet into the pressure cooker (sooo much easier in an anchorage…) to have preserved food for days with less luck fishing. If the swell goes down to 1 m as predicted by the forecast we’ll motorsail with light northerly winds to Maupiti tomorrow, if it remains too rough we’ll explore some more of Bora Bora.

We’ve been in Huahine for one and a half weeks and we really like it here. The pace of life is slow, only about 6000 islanders live in small villages around the twin islands Huahine Nui and Huahine Iti (big and small Huahine which are so close that they are connected by a short bridge), but the capital Fare is big enough to feature amenities like bike rental places, numerous roulottes (vans that have been turned into restaurants), a big supermarket, veggie stands with local produce and even a bar with a happy hour. There’s also a big medical centre, a dentist(!) and even a vet(!!!) on tiny Huahine. There are quite some tourists around, but most of them stay in little pensions, up to now we’ve only seen one bigger hotel with bungalows on the lagoon. There are more yachts around than we had expected, but it seems there are still puddle jumpers lingering here before heading further west and charter catamarans from Raiatea also hop over to nearby Huahine.

The first week we were anchored off the main town Fare and after the two months in Tahiti during which our only exercise was carrying shopping bags we took the opportunity of hiking to nearby temple sites (marae) and renting bikes (huffing and puffing). The anchorage on a sandy shelf between the two passes into the lagoon is pretty with turquoise water, but a constant outflowing current (because swell fills up the lagoon and the water then streams out through the passes) meant that Pitufa was always aligned with the current, even when the wind was blowing 25 knots from the side or stern, we were just swinging around then quickly being shoved back–not very comfy.
We then decided to find a more sheltered place and got the anchor up expecting a downwind sail in northeasterly winds southwards on the western coast. It seems that Huahine’s geography somehow funnels the wind over ridges though, so instead of calm conditions on the lee side we had violent gusts out of each bay and soon motored against gusts accelerated from the Southeast to up to 35 knots… Weird.

As the lagoon is generally deep with very shallow coral shelves the yacht-friendly Commune of Huahine has set mooring buoys (free use!) in several places. On the way South we checked some out, but they were exposed to strong gusts and again in a constant current. We finally found a rather sheltered spot in lovely Haapu bay off the little village. There is no current so Pitufa is properly facing into the wind again.

Mariela–the owner of the tiny magasin in Haapu–is very friendly, reserves a baguette for us each morning, offered to get us anything we need from Fare and even organised two bikes for us this morning. Unfortunately one of them broke down after a few kilometres, but Mariela played breakdown service and picked us up. Her next recommendation was a hike up the mountain ridge behind the village and she showed us the beginning of the trail, not without pointing out that she hadn’t been up there yet. Struggling up the incredibly steep and slippery path we soon understood why, but we crawled all the way up anyway and were rewarded with a great view from a rocky picnic spot

The weather forecast predicted 11 to 16 knots of wind from the SE, which sounds brilliant, but then we had to motor the first 3 hours through confused seas to get out of Tahiti’s lee, then finally a breeze set in (hurrah, set the sails!), only to die down soon after. For hours the slapping genoa buffeted Pitufa with a melodic WA-WA-WHOOMM!, the fully battened main answered with a mast-shaking BAMM! and Pitufa’s crew suffered with her. Around midnight proper wind set in and pushed us through the still lumpy seas to our goal that we reached a bit delayed in the afternoon.

When we arrived more than two months ago in Tahiti we naively planned to get a few things done that need the infrastructure of the big city and to be off soon again. Since then we’ve been put off with delaying tactics and lame excuses. There’s a general unwillingness to take responsibility, blame others instead and of course the hope that a problem that’s ignored for long enough will disappear by itself. Whenever we have to depend on somebody else here we soon get a feeling of fighting windmills. The anchorage here in Taina has been windy and choppy for a few days–a bouncy Pitufa that keeps us from sleeping and extra splashy dinghy rides don’t help with the mood. Yesterday our mobile phone got drowned during such a dinghy ride, so we’re incommunicado for the time being.
On the positive side we’ve realised reading through the log that we’ve made steady progress on all the tasks that we can handle ourselves. While staying in Tahiti and Moorea we’ve repaired the anchor winch, found and repaired a leak in the kerosene tank, adjusted the main sail, repaired the deck light, mended the hatch covers, fixed a new railing netting, resewed part of the sprayhood, cleaned the sea strainer and the diesel filter, recut new matresses, filled up the diesel tank, bought and stored full provisioning for the next season for us and all spare parts we could think of for Pitufa, adjusted new terminals for the life lines by lathe, changed the impeller on the engine, installed new hoses for the freshwater system, got a new tap for the bathroom and redid the silcone in the bathroom–so our time here hasn’t been entirely wasted

We’ve been stuck in Tahiti since last week, struggling with delayed appointments, unfriendly staff at chandleries and a general feeling that the world’s not cooperating with our plans.
Somehow the herb garden under our spray hood got infected with lice and some strange, mould-like disease. My frantic efforts at cleaning the leaves and fighting the lice manually had not much effect, so with a very heavy heart I cut off a few healthy looking branches from the thai basil, the mint, the basil, the oregano and the spinach to layer, harvested everything else and dumped the plants and the soil into the sea feeling like a mother drowning her green babies.
In the evening we had Vietnamese spring rolls with handfulls of coriander, thai basil and mint wrapped in and there are still enough herbs in the fridge for a curry and pasta week.
At least we can get fresh soil from the hardware store here, the pots are thoroughly cleaned and I hope that I’ll be able to start a new garden with the saplings I’ve saved and new seeds.

Last year we did lots of hiking in Moorea and usually found our way (even though sometimes in circles) to our destination (or at least A destination) despite the fact that most paths have no signs (we suspected that tour guides with entrepreneurial spirit removed them to support their business…). The two hikes last week to the waterfalls on the eastern side were also simple to find, so we were optimistic when we set out towards Vaiare from Cook’s Bay to find a track over the mountain ridge. We were confident enough to take a young American couple from the neighbouring boat with us, but we couldn’t find the beginning of the track on the outskirts of the village, got confusing info whenever we asked for directions, then someone mentioned that there was hunting going on in that area and we heard more and more shots. We didn’t want to accidentally end up on a local BBQ (imagine what ridiculous inscription that would make on a tombstone: “mistaken for a pig in Polynesia”), so we changed plans and hiked into the other direction towards Opunohu Bay and up to the Three Pines Lookout that we’d been to before (even though the path from this side was quite hidden and a local walked a bit with us keep from going astray).

Yesterday we moved from the reef anchorage just at the outside of Cook’s Bay to the interior of the bay where we’re now anchored amidst a fleet of Puddle Jumpers (boats that sail from America to New Zealand/Australia in one season). It’s funny to hear American voices instead of the French we’ve got used to. For most of them their 3 months allowance in Fr. Polynesia is coming to an end while we lucky Europeans can stay for 3 years (afterwards import tax on the boat would be due)