Fakarava, Tuamotus

This atoll is the second largest of the bunch in the Tuamotus, although we only saw part of it - the south and less developed part. There is a town by the pass that boasts a population of three families, one of which operates a "pension" comprised of 10 bungalows along the water, a dive shack and a restaurant. The south pass of Fakarava has a reputation of being one of the best dives in the Tuamotus; we stayed for a week and were bug-eyed from all the sharks we dived with.



Typical motu in Fakarava.



Sonny's restaurant...right on the reef.


The dive starts in the middle of the pass where you descend to 20 metres, then follow a sandy bit along down to 30 metres, being met with a host of schools of medium to large fish like Queenfish, Jacks and Tunas. From there, we ascended slowly up along the reef and were confronted with hundreds of grey sharks making their way out of the pass, against the current. Some of them came from up higher than us on the reef, a continual stream of them as if someone had just sounded the dinner bell. Then there were the ones hanging out in the trench below us at about 40 m, letting the current flow past their gills. At one point on our second time doing this dive, Gary motioned to Lo to swim up higher on the reef so he could take a photo of her with the sharks. Lo laughed into her regulator as she started to swim over, thinking to herself "How many husbands tell their wives to go swim with the sharks?". Don't worry, there has never been a shark attack in this pass. The sharks are more like dogs or black bears - more scared of us than we are of them. Lo swam over and when she'd get too close to one, they'd turn and swim away.


Fakarava Pass...tons of big fish including these barries.


After the main section of sharks, the current brought us over a shark nursery, with all the baby sharks hanging out with their mothers. Then we came to a part of the reef with more fish than you could imagine and great coral and the current picked up as we went around the corner (about 5 knots or so), in only 5 m of water, we felt like we were flying. The water was soooo clear and bright, with fish everywhere and the big, broad reef, it was fantastic. We finished the dive by clinging onto the anchor chain of our friend's boat that was anchored in the current, and realized just how strong the current was as it threatened to rip our masks right off our faces! Like a ski run, we did the dive over and over again, seeing something different on each one and saying hello again and again to the local 100 pound Napoleon Wrasse.

We met some great friends in Fakarava on other boats and some locals. Gary used his diving instruction experience to swap a dive lesson for a free diving lesson with Jens from Hippocampus who had done some serious competitive free diving (personal best to 35 m). Jens, his brother Nils and Mom Barbara were great helping ferry us and Toby and Michie from Ahodori to the dive spot, and watching for any of us who might have missed the boat and were being carried out into the lagoon by the current (never happened, but came close).


The hunter, loading the spear.



The happy couple...dinner out for a change.

Raraka, Tuamotus

We had tried to go to Raraka on the the way to Kauehi, but didn't have details of the pass and the guide said that it was difficult. After talking to a Swiss boat that had just come from there, we decided to give it a shot...we ended up being the 4th boat of the season. No sooner had we set foot on the beach next to the small village (5 families live there) than we were invited to dinner with one of the families (Daniel, Leone and 6 of their 8 kids...they gave two away to be raised by friends, a practise that is fairly common here). We enjoyed an awesome dinner of curried octopus and Mahi Mahi.

The next morning the peaceful anchorage turned ugly, with the wind turning 180 degrees and increasing in strength from a 8-10 knots to 30 knots. Hence, our palm-studded shoreline that had been breaking the wind for us now became an uncomfortably close leeshore, with its fringing reef threatening to wreck our boat. We were in 35 feet of water and the waves quickly developed to 1 metre as we were trying to free the anchor from a coral head it was stuck on (very common in these atolls). The reef won, breaking our windlass and sending all 250 feet of our chain on the seafloor with our anchor. Being less than 200 feet from shore, this was now very dangerous, so Gary cut the chain free in a hurry. Luckily, the pass was calmer than the lagoon and we were soon outside with the atoll again sheltering us from the strong winds. We hove-to or sailed in circles all night, maintaining watches all night long and hoped for a change in the weather to retrieve our tackle.

We were lucky. In the morning, the wind subsided to 10 knots. Lo stayed on Demelza outside the atoll as Gary took the dinghy, loaded with his dive gear in through the pass and got help from our local friends, Daniel and his sons, to find and pull up the anchor. Success! After being fed a lunch of salty dried fish and rice, Gary dived to unravel the chain from the coral and the boys pulled up the chain. Their eyes nearly popped out of their head when Gary inflated one of our dry bags to help lift the anchor to the surface. It was a tough night, but the success felt good. We decided not to test our luck again in this atoll, so started on our way towards Tahiti. With a broken windlass, we couldn't use our anchor and thus couldn't stop (there are no marinas in the Tuamotus). Our only possibility was to stop in Fakarava, as we had planned, if we could rig up our stern anchor with a spare rope and thus haul it up by hand.


Daniel and his sons helped us retrieve the anchor and chain.


Lo desperately wanted this plan to materialize as Gary came down with a terrible case of food poisoning about 30 minutes after they departed Raraka. The sun was just setting and Gary suddenly felt incredibly tired and HAD to go to sleep - very unlike him. Within a couple of hours he had a fever of 102 F and Lo realized that she was on her own for this passage. Our computers had both broken, so we were traveling with paper charts and the GPS. At about 1 am, we were between atolls, with more than 12 miles from land in any direction and only 10 knots of wind. Lo heaved-to and slept for an hour. The radar was especially handy to confirm the location of the atolls and after her quick sleep, Lo kept awake by rotating from the radar to trimming the sails/windvane to checking on her patient. Gary really wished that Daniel hadn't given us those bottles of frozen water for our icechest that Lo was now using to cool him down as the Tylenol didn't seem to be breaking the fever.

When the sun came up, Fakarava was in sight and now was the task of rigging up an anchor that would hold us in a blow. Lo wanted nothing more than to sleep, but that would only happen if she rigged the anchor first. Gary was comatose, but managed to pull himself out of it to check Lo's work and help her finish the job. Then, he even stayed up to navigate the boat through the breaking waves in the pass, but fell back into bed the minute after the new anchor was set. Oh, thank heavens, Lo thought.

Kauehi, Tuamotus

We sailed overnight from Raroia to Kauehi under beautiful conditions, using the chute (colourful, light wind sail) through most of the night. We again had to slow down to arrive at the pass in daylight and at the right tide. Our timing was good and the pass was really easy. Instead to sailing to the village 10 miles away, we chose to anchor close to the pass where all the aquatic action is found.


Lo was hoisted to the masthead to clear a line...what a view!


Once inside the protected lagoon, we went to ask a local family (who were camping on a nearby motu) where the best places were to fish and which fish were unaffected by ciguatera (a natural toxin that certain reef fish contain...patterns of exposure vary greatly among atolls, so it's best to get local input on which fish are safe to eat). They immediatly invited us to eat with them, then took Gary fishing all night outside the reef. Our quarry was flying fish, taken by harpoon using a spotlight and a speeding boat (we think this should be added to the next summer Olympics). After getting back to the boat at 4 am, the family men actually woke up at 6 am to hunt mahi mahi using the same technique (minus the spotlight).


The lagoon side of a motu...the beach is essentially gravel-sized coral skeletons.



Our good friends from Kauehi.



Harpooned from a speedboat.



Our portion of the night's hunt.



Anything that moves is potential dinner in the Tuamotus. This boobie chick's siblings were eaten just before we joined in the feast (thankfully eliminating that ethical choice for us).


The pass at Kauehi provided some great encounters with 5 species of shark. We would wait for a flooding tide, take the dinghy outside the pass, then snorkel with the dinghy on a tether (allowing a quick exit should things get hairy). While the sharks were often curious, we never felt threatened at all (it did take some getting used to being totally surrounded by sharks). The reef around the pass was nice too, but not as good as Raroia.


Fairly large (for the species) black tip shark at Kauehi, Tuomotus.


After our family left for the village, we encountered a small flotilla of three french boats who had befriended another family from the village (the brother of our family's patriarch). Their family came camping just to hang out with them by the pass. We had a huge feast (we all brought something) that featured curried clams and sauteed coconut crab, all washed down with young coconut juice.


Beach feast with locals and french yachties in Kauehi.



A beautiful sunset over calm lagoon waters.

Raroia, Tuamotus

There are an endless number of routes cruisers can take through the "Dangerous Archipelago," thus named from the many ships that have gone aground on the very low lying atolls. We wanted a route a bit less travelled, so struck off for the southeastern side of the northern atolls, which are "protected" from cruisers to some degree by the prevailing southeasterlies (i.e., it's often an upwind sail). We were lucky to get fresh easterly winds for the four-day passage, having to actually slow the boat down for the last two days to arrive at the pass in daylight and at the right tide. Perfect sailing conditions!

Raroia has one pass by which we entered into the lagoon, welcomed by GLORIOUS, MAGNIFICENTLY CALM waters (Lo had just finished reading Herman Melville's documentary of life on Nuku Hiva in the 19th century, Typee, of which his overly dramatic and verbose style was contagious. A recommended read to anyone visiting the Marquesas...but back to the Tuamotus). Raroia has one village of about 150 people, a number of which have come from Tahiti for a slower, more relaxed pace of life.

Although there is not much to see on coral atolls except palm trees, maybe up to five types of shrubs and hard, cement-like coral coastlines, we spent a week in Raroia getting to know some locals, relaxing, reading, and exploring the underwater world. As a side note, those "white sand beaches" you often see in calendars displaying a coral atoll paradise, aren't sandy or soft beaches at all. One day in Raroia, after a nice picnic by the water (hard not to be by the water here, really) of our standard Tuamotuan lunch of cheese and crackers and fresh coconut juice, Lo was getting itchy for some exercise, so she decided to run around the motu. Gary didn't think this was such a great idea as the ground (consisting of ancient reef material) was very uneven, hard and sharp and could really hurt you if you stumbled and fell. Lo was going nonetheless, and he decided to join her afterall. They completely circumnavigated the motu twice in just half an hour. Unfortunately, right at the end of the run, Gary snagged his foot on the spiky coral and Lo watched on in horror and ironic disbelief as he stumbled over his feet one after the other. She expected him at any time to regain his balance, but no, his momentum took him down into a football-style roll on the hard, sharp coral. OUCH! Rolling over knee and shoulder, he got some nasty scratches and bruises from this and reiterated to Lo his opinion of running on coral.

The locals thought we were crazy when they heard that we'd gone snorkeling in the pass. High currents and sharks are the main concerns, but both faired well for what turned out to be an absolutely phenomenal snorkel; in hindsight, one of the best of our Tuamotuan experience. Leaving the dinghy anchored in the lee of the motu, We walked up the white coral coastline to the pass, and waited for the Blacktip sharks to clear before entering. The passes of all the motus have pretty strong currents, up to 6 knots or more in some areas, so we timed it to drift in with the flood tide.



A pearl farm shack next to the village (150 people).




Demelza at anchor in the lagoon, Raroia.




Anchoring the dinghy during lagoon exploration.




The outer reef flat on the western side of Raroia.




Typical terrestrial vegetation...coconuts, coconuts, coconuts.




crab



Who's the boss, baby!

Marquesas Album

This is just a quick overview of our 6 weeks in the Marquesas. We know that the text only updates are not nearly as exciting, but that's all the technology allows until we have reasonably fast access to the internet. We'll be adding similar albums for the Tuamotus. As usual, let us know what you think by using the comment feature at the bottom of this post.



Our first landfall.. Hiva Oa


Cress and Irena from Conversations...they chased us across the Pacific from LA, but we were able to hold them off.


Stone tiki in Hatiheu, Nuku Hiva.


Wooden totem in Hatiheu, Nuku Hiva.


Anaho Bay, Nuka Hiva...this was the best anchorage in the whole group and was barely inhabited (no road access).


Gary bravely scaling a palm tree...two feet off the ground.


The amazing family that we met in Taiohae, Nuku Hiva.