Sid and Pat meet us in Tahiti

Between Tahiti, and Tonga there lies Moorea, Huahine, Raiatea, Palmerston, Beverage Reef, Niue, Pina Colada’s turbulent wake and some great memories. We bypassed other stopping points which zigzag throughout this ruffled blue area, leapfrogging forward ahead of the major cruising fleet. The chilly reminder that we must be out of the South Pacific by November sometimes gatecrashes our consciousness.

We cruised out of the lagoon near Marina Tania after saying farewell to our good cruising mates anchored there (Coconuts, Love Zone, Dream weaver, Afriki, Avventura ….Tahiti is a real rendezvous point). Sid Richardson and Pat Vandervelden had flown to crew with us onto Raiatea where they had planned to fly back to NZ. Nick and I were swamped in gourmet delights and gifts all the way from NZ. The day faded with warm watercolours.

Nick lands a hooligan fish

When we sailed into Opunohu bay we had an 18kg Wahoo in tow, nicely timed to feed the four of us plus some other cruisers in the bay. Sid and Pat could not resist leaping off the boat, the water is so inviting plus the heat was not what they were accustomed to.

Swimming off the boat is one thing but hand feeding eager stingrays in chest deep water is quite another. Near the motu Tiahura the side of the boat channel broadens into flat white sand. This is where it has become popular to feed the rays. It’s popular with the rays too; they launch themselves up onto your chest, some of them weighing in at an estimated 40 kilos. There barbs are intact and there tails like 10 grit sandpaper. It’s terrifying - if other cruisers hadn’t expressed their delight at the experience there is no way we would have jumped in. We found that if you grabbed their flaps you could fend at least one of them off while another four or so jostled for a bite. Their skin is humanlike in its softness. Outside of the frenzied rays a constant merry-go-round of sharks circle. Sid was mawed on the chest when he lifted the fish morsel too high for the ray to gulp. That evening we organised a sun downer on the beach with the boats in the bay. Rick and Judith plus Vanessa, Dominique and wee Gaelle were there so we were able to say good health and goodbye to some of our longest cruising friends.

Stingray attack

Moorea is a beautiful island for walking with grand green vistas over the opal lagoon and protective outer reef. We strolled up the valley past friendly horses and picked fresh limes on the way to a hilltop planted with tall conifers.

Off the village Haapiti lies one of our favourite anchorages in Moorea. It’s great for swimming and offers some satisfying walks ashore where one can buy hand made sarongs, bread and ice-cream.. A day later we made an overnight passage to Hauhine and managed to get the kite up for seven hours. Pat found souvenirs in Fare and we over-nighted at our own private beach, plundered some fruit and drank green coconuts.

Raiatea is the second largest high island of French Polynesia. The main town is named Uturoa and is fairly typical of the Polynesian towns in that the population of cars and pedestrians have outgrown the main street and the other street behind that. We walked and hitched through the flower filled villages twice; once into Uturoa for an ice-cream then the other time to the marina to book a restaurant for Pat and Sid’s last night. We had had a fantastic time with them.

SV 'Dream Weaver' anchored at Opunohu bay, Moorea

Before leaving French Polynesia we hiked up the hills between Pufau and Uturoa through pine plantations, scrubby steep clay goat tracks and into the high grassy peaks. Weary and footsore in Uturoa we spent our last FPF’s on apples and checked the weather. We were in for a bit of mild rough stuff on the way west to Palmerston Atoll.

We had been sashaying slowing in the right direction, but when got to Palmerston Atoll (the one with 55 people all with the surname ‘Masters’) the weather was too rough to anchor or pick up a mooring so we just hove to in the relative still of the lee and did some sail changes (replaced the No1 headsail with the No3 and reefed and tucked the main). We showered, cooked, ate and generally cleaned up. As is the drill here, a little skiff came out with one or perhaps two people (two heads anyway) to "welcome us" and tell us where to anchor or not as the case may be. Whilst hove too in VHF range we gathered an appreciation of the lives of the people there anyway - they are wirehaired freaks living a make believe life of normality, one in which the wheels are back down the road but no one has noticed!! They have adopted a super bureaucratic framework where all persons are known by a call sign and have fancy ‘job titles’. The English they speak is almost unintelligible. Their farewell message to us was so rehearsed that they even thanked us for gifts, although we hadn’t been ashore.

Whales at Beverage Reef

We pushed onto Beverage reef with the likely outcome of not being able to stop due to weather. Not one patch of sand or hermit crab or blade of green lives within 150 miles of here. All that exists is a tidal pass into a broad (2 miles diameter) lagoon, rolling green seas thrashing at the reef about a choppy sanctum, which is charted about 2 miles off its accurate position. We arrived in a lull, saw the breakers, found the pass and safely entered the protection of the reef.

Nick celebrated his 34th birthday by opening gifts eating fruit cake with cream cheese icing and cranberries. We clambered around the wreck ‘Liberty’ and dived the pass and outer reef.

We had a life time experience on our last day at Beverage. Spear fishing at the northern point of Beverage reef we were hanging over the end of a 500m long spur of reef about 80 foot deep that ran out off the corner of the atoll. The current was gently pushing up on the end of the spur, there was bait fish, a big school of barracuda, a dozen small sharks cruising in mid water, it all looked perfect, Nick said to me ‘honey, we are in the zone now, lets do 3 or 4 good dives each and see what turns up’, then he did his first dive, leveling out at about 40 foot he looked around and instantly saw 2 humpback whales about 200 feet back toward the atoll at the same depth as him. He looked up at me and pointed then made his way back up. We lay on the surface and the smaller of the two whales turned and swam straight at us, like he was going to eat us, we thought for sure that he was going to surface and we would be left high and dry on his 10 foot wide, barnacled, back. We were both terrified, but at the last moment when he was somewhere between 10 and 20 feet from us he bent in the middle and cruised under us and continued on his way. Wow, we never landed a fish at Beverage, we lost two to sharks, but the whale made it a favorite.

Unbelievable hospitality at Niue

We arrived at Niue, one of the smallest self governing states in the world (Palmerston comes under NZ law) at lunchtime on the July 5. We picked up one of the yacht clubs 15 excellent moorings ($5) per night and used the complimentary electric crane to hoist the dinghy and ourselves out of the surging bay and onto the waiting dinghy trolley on the concrete wharf. We checked in with customs and the customs guy gave us a ride to immigration, we asked the immigration guy if it is possible to hire a scooter ... he gave us a ride to the scooter hire place where we hired a near new Suzuki 125 road bike ($25 for 24 hours) we then spent the afternoon riding around one half of the island (did about 40 kilometers - its actually quite a big island) then we lobbed at the Niue Yacht Club and found that on Thursday nights they have a BBQ so we got stuck in to that, $5 for the food, $2 a beer (Steinlager or Lion Red) (all prices in NZ dollars). It was our first English speaking country in 13 months, its soooo nice being able to talk to people!

The following morning we went to the market then watched the preschool kids marching. The presidential Friday flag raising ceremony was taking place in the main street; the president observed us wheeling in so gave us a special personal welcome. We were totally blown away by this island - the friendliest people we have met, super laid back and the island is beautiful and still in good condition environmentally. The sights around the island were spectacular and the water crystal clear. When we’d run out of money to pay our departure tax the customs man covered the difference. How’s that!

Over the Capricorn seamount we landed a 22 kilo Yellow fin and sailed over the date line at midnight on the 7th effectively skipping the 8th – Mum’s birthday, whoops!

Happy Birthday Mum

Christine arrived on July 11. Nick thought Mum and I set a new world record for tea drinking, cake eating and chatting., he said we went extremely hard from the start and thought there is no way we could keep that pace up, but we never missed a beat!