French Polynesia: Raiatea and Huahine

Monday, September 7, 2015

016-49.800 S
150-0.000 W

Ahoy from the crew of the Manavai II (aka the BlueJacket)!

No, we haven't sold BlueJacket and bought a new boat. Instead we're chartering a 44' catamaran in French Polynesia with our friends Orin & Sherry Ridell, who we met cruising in the Sea of Cortez. A little more than a week age we flew from Boston to San Diego, stayed a couple of days at Orin & Sherry's house on Coronado Island and then flew to Tahiti, 8.5 hours distant. From there we took a commuter flight to Raiatea, where we picked up our Sunsail 444 catamaran. I had never sailed a catamaran before, so I was looking forward to learning about them.

Basically there are 4 islands in this area: Raiatea, Tahaa, Huahine and Bora Bora. The islands are are very close to one another, with the longest distance between island being about 20 miles. All of these islands are surrounding by fringing reefs which have extensive sand bars inside of them, which provide great places to anchor if you have a shallow enough draft boat. They're also covered with coral, which can make anchoring challenging, but provides for great snorkeling and diving. Deep channels run around most of the island, allowing you to navigate inside the reef and the color contrast between the shallow banks, the deep channels and the volcanic mountains is stunning.

We started off by spending 3 days in Raiatea and working our way down to the S end. The coastline is spectacular with high volcanic peaks and deep bays covered with beautiful trees. We pulled into several bays, went exploring up rivers via the dinghy and saw several ancient Polynesian ceremonial sites which had been excavated.

At the S end of Raiatea we pulled into an anchorage known as "The Pool", which is surrounded by coral on 3 sides and a motu (island) on the other. We anchored in about 6' of water. Getting into it was a bit of a challenge due to the coral and an intense current which was running. The seas on the outside of the fringing reef were running 10+ feet and all of the water pouring over the reef has to go somewhere, so it flows out over the banks and into the deep(er) channels. Snorkeling was a quite difficult due to a several knot current running over the banks and intensifying in the deeper areas. As a result we did a drift snorkel where we started up-current from the boat and drifted back towards it. When we got back to the boat, it was all that we could do to hang on to it before exiting.

The winds subsided from the 20+ kt range to 5-10 kts and the seas dropped from 10'+ to the 5' range, so we took advantage of that and motored to Huahine, which was about 18 miles to windward. Given what that conditions had been, the trip was very good. Huahine is my pick (so far) as the most beautiful island. The terrain is is just stunning, with multiple peaks, deep bays and just gorgeous water. I know it sounds like my previous description, but there was something about it that made it more beautiful than the other islands.

After doing a dive near the main pass to the island, we began working our way to the S end of the island, making several stops along the way. At one point we anchored at a motu which was surrounded by deep coral, so Orin & Sherry went on one of their first dives in a while and had a great time.

The next and anchored on the bank in about 7' of water. The channel runs right along the bank and provides an amazing contrast in colors. We went ashore to the resort and had a very good, albeit pricey, meal. I really shouldn't complain as I know that virtually everything has to be shipped in, but it certainly feels like they know how to extract $ from tourists. And yes, I realize that's an international norm...

Once again we did drift snorkel and really enjoyed all of the different species of fish. There are a lot of fish where I know the family that they're part of, but I've never seen before. One thing that I've neve seen before are clams with incredibly colorful lips, like the one shown here. Cool!

Our next stop is Bora Bora, but that's a blog for another day...

-- Geoff, Sue, Orin & Sherry

P.S. Internet access around here is spotty and expensive. Data is $0.05/MB, regardless of how much you buy and it's amazing how much you can chew through when using multiple devices. As a result I'm going to wait to post my photos until I get home.

Log ID: 2260