Unexcused Absences

A few days after our Haleakala wilderness hike, we packed up and left Maui. But instead of flying north and east back to the mainland, we flew to Honolulu, met up with the Minister of Leisure and some other friends, then flew due south to Tahiti to set out on a 2.5 week sailboat charter. And none of what followed would have been possible without the Minister’s generosity, so thank you very much Ted!

Curie anchored off Bora Bora

Our home for 17 days was a 55′ Catana sailing catamaran named Curie, which we picked up at the Dream Yacht Charter base in Uturoa, the main town on Raiatea. Our plan was to sail Les Iles Sous le Vent, Tahiti’s Leeward Islands, which include, from east to west, Huahine, Raiatea, Tahaa, Bora Bora, and Maupiti. The geography here is very different from Hawaii or the Caribbean; each island has a high central peak, a deep (50 meters or so) lagoon right offshore, and a shallow (1-2 meter) sandbar studded with motu, or little lslands, lying outside the lagoon. The whole thing is then surrounded by a live coral reef that drops off into the deep ocean. The varying water depths create the most unreal shades of turquoise, which cameras can’t come close to capturing. Each lagoon has at least one deep-water pass out to the ocean. The pass forms naturally because all the water dumped into the lagoon by the ocean waves has to escape somehow, and the constant current scours out a pass through the sand and coral.

Sunset from the cockpit

The boat was equipped with the requisite toys and amenities (kayaks; stand-up boards; nice sound system), as well as a few luxuries (twin roller-furled headsails, including a self-tacking inner one; electric primary winch; air conditioning; a reverse-osmosis watermaker). After completing a provisioning run and the checkout formalities, we motored a short distance south to an anchorage in the lee of a small motu off the coast of Raiatea. Because most of my crew had been bareboat chartering with us on previous vacations, we all quickly fell into the onboard routine.

Heather at the helm

Mornings usually found Todd up first, straightening things up from the night before and making coffee for the crew. Ted and I were usually next, in time to catch the last remnants of sunrise. Heather and Wally followed, Heather pouring some of Todd’s coffee and then making a beeline for the fridge (my favorite wife must eat within 5 minutes of waking up or she gets quite grumpy). And I think the nicest way to put it is that Mike and Aaron are good sleepers.

The morning snorkel

After breakfast some of us took a morning snorkel, some paddled around on the stand-up boards or kayaks, and some relaxed in the true spirit of vacationing. Mid-day found us either moving the boat to a new anchorage, or exploring ashore, or lounging on the boat. Afternoons there was usually time for a swim, followed by Heather and Todd’s famous rum drinks. Evenings, after either dinner ashore or cooked onboard, usually evolved (devolved?) into a spontaneous dance party on deck, with Mike, Ted and me spinning tunes from one of the dozen or so iPods/iPhones/iPads on board.

Dinner on deck, courtesy of Heather

At this point, rather than bore everyone with a day-by-day account of our trip, I’ll just cover a few of the many highlights of our cruise.

Maupiti

The remote island of Maupiti has been on our “to visit” list since our previous trip to Tahiti 9 years ago. It is a particularly difficult island to get to. First, the pass into the lagoon is narrow and shallow, so even a modest south swell (very common in Tahiti) or medium-strength winds from the south-east (also very common) will cause the pass to “close out”, a surfing term where a wave breaks completely across a channel or harbor entrance, rendering the area un-navigable by anything but a powerful motorboat. Second, many charter companies won’t allow their boats to visit because of the challenging navigational conditions. And third, because of its distance from the main island group, a visitor must have a long enough charter that they can commit a half-day each to cruise over and back, plus a couple nights on the island.

Maupiti

We were very fortunate in that the weather gods, the charter gods, and the vacation gods all got together and presented us a perfect weather window for a Maupiti visit on the third day of our trip. We left Bora Bora early (anchor up at 7am), drove out the pass, and pointed Curie due west. Unfortunately the wind was almost non-existent, so we were forced to motor the whole way, but the light wind gave us the benefit of a relatively smooth entrance to the lagoon. The south swells were still running a bit over a meter, and our 55′ home rode a couple waves on the way in. The transformation from rough ocean to calm lagoon happened in 30 seconds; one minute we were pitching and rolling in the open ocean, and the next we were in tranquil, turquoise heaven.

Curie anchored off Maupiti

We cut between the two motu bracketing the pass, then navigated the narrow channel for about half a mile to the main anchorage by the town. The town itself was pretty small, and sat nestled directly under a tall ridge topped with cliffs. Going ashore, we wandered this outpost of Tahiti which has only barely been touched by tourism. The town boasts one restaurant, two boulangerie (this is still France, after all), and three tiny grocery stores. For dinner at the restaurant, I was informed that their specialty was crevette cru, basically raw shrimp and cucumber marinated in coconut milk and vanilla. Normally the words “raw” and “shrimp” don’t go to well together, but I gave it a shot and was rewarded with an incredibly delicious meal. Score one for adventurousness, I guess.

Maupiti’s lagoon and pass from up high

On Maupiti we also had a “really???” moment; while wandering around the rural island, we spied a young girl sitting on a rusted old bike holding an… iPad? This in a place where the houses rely on cisterns for fresh water, and where luxury might be a ceiling fan, let alone an air conditioner. And we thought we had gotten away from it all.

Tahitian Feast

We actually attended two local-style feasts. The first was a Sunday brunch put on by a restaurant in Huahine, and it had all the requisite trappings; food baked overnight in the underground oven, ukulele players, staff decked out in flower leis. But the second one, on Tahaa, was the fun one. A local man and his family and friends put on a real island-style hoe-down once a week, adding a whole dancing and fire show routine to the usual buffet dinner. This one was particularly nice because our host and his family were genuinely friendly, and not just going through the motions. Ted distributed glowsticks to the kids, and the dancers came and pulled all of us out onto the floor, so it was a delightful evening all around.

Dance party

Snorkeling

Tahiti is home to some seriously good snorkeling. It helps that the islands are in the middle of nowhere, about as far from continental pollution as you can get. We had experienced pretty good snorkel conditions 9 years ago on our previous trip, and were mentally prepared for a let-down this time. Fortunately, our paranoia was unnecessary, and throughout the trip we had amazingly clear water, a large variety of fish, and plenty of iridescent giant clams to gawk at. Particularly nice spots included the shallow area 1/4 mile west of Bloody Mary’s restaurant off Bora Bora, the point off the old yacht club on Tahaa, the Coral River next to the Tahaa Pearl Resort, the shallow pool east of the Maupiti Pass, and the point off the abandoned resort on Huahine.

Giant clam

Pearl Farm

At the suggestion of the charter base we visited the Anapa Black Pearl farm, a small operation off the western coast of Raiatea. They maintain a couple of moorings for visiting sailboats, so we pulled in around lunchtime near the end of our cruise. The unique thing about this farm is that they allow visitors to snorkel with the pearl farmers.

Untying a line of oysters

Oysters waiting for harvest

Heather picks out her oyster

The prize – a black pearl

Black pearl oysters grow best between 15 and 30 feet below the water, and farmers set up underwater grids of lines supported by buoys that are tethered to the bottom and float to within 10 feet of the surface. The strings of oysters are then hung from this grid for several years, while the bivalve mollusk does its thing. At harvest time, a diver gathers up a handful of strings and carries them to a little hut perched right at the outer lagoon drop-off, where the oysters are opened and checked for pearls. After a demonstration of the pearl extraction, they open up the catalog showroom (naturally) and get down to the business of selling. Whatever they did worked, because my favorite went home that day with a pair of pretty earring studs for her birthday.

Newly harvested black pearls

The Night Sky

I implore you, if you visit Tahiti, to take time to study the night sky. First, the view from the southern hemisphere is not completely unique, but different enough to warrant a close look. Second, the low latitude makes for great satellite spotting; we invariably saw one or more satellites ghost by each evening. And third, the sky is incredibly clear, far from any light pollution.

Our private infinity-pool anchorage at Maupiti

One night in particular stands out; it was a rare day with zero wind, so the lagoon was mirror-calm. We were anchored out away from the main island (Maupiti) on the edge of an enormous sandbar with an uninterrupted view out over the reef and the ocean beyond. The planets Venus, Saturn and Mercury, as well as a razor-thin crescent moon, were suspended over the horizon just after dusk. It was so beautiful Heather and I brought out our pillows and sheets and lay down on the boat’s trampoline up front.  And we just lay there and stared… and stared… and eventually fell asleep under the Pacific sky.

The Swim-up Bar

Many fancy hotels and resorts boast a swim-up bar. We created a new, and much more exotic, interpretation. As noted earlier, the lagoons are invariably ringed by shallow sand bars, so one afternoon off Bora Bora we decided to make up a pitcher of rum punch, dinghy over to a shallow sandy area, and use a stand-up board as a bar. Much better than hanging out at the Ritz!

Our version of a swim-up bar

The Guns of Bora Bora

As part of the general panic after the bombing of Pearl Harbor in 1941, the US military rushed to set up coastal defenses throughout the Pacific. They chose Bora Bora as one of their bases (Operation Bobcat) because of the large central lagoon and easily defensible single pass. The island was far enough from the action, though, that they installed WWI surplus battleship guns instead of the more modern coastal defense guns of WWII. And that’s how it came to be that if you walk up a half-mile path from the Bora Bora Yacht Club, onto the small ridge above the main town of Vaiatape, you will come across a pair of rusting 7″ Mark II Naval Canons manufactured in 1907 by Bethlehem Steel. The guns were originally installed as secondary canon on the battleship USS Vermont or her sister ships, and now guard the pass in Bora Bora, hopefully to repel cruise ships.

The ID plate on one of the guns

Guarding the pass

One of the guns above Vaiatape

The Post-Vacation

People who know us know that we always like to take a post-vacation, to transition more easily back to “real” life. We turned in the boat, flew to the main island of Tahiti, and rented a car for a couple days of touring. We burned some Starwood points to stay at the Le Meridien Tahiti, a few miles south of the capital Papeete.

Our final evening at the food trucks in Papeete before our midnight flight to Hawaii

From there, we flew back to Honolulu, rented a car, and spent our 14-hour layover taking in a last blast of the tropics. We had hoped to visit the Arizona Memorial, but the government shutdown nixed that plan. Instead, we visited Punchbowl, then drove to the north shore for lunch in Haleiwa at one of the famous shrimp trucks, then sat on the beach and watched the surfers at Pipeline.

Kayaking at Le Meridien Tahiti

The grounds of Le Meridien

Relaxing during the post-vacation

And then all too soon it was late afternoon, and time to head back. We drove down the beautiful and (relatively) remote east coast of Oahu, up through the pass above Kaneohe, and down into Waikiki. A final dinner on the beach at Ala Moana (two types of Ahi Poke and a seaweed salad from the poke bar at Foodland), and then it was time to return to the mainland, our 5-week tour through the Pacific officially over.

Checking out Pipeline on Oahu