16.36S 151.33W Thursday 15^th May – Sunday 18^th May  I was right – it was hard to leave Huahane!

 

 

What a site this clipper was, sailing past just on the other side of the reef….. 

 

We had an ‘eventful’ day scooter biking around the two conjoined islands with the intrepid Zippies.  We booked our bike the day before and although it was delivered, shiny blue and new, in the early morning – by the time we came to collect it albeit at the allotted hour of 10.00am it had been hired to another hotel guest.  So, better than nothing, we were given the owner’s banger for the day and what a banger it turned out to be – even the handles were out of line with the wheels and remaining lumps of plastic fell off randomly as we motored along.

 

 

Harry on the banger - note the amazing blue where the fringed reef surrounds the islands

 

Huahane has many sacrificial sites and we stopped off at one by the roadside where there were graphic drawings and photos of earlier enactments

 

 

Note the poor man being bound up for sacrifice and all the sculls on the shack roof……

 

 

 

The feeling in these areas is still tangible……..

 

 

The site with backrests

 

 

 

 

By 12.00 we were hot, hungry and half way around the other side of the island when it finally gave up the ghost.

 

 

Reorganising the carburettor chamber………

 

We tried everything, cleaning the fuel tubes, blowing down the tubes, sucking out the tubes and even reorganising the carburettor chamber – dead as a dodo.  David biked Jennie and me back, three up, to the main town of Fare and returned to pick up Paul who had been rapidly rescued by a young maiden named ‘Rosina’ the moment we left(!) –and we booked a taxi back to the boat anchored off the prettiest hotel.

 

 

 

The plus side of the coin was the hotel’s kindness in paying for the taxi, not charging us for the bike and buying us all a drink to say sorry…….. a free adventure!  The next day we fixed the water maker with the spares kit (hoorah) and headed back to Fare where we spent the night before motoring to Raiatea.

 

It’s not meant to sound blasé but when you have visited your own personal paradises it’s hard sometimes to eulogise about the next island and so, possibly unfairly, as we approached Raiatea my heart wasn’t open and when I read in the pilot book that this large island didn’t have one single beach on its shoreline I’m afraid we sailed straight past! Raiatea and Tahaa her smaller sister island share one fringed reef so we carried on round and anchored just off a tiny motu near a pass and snorkelled in the shallow waters.  It is like being in an aquarium and with so many fish and living coral its hard to digest and memorise all the varieties.  I bumped and broke the lens of our camera recently but had been using the digital underwater camera instead but today the catch caught and let in seawater so frustratingly that is now defunct too……… these were the last photos I managed before the catastrophe…...

 

 

The flowers look like daisies…….

 

 

A sea of flowers……..

 

 

 

 

Great to catch up with Hakuna Mata again just briefly before they upped anchor and sailed off – Jeremy rescued our snorkel and mask which we had dropped overboard.

 

One night we are anchored next to Spectra, Our Island, Jenny, Stargazer and Paramour.  Brian and Margaret (Our Island) invited everyone over for sundowners and it was good to catch up with boats we hadn’t seen for a while and Rally news.  Gaia had entered the acclaimed Pearl Regatta with Paramour as their crew and had done extremely well until they lost a bearing in the rudder after the second race. Cayuko’s windless has caught on fire and they are back in Tahiti for repairs, Zippy is in Raiatea Marina getting all their repairs attended to efficiently, Heidenskip’s family have returned home and they are in Bora Bora already, Happy Happy (Wanderer) tripped into the bilge and hurt his leg and Mary is having  a minor operation this week, and everyone was discussing where to hole up for the high winds expected at the weekend which didn’t materialise in the end. Chat, chat, chat…….. dinner ashore the next evening with Moonshadow, Tapistry (who have been doing a whirlwind tour of the islands before heading back to Papeete for more repairs) and Stargazer.  Yesterday we mended the leaky loo and did a few washes before playing boules ashore on what must be one of the prettiest terrains in the world and met up with a chap who left Australia and has been cruising around the world for just 15 years!  Amazing stories and photos of his exploits……… today we are going to swim the coral garden pass before setting off to Bora Bora tomorrow, weather permitting.

 

We first saw the famous Maltese Falcon in Antigua – since then we have met up in Panama, Galapagos, Marquesas, Tahiti, Moorea and last night it swanned into our bay and off again at first light!

 

 

Maltese Falcon……….