15:48.21S
146:09.13W
Saturday 28th July – No through road to Toau
The plan to leave on Wednesday evening for Apataki was
ditched as soon as the Swan 57 Nakesa with Graham and Phaedra Applin and their
children, Aston and Atlanta, pulled into the anchorage in Rotoava
during the afternoon and anchored about 100 yards away. We’d come across them in Nuku Hiva and
had had a great evening aboard with them.
So, we kinda thought we’d do sundowners aboard Arnamentia and that went
on for a bit as these things tend to.
So, planned departure was delayed by 24 hours to Thursday evening. Then we had another thought. Toau, the atoll just north of Fakarava
has an inlet, Anse Amyot, on its northern coast. From seaward Anse Amyot looks like an
entrance to the lagoon in Toau but it is a false pass blocked at its inner end
by a coral reef over which you’d be pressed to get a canoe. Reports in the various pilots we have
are very mixed when it comes to the attractions of the Toau lagoon itself. The pass into the lagoon can be pretty
difficult unless you get slack water dead right (that remains something of a
mystery although we now seem to be getting it there or thereabouts). Charlie’s Charts which may, perhaps,
have the most up-to-date information reports that the pearl farm in the lagoon
has been taken over by a Chinese run emporium in Tahiti employing a large Chinese workforce and cruisers
are not encouraged to land. Another
pilot indicates that many of the reputed marks in the lagoon don’t exist any
more. And most of the lagoon is
completely uncharted. So, all in
all it didn’t sound very attractive but we have no idea whether much of that’s
just blather or not. Whatever, Anse
Amyot is a quite different matter.
It isn’t in the lagoon but is well sheltered from wind and swell and
accessible at any state of the tide – unusual in the Tuamotus. The entrance to the inlet is about 80m
wide but the route in is marked with a well laid out and very obvious
transit. And, as we found out when
we entered, the enterprising snack bar/restaurant on the shore has laid out
moorings to make best use of the limited space in what would otherwise be a
fairly tight anchorage. The best
thing about it from our point of view was that it’s 40NM from the Rotoava
anchorage and only about 20NM from the pass we need to enter to get into
Apataki. So, the even better plan
was to leave at around 0730 on Friday, get to Anse Amyot in the early afternoon,
stay the night and time our departure so as to complete the remaining 20NM by
the time of slack water at Apataki on Saturday around lunchtime. Two nights in bed rather than one spent
trying to sail very slowly downwind – which is not one of Arnamentia’s
strengths. Sounded like a better
plan so that’s what we did.
Having picked up our mooring at around 1500 ($5US or 500XCP
a night unless you’re eating at the restaurant when it’s free) we nipped ashore
to the restaurant at sundown to see what was what and whether or not there might
be any scoff in the offing. As with
so many of these places the answer re scoff was ‘Not tonight but now we know
about you, if you’d like to book for tomorrow we’ll fix something ’. Regrettably that does fit our Plan C (at
least I think it’s Plan C we’re on now).
But, we were made most welcome and were treated to a very pleasant hour
or two whilst we had a couple of beers with the party ashore and were
entertained by a ukulele and a couple of guitars accompanying Polynesian songs
about fish in the reefs or whatever.
It has been some time since we spent a night as peacefully
as that on Friday night. You get
used to swell in anchorages. But,
there just wasn’t any in Anse Amyot.
It felt much as though we were in a marina but without the noise from the
marina bar and the banging and crashing as the ‘boys’ from the big macho racing
machine next door pile back aboard at 0300. Never happened in our day –
obviously.
The Restaurant at the end of the Universe – Anse Amyot Nice wide pass into the
lagoon? In a canoe –
perhaps.
Re-reading the blog so far I think I’ve underplayed
the importance of fishing to these atoll dwellers. There are large numbers of fish traps in
the lagoons and so the fish can be harvested absolutely fresh to meet the air or
sea transport that will convey them to Tahiti
and its islands. Moreover, the fish
conveniently save you the trouble of having to catch them by catching
themselves. The importance of this
has apparently increased in recent years as young Tahitians have migrated away
from the rigours of fishing to more comfortable 9-5 jobs in the ‘new’
economy. So, demand for fish in
Tahiti and the other Society Islands
significantly exceeds the supply available from their own fishermen. Whilst on the subject of food, fresh
vegetables and fruit (except coconuts, obviously) anywhere in these parts are
astoundingly expensive e.g. about £14 for 2 grapefruit, 2 oranges, a small
cabbage and a pound of tomatoes – but they did taste good after a couple of
weeks of tinned. Anyone keen to eat
his 5 portions of fruit and veg a day here would presumably need to be on a very
sizeable salary (not sure that’d be many of the locals) and get up pretty early
in the morning to scoop what little is available (very largely shipped in) as
soon as it becomes so. Or, eat a
lot of coconuts. Which is what most
do and in a pretty wide variety of forms starting with milk from immature
ones. Not many cows about. One or two other things can be grown –
Papaya amongst them – in the sand and there are also families (the restaurateurs
in Anse Amyot amongst them) who arrange for soil to be shipped in from
Tahiti by relations living there. All that said, the Polynesians all look
pretty well on it. There are a
great many very prosperously proportioned people around the place.
We are just about to slip our mooring for Apataki where we
will spend a few days before sailing overnight to Rangiroa to meet James and
Mira on 2nd August
