Toau, Tahiti and the Trail of Captain Cook
Bamboozle
Jamie and Lucy Telfer
Wed 7 Jul 2010 17:13
After a fantastic month in Fakarava we finally dragged ourselves away but
only as far as the neighbouring atoll of Toau all of 35 miles away. We were
keen to re-visit a wonderful couple who made our stay back in 2006 so
special. There is no actual pass into the atoll at Anse Amyot, only a cut in
to the reef, that forms a well protected little anchorage for visiting
yachts. It is lucky that it is well protected as we had some pretty snotty
weather whilst we were there, but the welcome from Gaston and Valentine was
outstanding. The reputation of their hospitality is widespread amongst
cruisers in this part of the world but not many people are fortunate enough
to get a chance to come back.... and as a result, although we had only
stayed few days with them when we were on Savoir Vivre, on our return we
were treated like long lost friends. Valentine recognised us straight away
and immediately produced her visitors book from four years ago complete with
the photos of our dinner with them (which we had printed and stuck into the
book). This time we spent a very special week with them enjoying Valentine's
excellent cooking as well as having them visit us onboard Bamboozle. For me
the high point of the week was a trip with Gaston to collect lobsters off
the reef for dinner. Benefiting from his extraordinary hunting skills we
managed to collect 43 lobsters and catch a good sized tuna all in under two
hours. I will post some photos when we get to Papeete but it was an amazing
opportunity to watch a local in action and so in tune with his surroundings.
Don't worry...we did not eat all 43 lobsters that night!
>From Toau it was just over 200 miles to Tahiti but rather than going
directly to the capital Papeete, we came straight down to the southern
peninsular of the island, known as Tahiti Iti. This is a much less developed
part of Tahiti and somewhere that gets missed by many yachts in their hurry
to get to the bright lights and shopping of the city (remember the last
decent supermarket we saw was 4500 nm ago in Panama). Our first stop was
the village of Tautira, notionally because we desperately needed some fresh
fruit and vegetables but mainly because Cook anchored here during his second
expedition to the Pacific and (as I am sure you will all find fascinating)
very nearly lost HMS Resolution on the reef here. I have some extracts from
his diaries on board and I very much enjoy reading his thoughts and of his
exploits whilst visiting the same places. Poor Lucy knows she is married to
a Cook-aholic and has gradually become immune to my historical witterings.
She is now used to having to go the extra mile (or sometimes several hundred
miles) just to visit a place because Cook happened to stop there 240 years
ago! The island's roads do not go any further than Tautira and from there
we headed on south around the island where there are just a few houses along
the water's edge which are accessible only by boat and so it still looks
much as it would have done in 1773. The luxuriantly green (it rains a lot
down here!) mountains tumble from peaks of 1300m straight down into the sea
and are laced with spectacular waterfalls plunging down their near vertical
faces. Here the island is surrounded by an outer reef which keeps the ocean
swell at bay so once in, through one of the somewhat scary passes, we can
anchor on mirror-like calm waters right up close to the beach whilst the
huge rollers that have come thousands of miles, all the way up from the
winter storms in the southern ocean, beat themselves to death on the coral
just a few hundred metres away. The additional bonus is not many yachts
make the extra effort to come down here so for the last 4 nights we have had
this stunning lagoon all to ourselves.