'Its civilisation Jim, but not as we know it'.
MALARKEY
Jo & Trevor Bush
Sat 26 May 2012 20:52
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Tahiti
17:35S 149:37W
We ended our visit to the Tuamotus with a brief
trip to Tikehau, the last atoll enroute to Tahiti.
These tomatoes, as we like to call them, are all
the same............but different. 'Vive la difference' as they say here in
pseudo Froggyland. They are all essentially rings of islets surrounding a
lagoon but they seem to have slightly different characters. We only visited two
out of many but from what we experienced, the main difference appears to be
the level of habitation. This ranges from deserted to sparsely
occupied mostly by Polynesians & Frogs scratching a living from pearl
farming, fishing or tourism. So if you want a totally kick-back, chill-out,
drop-dead gorgeous destination for a holiday with just the sun, sea
and sss.....sand for fun, then the tomatoes are the place for you. But somehow,
and I don't know whether it is just our luck or not, but we always seem manage
to time it just right for something out-of-the-blue to happen.
There we were, anchored off the sleepy village of
Tuherahera in Tikehau, in the middle of the South Pacific, when we get invaded
by a fleet of crazed Polynesians in their Polynesian Outriggers competing
in the Rangiroa to Tikehau Channel race.
 The local girlies seem to be sucking up the
testosterone charged atmosphere as their heroes paddled home sweaty &
exhausted. Joanne seemed to be enjoying it too and even I was quite
impressed with their stamina. After all, they had just completed a grueling race
of some 42 miles, mostly in an open seaway, in a time of 6hrs 05mins
13secs, almost exactly 2 hours faster than we did it. Not bad seeing as we
sailed it in a 47ft ocean going yacht and they did it in a barely floating
canoe with outriggers. Of course, this barely floating craft is now made out of
carbon fibre rather than a dead moose with bamboo struts!!......A sign
of the times, I guess, but still, not bad, and a damn
fine spectacle.
Anyway, one can have too much of a good thing
and so it was time to move on to Tahiti, the well fabled land of
plenty.
It was an overnight crossing of some 170
miles. The forecast was for light North Easterly winds. Just perfect for a
lazy downwind sail. But what we did not account for was the phase of
the moon.........well,...there wasn't one!!. It was pitch black all
night. We couldn't see a thing, even your hand infront of your face.
Just a slight glimmer from the stars up above in an overcast sky. This turned out to be no ordinary sail. Clearly we had
sailed through a 'Star Trek wormhole' into a parallel universe or some alternate
reality.
We arrived in Tahiti in good time to transit the
pass & channel in daylight to anchor just outside the swanky Tiana
Marina. What a spot. The surf was breaking on the reef to the left and
Carrefour was just on the right. We really were between the 'Devil & the
Deep Blue Sea'. It was all a bit daunting. There were more people within
400 yards of our boat than we had seen in the last 4000 miles and the promise
of bountiful temptations were just moments away. We were
becoming a bit paranoid.
After our first trip ashore, we discovered
other strange things going on. Firstly, the marina
manager welcomed us and said 'yes you can come alongside in the marina
to do some work FREE of CHARGE'. We were stunned into silence. Secondly,
there was chandlery shop on-site that had everything we wanted. We were rapidly
reaching a state of shock. What we needed was the 10 min walk to Carrefour,
to calm our nerves. But the weirdness continued. People stopped at pedestrian
crossings for us to cross and smiled at us when we did. It was like being
in the 'Twylight Zone'. And when we eventually arrived at the shop of plenty,
there was a bar in the complex where I could relax in comfort and drink cool
beer while Joanne did the shopping. Yes, we were
convinced that the freaky blackness we experienced last night was
indeed us sailing through the universe to an alternate
reality................'To a civilisation Jim but not as I remember
it'.
 Fortunately or unfortunately, depending on
your point of view, we are now fully recovered from our unshceduled trip
through the universe. We fell back to Earth with a thump, only
moments after receiving the extortionate bill for the
beer!!
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