Huahine

Nickanddenisesailing
Wed 16 Aug 2017 04:24
16.48.50 S 151.24.29 W

The big news from the Briggs/Porter side is that we have a new addition!! Welcome welcome to my sister Kirstens baby girl who arrived just a few hours ago. I am anciously waiting for everyone to wake up in the UK so I can congratulate Kirten and Mark on their new little Porter Person.

So anyway what have we been upto over the last 10 days!? Well - acctually not all that much. The weather has continued to be a bit wild since we arrived in Huahine. We managed to safley secure 'Sold The Farm' to the mooring after realising that the mooring was only holding us on by a thread. Thankfully Nick and Renato managed to get us all secure so we could sleep well during the large gusts of wind that kept coming through the anchorage. The mooring was only in about 3m of water so we had just under a meter of clearance - which isnt much. The possitive of this though was that we got to see out our days in Huahine surrounded by beautiful clear turquoise shallow water.

Stine and Renato were on the fish hunt not long after we arrived. Armed with spear guns (and me with a camera) we headed off to the pass to enjoy some snorkelling/spearfishing. Unfortunatley there isnt much to shoot around the Society islands, and after some hard work convincing Renato that parrot fish were not a good option we came back to the boat happy but empty handed.

With the crazy weather we ended up spending a few days sorting out admin and generally just wondering around the quaint little town. We enjoyed a few happy hours at the local yacht club bar and resturant, which on one clear moon filled evening was followed by some beautiful night swimming and snorkelling off the boat. You didnt even need a torch to see the bommies! We also did some exploring of the local shark feeding site near the reef and enjoyed seeing the black tips coming in close to investigate. Stine and Renato also hired a car for one of the days followed by a night in a real bed ashore in a local B and B.

And of course we also managed to fit some surfing in. The break at the pass wasnt nearly as crazy at the one on Moorea, and having snorkeled the reef previously we all felt a lot more at ease. Whilst sitting out the back Nick spotted some sprays and splashes and Stine and I decided to paddle out deeper to investigate. As we got closer we realised it was a massive humpback whale! As they can potentially be quite dangerous we decided to stay back and watch from about 50m or so. It dove down and as a kind of joke Stine and I started speaking 'whale' and blowing bubbles in the water. As we looked up from the water our laughter subsided as we realised all the water in front of us and around us had turned grey. The whale was RIGHT UNDER US!! We both started madly back paddling while the whale dove down deeper and the shape got smaller. After composing ourselves and congratulating oursleves on our whale speaking abilities the whale returned for a second look - this time a bit furthe
r away.
After realising that despite our elicquent language skills we might not be the most entertaining company the whale swam about 20m away and with a large flick of its tail dove down into the depths not to be seen again.

What was hilarious is much of this I got on camera - I will try and send the video when I get a chance :) It was a truely magical experience and one I will never forget.

We paddled back into the line up buzzing to join the boys. I got one nice little wave, and that was more than enough adrenaline for the day for me and shortly afterwards headed to the dinghy to pick the rest of the gang up. We surfed a couple more times on that wave and Nick got some great rides as well as leaving some of his knee on the reef.

All too soon it was time for Stine and Renato to head back to Tahiti and home to NZ. We had a great last night with them at the Yacht club again - joined by some friends of ours (Erika and Ian) from a catamaran called Makara. Ian and Erika had been monumental in a rescue of a catamara that had hit the reef in Huahine. We knew the catamarn and the family on board well and wanted to hear the news about how they were all getting on. Really sad news and we felt sorry that there wasnt more we could do to help.

After we got Stine and Renato away safely NIck and I hired a scooter to explore more of the island. We had hoped to move the boat around more but the wind had been so strong we decided to stay put and use the scooter instead. We had a great day exploring the many Maraes, fish traps and beautiful bays. A real highlight was sitting down to lunch (a pack lunch on the beach) and seeing 2 large humpack whales breaching over and over just off the reef. What a view with your lunch!!

While we were exploring we also got to meet a kiwi guy who had set up a commercial aquapoinics opperation on the island. It was great talking to Mark about his experiences and challenges. We hope to stay in touch with him.

By then it was time to leave as a nice little weather window had opened up for us to get to Raiatea (the neighbouring island). We arrived here a few days ago and have had a nice little trip up a river followed by a day of boat jobs. Its been raining pretty much solidly so we have even been getting into what we call 'TV crack' - all those addictive TV series. Oh dear.....



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