Passage back to Tahiti via the Tuamotos
Pacific Bliss
Colin Price
Fri 25 May 2012 19:07
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Passage to Apataki
and onwards to Tahenea
A truely uneventful passage down to
the Tauamotos, which is just how we like it. Could have done with a little
more wind but at least we got to see breaching whales, and I'm able to crack on
knitting my Marquesan Rug, the kids do school and the crew get a
wash.
    After a slow trip down, we
manage to make it to Apataki just after dark. The phenomina of arriving
just too late, as making a night entry to through a pass is not
recommended, seems to be our speciality and means another night at
sea. We spend that night tacking back and forward just killing time until
the break of day. Lucky for us we're unaware that another boat who was in
the same predicatment three weeks before ended up crashed on to the
reef, the guy escaped unscathed but the boat was striped clean by the
villagers by the time the light got up.
Despite the exhaustion from a
long passage it's very very pleasing to be back in the land of blue.
Colin and the kids are teaming to get ashore. But due to the passage and
having been awake for the past 12 hours I'm on my last legs.
The caranage is in clearout mode as all the
family are off to Tahiti for Alfred's daughters wedding. It doesn't
stop the next few nights, before he leaves being a party. As before we
find an army of great folk working on their boats in the
yard.
   Family beautiful
?!Beautiful neighbours
 As always work needs to be done
on our boat. Increadibly Colin manages, with the aid of an
airtank, to remove the propellors and sort out the anodes. Alfred lets us
moor the boat off the slip for 5 days so we're able to walk around the boat
and clean the growth encrusted waterline. It's no easy task and
takes four day of scrubing to find the white. All the jobs
leaves us late to depart, suprise suprise. So on April 16th, my birthday
I spend it with countless buckets of water hand scrubing the entire fabric
contents of our boat. Given I loathed hand washing even the most precious
of my Cashmere jumpers, it's a total turn round. I actually enjoy my
44th birthday. The folk here in the yard are magic and the mention of
my 'Anniversare', and us producing a massive lumps of wild Pork and Goat from
the Marquesas, brings everyone into a state of high activity for dinner that
night, most folk haven't eaten meat for many months. I totally
love the whole adhoc enviroment with all these enthusiastic folk;
Germans, Polish, Polynesian, American, Australian, and of course our beloved
Franies.
 Paradise however you look at it   A
relaxed afternoon 'fishing on the dock of the bay' Egg
deliveryUnbeknown to Colin I've decided to
invest in some Apataki Pearls for my birthday. The plan is to
have three different coloured pearls strung onto a bit of black leather
- all very understated. Only once I've selected the beaut's I
discover that even at knocked down factory prices it ain't exactly cheap and I'm
needing to speak to Colin for approval. Only moments after discovering the
price I'm told the real price. I am given one by Alfred the boss
and one from Tony his son, so all Colin has to do is fork out for one pearl, and
in honesty I know he's going to love seeing that little bit of Apataki around my
neck. Last year my birthday was one of the worst in living
memory this one pretty much tops the lot. Delicious food, no great effort
from me and a lot of very happy folk sipping on the last of their Chillean wine
supplies or flicking back Tequilla shots, finished with a suck on some
of our Marquasan limes.
 Birthday
Pearls Alfred, Tony and Colin . . . not necessarily in the
order.   The ever happy
ArmelPapi joins us for the evening and on discovering
it my birthday busys himself in the dark garden, then appears with a
beautiful scented necklace of flowers . I've been desparate to
be doned with one of these garlands since arriving
in Polynesia so it is very special that I am given it here at Apataki,
by Papi.
The next day, with rather sore heads, we back PB away
from the slipway and head to meet awaiting chums in Tahanea, a wee bit late but
no one's in a rush. We've not been near a shop for six
weeks so I'm in great need of supplies. We're out of wine,
beer and veg, not a situation I'm terribly comfortable with.
Sadly for me the winds in a good enough position and Colin's keen to spend
as much as time as possible in our favourite atoll - its 130 nm odd to Tahenea
pass, another overnight. So the scheduled shopping trip to Fakarava is
cancelled and we spend another night at sea, all
fine but not something to relish after a few nights of parties at
the Caranage. But ohh how lovely it is to be with more of our friends
and back in this magic place, there's even a lovely little boy we know for Cosmo
and Z to play with - Titouan from s/v Nomad. Only problem is, it
seems we've been telling to many folk about our little secret so it turns out
not to be the 'bare it all' paradise we knew before.
   There can never be too much time
spent swimming around in the crystal water
    Cosmo having not been particularly
keen on learning to speak anything other than English (because he is!) over the
past few months, he's met a possy of lovely little boys so luckily
this theory is slowly being erroded as he is forced to speak more
French. Titouan, being one of the loveliest, speaks little English, so whilst
'pow pow' is the same in both languages, the children swap language lessons and
it's a big success, especially as both families realise our little
darlings are actually far more accomplished than they've been letting
on.
 The kids eat and
speak together in French or EnglishThiery coconut grating to
amek coconut milk for poisson cru
   Like the Queen, Liz manages a second Birthday
Liz's birthday games on the beach
   Shell collecting
for the girls and ....  delicacies to
prepare before  Pinacolads with
freshly squeezed cocount milk, pineapple from Moorea and rum from
TahitiThen the
usual feast
 Oppi sailing in the day for Zin
after some persuasion from Dad
Island pirate  PhilippeSo lots and lots of BBQs on the
beach, spear fishing,oppy sailing and Coconut Crab hunting, It's a
rare delicacy in Polynesia and we find a moto teaming with the illusive
rascals. We spent the whole time here salivating about eating this
crustacean but have never found one large enough. Sebastian (Tethauns daddy) and
I go hunting for coconuts but after 25 mins and hardly finding one with water
still in it. The main reason is the place is teaming with Coco Crabs
and it seems they've had first dibs. Polynesia is incredible for many
reasons including the fact there just aren't any nasty beasties
lurking in the woods - not so on this little Moto. Put a wrong step and the
hundreds of large pincers nestled under palm frones and they'd have
your toe off. Taking a few for the pot seems of little concequence to
the environment.
    i  Coconut
crab The Price family have recently
developed a great love of cold coconut water, ohh how are we ever
going to fullfill this love whilst living in the UK, for us Polynesia has
it all.
  A bit of wake
boarding on flat calm water. and some extreme windsurfing later in
the week keeps Colin busy The islands seem to be rich in
'kaveu' (coconut crabs) so five are caught for lunch one day with the crews
of s/v Namaste, Dreamtime and Nomad
 Out of the
bucket   fearsome
creature Still got 10 fingers
 in the pot
 Sadly, the weather caves in and staying for another few
days seems pointless. We've got jobs to be done and the boat needs to be
loaded down with provisions. We're terribly keen to keep a little ahead
of the fleet of boats crossing the Pacific this year who apparently are
stuck in a bottleneck in the Galapagos with poor weather to start teh crossing.
So we opt for moving on early, leaving Tahanea possibly for the last time isn't
easy . . Just grateful to have been there at all.
"Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines, sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover." - Mark Twain |