Sailing" up sun"
Rhiann Marie - Round the World
Stewart Graham
Mon 24 May 2010 20:49
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It is still May 24th!
15:06.62S 147:04.9W
Today on this passage up to Rangiroa we have 3
knots of wind behind us so again we are motoring. It's frustrating but there's
not much we can do about it. On the other hand I have decided I can catch up
with another blog and I will try not to get distracted with any rants or
"technical mumbo jumbo", as one complaining blog reader commented.
Apataki, yes, the South West
pass, Pakaka, was fine and was bordered to the south by the main
village there, Niutahi. This was the location for Gaston and Valentine's Tuesday
visit for supplies and partying and was a very pretty village. Interestingly
when in Toau I asked Gaston who had lived there for more than 20 years and
visited Apataki every Tuesday, what the name of the village was there (in
Apataki) and he did not know. The name was not important I
guess.
We headed straight across the lagoon through the
uncharted water of the atoll to the South East side to anchor behind some
stunning palm fringed motu and a mile or so North of the Apataki "careenage" and
Alfred and Pauline's pearl farm. We were ashore in 10 minutes and chatting with
them and arranged to come back first thing in the morning as they were
harvesting some oysters. These were final phase oysers and they were stripping
the pearls out of them and taking the muscle off the meat and saving the cleaned
shell. It was facinating watching the three of them, including their son Toni,
working. The pearls were captivating in their beauty but I was safe as I
had done a deal with Trish in Columbia to buy her an emerald, since she was so
brave in crossing oceans with me, and it was her birth stone, and we were
in Columbia and it would be her birthday
present.........
In the afternoon I went out to the sea site with
them and we recovered another 300 oysters in 15 baskets. Seeing Toni snorkel
down to 15 metres and work for a few minutes untying the oyster baskets and
them dragging them up to the surface made me feel pretty inadequate in my
snorkelling skills. I had hoped to bring my snorkelling gear, but had
forgotten. Just as well, it would have been very humiliating. Toni's record was
snorkelling down to 32 metres! Good grief - man or fish?
These oysters were stripped of their pearls and had
new nacre regrafted into them in what was really a surgical operation. We were
allowed to spend the whole day with the family and found all of the
operations facinating. We eat some of the oysters and we also had a large
bowl of newly harvested black pearls to view afterwards. This was rare as they
are normally consigned straight to Tahiti and only the Semi Baroque and Circells
remain. This was not like a normal jewellry showing. We sat under the shade of a
palm tree at a table drinking coconut water from fresh coconuts they took off a
tree for us. Rhiann Marie was sitting tranquilly at anchor in the clear turquise
water behind us. This was too much, it really was just as well we already had
Trish's birthday present.
Then after a while I collapsed into a fit of
redistributive economic theory and emptied all our cash supplies into the
Tuamotos. Ah well, Trish said, "you know we probably may never be here again
and, and .... dah dah, dah dah, dah dah" You'd think I would
have learned by now.
Later in the afternoon we waded in the shallows on
the beach and Trish, who the week before was terrified of sharks, had a six
footer along side her stroking it! We also had rays come right up to us, which
the shark regularly chased away as he was enjoying the attention - or wanted to
eat Trish's legs all for himself. In Tetamanu, I forgot to tell you, we
were also on our hands and knees in shallow water with sharks all around us when
we had a giant - giant, green, blue, turquiose Napoleon fish come right up to us
with half of the height of his back out of the water, for us to stroke him. He
has obviously never seen my spear gun.
We swapped some gifts with Albert's family who
were very kind and friendly to us and who also visited Rhiann Marie for a cold
drink. They were, I think it is fair to say, mightily impressed. We were invited
ashore that evening with them and we had a Rum Cream. That is; rum
with coconut milk and condensed milk blended, and boy was it
tasty.
They asked if we would take their visitors book
back to our boat that evening and fill it in, which we did, and returned it to
them in the morning, at which time they insisted that Toni make us some polished
mother of pearl, which they prepare from the oyster shells. He gave us five
stunning shells, which he prepared right there in front of us and then went into
the house to get a "present" for us. Another stunning and more rare complete
oyster (both halves) polished into it's full natural and irrudescent richness.
Whew! These people - they are so kind and so gentle. I better be careful, some
of it may rub off.
We later made another eyeball navigating trip the
twelve miles to the North East corner of the atoll to a breathtaking and remote
anchorage which once again we had all to ourselves. We don't in any way dislike
other people or other boats but it is always special to have an anchorage to
yourselves. We have done this many times and all it needs is a little bit
of adventurous spirit and careful study of the charts or pilot books and you can
go where other people don't go. There is also a good lesson in life in
this! Anyway our anchorage was incredible with golden beached, coco palmed moto
surrounding us, and our very own coral park to snorkel.
So straight over the side we went Trish and I.
Trish was admiring the colourful fish and I was trying to catch some of
them. I had a very frustrating time that day and got off about four shots all
missed. I was going for parrot fish because it was the only thing I could see
that i knew was edible. There were other fish there that I couldeasily have
got as the were lurking in the tunnels under the coral heads. however I was
not sure if they were safe in that lagoon from Cigutera. The damn
parrot fish knew that i knew they were the ones up for grabs and at one sight of
me the spurted off in the opposite direction. There were a couple of small
sharks there but they never bothered me, however they kept swimming up behind
Trish which she didn't like. Finally i was about to reach up for the
dingy to give up when a large "Carangue" - sort of like a big headed yellow fin
tuna type of fish came by from behind me which I knew was good to eat and
bam! I let off a shot with him a couple of metres out which is full range for
the spear gun and yehaa! I had him but had to hang on for the ride as he was a
big fish and went nuts. Why he should be so enraged at having a spear shot
through him I do not know. But I held on and with Trish's help (already in the
dingy) we got him aboard the dingy. This was a stunning fish and I won't tell
you the gory details but what a job to get him to submit to my desire to eat
him. Eventually I won and I got three days fillets of the most delicious
fish you can imagine out of it. It tastes something like a cross between
Halibut, Turbot and Tuna if that makes any sense.
The next anchorage in Apataki was in the North West
corner and I did something stupid to get there. We were enjoying the
previous anchorage so much and still feeding off the adrenalin from the fight
with the Carangue, that we left there late, straight into the sun, in uncharted
waters for 11 miles. We have done a lot of eyeball navigation now, starting in
some areas of the Carribean, San Blas and now in all of these atolls it was
neccessary, that is, if you wish to explore and get off the beaten track.
However, as we all know you need good light and the sun behind you. We had left
that too late and we needed to be right beside the pass to get out at first
light and make it the 80 miles to Rangiroa before dark. So we "tacked into the
sun" . We have all sailed up wind but this is the first time I have had to
tack "up sun"! The technique - not to be recommended - please read our
disclaimer) was to have tish on the wheel on full alert with one hand on the
wheel one hand on the throttle control one eye on the depth guage, one eye
on me and the other to review my lookout. As
always when we are eyeball navigating, one person is forward standing up on
the pulpit (not preaching but sometimes praying!) using well developed hand
signals to the helm, backed up with loud shouted instructions. The speed of the
boat is critical and contolled by the person forward by way of signals. In North
Apataki we had not only coral heads to contend with but floating oyster lines
though almost all were sub surface and could only be seen when you are almost on
them. So quite correctly Trish elected me to be forward while she helmed
and though our anchorage was dead "up sun" we tacked side to side of the
completely dazzling and blinding sunlight to leave the most direct light just to
one side of our track. On the pulpit I shielded one side of my face and of
course my eyes from the sun, but nevertheless it was nerve wracking, and of
course slow, when a coral head appeared fifty or a hundred yards or so to
port or starboard (oh my god - it just occured to me - I hope my insurers
are not reading this - if they are - don't worry I am just making all this
up to entertain both my other two blog readers).
We were relieved to get to another dramatic and
isolated anchorage, a mile or so from the pass and we had the most stunning
sunset imaginable ( I was glad to see the back of the damn thing!). We
washed the sun down with another two of my last four coconuts, which were
stored in the fridge. Coconut water like this is pure nectar and in a fresh nut
there is a lot of it and soooooooooo refreshing - even without
rum!
Rangiroa will be our last Tuamoto before our trip
to Pape'ete (which means Water Pool/pond) and our flight home to Scotland. We
are so looking forwars to seeing Craig and Rhiann and our friends and for me
especially the team at Gael Force. I miss Gael Force a lot.
We will catch up sometime in Rangiroa and i
can tell you about how the pass entry goes.
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