16:48S 150:59W

 

It’s always the same when we have friends on board – the time just whizzes on by and basic tasks (such as writing the blog) are ignored.  Not quite sure what we spend the time doing – eating, snorkelling, swimming and sailing seem to keep us fairly well absorbed.  Have completely overlooked writing the blog so time for a bit of a catchup.

 

We left Moorea last Sunday for an overnight sail to Huahine.   The winds were very light but we did manage to sail and were going along nicely just on sunset when we hooked a huge mahimahi.  These delicious white fish are easy to identify as they often leap in an effort to throw the hook.  David kept the tension on the line and Chick and I were planning how to cook it when a shark came up and gobbled it.  We could have cried!   We sailed until 3am when the wind lightened so much we were just wallowing.   On with the steel spinnaker (engine) but we only motored for a few hours until the morning breeze came up.   We entered the pass on the east side of Huahine and stopped for coffee and a snorkel but the anchoring wasn’t the best so, with the breeze blowing nicely, decided to continue on around to the main anchorage of the town of Fare.

 

Fare is a sleepy but delightful town with a fantastically stocked supermarket and wonderful street stalls with locals selling all manner of fruits and vegetable.  We loaded up with goodies and dined on delicious fresh tuna (have to admit, we bought it from the supermarket) – tuna tartare for starters and seared tuna to follow.  As usual after  an overnight passage, we slept like logs.

 

Next morning we headed down to the anchorage in the south of the island Baie d’Avea, a beautiful big bay surrounded with stunning white beaches.   The snorkelling inside the reef was good with some nice big bombies but the highlights was seeing lots of anemones with resident clown fish (Nemo).  We also saw a huge moray eel and lots of colourful reef fish.  I managed to persuade David to take the Bandit bikes ashore and we had two lovely bike rides around Huahine Iti (Huahine is two islands, the main Huahine and the smaller Huahine Iti).  The roads were quiet and lined with lush tropical vegetation.  It really was lovely.

 

With strong northerlies forecast several cruising boats headed down to the bay to shelter and we had sundowners on the beach with old and new fiends – Outsider, Southern Cross, Bamarang, La Rochelle, Island Fling and Leeward. 

 

The weather never really eventuated although we did get one night of torrential rain with some strong gusts.  It was a very soggy Bandit that headed back up to the town of Fare on Friday night.