Fun on and off the scooters at Huahine
Jackamy
Paul & Derry Harper
Fri 4 Jun 2010 20:10
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Friday 4th June
After re-provisioning in the morning we
thought we'd hire some scooters in the afternoon and drive around the island and
would you believe it there were just 3 left at the shop, perfect. one for me and
Paul, one for Amy and one for Mark and Chrissy. Paul gave Amy a brief lesson on
how to drive a scooter on the way to the hire shop as she had to pretend that
she knew how to drive one. She didn't do too badly actually, in the beginning
anyway! We started off from Fare, the main village which is on the north island
and made our way anti-clockwise around the north and south islands. We noticed
almost immediately how pretty the island was, it really was lovely. Our first
stop was at Maeva village which was the seat of royal power on the island so
there were nearly 30 marae scattered along the shoreline. We're a bit marae'd
out but these were still interesting as we haven't really seen any like these
before and they were also in a nice location next to the sea.
  There were also old fish traps
in the river. We're not too sure how they worked though.
We continued on our journey and
came across the Belvedere lookout over onto Maroe Bay, Paravai Bay and Teavaava
Bay which all link to the southern island. As we were at the lookout we
knew we'd missed the 'Sacred Eels' in the river so we turned back and asked for
directions. We took a bit of a gamble with the directions we were given though
as we think the men Chrissy asked were sat smoking illegal substances. They
simply managed to point down the road and laugh.
 The lookout and the locals we
asked for directions
Once a little further down the
road we stopped at a shop and again Chrissy asked for directions but we were
there. We bought a can of mackerel and a gentleman jumped into the river
and began emptying the contents into the water. We couldn't believe what
happened next. Blue eyed eels slowly started appearing from under rocks and
crowding around the mans feet. We thought the eel we saw in Nuka Hiva was huge
but these were something else, they were massive. The man just stood there
continuously emptying the mackerel into the water. He wasn't holding the can too
far above the water so the eels would jump out and try and grab the fish from
his hands, it was fascinating. I'd rather him than me though!
 First there were a few around
his feet
 Then one would jump
out
 Then there were two fighting
for the fish
We asked him how old they were
but he said he didn't know. They were enormous so they must have been
quite old. There were however 3 cans of mackerel already in the bin when we
arrived so it might just be that they are so big because they are fed so often.
Who knows, we're glad we turned back to see them anyway.
You may have noticed before that
I said Amy didn't do too badly on the scooter, 'in the beginning anyway'! Well
shortly after we moved on from the eels we were making our way through the
windy roads, taking in the views when we came to a very tight corner that
also went up hill, double trouble as far as Amy was concerned. As she reached
the corner she started to turn but didn't lean into it enough so she bottled it
and actually continued driving in a straight line. Lucky for her she was going
incredibly slowly and straight on wasn't over a cliff, instead it was a grassy
ditch. It was all quite amusing once we'd discovered that she was ok and didn't
have a scratch on her, it was actually a very graceful crash. Unfortunately the
camera had run out of battery and it was in the seat of Amy's scooter so there
is no photographic evidence. She was most annoyed as we had seen no traffic all
day and then typically as we were getting the bike back up onto the road a pick
up truck pulled up full of people all asking what had happened! Thankfully she
had a dodgy scooter anyway, she'd swapped with me and Paul as we'd have still
been in the first village if we'd have kept that one, it just didn't move with
two of us on. The indicators didn't work, the horn didn't work and it shook
violently and driving it into a ditch didn't do it any more harm.
 Left is just before the
incident and right was not long after so as you can see it didn't put her off.
We let her overtake as at least we could see if she fell off
again.
Once on the south island we
realised why Miss Tippy had stayed down there so long, the beaches and scenery
was stunning. We were looking for a little artisan shop but couldn't find it
anywhere so a local agreed to show us where it was. He cycled a few minutes
along the main road and then turned off down a dirt track until we arrived at
another marae site! He'd misunderstood so we pretended that we were interested,
took a few pictures and then hopped back on the bikes. Soon after we
reached the bay where Miss Tippy were anchored so we parked the
bikes up and changed into our swim stuff to swim out to the boat and
surprise them. When we made it to the boat we realised no one was on board so
swam back to the beach, typical! The swim was wonderful though, the water was
crystal clear and very refreshing.
After that it was one long ride
back to the village which took around 40 minutes. There couldn't have been
anymore corners so Amy had plenty of practice, just a little too late! It was a
superb afternoon and a perfect way to see the whole island when you haven't got
the time frame to sail around it all. We even arrived back at Fare just in time
for happy hour at the snack bar on the waterfront!
 The snack bar 'New Te
Marara' and our view from the bar, Jackamy and Blue
Magic at anchor
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