Fw: Bora Bora to Maupiti 16:26.7S 152:14.6W
SV Jenny
Alan Franklin/Lynne Gane
Fri 31 Jul 2015 22:02
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From: Lynne Gane
Sent: Thursday, July 30, 2015 5:04 AM
Subject: Bora Bora to Maupiti 16:26.7S 152:14.6W Dear
Family and Friends,
28th
July 2015
We
finally managed escape velocity from Bora Bora having been held up for over a
day by clearance papers. The strange thing is you can clear into French
Polynesia at the first designated Gendarmerie, in our case Hiva Oa back in late
April, no problems, but if you visit Papeete you have to have a special
clearance to leave it. We sent this form 4 times with no reply. However when you
come to clear out of French Polynesia you cant, unless you have this wretched
piece of paper, it’s not even the final clearance!!! So yesterday we attended
the gendarmerie in the morning, had to fill out the Papeete clearance form again
and have it faxed over to the port authorities, came back at 2pm, the internet
was down, 5pm still no reply. It finally came this morning about 8am. And you
have to be all sweetness and patience.
It
gave me a chance to seek some medical advice for my finger, injured some 5 weeks
ago and still swollen and difficult to use with any pressure. The doctor
confirmed it had probably been fractured or broken, to take anti inflamataries
and keep using it. All very well but when the security cord for the dingy gets
jammed under a mooring warp, the dingy engine wont start and rowing back you
have to make 4 attempts to catch hold of the boat due to the current, it’s not
great. Still at least the rowing improved slightly.
Just
before we left, we popped over to the reef in the dingy to feed and swim with
the Sting Rays. They come right up to you, flapping their ‘wings’ up your body.
Apparently they have a hole beside their eyes where they can suck food in, but
not knowing this initially I assumed their mouth was underneath, which it is but
they have no sense of where the prawn ends and the finger begins! They have hard
rasping gums but it wasn’t a bad experience being nibbled by a Sting Ray! There
were also black tipped sharks there, I am somewhat apprehensive being so close
to them but they just swam around us. We have some great photos when I next find
wifi.
We
are in Maupiti the last of the main Society Islands and like Bora Bora it is a
sinking volcano in its later stages. There is more lagoon and Motu than the
small island in the middle. We made a late start from Vaitape bay, Bora Bora,
with strong winds and good speeds it was still touch and go whether we made the
25 miles to the Onoiau pass, Maupiti before darkness. We did just but the pass
is narrow, marked with both lit and unlit markers and prone to swell. The
outflowing currents were 3-4 knots and as our guide advises us, they can be 8-10
knots. With the gathering dusk and a list of cautions in the navigation books,
we were doubtful we would get in but friends Anne and Jonathan, already there,
advised us it was probably ok and it was. We made slow headway against the
current in the pass and time seemed to crawl by as we edged our way through the
swell. Finding the channel to an unknown mooring spot in the dark, with slightly
inaccurate charts, unlit posts and plenty of coral heads and sandbanks was
challenging. Thank goodness for Anne and Jonathan who got in their dingy to
guide us in and the indispensable forward looking echo
sounder.
We
hope to leave on Thursday for the next leg of our journey. We have decided to
make for New Zealand a great deal earlier, but the weather down there is grim so
we will make some westerly miles for now and look for a weather window to head
south.
All
our best,
Lynne
and Alan
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