A Sour End To French Polynesia!

As planned, we moved to another anchorage on Huahine called Haapu. It is a deep bay surrounded by a coral shelf and nestled amongst a few mountains with a small village. As predicted the winds increased and tended to funnel through the gaps in the hills which was fine until the wind decided to change direction. We had just gone to bed and could hear a rumble under the boat. As we  were investigating our depth went from the 50ft that we had been in for a few days to 5ft! The rumble was our hull hitting the coral shelf. As the wind turned it had pushed us over the shelf as we had 200ft of chain out. Fortunately there was no damage done other than a bit of anti-foul removed and we had a late night having to re-anchor!

Chris and Rani from 'Ladybug' had joined us at the anchorage so we had a final meal with them before we headed off. The weather was horrible for a few days with lots of torrential rain and gusty winds so we were pretty boat bound and getting bored. Even though the weather wasn't wonderful we decided to sail to Taha'a, the next island along. We had a fast sail as there was 25-30 knots of wind but we had to go around the top of the island and enter the reef on the west side as the swells (4-5m) were to big to go through the east coast passes.

We stayed overnight in a very deep anchorage and decided to leave the following morning for Bora Bora. It was Bastille day and we had hoped to see some of the celebrations. The sail to Bora Bora was quieter than the previous day and we arrived at lunch time. The water around the main island is very deep so we needed to find a mooring to be able to get to town. But with the bad weather, all the boats had backed up in Bora Bora so we could not find a mooring and missed all the celebrations. Instead, we anchored around the back of a sizeable motu west of the main island. It was pretty but the weather was horrible. The wind was funnelled down the mountain which dominates the centre of Bora Bora and we had gusts of upto 50 knots. We could not leave anything in the cockpit as it would blow away. Empty cans were picked up and levitated from one end of the cockpit to the other!

The anchorage was not very comfortable and we did not have a lot of sleep for a few nights. We were stuck on the boat again as going anywhere in the dinghy would have been very wet! At this point we did not think much of Bora Bora, we could have been in Wales on a warm day!

The weather improved and boats started to leave for their next destination freeing up moorings near the town. This allowed us to move to town where we stayed a few nights. We had a meal out with Nicky and Dennis from 'Knotty Lady' and the next evening we went to see one of the local dance groups perform. We had missed all of the Heiva Festival, which is the island dance festival, so it was nice to see the dancing. The dancers are so fit and we sat in awe as to how they moved their hips so fast with such little effort!

After a few days we moved around to the south east side of the atoll and anchored in a big lagoon area. The water was shallow over sand and was a an amazing blue. There were a number of Austrian and German boats anchored as well as Yvonne and Bruno from 'Momo', a Swiss boat and they invited us, along with Knotty Lady, to a beach BBQ. The following day we went diving with Knotty lady inside the atoll close to where we were anchored. It was a nice dive with lots of coral and we saw Manta rays which was our reason for doing the dive. They swam around us a few times and then disappeared.  The same day we also went snorkeling with Knotty Lady behind the motus on the south side of the atoll. There was a very pretty coral
garden and lots of fish. The fish were obviously fed by the tourist boats as they followed us around and were very tame.

Unfortunately, today we have realised paradise is not always as it seems when we discovered our fishing rod has been stolen out of its holder on the side rail of the boat. It was only tied on but they cut the line rather than untying it! So that is the end of our fishing unless we can buy another rod in town.

We are leaving our idyllic spot and moving back around to the town tomorrow to do a final shop and clear out of French Polynesia. We are heading to Suwarrow on Tuesday which is about 600 miles. After that we plan to go to Western Samoa.