So we made it back to Tahiti. Just. Moorea is only a few hours away from here - in fact, the outline of Tahiti's sister island takes up almost the entire horizon when you look out from Tahiti. On our way back we actually had enough power and enough wind to sail for once, which was exciting. So up the sails went and we set in for a comfy trip back to civilisation and chocolate crossaints. But before we'd even cleared the reef around Moorea, there was a pop and a bang. Meg was steering at the time and everybody else was just lazing around. I had been nominated to laze around in the cockpit whilst Garth had retired downstairs, and I sat bolt upright at the scary noise. Meg was still steering in a straight line, and to her credit she didn't seem to be freaking out at all at the sight of our forestay dangling out over the water, taking the sail and the whole furler with it.
Cue organised panic. Garth jumped up on deck and together we managed to drop the main, dump the headsail on deck, loosen the backstay and attach the furler close to where it was supposed to be. Garth then made a makeshift forestay out of one of the halyards so we could tighten the backstay back up. Leaving us with a mass of sail piled up on the deck from where both had been dumped, and dumped fast. Meg was amazing, following Garth's instructions to a T and keeping us pointing the right way in order to do minimal damage. But this incident really made me grateful that we'd managed to get our hands on a new autopilot. We use it so rarely and it's so easy to forget how important the damn thing is. Why do we even need it when we've got windvane steering? We asked ourselves that quite a few times in the last two months when faced with just how much a new autopilot was going to cost us. The answer was always 'I guess we need to have it in case of an emergency.' I always thought of an emergency as the windvane steering breaking. But this was an emergency. And we needed both of us on deck to drop the main, hold the forestay and then drop the headsail. We were lucky to have Meg on board, but if she hadn't been there the autopilot would have gotten us through (albeit it would have involved more running around than if somebody was sitting there holding the wheel). Without a third party steering for us, this could have been disastrous. Garth informed me later on that if we'd had more mainsail up (double reefed as we made our way out of the shelter of the island in preperation for whatever was out there... We'd like a gold star please Nick), we could have lost the mast. As in, it could have come down. Crash. Gone. Instead, we gave our guests a bit of a freight and snapped a bolt (which has already been replaced. The others have all been checked as well). We've only just installed the new autopilot in the last two weeks, and I'm never going anywhere without one again.
Moorea... Not a bad place to kill time
So it turned out well that we hung around Tahiti and Moorea for an extra two weeks, because if this had happened in the Tuamotus we would have been really annoyed. It probably would have taken us a while to get a new part shipped over to a tiny island in the middle of nowhere. It has also just hit me exactly how far away Panama is from here - I can't imagine what we would do if the forestay broke on our big passage. We would have been in trouble. So we did an extensive rigging check to make sure everything else is okay and it all looks good. The forestay is under more pressure than anything else on the boat, especially considering how long we've been sailing upwind for. So we probably should have been keeping an eye on it. It had already cracked halfway through, which we could tell by looking at the break, and there was rust around the edges of it. So we've made damned sure there's no rust on any of the others!
So that was a bit of sailing related excitement. I'll be happy if we don't have any more incidents in a while, considering the last two times we've beens sailing we've broken the spinnaker and then the forestay. It would be nice for things to stop breaking now! No such luck though, I suspect. We're doing a big overhaul before we leave Tahiti - patching some rotten bits in the deck, mounting things properly, acquiring both a shade cloth and water catcher, servicing all the winches etc. I'd really love to finish our dinghy - it needs some love, epoxy and paint. But I'm not sure we'll be able to leave it out of the water long enough to do it up considering we zip off to get baguettes every day.
Before we arrived back in Tahiti and threw ourselves into a fixing frenzy, we had an amazing time in Moorea. We did a lot of relaxing and a lot of snorkelling, both of which were fabulous. We spent the rest of our time anchored out in 6m of water surrounded by reefs. There were what looked like coral heads all around us, but they turned out to be stone tikis lying around on the bottom of the ocean. I wonder how they got there!? There was a dock not far away, which was right next to two shops. Two! That's high class right there. We tried to find a roulette for dinner though and there didn't seem to be anywhere to eat nearby, which was a shame. But the anchorage was beautiful and the water was crystal clear every morning. I could even see the bottom under the light of the half moon, which was pretty amazing.
Garth playing with the stone tikis
You have to go see the sharks and rays when you go to Moorea, so we obviously participated in the only real tourist activity on the island. Meg wasn't feeling well when we went and so she stayed on the boat. But it was so special and so spectacular, we went again the next day when she was feeling better so she could come along too.
I was slightly nervous about swimming with sharks. We've only ecountered them in the water a few times and I hate it when I'm exploring a reef and then look up to find myself face to face with a shark. They're always reef sharks and I know they won't eat me, but they still make me nervous. Nevertheless, the dinghy ride over to the feeding area was a lot of fun - it wasn't splashy and the scenery was stunning.
When we got there we tied up to a mooring buoy and Garth and Cam started getting ready to get in the water. It was crystal clear and we could see the sharks and rays swimming around underneath us in the shallow water. There was already a tour boat there, and a friendly guy came over to see if we wanted any fish to feed them. He was all smiles and when we said we already had some, he made one of the rays that had been following him very happy indeed.
I stayed in the boat for a while as Garth and Cam played with the rays. There weren't very many sharks around at first, but the stingrays made up for it. Garth fed them first, and they literally climbed all over him. He had one sliding all over his front, one on his back and a few hovering around trying to get closer. They very much reminded me of puppies. So eager and so excited, they were jumping from person to person looking for treats.
Garth was trying to pass some along some fish to Cam... The stingrays would have none of that
I eventually got in so I could play with them as well. It was a little nervewracking having these huge things swimming all around me. And they are seriously huge - most of them could have wrapped me up like a slippery blanket. Even though they're friendly, I know they have barbs and that they can kill you if they so choose. I think Steve Irwan's bad luck has left everybody a little apprehensive of stingrays. But these guys were so very friendly. They weren't at all bothered by people, which was to be expected seeing as they get fed every single day. Before I had any food they just swam around me, not overly interested. But as soon as I fed one of them, the rest followed. We figured out that the smell of the oil from the sardines we were feeding them stayed in the water and on our fingers, so they were excited long after the food was gone. Just like puppies. They could smell something delicious, and they were coming up to all of us to try and nab some of it. There was one that kept coming back to me over and over again - he would climb up my front, slide across my chest and then hang around for a while before getting distracted and wandering away. Garth thinks they like the feeling of having something smooth to slide over, but I think they've just been trained by the tour boats to be overly friendly in exchange for delicious fish.
This cracks me up every time I see it. Somebody had been drawing faces on the rays! (Not literally, they just rubbed off the slime)
We played with them for hours, swimming in amongst them and being delighted by their antics. As time ticked away and more tour boats came and went, the number of sharks increased more and more. They knew which boats were going to feed them the most and you could see them make a beeline for their favourite tour guides. They move in packs, which I guess makes sense seeing as they're fish. But I've never thought of sharks as being in schools. Little fish move in schools. Sharks are loners. They're mean and they don't have any friends. Which I guess is a great example of the media distorting reality, because there were great big groups of sharks swimming around us.
There were a lot just wandering around on their own too, but I became less and less scared of them after swimming around for a while. Mostly because they weren't at all interested in me. But also because I kept trying to take selfies with them using the gopro, and they refused to sit still for the picture. As soon as I started swimming towards them they turned and went off in another direction. They wouldn't have anything to do with me at all. Which was comforting, because I couldn't make them bite me if I tried.
The next day when we came back with Meg, I was a little less apprehensive of everything. One of the rays even bit me when I was feeding him because I wasn't being as careful about holding the food clear of my hand. Their teeth are tiny and blunt! It just felt like a little pinch. There were lots more sharks the next day, so I mostly just swam around with them. They were between 1 and 1 1/2 metres long, so they were all smaller than me. I like sharks to be smaller than me. They were magnificent though, and it was really amazing watching them swim. A lot of them had remora fish swimming underneath them to steal all their scraps. It was remarkable how streamlined they were, moving exactly the same way as their shark did.
We found some shops on that first day, taking the dinghy to shore and walking in amongst all the tourist shops to find lunch. We also went to investigate the Intercontinental Hotel. They have a turtle rescue program there so we went to see the turtles. I was really impressed with this little operation on a tiny island in the middle of the South Pacific, trying to help save the turtles. We were told that they fly turtles to Moorea from all over French Polynesia whenever they're found injured or sick. Polynesians traditionally eat turtle meat and this program helps to educate young kids on why turtles aren't food. They get them involved with rescues and everything, which I guess makes sense - you're not going to want to eat them after rescuing them and giving them all names. We were told that they don't even try to educate the adults, because they've been eating turtles for decades and most refuse to stop now. But the lady said they relocated some eggs a while ago because a woman was distraught that her husband kept eating them - she saw a turtle laying one night then called the volunteers to come get the eggs while her husband was away. So I guess there's still hope for the turtles.
We went back the next day to watch them get fed, which was a lot of fun. They have a heap of baby turtles there - they were the ones at the bottom of the nest who would usually die. When they hatched and didn't make it to the water on their own, they were rescued to be beefed up a bit before being released. Which was adorable, because there were baby turtles swimming around everywhere. There was one that was smaller than all the others - he was put in his own little tub of water for feeding. He just swam around and around in a sea of lettuce bits. He would take a tiny nibble out of one, then swim over to the other side of his bowl and take a tiny nibble out of another piece. Round and round he went, unable to decide which one to eat.
The other highlight of that trip was the ice machines at the hotel. They were everywhere. Just sitting around. Anobody can come up and just take ice. ICE!! Our freezer has trouble freezing things - it takes so long and uses so much power it's really not worth it. So I filled up all the water bottles with ice. Then I found another machine that made smaller ice chips and filled in all the gaps. Best. Day. Ever.
We're preparing for our big trip now, from the Tuamotus to Panama. We have to get to the Tuamotus first, but we won't find any more shops for at least two months. So the whole boat is filled with food and we're trying not to think about how far we have to go. I wish I had an endless supply of chocolate crossaints, but they go stale after one day. I'll have to get used to cabin bread again.
Xxx Monique
More pictures
Cue organised panic. Garth jumped up on deck and together we managed to drop the main, dump the headsail on deck, loosen the backstay and attach the furler close to where it was supposed to be. Garth then made a makeshift forestay out of one of the halyards so we could tighten the backstay back up. Leaving us with a mass of sail piled up on the deck from where both had been dumped, and dumped fast. Meg was amazing, following Garth's instructions to a T and keeping us pointing the right way in order to do minimal damage. But this incident really made me grateful that we'd managed to get our hands on a new autopilot. We use it so rarely and it's so easy to forget how important the damn thing is. Why do we even need it when we've got windvane steering? We asked ourselves that quite a few times in the last two months when faced with just how much a new autopilot was going to cost us. The answer was always 'I guess we need to have it in case of an emergency.' I always thought of an emergency as the windvane steering breaking. But this was an emergency. And we needed both of us on deck to drop the main, hold the forestay and then drop the headsail. We were lucky to have Meg on board, but if she hadn't been there the autopilot would have gotten us through (albeit it would have involved more running around than if somebody was sitting there holding the wheel). Without a third party steering for us, this could have been disastrous. Garth informed me later on that if we'd had more mainsail up (double reefed as we made our way out of the shelter of the island in preperation for whatever was out there... We'd like a gold star please Nick), we could have lost the mast. As in, it could have come down. Crash. Gone. Instead, we gave our guests a bit of a freight and snapped a bolt (which has already been replaced. The others have all been checked as well). We've only just installed the new autopilot in the last two weeks, and I'm never going anywhere without one again.
So it turned out well that we hung around Tahiti and Moorea for an extra two weeks, because if this had happened in the Tuamotus we would have been really annoyed. It probably would have taken us a while to get a new part shipped over to a tiny island in the middle of nowhere. It has also just hit me exactly how far away Panama is from here - I can't imagine what we would do if the forestay broke on our big passage. We would have been in trouble. So we did an extensive rigging check to make sure everything else is okay and it all looks good. The forestay is under more pressure than anything else on the boat, especially considering how long we've been sailing upwind for. So we probably should have been keeping an eye on it. It had already cracked halfway through, which we could tell by looking at the break, and there was rust around the edges of it. So we've made damned sure there's no rust on any of the others!
So that was a bit of sailing related excitement. I'll be happy if we don't have any more incidents in a while, considering the last two times we've beens sailing we've broken the spinnaker and then the forestay. It would be nice for things to stop breaking now! No such luck though, I suspect. We're doing a big overhaul before we leave Tahiti - patching some rotten bits in the deck, mounting things properly, acquiring both a shade cloth and water catcher, servicing all the winches etc. I'd really love to finish our dinghy - it needs some love, epoxy and paint. But I'm not sure we'll be able to leave it out of the water long enough to do it up considering we zip off to get baguettes every day.
Before we arrived back in Tahiti and threw ourselves into a fixing frenzy, we had an amazing time in Moorea. We did a lot of relaxing and a lot of snorkelling, both of which were fabulous. We spent the rest of our time anchored out in 6m of water surrounded by reefs. There were what looked like coral heads all around us, but they turned out to be stone tikis lying around on the bottom of the ocean. I wonder how they got there!? There was a dock not far away, which was right next to two shops. Two! That's high class right there. We tried to find a roulette for dinner though and there didn't seem to be anywhere to eat nearby, which was a shame. But the anchorage was beautiful and the water was crystal clear every morning. I could even see the bottom under the light of the half moon, which was pretty amazing.
You have to go see the sharks and rays when you go to Moorea, so we obviously participated in the only real tourist activity on the island. Meg wasn't feeling well when we went and so she stayed on the boat. But it was so special and so spectacular, we went again the next day when she was feeling better so she could come along too.
I was slightly nervous about swimming with sharks. We've only ecountered them in the water a few times and I hate it when I'm exploring a reef and then look up to find myself face to face with a shark. They're always reef sharks and I know they won't eat me, but they still make me nervous. Nevertheless, the dinghy ride over to the feeding area was a lot of fun - it wasn't splashy and the scenery was stunning.
When we got there we tied up to a mooring buoy and Garth and Cam started getting ready to get in the water. It was crystal clear and we could see the sharks and rays swimming around underneath us in the shallow water. There was already a tour boat there, and a friendly guy came over to see if we wanted any fish to feed them. He was all smiles and when we said we already had some, he made one of the rays that had been following him very happy indeed.
I stayed in the boat for a while as Garth and Cam played with the rays. There weren't very many sharks around at first, but the stingrays made up for it. Garth fed them first, and they literally climbed all over him. He had one sliding all over his front, one on his back and a few hovering around trying to get closer. They very much reminded me of puppies. So eager and so excited, they were jumping from person to person looking for treats.
I eventually got in so I could play with them as well. It was a little nervewracking having these huge things swimming all around me. And they are seriously huge - most of them could have wrapped me up like a slippery blanket. Even though they're friendly, I know they have barbs and that they can kill you if they so choose. I think Steve Irwan's bad luck has left everybody a little apprehensive of stingrays. But these guys were so very friendly. They weren't at all bothered by people, which was to be expected seeing as they get fed every single day. Before I had any food they just swam around me, not overly interested. But as soon as I fed one of them, the rest followed. We figured out that the smell of the oil from the sardines we were feeding them stayed in the water and on our fingers, so they were excited long after the food was gone. Just like puppies. They could smell something delicious, and they were coming up to all of us to try and nab some of it. There was one that kept coming back to me over and over again - he would climb up my front, slide across my chest and then hang around for a while before getting distracted and wandering away. Garth thinks they like the feeling of having something smooth to slide over, but I think they've just been trained by the tour boats to be overly friendly in exchange for delicious fish.
We played with them for hours, swimming in amongst them and being delighted by their antics. As time ticked away and more tour boats came and went, the number of sharks increased more and more. They knew which boats were going to feed them the most and you could see them make a beeline for their favourite tour guides. They move in packs, which I guess makes sense seeing as they're fish. But I've never thought of sharks as being in schools. Little fish move in schools. Sharks are loners. They're mean and they don't have any friends. Which I guess is a great example of the media distorting reality, because there were great big groups of sharks swimming around us.
There were a lot just wandering around on their own too, but I became less and less scared of them after swimming around for a while. Mostly because they weren't at all interested in me. But also because I kept trying to take selfies with them using the gopro, and they refused to sit still for the picture. As soon as I started swimming towards them they turned and went off in another direction. They wouldn't have anything to do with me at all. Which was comforting, because I couldn't make them bite me if I tried.
The next day when we came back with Meg, I was a little less apprehensive of everything. One of the rays even bit me when I was feeding him because I wasn't being as careful about holding the food clear of my hand. Their teeth are tiny and blunt! It just felt like a little pinch. There were lots more sharks the next day, so I mostly just swam around with them. They were between 1 and 1 1/2 metres long, so they were all smaller than me. I like sharks to be smaller than me. They were magnificent though, and it was really amazing watching them swim. A lot of them had remora fish swimming underneath them to steal all their scraps. It was remarkable how streamlined they were, moving exactly the same way as their shark did.
We found some shops on that first day, taking the dinghy to shore and walking in amongst all the tourist shops to find lunch. We also went to investigate the Intercontinental Hotel. They have a turtle rescue program there so we went to see the turtles. I was really impressed with this little operation on a tiny island in the middle of the South Pacific, trying to help save the turtles. We were told that they fly turtles to Moorea from all over French Polynesia whenever they're found injured or sick. Polynesians traditionally eat turtle meat and this program helps to educate young kids on why turtles aren't food. They get them involved with rescues and everything, which I guess makes sense - you're not going to want to eat them after rescuing them and giving them all names. We were told that they don't even try to educate the adults, because they've been eating turtles for decades and most refuse to stop now. But the lady said they relocated some eggs a while ago because a woman was distraught that her husband kept eating them - she saw a turtle laying one night then called the volunteers to come get the eggs while her husband was away. So I guess there's still hope for the turtles.
We went back the next day to watch them get fed, which was a lot of fun. They have a heap of baby turtles there - they were the ones at the bottom of the nest who would usually die. When they hatched and didn't make it to the water on their own, they were rescued to be beefed up a bit before being released. Which was adorable, because there were baby turtles swimming around everywhere. There was one that was smaller than all the others - he was put in his own little tub of water for feeding. He just swam around and around in a sea of lettuce bits. He would take a tiny nibble out of one, then swim over to the other side of his bowl and take a tiny nibble out of another piece. Round and round he went, unable to decide which one to eat.
The other highlight of that trip was the ice machines at the hotel. They were everywhere. Just sitting around. Anobody can come up and just take ice. ICE!! Our freezer has trouble freezing things - it takes so long and uses so much power it's really not worth it. So I filled up all the water bottles with ice. Then I found another machine that made smaller ice chips and filled in all the gaps. Best. Day. Ever.
We're preparing for our big trip now, from the Tuamotus to Panama. We have to get to the Tuamotus first, but we won't find any more shops for at least two months. So the whole boat is filled with food and we're trying not to think about how far we have to go. I wish I had an endless supply of chocolate crossaints, but they go stale after one day. I'll have to get used to cabin bread again.
Xxx Monique
More pictures
