July 23 August 4, 2008: South Pacific

Pago Pago, American Samoa (S 14 18’ W 170 29’) http://maps.google.com/maps

We left Avatiu on Wednesday July 23 with beautiful conditions. The wind was blowing in the low to mid teens with calm seas. The crew would be made up of Dave Smith (on the left), myself (center) and Dave Berke (right). Dave Berke took this picture and most of the ones I’ll be using throughout the rest of this blog. I’ve also used a lot of Dave Berke’s blog adding my own two cents. As you will see he is a talented photographer and has a keen wit. It would take us six days and nights to make the 710 mile passage. The word was that Pago Pago was a dump but there was a festival going on as a result they were making an all out effort to get the place cleaned up. Even though Pago Pago had a poor reputation among yachties, it was one of the few places in the Pacific where you could stock up on American goods at a reasonable cost so most everyone stopped there.

The weather was favorable during the whole trip. We had to motor for almost three days, but the fishing was good thanks to Dave Smith’s skills and the sunsets glorious. `

On July 25, 2008 at 0600 hrs Pago Pago came into sight and it wasn’t long after that we could smell it. You see the “Charlie the Tuna” plant is in Pago Pago. At any rate we soon cleared customs, anchored in the bay and made our way ashore to see this festival.

We were to find out it would become the high point of the whole trip. You could see the best of what every Pacific Island group had to offer, all in one place! The festival takes place on a different Pacific island every three years and brings together the arts of crafts along with the music and dancing unique to each island group.

The most outstanding element of this entire festival are the dancers. These are nothing like anything I have ever seen. They're highly trained, skilled dancers and musicians representing and perpetuating their own unique cultural, with costumes and storytelling besides the music and dance. We have seen them on the grass and beach stage in the daytime, the indoor and outdoor pavilions at night under the lights and every time was thoroughly impressed. The experience having witnessed all this is priceless and impossible to convey with words.

Pago Pago while cleaned up considerably for the festival by the local Mormans was still a dump and too dependent on American’s disposal packaging.

But there were other parts of the island that were as pristine as it gets.

I won’t describe American Samoa as Hawaii but its certainly very American. There’s not a great deal that makes up the town. It’s built up mostly along the waterfront and was being modernized. This section was to be devastated a year later when a tsunami struck as a result of an earthquake.

The residents had a way of bringing out the local color and lived in well built homes.

We had a great time catching up with the folks on the other boats that we had last seen in the Marquesas. This was to be our last major provisioning stop before New Caledonian. So after we were stocked to the gills we pressed on to the our next port, Apia in Western Samoa

July 10 - 22, 2008: South Pacific Rarotonga, Cook Islands (S 21 12’ W 159 47’) http://maps.google.com/maps

We left Raiatea on Thursday July 10, 2008 for the Cook Islands. The weather was clear with about 10 knots of wind from the East Southeast. The seas as you can see were relatively calm. It was as beautiful a day as any sailor could ask for.

The trip didn’t stay that way long. On the 11th the ride got very rocky but the weather stayed good. If you didn’t have your sea legs it wasn’t going to get better with age.

Most of the yachties going east from French Polynesia were going to Samoa via Suvarov. The word was that the harbor in Rarotonga was too small and if there was any freighter traffic you had a good chance of having your boat damaged or you may be even turned away by the port captain. Boats behind us asked for updates when we got there. Other than the harbor size Rarotonga had a good reputation for provisioning and getting repairs done. We were looking forward to seeing what lay in store for us.

By July 12th the wind was blowing in the high teens and we were making good way but by the next day the wind started to die so we started motor sailing. On the 14th the wind was down to 5 knots and we had to motor the last 45 miles to Avatiu Harbor where we were greeted by the sight of a shipwreck at the harbor’s entrance. Not exactly a welcome sign to mariners looking for a safe harbor!

We later learned the captain had been taking the ship out to sea to avoid being caught in the harbor during a storm but lost it at the harbor entrance.

We arrived at the dock at 1030hrs on the 14th of July and to our surprise found only three other boats.

It wasn’t the most convenient way of getting to shore but it worked. All the checking in was done in about 5 minutes in one place and totally hassle free.

The climate was almost temperate a pleasant change after being so long in the tropics. There was no humidity and the temperature never got hotter than in the 80’s during the heat of the day. Everyone spoke English (its a New Zealand protectorate) and the town looked clean and friendly.

It turned out being a virtual paradise and a very affordable one at that. They had everything we needed and the prices were almost cheap after what we had experienced in French Polynesia. If I had only known I would have spent much more ap after what we had experienced in French Polynesia. If I had only known I would have spent much more time in the Cook Islands and much less in French Polynesia

Rarotonga is also an airline hub so Mark and Sam were going to get off here and return to the States. Dave Berke was going to fly in from San Francisco and make the leg to Australia.

Rarotonga in my opinion is one of the best islands in the Pacific. It’s beautiful with plenty to do without being too touristy yet not undeveloped. The restaurants are great and the stores have just about everything you’d need plus it’s much less expensive than Hawaii or French Polynesia.

One of the interesting things we saw was a vaka that had been built and was getting ready to sail to Pago Pago to be part of the Pacific Arts festival. A vaka is a traditional catamaran that was used to populate the Pacific islands way back. We later saw it again in Pago Pago. They hit some storms on their trip but made it safely. In a lot of the islands we visited the people were trying to restore their lost arts and traditions vaka sailing being one .

The diving was good but not great. Its amazing how spoiled you become. The water was on the cool side and the dive boats were like giant jet skis.

I really, really hated to leave Rarotonga. I think you can see why. Vowing to return and with a less than elegant departure we got underway and set our course for Pago Pago.

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June 28 – July 3, 2008: South Pacific

Bora Bora (S 16 30’ W 151 45’) http://maps.google.com/maps

On June 25th we headed to legendary Bora Bora about 30 miles west of Raiatea and Tahaa. We were looking forward to returning to these two islands with Mark because so far they had been the best of what French Polynesia had to offer. The islands had enough of an infrastructure to make life pleasant without the commercialization and tourism to take away the magic. But we were looking forward to seeing what Bora Bora had to offer. Visually it is a stunning is island but unfortunately except for the clarity of the water and the diving, it ended up being very anti-climatic, more about that later.

We dropped anchor off Bloody Mary’s at Point Raititi and soon found ourselves in the middle of Bora Bora’s annual Heiva celebration pirogue race. The 48 year-old multi-year champion lost out to a 17 year old. The Heiva coincides with Bastille Day but since French Polynesia as never gotten its independence they had to call it something else. It goes on for weeks and has inter-island competitions with events ranging from pirogue racing to traditional dancing. It is not to be missed!

We quickly settled in and were eager to do some diving and exploring the island. Both the diving and snorkeling were magnificent. It was like swimming in an aquarium. As it turned out it was some of the best diving we’d be doing in the South Pacific. It was like swimming in an aquarium. As it turned out it was some of the best diving we’d be doing in the South Pacific

Bora Bora is losing its coral though because of global warming and a creature called a Crown of Thorns. It is a type of starfish that eats coral and has no natural predator other than the Trident shell (that’s the shellfish whose shell you see the natives blowing in the good ole days). The Trident was very good eating and now they are virtually extinct giving the Crown of Thorns free rein.

Bora Bora is the Monte Carlo of the South Pacific with a virtual who’s who of yachts. This is Tom Perkins personal watercraft called the Maltese Falcon. We’d be on its tail since the Marquesas having caught up with it in Papeete and now Bora Bora. Here it was being chartered for I believe only $25,000 a week. Its next port of call is San Francisco.

The smaller vessel to the stern off the Maltese Falcon is a Russian industrialist owned power vessel called Ice. The satellite tracking domes are something else. What I learned on this trip is that there is always someone else who has a larger boat.

If you can believe this, there’s not much of a town on Bora Bora. The town is called Vaitape and consists of one medium size grocery store a post office, gendarmerie and a few souvenir shops. There was more to see and do on Raiatea and Moorea. The World War II ruins are nonexistent and like everywhere else in French Polynesia everything except the French bread costs a fortune. There are though a bunch of really nice bungalow hotels built over the water that cost you $1,000 a night.

June 16 - 24, 2008: South Pacific

Raiatea and Huahina (S 16 44’ W 151 25’), (S 16 42’ W 151 2’)

http://maps.google.com/map

We pulled into the cover of Raiatea Carenage with the winds still blowing 25 knots out of the east. We found a mooring ball and were well protected allowing us a good night’s rest. On Tuesday the 17^th we decided to head straight to Huahina. It was less than 20 miles from Raiatea and was reputed to have some to the best remote anchorages in the Society Islands. We anchored in a place called Pointe Teapaa and as you can see we were not alone.

This was a small exclusive cruising ship accommodated maybe 50 passengers. They quickly took over the beach with recreational activities, snacks and a jungle massage tent and put on entertainment that evening for their guests while we watched from our deck. On the Thursday we powered up the generator to charge the batteries and discovered it wasn’t putting out the proper amperage. This was the second generator incident I had within the last month when it overheated in Moorea. As I was to find out later this was only the beginning of things to come. Unfortunately decided to cut short our stay in Hauhina and didn’t get to our hoped for destination, Point Tiva (reputed to be one of the best remote anchorages in French Polynesia). We headed back to Raiatea Carenge where they had an extensive shipyard to get our Panda generator repaired.

As it turned out the capacitors went bad. Fortunately I had brought spares so the repair was done in a few hours. With the generator working we decided to explore Raiatea and Tahaa to find the best spots to take Mark when he joined the boat in July.

This is the Apoomau River at the end of Faaroa Bay. We took our dinghy up the river for about a kilometer

Near the Bay we had lunch at a small hotel run by a Marquesan woman

Faaroa was a nice bay and a good anchorage. We were the only boat. I lose my boat hook overboard as a reminder we’d been there. We motored back to Uturoa and were able to tie up at the city’s dock, provision and see the town. It was a convenient and pleasant enough town but expensive like everywhere else in French Polynesia.

Bora Bora (as seen from Tahaa) was calling and we had to get there to find out the lay of the land before Mark arrived.

July 2 - 4, 2008: South Pacific

Tahaa and Raiatea (S 16 39’ W 151 31’), (S 16 44’ W 151 25’) http://maps.google.com/maps

It was a short run back to Tahaa and we anchored in one of our favor spots near the village of Patio have re-entered the reef thru Paipai Pass.

It was well protected in about 30 feet of water although surrounded by coral shelf on three sides.There was great snorkeling just a dingy ride away in one of the most colorful coral gardens we had ever seen.

Our next stop was to do a tour of a vanilla plantation, which proved to be one of the highlights of the trip. The plantation was at the end of a picturesque bay called Hurepiti Bay. We were able to tie up to a buoy belonging to the company Vanilla Tour owned by Alan Plantier. Alan was a former yachtie himself having sailed to New Zealand. He and his wife decided to return to Tahaa and start a vanilla plantation from scratch in the tropical jungle. He and his plantation were right out of the movie South Pacific.

Here we are anchored in bay. The plantation was just on the shore at the base of the picture.

During that 4-hour tour Alain not only taught us all about vanilla and other plants but drove us to the top of the island.

This is Alain preparing a little `refreshment for us. He really knew his horticulture!

After that we did a little snorkeling in a “ Sea Coral Garden”. The water was only knee deep and all you had to do was drift with current

Our next stop was Marina Iti a delightful little hotel and restaurant that catered to the yachtie crowd. We liked it because it came with mooring balls and had good shelter. Mooring balls are habit forming because it is difficult to find water less than 40 feet deep in the South Pacific and they’re so convenient to tie up to.

Next door there was a local pearl farm that helped advance our black pearl selection knowledge.

Next door there was a local pearl farm that helped advance our black pearl selection knowledge.

We were looking for more pristine isolation so after provisioning again in Uturoa, we headed to a place called Motu Noa Noa on the southwest corner of Raiatea.

We found what we were looking for….

We found what we were looking for….along with other things we thought we’d never find. Sam took this picture was well as other exotic creatures of the sea that most of us just swam by without even noticing.

We were now into the second week in July and approaching the end of our visas for French Polynesia. We had enough bagets for a lifetime and not enough money to keep us in the life style we had become accustomed to, so it was time to move on to more affordable ports. We set a course for Rarotonga in the Cook Islands some 600 miles from Raiatea.

May 12, 2008: South Pacific

Cook’s Bay (S 17 08.1 W 149 28.9) http://maps.google.com/maps

It took three days to make the 195 mile passage from Rangiroa to Cook’s Bay on the island of Moorea. We had heard that Moorea was nicer than Tahiti and since Peter knew the island from his previous visit we decided to make landfall there. It was a smooth fast passage with sunrise over the island of Tahiti. The best the South Pacific could offer this sailor. The picture above is Cook’s Bay complete with rainbow. We stayed for two days before setting off for Papeete so Peter could make his flight and I could meet my family coming in from SF. It was a pristine anchorage but the weather had something to be desired. At the end of the bay it rains on and off almost everyday requiring us to constantly button up the boat: which in the tropics means you cook inside. The second factor that made it not a great anchorage was the lack of a breeze adding to the suffering ; so much for paradise.
I had a rather embarrassing mishap before leaving Cook’s Bay. We were having lunch at the Bali Hai Hotel, a landmark on the island. As I was getting back into the dingy to go back to the boat I slipped off the dock in front of about 30 other diners. I tried to be nonchalant and get back into the dingy after having submerged my camera and passport. That’s why I don’t have more pictures for this section. I’d have to wait for my family to bring me a replacement camera.
Our next stop was Marina Taina which is the first full service marina we’d encounter since leaving San Diego. Moorea was where I planned to spend the most time when my family arrived so I’d be back.
We were told by other yachties that Papeete would not be very enjoyable because it was a big dirty city. Nevertheless we needed to change crew, reprovision, pick up my family and at least visit Point Venus. Papeete turned out beating our expectations. Yes it was dirty, noisy and expensive but it had everything we were looking for in terms of provisions and boat parts. We also discovered some great restaurants which is what you’d expect in a place call French Polynesia.
We got the boat cleaned up. Experienced a big blow. We were mostly protected being inside the marina. But we were pushed hard onto the dock with 30 knot winds. Dave saved the boat’s finish when he woke up and noticed a slipped fender. The other boats anchored outside of the marine had a rough night of it with some going adrift. Mother nature always has something up her sleeve. I’m glad we were in a marina for storm.
On of the high points of our visit was getting to see the American Samoa Circus. We had a front row seat for the single ring extravaganza. It turned out being surprisingly good. Most of the performers were Cubans and depending on the act either came from Spain or Brazil. It was good.
The family arrived and Dave jumped ship for the three weeks I’d spend with my family. We saw the required sites on Tahiti and drove around the island.

Then we headed back to Moorea but instead of staying at Cooks Bay we anchored in Bai Opunohu to do some serious chilling ..

For me the biggest hardship of the passage was missing my family. It was a little strange being with them again after all this time. I think it was strange for them as well having to live the life of crew on Present Moment. We all adjusted to the new conditions and enjoyed the sites on Moorea .
The time flew by and before you knew it, it was time for Erin and Sherry to return to the States. Sam would stay on the boat until school started in August. The trip back to Papeete was memorable to say the least. While it was short the seas were steep. Just when Sherry and Erin thought they had found their sea legs after being on the boat for three week they had to deal with confused and rough seas. Mother nature strikes again.
After putting the girls on their flight, Sam and I rejoined Dave back at the boat. We had to wait for the weather to settle before shoving off on June 15th to make the passage to Huahina about a hundred miles west of Tahiti. The weather hadn’t settled as much as we had thought. Seas were 8-10 feet not a great ride and winds were a steady 20 to 28 knots out of ESE. Our top speed was 7.8 knots and conditions were such as we decided to pass Huahina and make for the leeward side of Raiatea. We did the trip in 22 hours ending the passage by picking up a mooring buoy off Raiatea Carenage in 25 knot winds out of the east. We’d spend a week checking out Raiatea and Huahina before meeting Mark Jones on Bora Bora .