kind of...back in europe...or not

after our superfast sail from toau towards tahiti, we enter the lagoon through the pass and see that the society islands are the perfect mix between the scenic marquesas and the calm waters of the tuamotus. 

we went to the town dock in papeete and took a walk through town. being sunday, all the shops except the mc donalds were closed - someting that i remember faintly from germany and austria. ever since we left the med, all the shops were open 7days a week

so, a "le big makke" and a filet o'fish later we find ourselves sitting outside watching the cars go by, feeling a bit overwhelmed by all that traffic, the people and maybe (or most likely) the food and realize, all the cars are euro-make. shiny and new like home and no old american bombs like in panama. from the radio in the background we hear french music and people wear helmets riding their scooters. HELMETS! it´s been a while since we saw helmets!

if it wasn't for the people around us, who look far from pale and french, we'd think we are in corsica. 

so, as always after being away from shops for a longer period of time, we spent the first couple of days hunting down chandleries and hardware stores for spare parts that might come in handy.

maloo gets a good clean and the fridge gets made ready to be filled with yummie stuff.

i took a long walk through town window shopping and eating frozen yoghurt, drinking coconut water from a cold coconut and feeling utterly "townish"

Papeete looks to me as if has been quite a nice place in the 80ies. but unfortunately all the "great" french architecture from the 80ies was not built to last and so everything looks a bit f**ked up and run down.

still - a nice enough place for a little visit, nothing to fly on the other side of the world for though.

after a few days we moved on to a mooring field further down the coast which happened to be right next to a "hard provisioning girl's dream"  - a Carrefour! - and not just a tiny shabby one....no! this Carrefour is equivalent to the ones visited often in spain like las palmas on gran canaria or la linea... a full size grown up mega hyper Carrefour!

you might wonder, why this is so exiting... but for me this means i only have to go to one shop to buy things i need and like and it also means that no experimenting is required to find out if f.e. the canned tuna will be nice or more like catfood and therefore inedible for an austro/austalian gum. (picked a couple of those in Columbia...the cats there still write me emails;)

having stocked up enormously in panama meant we were in for fun-shopping - so just the things you really "need" and like! like chocolate, biscuits, special pickles, a new frying pan...we had gravad lachs for lunch one day etc....you get the picture

it turnes out that all my provisioning efforts in Panama where in vain! sure - some things are more expensive in Tahiti - like chocolate and some imported french cheeses, but other things are dead cheap! and i dare say that meat is soooo much cheaper here than in australia or austria! great new zealand lamb or beef for real little money!

all in all i think shopping here is the same as back in our last home, munich - and you get the same quality. no pasta with bugs and flour with weevils.

the best thing is though that i am in heaven here in french polynesian supermarkets as it has the best things from home and  - wait for it: ARNOTT'S BISCUITS! yes!!! TimTams and Kingstons and Montecarlos....only my loved WeagonWheels are missing!

so definitely a place to settle for me:)

we then moved on to moorea, where our sailing-hero Bobby Schenk once used to live - and we could see why. 

we rented a moped and did a round around the island (only takes you about 1,5h) and it is really a nice place. i reckon the quality of life is quite amazing...but i can also see why the Schenks gave up their house after a few years... moorea also has the potential for severe boredom.

another nightsail  (or unfortunately night-motor) brought us to raiatea - the most historic of the society islands. it is said, that the people later inhabitiing new zealand and hawai started their journey from here in quite amazing outrigger canoes.

again we hired a car and did this time 2 rounds around the island....only to find out that there is no road inland. again, a wonderful place, but not too much to see.

we had a night in taha'a and then moved on to bora bora.

in bora bora we saw probably the only live coral in the whole society islands  and swam with manta rays - we treated ourselves to nice dinners and a wonderful massage in the st. regis hotel (we anchored in front of the 2000$us a night bungalows for - you guessed it - free! and probably spoiled their view a little with our washing hung up all over the boat;)  - if the guests would take binoculars though they soon would find out, that the most expensive bungalows face the bora bora rubbish tip:) - so yes, the universe is fair!

we saw some of the "Heiva" - the big festival where the polynesians celebrate themselves and their culture with lots of dancing and  drums. after having seen the girls shake their hips and the guys shake their knees it is easy to understand why the early seafarers claimed that the polynesians are the most beautiful/erotic people in the south pacific. simply stunning!

generally bora bora is the most scenic one of these islands and definitely wonderful! if you come here and stay in one of the resorts you will get what you see in the catalogues. if you go to the main little village you will find what you always find in places where people live off tourism - and when you go a bit further you'll find a nice little island with simple houses, children running out on the street to shout "ia orana" (tahitian for "hello") and people who have time for each other and seem mostly genuinely happy living a very simple life - though happiness seems a bit more fragile here than in the tuamotus...maybe because we, and thousands of flown in half- and super rich spoil the view?

and soon our time in french polynesia comes to an end - tonga is waiting for us! the french polynesian really have been the most friendliest and welcoming people we met on our entire trip. nowhere else have we been smiled at like here. even though we don't speak french, people tried their best to communicate with us and usually apologized for not speaking english well...we have been given car rides just because thats what people do here, we have been always met with a warm attitude. something that i will definitely miss when back home (no matter if that will be australia or europe)

we currently are hanging out in the maikai yacht club attached to a very nice mooring as 30m is a bit deep to anchor with little swinging room. the wind is blowing our heads off with 40kn gusts and constant high 20s. 

we will head off for tonga (maybe past suwarrow - depending on the weather) tomorrow making our 8 day sail through what is called "the dangerous middle" and has quite a reputation for strong winds (...no kidding !?)

the last long haul for maloo and us, and i have to admit i am a bit stirred up for this one as i maybe read too many blogs about squalls with 60kn and high seas on this passage, but i am dead sure that maloo would manage and so would we - and anyway... let's just set sails and see!

i will try to post every day again...so follow us if you feel like 

tahiti seen from moorea

morning view in moorea

same hill - different view point - moorea

look down to cooks bay, moorea

our ride for the day

going up the river in raiatea

river traffic

coconuts everywhere

small motu (island within the reef)

fishing in the shallows

preparing for the "heiva"

old temple of raiatea

bora bora

dogs of bora bora

heaven is in the lee of the reefs...

after a mixed 3nighter we arrived in our first atoll of the tuamotus - kauehi.

the entrance into and within those coral-surounded bits of still water can be quite nerve wrenching.

imagine an empty bowl with one hole somewhere. now try to put this bowl in a bathtub...and through the one hole a lot of water under quite some pressure will run into the bowl until the waterlevel on the inside and outside of bowl and bathtub are equal.

now imagine that this one hole is more like an indent in the rim...and there you got a reef being the rim of the bowl and a pass through a reef.

with the changing currents lots of water either enters or leaves through that pass making currents up to 10kn (as we experienced) of speed that is visible miles outside the pass in the open ocean, a tidal bore.

so we waited for "slack water" - the little time window when the tide changes and the currents come to a halt.

we got in through the pass about 1h befor slack water and had app. 2kn of current against us - but maloo and penta did well and we flew in not quite sure what to expect.

all of a sudden the swell was gone - the water was flat and we started navigating to our designated anchor spot. in the middle of the atoll the water is rather deep  - around 40m... just when we left the center to get closer to the shore the sealevel rose to about 10m spotted with "bommies" (i.e. coral heads that come sometimes right up to the surface, sometimes lurk under water waiting for one nice boathull to hit them)

so you would have seen me standing on the bow staring into the water and giving mark directions to navigate us through the labyrinth of coral heads. an hour later we were confronted for the very first time trying to anchor between the bommies. the problem here you want to avoid is the anchor chain getting wrapped around those corals as the shifting wind moves the boat around. with the scope decreasing there has been cases of windlasses being ripped out of the hull... so definitely something to avoid.

our solution is to use a technique Bernard Mortissier invented: basically you put floats on the chain every app.10 to 20m and let the chain fly over the coral. works a treat!

so after all this navigating and anchoring we looked around and found ourselves in paradise. the water crystal clear and turquoise,  palm trees ahead of us and the water so still, we felt like the boat was on the hard again. in fact the first night i woke up thinking i must have dreamed all the last months as we still appear to be on land in turkey.

we spent the next days snorkeling and seeing the most amazing colourful fish and coral, hunting down coconuts and staring at this landscape around us.

after 4 nights we moved up to the little village of kauehi and attended a wonderful sunday church service held in the local language. but why we went there was not to hear the priest do his sermon, the whole of french polynesia is known for their extremely beautiful singing especially in church... and it was just amazing how the whole village joined in to sing in wonderful harmonies.

kauehi has about 150 people living on its island, a little airstrip and a school, one little shop and lots of happy children running around.

we met James and Cook - who sold me some pearls and took us out to a little pearl farm and then joined in with the village party that was waiting for the supply ship bringing all sorts of goodies, including fruit and vegetable. people gathered at the little jetty and had cake and coconut milk catching up on gossip... we simply had a great time

we then moved on to fakarava, another atoll and went through the south pass with 4kn of current against us. same navigation through coral, a different paradise. here we had black tip reef sharks swimming around our boat almost constantly... not too inviting for a snorkel, fascinating never the less.

the drift snorkel through the pass is probably one of the best snorkels i have ever done (apart from playing with the seals in galapagos) and here we saw over 100 grey sharks, white tip reef sharks and some of them getting a bit too curious to stay in the water for my liking. the amount of fish is just mind boggling. with the water so clear it is not a problem to see down to 20m of depth.

we moved up to fakarava village in the north, spend a few days there riding our bikes along the atoll and enjoying the tuamotu-lifestyle.

after 3 days we left fakarava through the north pass which is really wide and therefore not that prone to big currents. as we were told. but never believe other sailors! we went out at the height of the outgoing current with 20kn of wind behind us. we expected to be shot out from the atoll with max.4kn of current and smooth seas. we got 10kn of current, standing waves and dolphins surfing these waves. the water simply disappeared under our hull and with loud slamming we made it out...is was a bit of a gut-wrencher though!

we sailed up to Toau where we picked up a mooring buoy in a dead pass - so really well protected but on the outside of the reef and visited Valentine and Gaston who live on that atoll with their family of 8 and 5 dogs, 5 pigs and chooks.

we had a snorkel even better than fakarava south on the outside of the reef with hugh napoleon wrasses, eagle rays, turtles amazingly colorful fish and of course, sharks in crystal clear waters....we played with the dogs catching up on our lack of "puppy love" and eating a wonderful dinner Valentine prepared for us with parrot fish, big clams, lobsters, coconutbread....simply great.

Mark got offered a job to open coconuts for a year to help on the copra-planataion....very tempting! - we are still contemplating!

but all great dreams come to an end...and ours had to too. we sailed with amazing speed to Papeete, Tahiti doing those 220nm in less then 30h thanks to the 25-30kn of wind.

here we are now in the middle of a buzzing town, still finding the sand of the tuamotus in the cabin and imagining the traffic noise to be the wind in the coconut palms.

just the tuamotus alone would have been worth to cross two oceans....and i promised myself: i will go back! after all, heaven is in the lee of the reefs!

kauehi

camping with friends (chilli cat to the left, lazy bones to the right)

tricky coconut work

voila - coconut without the shell...he`s getting seriously good with the machete!

church of kauehi village

pig pen with a view

supply ship in kauehi

shopping done differently

ordering fruit and veg from the supply ship

supply ship village party

when the weekly shop for food is fun

and every where...crabs

the village truck - still going strong

a squall over toau

my puppy friend on toau

dog vs. shark

dog vs. 3 sharks (the dog always wins!)

one of many many black tip reef sharks

and a fat silver tip shark behind the boat

or more than just one?

Valentine and Gaston cooking for us (langoustine, big clam and sea sail)

things you do, when the sea is your playground: Valentine and grand nephew on an afternoon boat ride looking for manta rays

parahi, maruru roa - tuamotos!

photos from the marquesas

fatu hiva

fatu hiva

nuku hiva, village

chicken islands

lunch break on nuku hiva

and a bigger mahi on the way to anaho bay

nuku hiva, village

nuku hiva, north eastern side

nuku hiva, anaho bay

nuku hiva, anaho bay

and every day it rains

the supply truck to anaho bay

the smaller one of two yellow fin tunas caught

and the sushi, we made from it

photos from our pacific crossing

finally fast internet! so - better late than never....photos from our pacific crossing!

the first little pacific dorade

mhmm! - meal at sea: fresh dorade with coconut risotto

burning morning sky

land ho! fatu hiva after 18 days

maloo arriving in the "bay of virgins"  (photo taken by Mike of lazy bones- thanks!)