31st July 2024
Haamena Bay, Ta’haa, French Polynesia – Haamena Bay, Ta’haa, French Polynesia via Uturoa, Raiatea, & Baie Tapuamu, Ta’haa
Circumnavigators are a special breed. They spend many hours looking at blue water, have to navigate bureaucracy in foreign languages, experience amazing sea-life, change course depending the weather and finally, victoriously, they close the circle. In our very little own way we have been circumnavigators in a microcosm.
With the autopilot once again steering Ruffian we headed out into some blue water and were immediately surrounded by wildlife. Dolphins by the 100 jumped and splashed around us, surfed in our bow wave and seemed to take delight at looking us in the eye. It was only the possibility of a fresh meal of tuna that dragged them away and into a feeding frenzy.
Waving goodbye to our aquatic friends it was time for us to navigate the French Polynesia’s bureaucratic processes, all thanks to our autopilot bracket. With just days left on our French Polynesian visa* we had word from the high commissioner that all was in order and she just needed our presence to approve everything.
She greeted us like long lost friends and started the formalities. Embossed paper printed with colourful logo’s and flowery signatures were presented, our identities were confirmed and things were about to become even more flamboyant. Our passport photos were crimped to the embossed sheets, then stamps and wax seals sealed the deal. We were now legal and could stay, but would we.
With our new visa’s in hand with the ink and wax still drying we wandered in the Gendarme’s office to start the check out process. More paper was filed, more forms filled in and yet again paperwork was sent from Raiatea to Tahiti for approval and rubber stamping. Now we just had to wait and return for passport stamps and the magic piece of paper that would allow us to leave the country we’d just been told we could stay in!
Feeling like circumnavigators we hid from some weather and once again it was time to find sea-life of every scale. On the small side we drifted through the shallows of Raiatea where clown fish nestled among the soft corals and we found huge shoals of fish sleeping in eddies where the current couldn’t sweep them away. We then had sea-life at the other end of the scale as Manta rays fed on tiny invisible invertebrates. These huge creatures effortlessly wafted their enormous wings under us powering their way through clouds of krill. They accumulated in number we’d never seen before where the formed queues ready to harvest krill which were multiplying in the millions.
Feeling like true circumnavigators we closed our circle around the island of Ta’haa and once again hid from the weather but there was time for another circumnavigation to complete before the weather arrived. Iain really wanted to circumnavigate Ta’haa by bike but as Fiona was unwilling** Iain wanted to find another willing partner and Tim from Moana raised his hand.
Having never ridden a Brompton, with it’s tiny wheels and hunched over position 6ft4” Tim was in for a Baptism. 50 Km of a road bike is nothing, but on a Brompton its like running a marathon and Tim greeted this challenge with the phrase “Its only 50k. How hard can that be?”.
After battling headwinds for the first 25km we found out just how hard cycling a Brompton was. Every pedal turn was hard, momentum was impossible to build and the Brompton’s upright position turned us into wind-brakes. After what felt like an eternity we were able to turn around and with the wind on our backs were blown all the way home with just a single obstacle left; a final hill.
Now with no tail wind we pushed hard on our pedals and gained elevation. If we thought that going upwind was hard, then going uphill was harder. Muscles burned, backs ached and bottoms throbbed, but as we returned to our boats we brimmed with the self-righteousness of serial circumnavigators.
The weather that had stopped us heading west finally arrived and our choice of sanctuary was confirmed as boat after boat entered the bay. Where we were once only 3, at the height of the wind and the rain, the number of boats was countless. They stretched far behind us into deep water and around the corner, the same corner that gave us complete protection. While we just got a little damp, the other boats bounced about hoping their anchors would hold and if they did then they wouldn’t be stuck on a huge rock far below them.
Once the weather that had stopped us leaving French Polynesia had swept over us, it was time for Ruffian to put some miles under her keel, for us to head out into the huge expanse of the Pacific and seek out a tiny spec of land far from civilisation. Like those circumnavigators we’ll be spending the next week looking at blue water.
* Technically we don’t have a visa for French Polynesian we have a temporary residency for the duration of 90 days.
** Some might say this unwillingness was actually very sensible.
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