Latitude
16.78.22S
Longitude
151.29.20W
Baie Haamane,
Ile Taha’a
On Monday,
July 21, 2008, we departed from the lovely anchorage at the SW tip of Huahine
Iti. It had rained and the wind had
howled for 4 days but the weather had finally passed and the little anchorage
was again a millpond. I wanted to get
into the water and clean the scum line on the boat; however, the weather
prediction for the week indicated that Monday would be the only day with any
wind at all. So we weighed anchor and
headed off for Raiatea with hopes of being
able to sail. It took about 1 1/2 hours
to motor through the lagoon back to Passe Avamoa on the NW tip of Huahine Nui
and then we were off.
Someone must
have forgotten to give the weather forecast to the wind gods because the
predicted 10 knots never materialized.
We ended up motorsailing the entire day, with the anemometer making
circles searching for the true wind direction.
The highest wind we recorded during that passage was 6 knots, certainly
too low to sail even with our lightest weight sails.
We entered
Passe Teavapiti on the NE side of Raiatea and
motored over the north side of the island and down the west side to what was
supposed to be an anchorage at Baie Vaoaara.
This is the last bay that can be reached from the north side of Raiatea because the navigable lagoon does not completely
encircle the island. There are bays
farther south but one must go outside the reef and enter from another pass on
the south side of the island. Baie
Vaoaara was not at all pretty; looked too commercial or industrial for our
tastes. Plus, it was too deep for us to
anchor with any peace of mind. We carry
100 meters of anchor chain (roughly 300 feet) and that would not allow a scope
of even three to one and nowhere remotely near our preferred scope of seven to
one. For you landlubbers: the correct
scope for anchoring is seven to one; meaning chain seven times the depth of the
water --- measured from the deck or bow roller of your boat, not measured
simply from the water surface. One
should always use a minimum scope of five to one but seven to one is
preferred. Using anything less increases
the likelihood of the anchor dragging if bad weather or high winds should occur
while you are anchored. During the
recent 4 days of high winds in Huahine numerous boats lost their anchor holding
and dragged. We had the correct anchor
scope down and stayed securely in place.
Bill pulled
out the guide books and paper chart while I drove and retraced our route back
to the north side of Raiatea. Every anchorage we checked was between 80 and
120 feet deep. Bill finally found a
spot for us to anchor in 30-50 feet depth on the island of Taha’a
and if we hurried we could make it there before nightfall. I revved the engine higher and we motored at
7 knots most of the way. We anchored in
the darkening dusk in 32 feet of water.
Now this was much more like it! Mind
you, we had managed to turn a 27 mile passage into 56.3 nautical miles; but we
were finally safely anchored and enjoying our usual sunset beverages.
Haamane Bay
is by far the largest bay on the sister islands of Taha’a and Raiatea,
and we are anchored way inside at the very head of the bay. It is flat calm and the view of the mountains
on all 3 sides is spectacular. The
mountainsides are blanketed by the low spreading canopies of an unusual type of
tree. Some of the trees are covered in
tiny bright red flowers and the birdsong from one area is fairly loud. There is a small village that appears very
modern. The guide book mentions that
this particular bay can experience high gusts of wind due to the topography of
the mountainous island, but that shouldn’t be a problem for us this week since
there is no wind whatsoever. A little
wind would be nice to help cool the sunny days.
Nights in the South Pacific are cool even without wind, but the days can
be hot – nothing like the heat of the Caribbean,
but occasionally warmer than comfortable.
Now for our
history lesson.
Raiatea is
the second-largest island of French Polynesia (Tahiti
is the largest). The main town and port
is Uturoa and is the administrative, business and educational center of the
Iles Sous-le-Vent (“islands under the wind” or Leeward Islands). Raiatea’s
population of more than 12,000 live in 8 villages around the island. According to our guide book, the west coast
of Raiatea south of Tevaitoa (near where we first tried to anchor) is pure old Polynesia through and through. The rest of the island is modern. Raiatea is traditionally the ancient Havai’i
or sacred isle from which all of eastern Polynesia
was colonized. The islands of Taha’a on
the north and Raiatea on the south are
considered sister islands because they are encircled by one very large coral
reef. There are 7 passes to Raiatea through the reef and only 3 passes to Taha’a. The 2 islands are about 3 kilometers apart
and it is easy to follow the marked routes between the 2 islands. There are no beaches on Raiatea
but there are 2 very tiny motus between the 2 islands where one can enjoy tiny
spits of white sand beaches.
Legends tell
how the 2 islands were cut apart by a mythical eel. Another legend tells how Raiatea’s first
king, Hiro, built a great canoe that he used to sail to Raratonga in what is
now the Southern Cook Islands, roughly 575
miles away. Legends also maintain that
the great Polynesian voyages to Hawaii and New Zealand
departed from here. According to
Polynesia mythology the god Oro was born from the eruption of Mt. Temehani
on Raiatea.
Mt. Temehani is 772 meters tall and has a
continuous cloud cover dominating the northern end of the island. The sacred white flower called tiare apetahi
grows above the 400-meter level on the slopes around the summit. This special flower exists nowhere else on
earth and resists transplantation. It is
a distinctively fragrant, fragile, white one-sided blossom that represents the
5 fingers of a beautiful Polynesian girl who fell in love with the handsome son
of a high chief but was unable to marry him because of her lowly birth. The petals pop open forcefully enough at dawn
to make a sound. Sometimes the more
romantic local residents will spend the night on the mountain to hear the
petals popping open at dawn. These
flowers are protected and there is a minimum 50,000 CFP (roughly $670 USD) fine
for picking one.
Raiatea was originally called Havai’i. Queen Rainuiatea renamed the island in honor
of her parents: Rai, a warrior from Tahiti, and Atea, queen of Opoa. Before European encroachment Raiatea was the
religious, cultural and political center of what is now called French Polynesia.
Funny to me is that Huahine 30 miles to the east also makes this
claim. Raiatea
supposedly was Captain Cook’s favorite island; he visited here 3 times. In one of his journals he wrote that “Haamanino Harbour” was his favorite
anchorage. I assume that Haamanino Harbour is the same Haamane Baie where
we are now anchored.
The islands
of Taha’a and Raiatea accepted Christianity
soon after the Tahitians were converted.
A Protestant missionary named John Williams arrived in 1818. From Raiatea Williams carried his work to
Raratonga in 1823 and then to Samoa in 1830, later moving on to Vanuatu. The inhabitants of the Vanuatu Islands
were not receptive to Christianity at the time and Mr. Williams met a rather
ignominious end -- he was stewed in a
pot by the Big Nambas of Vanuatu.
Queen Pomare
IV spent the years 1844 to 1847 in exile on Raiatea. When France annexed the island in 1887,
Chief Teraupoo launched a resistance campaign that lasted until 1897, when
French troops and warships finally conquered the island. Chief Teraupoo was captured after 6 weeks of
fighting after the French troops arrived, and he was then deported to New Caledonia. The Queen of Raiatea and 136 of her followers
were exiled to the remote Eiao
Island in the
Marquesas. It took the French a great
many years to do it, but they finally had Polynesia.
Today the
Polynesians are trying to revive their culture before it is completely lost. The revival of tattooing in the Marquesas,
after being banned by the European Christians for nearly 200 years, is an
example of that. Several of the temple
platforms and marae have been restored on Raiatea. The largest and most important temple is the
Marae Taputapeatea and it has been the best maintained. Its ahu measures 43 meters long and 7.3
meters wide and between 2 and 3 meters high from the ground. Stone backrests in the courtyard still mark
the seats of high chiefs. In the old days
guests would be received at the welcoming marae when they disembarked from
their canoes. Then they would proceed to
a temple where rituals were performed.
Meals would be served in another temple platform called Hiti Tai. Marae
Taputapuatea is directly opposite Teavamoa
Pass and fires on the
marae once were beacons to navigators in ancient times. Papa Ofeoro was the place of sacrifice and
about 5,000 skulls were discovered during excavations at this site. Another temple platform called Opu Teina near
the shore was where visitors would say their farewells. Departing chiefs would often take a stone
from this marae to be planted in new marae being constructed elsewhere, which
would then also be named Marae Taputapuatea.
In 1995 a
fleet of traditional Polynesian voyaging canoes, including 3 from Hawaii and 2 each from Cook Islands and Tahiti plus a
raft from Easter Island, gathered at
Taputaputea to lift a 650-year-old curse and rededicate the marae. The 7 canoes then left for the Marquesas
navigating by the stars and swells. Some
carried on to Hawaii and the west coast of the
United States
in an amazing demonstration of this aspect of traditional culture. In April 2000 a Tattoo Festival took place at
Marae Taputapuatea. During important
events at the marae, firewalking is practiced at a site near the main temples.
The northern island of Taha’a is smaller and shaped like a
hibiscus flower. Four long fjord-like bays
cut into its rugged south side, the largest of which by far is the one where we
are anchored. Mt. Ohiri
is the highest point on the island at 590 meters. Legends maintain that the mountain is named
for Hiro, god of thieves, who was born here.
Taha’a is known as the vanilla island for its plantations that produce
70 percent of Polynesia’s “black gold.” Vanilla is a vine belonging to the orchid
family and is locally grown on small family plantations. Vanilla was brought to Tahiti from Manila in 1848 and later mutated
to the current Tahitensis type. These
plants must be hand-pollinated. They are
harvested between April and June, so we have missed that season. After harvesting, the pods are put out to dry
for a couple of months. Between 1915 and
1933 vanilla production was 50 to 150 tons per year. This peaked in 1949 at 200 tons, but
production continued to remain high until 1966, when a steady decline began
because the producers began leaving for higher paid employment in Papeete, Tahiti, related
to the French nuclear testing. By 1990
the vanilla production had fallen to only 39 metric tons, but production has
been slowly picking up since then. It is
possible to take vanilla tours but we will skip that since we have missed the
growing and harvesting season. Don’t
think looking at a bunch of drying pods would be too interesting.
Each October
a festival includes stone fishing – a line of people in canoes herd the fish
into a cove by beating stones on the surface of the lagoon. There is no public transportation on either Raiatea or Taha’a.
Cars are often seen on the larger island of Raiatea
but are not so common on Taha’a. The 4,500
residents on Taha’a use small high-speed motorboats to get to their gardens on
the outer reef motus or to go shopping on Raiatea,
otherwise they walk. The entire island
comprises only 90-square-kilometers so it is not that difficult to get around
and cars are really not necessary. There
are many restaurants and many of them along the shores have mooring balls where
a boat can secure overnight if one eats a meal at that restaurant. With the high price of food in French Polynesia, this probably means that we would
easily spend $100 to $200 just to spend a night on a mooring ball and eat a
meal that we don’t want.
There are
numerous small pearl farms around both Raiatea
and Taha’a. These appear to be much
smaller operations that we saw in the Tuamotus.
It is possible to take a full-day outrigger canoe trip and visit a pearl
farm and a vanilla plantation, including lunch and snorkeling. It would cost $400 USD for the 2 of us. That seems a bit pricey to us; but we
couldn’t do it even if we were willing to spend the bucks because the tour can
only be arranged by telephone and we don’t have a local cell phone. Or, for $275 USD we could have a drive across
the island in a 4WD and have a canoe ride and picnic lunch. Thinking we will pass on these excursions.
One
interesting tidbit is that the inhabitants of Taha’a are authentic Maori. This is the only island in French
Polynesia to claim this distinction. The warrior Maori of New Zealand are more
well-known. The Maori in New Zealand
are thought to have emigrated from this area.
July 24, 2008
Thursday
Lattitude
16.40.92S
Longitude
151.29.13W
Baie Apu, Ile
Taha’a
Last night
the wind changed direction and is now blowing steadily from the WEST. This is the second time since left Moorea
that the wind has switched from the normal trades from the E or SE and blown
from the completely opposite direction.
This abnormal wind direction is supposed to last a few days. We very obviously will not be sailing westward
to Bora Bora until the winds change back to
normal.
Since we were
anchored in a long bay that is known for violent wind gusts when the wind comes
from the west, we decided to move before those gusts started. So first thing this morning we motored round
the lagoon to the SW side of Taha’a to what is affectionately called The Yacht
Club. I think the real name of this
place is Marina Iti, although there is no marina here. But there are a dozen or so mooring balls set
in water that is 105 to 140 feet deep.
The Yacht Club is closed today and will reopen tomorrow. They will expect us to at least go to the bar
and buy drinks tomorrow night in exchange for the privilege of staying on this
mooring ball overnight. Ioranet WiFi is
also available in this mooring field. We
have less than 100 minutes left of prepaid WiFi from our original 30 hours of
Ioranet time, so we won’t be browsing the net; but at least we should be able
to update the website once before we leave for Bora Bora.
The wind
coming from the west and southwest is cold.
You must realize, of course, that anything less than 80F degrees is now
considered by us to be cold. It is now
noon and is 80.2F inside the boat and feels very comfortable. Sitting in the cockpit in the wind feels
cold. We are loving this South Pacific
weather.
