Tahiti (and the End of Season 2)

Tahiti is French Polynesia’s largest and most populated island. 200,000 of the country’s 300,000 citizens live on the island. Most in and around the city of Papeete.  Season two was drawing to a close, and we needed a place to park the boat for a few months. Tahiti offered a number of marina and mooring options.

I had a work trip to Indonesia in early October. Pam wanted to get back to the US to help her parents. We had a family reunion planned in Denver during Thanksgiving. And we wanted to spend Christmas in Danville. All that added up to parking the boat in Marina Taina in Tahiti.

Before setting off for Tahiti, we spent a few days sailing around Huahine’s lagoon, waiting for a flat sea state and a favorable wind direction. We got it and departed in a heavy rain squall but were soon sailing in smooth conditions on the 100 nautical mile overnight passage to Tahiti.

We arrived off Tahiti at dawn, planning to anchor, thinking it would take a few weeks to negotiate space in one of the marinas. But when we called Marina Taina, they said they had space waiting for us and to come on in!  We drifted outside the port entrance, scrambling to inflate our fenders and prep our dock lines—things we hadn’t used in months.

Marinas in this part of the world are a compromise. They aren’t what you are see in the US, where every boat has its own “slip.” Instead, we are “med tied” with our stern tied to a concrete wall and our bow held off facing outward with ground lines and our anchor.

Getting on and off the boat is a challenge with this arrangement. Most boats utilize a “passerelle.” It’s either a fancy folding bridge or, in its most basic form, a wooden plank that extends from the stern of the boat to the quay behind. I sold our passerelle in Mexico, thinking we’d never need it. It weighed a ton and took up a bunch of space in the bow locker. The marina gave us a wooden plank to use. Pam gave it one try and immediately declared it unsafe. From then on, we would drop the dinghy in the water and use it to ferry ourselves from the back of the boat to the ladder on the quay.

I set about a few upgrades and the task of getting the boat ready to leave for three months:

• Driving all over town to buy a dehumidifier (one that would run on 220 volts and 60 hertz, probably the only place in the world where that is the household power standard) 
• Recruiting and training caretaker to look after the boat while we were gone
• Setting up security cameras
• Rewiring our electrical cord so we could plug in and keep everything charged
• Emptying and donating the remains of our fresh food
• Replacing a solar panel that I shattered when I dropped the boom on it
• Remarking our anchor chain with colored rope inserts
• Removing the headsails so the sail maker could repair them
• Replacing the foam in the cockpit cushions with reticulated dry foam so we wouldn’t have wet butts every time in rained
• Installing a new television

I had three weeks of time before my trip to Bali. In addition to boat projects, I decided to try scuba diving again. I got certified in college and started diving around Florida with my high school chum, Mark Jones. Mark was an avid, experienced diver, and he encouraged me to get into the sport. I loved it back then. After a few dive trips together, I moved away, life happened and I never dove again. Until now!

I took my diving certification card (NASDS) with its unrecognizable photo of me and visited the two dive shops located in the marina. Both were very encouraging. Plongee Eleuthera suggested I take a refresher dive with one of their instructors. I was technically a certified diver (although after 40 years it would be hard to make that case). The next morning we headed to L’Acquarium, a shallow, calm water dive site in Tahiti’s lagoon about a 10 minute boat ride from the marina. It was amazing. I was instantly hooked. I remembered what I loved so much about being underwater.

The instructor team at Eleuthera were terrific. Safe, thoughtful, encouraging. They said, “hey, if you are going to be here for a few weeks, why don’t you get recertified?” And I did. I dove every morning for about three weeks and earned my PADI Open Water, Advanced Open Water, and Enriched Air Diver certifications. We dove all around the Tahiti lagoon and nearby reefs. Diving in the morning. Work and boat projects in the afternoon. It was an ideal place to learn.

Adrian Pataki runs Taina Boatwatch. Several cruising sailors knew him and recommended him to us. Adrian became Roam’s caretaker. He helped me with a few projects including changing the engines and generator oils, scrubbing the bottom, and getting the boat tied up and secured. I decided to move the boat well off the concrete quay wall so that the surge from a storm wouldn’t push the boat back and bash it into the wall. This took four bow lines attached to a cargo chain out in the lagoon. The marina also required our bow anchor deployed 300 feet out into the lagoon. In the back we had four dock lines off the stern and two breast lines coming off the midship cleats.  It was a veritable web of rope holding the boat in place.

Although I was solo, I enjoyed the time in Tahiti. Eating at the nearby food trucks. Getting to know the pro crews manning the super yachts nearby. Diving with the team at Plongee Eleuthera and their clients from all over the world.

Air New Zealand is the only way off the island going west. That flight leaves at 3 am. And that was me heading to Auckland and on to Bali. And that was the end of Season 2.

A Few Photos:

Landfall on Tahiti, entering the Port of Papeete. You have to call them on the radio for permission to enter. They had us avoid an outgoing French Warship. Being unarmed ourselves it seemed prudent to comply.

The channel to the anchorage and marina crosses the centerline of the runway at Papeete’s Faa’a airport. You have to call for clearance to pass and cross the runway. It is VERY close to the runway end. Our mast is no match for a 787.

Marc owns a foam company in Tahiti. He came out to replace the foam in our cockpit cushions with new reticulated “dry foam.” This foam drains and dries very quickly which hopefully will reduce the “wet butt” syndrome that we’ve been dealing with every time it rains and the cushions get wet. He’s moving to Miami. It’s too hard to build a business in French Polynesia, he says. Nobody wants to work!

One of the many great dive sites in Tahiti’s lagoon. This one is the wreck of a Navy Catalina PBY-5A aircraft.  In 1960, severely damaged during a bad landing in Raiatea and deemed irrepairable, it was towed to Tahiti and sunk where it rests on a 20-meter bottom. Can you imagine proposing that idea today? “Hey let’s sink this wrecked airplane in the lagoon!” But it is cool to see. Diving every day gave me something to look forward to other than boat projects. My cheap underwater camera only works to about ten feet and then the buttons stop working. I don’t have many shots while scuba diving.

There is a big contingent of French sailors here. They took pity on me when Pam left and invited me to their BBQ. Like any good, red-blooded American male I quickly took up grill duty. One of the French wives told me, “this is the problem with French men. They start the grill and just wander off…” I’m not sure how widespread that problem is but I was more than happy to cook.

Our life raft was overdue for inspection, recertification, and repacking before we left Mexico. There was a service center in Veracruz but it required overland shipping and I was reasonably sure we’d never get the raft back in time to leave. So we left with it expired. Fortunately, Tahiti has a service center. Aldo, did a great job. He invited me to stay and watch as he inflated and inspected everything. I hope this is the only time I’ll see this thing inflated.

We were overdue for a proper television on the boat. With Starlink we can stream most everything we watch back in the US. The nearby Carrefour (Papeete’s version of Walmart or Target) had a good deal on this one. It has AppleTV and YouTube built in and we can stream to it wirelessly from our phones and laptops. I know this isn’t what you imagine when you think of sailing the south seas, but it’s nice to catch up on the latest season of Severance!

You may head to the gym after work. These guys head for their outrigger canoes. Casual racing is taken seriously here. Mo’orea in the background.

One thing I enjoyed about being on the outer docks of the marina is getting to know the professional crews who run the super yachts. You can learn a lot from them. They almost always have interesting lives and stories. Martina and Adam have been running Cloudy Night, a CNB76, for several years as Captain and Mate. Their home is in Spain but their life is sailing the world and looking after the owner and his guests when they are aboard (which turns out is not very often). Both of their parents were visiting for a few weeks and they invited me to dinner aboard one evening. Martina is Italian and she and her mom dominated the galley. What a feast. Fortunately, their English was better than my Italian. We had dinner together on my last night in Tahiti.

There are only a few ways in and out of French Polynesia. If you are going west, it’s the 3am flight to Auckland on Air New Zealand. Going east, Air Tahiti Nui and Air France go to LA. United and French Bee go to San Francisco. I was headed to Indonesia via a stop in Auckland.

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Daily updates from our PredictWind log:

Huahine – Fare

Wed Sep 11 2024 15:05:00 GMT-1000 (Tahiti Time)

16 44.104s 151 02.903w

All is well. We are presently anchored 1.4 miles south of the town of Fare on the island of Huahine. We enjoyed a great upwind sail in 10 knots of breeze, 4-5’ seas with a full main and Solent (and a little help from the port engine at low RPM). Full daggers.

A few days ago the town outlawed mooring and anchoring in front of the town. That drove boats out onto the nearby sandbar. 20 of them. To crowded for us so we moved a mile or so south for more space and less stress.

Looking forward to checking out Fare tomorrow.

—Jim

The best cheeseburger in the South Pacific is at Izzy’s in Huahine. Izzy is a transplanted southern Californian. She ran a restaurant in Laguna Beach for years. About 10 years ago she fell in love with Huahine and decided to relocate and build a business here. And she has. It’s amazing. She’s got a wonderful crew of local woman. Great food and great service.

Huahine – Baie d’Avea

Fri Sep 13 2024 11:09:00 GMT-1000 (Tahiti Time)

16 48.686s 150 59.582w

All is well. We are presently on a mooring in Avea Bay on the southeast corner of Huahine. We motored around the lagoon this morning. It took about an hour and requires careful attention to pilotage and navigation.

We thoroughly enjoyed visiting the town of Fare. We had possibly the best cheeseburgers in all of French Polynesia at Izzy’s!

Tonight we will have dinner ashore at the local resort here.

—Jim

Roam on her mooring in Avea Bay, Huahine. Our last night before heading to Tahiti. A great dinner in a peaceful setting.

Tahiti

Sun Sep 15 2024 20:17:00 GMT-1000 (Tahiti Time)

17 35.204s 149 36.986w

All is well. We are presently med tied to dock J in the famous Marina Taina, Papeete, Tahiti. We had an amazing overnight beam reach in 8-10 knots of breeze with 3-4’ seas. 1/3 daggers.

A heavy rain shower just as we left Huahine gave the boat a rinse. And, revealed a leak that winds up in the ceiling over our master stateroom. After that it was a delightful sail. The wind pooped out just as we were making landfall and we motored in.

Next step, decide if we want to leave the boat here for the holidays.

Land ho! Landfall on Tahiti at sunrise.