Casting off to Huahine

We decided to leave Moorea today, but first we would explore a little more of the coastline. We traveled along to the next bay, Oponuhu Bay, and found a beautiful, crystal blue area to do a little diving. As we approached a place to anchor, I saw some big areas of coral we didn’t want to hit. The guys went about anchoring the boat, while I saw this big Tahitian man with long, flowing hair come riding up on a jet ski followed by about five more jet skis with tourists. He stopped right above the coral we were trying to avoid. I tried to listen to what he was telling them; something about the history of Polynesia that lay beneath, then they left. When the guys came over I told them what I heard and Jock said he remembered something about when the Christian Missionaries came and tried to convert the Natives from worshiping their idols; they took the tikis and dropped them in the sea. We put on our gear and dropped down to find not coral, but five enormous stone tikis. It was like finding buried treasure! Jock had his underwater camera and took pictures. They are just beautiful examples of the artwork of this time. How did they carve this stone? How did the missionaries move these enormous tikis into the ocean?

We got back in the boat and continued to travel down the coast of Moorea. We then came to a coral reef area that had a large underwater beach of sand area. Remember, there is hardly any sand on the coast, it is all out by the reef. As we pull up dozens of Sting Rays come up to the boat! We got in the dingy and about 100 sting rays were swimming all around us in about water four feet deep. Suddenly a Black Tip Shark went swimming by. The guys jumped in right away saying that we would be fine. OH Yeah?? I know what happened to Steve Irwin!! Eventually, I decided that I couldn’t come all this way and chicken out. I jumped in and was swimming with the Sting Rays!! They are absolutely beautiful; so graceful and soft. We swam a little way to see many more rays buried in the sand with only their eyes and tips of their tails sticking out. What an experience.

It was 3:15 in the afternoon. The skies were blue and all was calm. We set sail for Huahine. I did fine as we watched Moorea disappear into the background. Then, soon, the weather started to change. The clouds surrounded the boat, light sprinkles began, the winds started to change directions. By 6:00pm I was turning a lovely shade of green! Jerry’s encouraging words were, if you are going to lose your cookies, go starboard! Next thing I know I am literally hanging over the side of the boat as the swells came up inches from my face and then dropped back ten feet away. It was at this moment that I realized I forgot to take the Dramamine that Jeff Centoni advised me to bring along. As I continued to hang over the side and felt like I was slipping over I thought to myself, why didn’t I put on a life jacket?? Jerry said he had a hold of my pants and that he wasn’t going to let me slip away. This was only the beginning of a night from hell. It was awful. I was sick the whole time…fifteen and a half hours to be exact. There were lightening showers that followed the boat and the ride was rough, even for my salty sailors. As we approached Huahine, the guys made the decision to continue to Tahaa. It was only another four hours!! They thought it best to go there so we wouldn’t have to make another open ocean journey for a while. Thank God. At 5:45 we arrived at Taravala Yacht Club in Tahaa. We tied up to a mooring and took the dingy in. There we found Richard, the owner, who left California at age 19 in a Cal 36 to escape the Vietnam War. He married a Tahitian and has made a life for himself chartering boats and running this “Yacht Club”. We paid him $5 for a semi warm shower. I got a sprite from the bar and decided I was going to live. Back to the boat that night, we had pasta and listened to the rain storm outside.