Another memory of being snuggled up between reefs, in mind blowing blues and greens, in unbelievably clear water.
It’s another one of those many, many cruising experiences I can’t convey in words and can only capture a sideways glimpse of with photos.
I sit down to blog about it and I think how overused the words that I want to select are, even though I *swear* that this time the colors really were blowing my mind and the clarity of the water was actually difficult to believe.
When I give up trying to explain and say “you have to have been there”, I say it because I wish that for other people. I wish that they could see something this intense, float in it, and let it sink in slowly over hours, over days, over different angles of light and different levels of view. I was so glad to be able to take our friends from “back home” to Ilot Mato to share it with them.
Places like this are why I am out here.
In addition, because it is French there is a large community of water sports participants which include a strong contingent of women, people sailing their boats in every wind direction, very little restrictions on what you can do as a boater, and not a lot of fuss over what bits of your body are covered. Try telling a French woman (or man) that women have to cover up to be respectful of the locals and you will quickly learn why French colonies don’t play that way. We are not Francophiles by any means and we have been surrounded by French boaters for long enough to know the downsides to these upsides, but still, we love these upsides.
Too bad they only give us North Americans three months… Still, we are going to enjoy the crap out of what time we have here.
Why? A lagoon that is essentially all under 50 feet means the colors pop everywhere. We were in 10-15 feet of sand in the four places we anchored which meant that the colors surrounding the boat were vivid (when it was sunny). The lagoon is dotted with limestone islets which made me dream of SE Asia. The water is clear, very clear. The long sandy shallows off the beaches were perfect for long slow stand up paddle boarding sessions. Add to that a pass with live coral and some lovely beaches and…three weeks sped by.
The pass is what Carol and I would call a “real” pass – meaning that it is, safely navigable, but should be taken seriously. Tip: The common knowledge about the slack tides (LWS 2:15 hours after LW at Moala in WXTide and HWS approximately the same as HW) seemed right to us. The pass is narrow and slightly curved with some eddies and standing waves on the ebb. At flood and slacks, we found the pass flat even in the 20 knots of cross wind we exited the atoll in.
Let’s start with the good. It’s uninhabited. This is good for us not because we hate people but because for us, cavorting around uninhabited incredibly beautiful islands is a big part of the South Pacific dream. There is a gorgeous sand spit connecting two lush green islands with rocky cliffs. There are goats to chase – that’s just good clean fun right there. And there is nice snorkeling in the bay. We saw some big stuff (spotted rays, turtles, wrasses) and various coral and fish. There is a lot of damage as well, but enough fun stuff to keep you interested. We had good water clarity when the swell wasn’t too big in the anchorage. Also, you can kite there. So, basically, a fun playground for us.
We also anchored not far from the N pass in Fakarava. The reef by the first marker as you are heading into the pass toward Rotoava had some excellent snorkeling and the beaches were long and sandy.
Fakarava is a great place to have guests which we did for two weeks (again, more on that separately).
It’s a small motu with a small building on it that is used when the family that owns it visits for a picnic or fishing weekend or whatever.
In addition to ridiculously blue water, it has an incredibly long sand spit off the south side which is where we spent our time kiteboarding. Flat water just downwind of the sandspit, the safety of kiting upwind of the sandspit as we were teaching friends to kite, unobstructed wind S of the motu. Lovely.
The sand was nice fine white sand and we spent a number of nights drinking and cooking over a small fire with fellow cruiser-kiters.
(another) Paradise found. A new favorite place indeed.
In French Polynesia are 5 archipelagos. One archipelago, the Easternmost, is called the Gambier Islands. The only island of the Gambiers with a pass to enter for cruising boats is Mangareva. Thus, Mangareva is the name of a single atoll in the Gambiers but is synonymous in cruisers’ talk with the Gambiers.
Like many atolls, there are small islets called motus on Mangareva’s encircling reef. Mangarevas reef is mostly open to the ocean on the entire Southern side of the atoll with another large pass on the West making for little current inside of the atoll or in the main pass. Depending on the direction of the swell you may get incoming or outgoing currents in the false passes but not in the large navigable passes.
While book writers disagree on the subject, most Frenchies and Mangarevans consider Mangareva to be outside of the hurricane zone and along with the Marquesas are a common spot for European boats to cruise through the hurricane season. We are the only N American boat here this austral summer and most of the European boats are either staying here for the entire hurricane season or splitting their time between here and the Marquesas.
Most N American boats visit during the austral winter, arriving usually from the Galapagos, which is also the time of the worst weather in the Gambiers. It’s storm season here then, and the low pressure systems from the Southern Ocean whip up the seas and the winds when they pass through. Reportedly, the weather is often squally and less sunny and pleasant than the summer average. The good news is that when it is squally here, as mentioned above, there are a lot of anchorages, in close proximity, to switch between to gain protection from various wind/fetch directions.
The only downside to Mangareva so far for us is that most of the anchorages are deep – 40 to 60 feet. While we have anchored in shallower water here, we are usually cranking like crazy people on our manual windlass to raise an enormous amount of 5/16” HT chain and our hefty Manson Supreme. We have started using a single pearl farm buoy at 2-to-1 before dropping the rest of the scope to help with the weight of the chain.
Supply ships come regularly but not on any particular schedule and there are at least 5 small grocery stores that we know of that each offer their own selection and each have different arrangements with the supply ships. The offering is similar to the Tuamotus with perhaps even fewer vegetables on offer. Thankfully there are a lot of opportunities to exchange or be gifted fruit and vegetables.
When we returned to the Tuamotus, I struggled to retain my gains in the face of gusty wind, sharp coral rubble beaches, coral heads and currents ripping through false passes. I had fun but in order to have fun I had to pick and choose my conditions carefully to match my skill level and I didn’t get a lot of time on the kiteboard. When I picked poorly I reached that special level of frustration people get to when they know they could do something if the conditions would just freaking cooperate. That is…until we reached Rangiroa.
After a brief reconnaissance visit, we loaded up at the village and headed back to weather one of the longest mara’amu blows we’ve seen while anchored in the SE corner of Rangiroa at the base of the kiting spot. We kited 9 out of 11 days and the 2 break days were because the winds were too strong for our smallest kite. We were grateful for the break days because we were bleary eyed from exhaustion, sun and salt and wobbly from extra long kiting sessions.
If you are a cruiser kiter and bring your boat to the S Pacific, get yourself here for a set of good windy days. Even in very strong wind the sand banks keep the water flat and so the anchorage, while somewhat exposed to the wind (depending on how far S the angle), is flat water.
Does. Not. Suck. Definitely a new favorite place (nfp).
Mopelia had 13 residents when we visited and only a few of those stay there year round. The atoll is under the administration of Maupiti and run as a communal operation mostly producing copra but including pearl farming. In order to reside in Mopelia you must have permission from Maupiti and part of that permission involves proving that you will work the land in some way. If anyone reading this plans to visit Mopelia, consider stopping by the mairie at Maupiti first and asking if they have anything needing carrying to Mopelia. The workers there should be able to get back to you after contacting the people who have family in Mopelia and you may be asked to carry goods or even people. The residents told us that the supply ship is paid by the government and only comes when paid. Apparently that isn’t regularly because the “monthly” supply ship had recently visited after a nine month absence.
Mopelia is unlike the rest of French Polynesia that we visited. It 100 miles from the nearest other island and without regular boat service and without an airstrip, it is isolated. In that sense it felt more like our visit to Penrhyn in the Cook Islands later. I imagine it is how the Australs and Gambiers might feel in French Polynesia but we haven’t visited any yet. As a result, just like in any isolated community, visitors are much more of an event. We had some of our best reef walking ever in Mopelia. Absolutely stunning. Super clear water in the lagoon with that iridescent blue that we found in the SE side of Bora Bora. We met a bunch of fun people and shared a number of meals ashore and hosted on our boat.
We had the entire atoll to ourselves for the first night (i.e., no other boats) and for a few days had a few other boats visit the N anchorage. Toward the end we shared the SE anchorage with SV Eclipse, a French flagged vessel that was a delight to meet and who shared their photos of their visit to Antarctic in their cored fiberglass boat. They said they would not normally go in a cored fiberglass boat but, drum roll, they had been there before. I (heart) French sailors.
In 2012 there were two markers marking the sides of the reef (see below). The mark on the left (N side) was the first marker we passed and the mark on the right (S side) was the slighter later (i.e. they are not goal posts, but staggered). We stayed left of center for the first half and right of center for the second half. As we entered the lagoon there were a few bommies to avoid and we curved gently to the right to keep a center bommie to our port. When we were there the main ones inside the entrance were marked with multiple buoys although apparently they were added when the supply ship had difficulty entering and so they may not be maintained.
A note regarding current: we were given the advice that if the pass at Maupiti is mellow, then the pass at Mopelia will be mellow as well because the two lagoons fill from similar wind and swell conditions. True or not I don’t know but we left Maupiti for Mopelia and both passes were mellow. Final note on current, I’ll write more about this later after I do some more research but as I understand it, Mopelia is a part of the region governed by solar tides not lunar which is why approx 6am is low tide and noon is high tide year round. Thus, we had to balance the desire for less current (incoming tide after 6am) and good visibility (sun high in the sky closer to noon). Having a wee 29HP motor, we arrived at the pass early and waited around, nosing near the pass, until we felt like the visibility was sufficient and entered at 8am experiencing a maximum of 2 knots of outgoing current.
There is a road between the anchorages which brings you past the homes of most of the residents.
We loved it. If conditions allow and we are passing by, we are likely to stop by on our way West whenever we head that way again.
Maupiti, how we love thee, let us count the ways.
I was so relaxed in Maupiti. Even everyday chores became part of an amusing “island time” game. It’s hard to be stressed about getting chores done when you are on a dinghy ride, in water like this, with views like these, in the sunshine. Very difficult to be grumpy when everyone is smiling and saying hello to you on the street.
People helped us find ways to exchange money (no ATMs here), gravity fill our propane tank, and repair a kite. We wrote “eggs” on our calendar on Monday because that is when the store would have them. We woke up early for a morning walk (ok, Carol did) so we could buy fresh baguettes, croissants and pain chocolat. An entire day might pass with a baguette run, a dinghy ride to a swimming spot, a bit of cleaning the boat, showers, and then happy hour on another boat.For our anniversary, Carol arranged with friends of ours to borrow dive gear and go diving with the mantas in Maupiti. Holy crap. There is a cleaning station in Maupiti where the mantas go to have fish eat the parasites living in their mouth, “scoopers”*, and gill slits. They take turns at the cleaning station and when we went down for our dive, we sat on the white sand nearby watching them. They changed their flight pattern so that after cleaning they flew over our heads. So cool. They are huge.
A short quality downgraded clip for a visual:
In other news, Maupiti is my new favorite place. We posted the views from the top of the mountain already on the blog. If I had the bandwidth I would post the aerial footage we took with our GoPro on our kite yesterday. Fan-freaking-tastic. If I could have the diving/snorkeling/water clarity of South Fakarava and add it to this place, I might never leave - hurricanes be damned.
*I can’t remember the name for the thingamajigs on the side of their big mouths.
One concern we had about this season in the South Pacific was how rushed we would be from the large number of mileage and countries to travel before hurricane season. For the most part, we’ve chosen to visit fewer places in French Polynesia and stay in each place longer than we have stayed in places in the past. This is working out well so far. Even though our time here is so short, we don’t feel like we are rushing. Moorea was an exception to this plan.
We spent only a few days at one anchorage in Moorea. It was beautiful, and we thought about staying longer but a frontal system was coming through, followed by no wind, and we knew we could either make some more miles under sail or stay in Moorea for another week or more. With Moorea getting crowded, and scheduled to get more crowded with the PPJ Tahiti-Moorea Rendezvous incoming, we decided to take an overnight sail to Bora Bora and spend some time there.
The sting rays have been fed for decades in the same location and come to your dinghy as soon as they hear your propeller and/or the sound of your dinghy anchor dropping. If you have a piece of fish, they mob you, flapping their wings and climbing up your body, begging for the treat. Feeding wild animals is, of course, not usually a great idea for their own health and safety. In this instance, we were not worried about our personal impact. It was hugely fun, they feel like wet mushrooms and act like begging dogs – begging dogs with barbs.
In this land of crystal clear water, we are occasionally setting up our spinnaker pole and spinnaker halyard so that we can swing out and drop into the water off of the boat (see picture of Mark above). Fun, fun times.
