Raiatea & Tahaa - Part 2

After the boat chores were completed, we left the marina and moved to a mooring at the Carenage (where they do heaps of professional boat repair work) right next to Sangvind. We spent a couple of days spinnaker flying, which involves the sail filling with air and lifting a person up out of the water and into the air while sitting on a piece of rope. Aussie OHS would love it. This proved lots of fun but it was a little bit scary too, as you rose 10-15 metres above the water - depending on the gusts you could be shooting all over the sky! J and S continued their wake-boarding practice, G built a rope swing, and the kids enjoyed hanging out with their friends each day after their schoolwork was done.

J, with the most amazing determination, finally up and going strong on the wakeboard (actually a kite board for those paying attention). He nagged Mum & Dad all the time to drive the dinghy and never, ever gave in. Go J!!!!

The boys went to Sangvind for a sleepover one night, while one of their kids came to stay on our boat.

S and P went into town for a few hours one day, our way of getting there was to walk or hitchhike... This is done all over Polynesia, but not something P has done since she was a teenager. S was mortified when P tried to hitch a ride with the police! P thought they'd be more inclined to help, but clearly was wrong. Thankfully the third car that came along picked us up and was so helpful in dropping us off exactly where we wanted to go.

A few days later Skylark arrived. They are a family from the UK who have been travelling for the last 2 years. They have 2 girls, so the mix of kids was now 4 boys and 4 girls, ages 8-13. The kids thoroughly enjoyed paddling back and forth between boats, swimming and playing together.

From there we moved from Raiatea to Tahaa in a boat convoy. It took the children longer to work out who was going on what boat than to actually get to our next destination!

We moored at the Hibiscus restaurant again, and went to Ile Mahaea and Ile Toahotu for some snorkelling fun. We spotted some lion fish and lots of healthy, colourful coral.

Easter Time! Fortunately the easter bunny found us, as J had had everyone making easter baskets. After a quick easter egg hunt, we got into our Sunday best and went into town for a church service. We were going to sit quietly up the back but on entering the open aired hall a lady ushered us into the front row. The minister approached us and asked where we were from and included us in his opening speech. The kids all did an excellent job listening attentively to a service in a foreign language for over an hour. We all agreed that the singing was our favourite part of the service. When the people sang we had goosebumps, it was so beautiful. This is incredible in itself as it was so hot in the hall, and you could feel the sweat dripping off you everywhere, just sitting there.

After church we returned to the boats and headed to the west coast of Tahaa. When we arrived there was only 1 large chartered catamaran there. We were hunting around for a good place to drop our anchor, next to Skylark and overheard the lady on the catamaran, her loud voice saying “Why are they so close?, How rude! They must be American!” (we weren't that close). As we drifted a little further away from them, the skipper of the charter boat came over in his dinghy (P thought he was coming to tell us to anchor further away) and told us to park right behind him! G and I thought this was quite funny and maybe not a good reflection on his paying guests.

After a swim to cool off and another round of kids sleepovers worked out, we invited the adults over for a curry and a beer as this would be our last night, all of us together, for a while.

In the morning we took the dinghy to shore to snorkel the ‘Coral Garden’. There were 4 tour boats there and lots of people. We walked along the edge of the motu and waded into the water between tourist groups. It was a drift snorkel, winding your way through the maze of coral at a couple of knots. Awesome fun - no work required, apart from the optic nerve (the fish and coral - not the tourists in G strings.. ; ) We did this a couple of times before returning to the boats, where we said our goodbyes to our friends for now.

We ship-shaped the boat, picked up our anchor and motored out of the lagoon. Outside of the pass we hoisted the sails amid the 4 metre swell. Once the mainsail was up we pointed towards our next island in the Societies, Bora Bora. Within 20 minutes all 4 children were asleep, a little tired and a little seasick.

Then G came up to the helm where I was, for the first time struggling a little with seasickness myself (hungover... Ed). He proceeded to take over while I went and laid down for a little nap. I woke to the whoosh of the boat surfing down the waves. I checked the navigation aids and it said we were going 13.5 knots - which is pretty fast for a cruising sailboat! We entered the pass in the pouring rain at sunset and went to the Bora Bora Yacht Club to pick up a mooring. All aboard are looking forward to spending a couple of weeks in this stunning lagoon before we head west towards the Cooks / Niue / Tonga - wherever we end up.

P.S. Our friends shared some photos that they had taken previously - here’s S hanging out with the locals back in Huahine.