Tahiti Islands (III)
Cruising Logs for Tahiti Islands (III)
Cruise on a Moorings® Boat - September 2003
Here is our cruising log for a Moorings charter out of Raiatea in French Polynesia, aboard a
Beneteau/ Moorings 362, two people.
Day 1
Boarded the boat the evening before our scheduled departure date (Moorings calls this a "Sundowner") in incredible rain squalls, which marked the arrival of a low-pressure system. Poured rain all night while we got settled in to our boat at the Moorings base. Boat was very new, with the occasional minor problem, nothing worth mentioning. Geographical note: all of the islands in the area have the same basic geography, which is to say that they are surrounded by a fringe reef, with a lagoon between the island and a fringe reef. Thus, when sailing in this area, you usually make one or two open-ocean passages between islands, and then spend some time exploring around in a given island's lagoon.
Day 2
Departed the Moorings base on Raiatea bound for Huahine under somewhat ominous conditions. Huahine is magnificent and I really very much enjoyed the time we spent there. It is a little more off the beaten path than, for instance, Bora Bora. Prevailing winds are out of the East, making this a beat in most cases, but we actually had winds out of the North, so it was a close reach under single-reefed main and full genoa for us. Arrived in the village of Fare, Huahine late afternoon. There are two passes through the reef into Huahine, both relatively narrow and not that easy to find, but not that bad either. The visibility goes for miles out there, so one tricky thing is that you can VERY clearly see the anchored boats in Fare while you are still quite some distance from the reef, which can cause some anxiety as you wonder why you are not yet seeing the reef which you know is there ahead of you somewhere to be navigated. At last, the pass becomes visible and you enter the beautiful town of Fare. Dolphins played in our wake as we entered the pass into Fare. Everybody says to anchor off the remains of the Bali Hai hotel, but I think they're nuts. The water is 90-feet deep there, so you'd be lucky to get 3:1 scope out. We anchored (and you should too) across the pass from the Bali Hai and freighter dock on the inside of the reef in about 16ft of water and a sand bottom. The place is absolutely beautiful and there are a couple of really good restaurants in the village of Fare. You can bring your dinghy right to the beach next to the freighter dock. The inter-island freighters operate at night a lot, so watch out you don't dinghy yourself right under their bow.
Day 3
We motored inside Huahine's lagoon down to Avea Bay, which is, in my opinion (and my wife's) about the most beautiful place on the face of the Earth. The scenery is simply stunning and I highly recommend it.
Day 4
We motored back up to Port Bouryane, where we anchored and took the dinghy around to explore. Again, highly recommended. We went back down to Avea Bay to spend the night a second time because we liked it there so much.
Day 5:
We got up early and motored up the lagoon, past Fare, and out into the open ocean to sail back to Raiatea. Raiatea shares its fringe reef with Tahaa, and after entering the Raiatea/Tahaa lagoon, we sailed up to the Hibiscus Restaurant, where we picked up a free-with-dinner mooring. This was not one of the nights where the Polynesian show was on, so there was just us and a couple other people dining there. We had a great experience (apparently others have not) and enjoyed it greatly. I think you pretty much have to expect to eat seafood there, and if you don't, you're screwed. We love seafood and the “Poisson cru” was SO good! We spent some time with the host, Leo and found him to be quite a nice gentleman and very interesting to talk to. He's a French ex-pat, and I could see the service being a little different than what Americans might expect, but we enjoyed it. Very nice to have our boat securely fastened to a mooring when we rolled our over-stuffed carcasses down the dock.
Day 6
We sailed around Tahaa to Marina Iti, again picking up a mooring for dinner. Great restaurant, wonderful food, wonderful evening, again, if you don't eat seafood, shoot yourself (it's that way in all of Polynesia - it's not for everybody). There IS some type of tour/party boat that often RIPS through the mooring field throwing an un-Godly wake. Since Moorings boats heavily patronize the place, I am surprised no one from the Moorings has moseyed over to the proprietor and suggested that perhaps this needs to stop or the Moorings will not recommend the establishment to its clients. Other than that though, we loved this little spot and the restaurant there.