Ahe, Rangiroa, Tahiti and surrounding islands

Ahe is our next stop in the Tuamotus and is just 20km x 10km and there is just one pass in and one village + the tiny airport strip. We come in through a very narrow entrance pass and there are hundreds of buoys marking pearl farms where the clams hang in the water from nets. We anchor off the town and wander in to try to find the pearl farmer we have been told about to buy the black pearls said to be the best quality in the South Pacific. Richard and I wander around a sleepy town and happen across two men throwing spear like javelins at a coconut suspended on a pole at least 80ft high. With our limited French we ascertain that they are preparing for the island games – the skill required is amazing. Not finding any sign of Natalie (our pearl farmer’s wife) we head off across the lagoon to find what is the most wonderful anchorage completely on our own off two small inner lagoons. There we dinghy ashore and have our late barbeque lunch in utter bliss swimming with reef sharks and fish. Having located where Natalie might be found at the airport we dinghy across the lagoon for half an hour – 98% of the pearls from Ahe are exported into Asia and the rest of the world. We buy some wonderful bracelets and some pearl studs and a most wonderful black pearl necklace at really reasonable rates.
We sailed away from Ahe overnight to Rangiroa our last stop in the Tuamotus sadly. Rangiroa is the world’s second largest atoll and one of the greatest diving destinations in the world. Oscar and Charlotte went diving and we have the most extraordinary photograph of a wild dolphin in the pass coming up to Oscar and really just wanting to play – it is a photo I will treasure for ever. Richard and I wandered down to a small pension on the shore of the main pass and as the sun went down watched dolphins jumping and feeding in the pass for an hour or more with our rum punch in hand. Oscar actually dived in the pass and a dolphin came alongside him to make friends – totally awesome experience for him. All too soon we have to sail away from these wonderful atolls and head for Tahiti – the shock of the island for us is so many people and bustle and cars – something we have been protected against now for many months. Richard and I take a two day break in the Intercontinental in Tahiti to celebrate his birthday – we certainly have never stayed in such a luxurious hotel ever quite out of this world. There was a private lagoon reef inside the resort which was really beautifully created and full of fish – and weddings were held on a small islet in the middle of all this which I have to say I found quite sad – I just wanted to see family and friends there with them but I am sure they had their reasons. The doormen were just wonderful – although I can’t help feeling if you’d been slightly overweight or not as aesthetically pleasing you would not have been employed!! We also enjoyed a night of celebrations at the hotel with traditional dancing where I wholeheartedly joined in with a rather sweaty dancer!
Before leaving Tahiti Richard and I went to one night of the Heiva I Tahiti 2017 – this is a competition of dancing and singing and very rich in history. We saw two groups of dancers enacting scenes from cultural history and each taking about an hour – the women shaking their hips in a way I don’t think we could dream of re-enacting. The costumes are extraordinary with huge headdresses and outfits.
Moorea is a few hours sail from Tahiti and soars magically out of the ocean just exploding in greenery. Exactly how you would imagine a South Seas island to be, it is wide, with a bright blue lagoon surrounds vertical mountains where waterfalls tumble down through fern covered cliffs. Taking a quad bike tour round the island we rode through peaceful meadows flanked by pinnacles of emerald green nature. Totally wonderful and field after field of pineapples growing. We took the dinghy out about half an hour into the middle of the reef and there were just surrounded by rays as friendly as they come clambering around amongst us – must admit that I stayed in the dinghy here just watching them and the black tip sharks playfully wanting to be amongst us. There is a lack of strong currents here and abundant marine life which make the shallow waters excellent for snorkelling and again the rays just seem to want to be friends! It seems insane and looks like an aquarium with black tip sharks and fish and rays all right next to us but we are in the middle of a lagoon in the middle of nowhere – albeit five other dinghies all sharing the experience!
After recharging our batteries and sitting in the most amazing anchorage we headed off overnight to Huahine and simply steamed along around 9 knots in 36 knots of breeze – great for the sailors but really uncomfortable for me! Huahine with its lush forests and wild landscape, quaint little villages seems a world away from the hustle and bustle of Tahiti. A real gem of a place. A very deep, crystal clear lagoon surrounds the two islands with magnificent bays and white sand beaches. It is very quiet and traditional old Polynesia with only eight small villages scattered across the island and few residents there who were so welcoming to us. This very fertile island with rich red soil provides bananas, melons and vanilla in abundance. There are literally hundreds (over 200) archeological stone structures along the shore of Lake Fauna Nui and on Matairea Hill which include marae of chieftans, houses, horticultural developments and religious and ceremonial sites. There are ancient stone fish traps which we visited and are still used by the community today and apparently Huahine has the oldest recorded date of human occupation among the Society Islands. Having taken a tour round the Island we also saw the blue eyed eels which are sacred to the islanders and are only found on Huahine – they were very strange looking things about a metre long with ears (or what look like ears!). We then headed over to Ra’iatea and anchored in Foaroa Bay – very, very sadly this is where our experience of complete trust had to be shelved. After arriving in the Galapagos Islands we have not had to worry about crime at all for all these months – things are left out on the boat and we regularly left all the dive gear out, fishing rods etc – when you go into shore the dinghy just gets left on its own for hours unlocked and indeed it would be considered insulting if you locked it there is just no way anyone would touch your things. There is so much respect for everyone. Then sadly in Ra’iatea we heard via other Oysters that three different boats had things stolen from either on the boat or from the dinghy left in the water. It has been one of the most wonderful experiences of the trip this incredible feeling of trust on both sides and it is sad for all of us to once again get somewhere where this is no longer applicable. We know in our hearts it will be one rogue person but we now have to take caution and lock down the boat – back to the reality that you have to go 20,000 miles to find small communities where everyone knows everyone else and respects their rights without question.
Having said the above Ra’iatea is a most beautiful island and the people we interacted with were warm and friendly and very kind. It is the only place in Tahiti which has a navigable river and we intrepid souls set off up it rowing where it was too shallow to use the engine and winding our way through a lush rain forest with some islanders in small canoes collecting coconuts from the forest and piling them high into the boats. The island also has the most sacred, best-preserved historical site in the whole of Polynesia and it was huge spread along the coast. Taputapuatea is now a national monument and whilst spread out containing dozens of marae and shrines was easily walkable in a few hours for us. Quite spiritual and moving as all of these marae are – a wonderful thing to experience. Moving up inside the reef to the Island of Taha’a which although very small is home to a considerable number of small private and very exclusive resorts – whilst Oscar was trying to fly his drone up over the island to get some aerial shots one resort appeared to have a blocking device as every time it got even remotely close he lost the contact with it! We know we are getting back to civilisation!!! Both of these islands have vanilla farms where they harvest and sell vanilla into the international market – when you see how long and how complicated the process of farming this stuff is on vines with the flowers having to be hand pollinated you have some understanding of why it is so expensive. We spent a wonderful morning between two motu snorkelling in about a metre of water with some of the most wonderful corals we have seen to date and literally hundreds of different fish (a sea snake and an octopus spotted here!) – it almost felt man made as if we had been dropped into a Disneyworld experience of diving!