Manihi May 21-29
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| ARRIVING IN MAIHI |
The Tuamotu's islands are a group of 78 atolls that are spread across 150 degrees of longitude and extend almost 1,000 miles in a NW-SW direction. In contrast to the lush vegetation and mountainous Marquesas, these atolls have little greenery except for palm trees and short grass. Basically they are coral "rings" made of various size motu's (small coral islands) with a lagoon inside. Many are so small as not to have any inhabitants at all. But many are very large with lagoons so large you cannot see across from one side to the other.
At one time they were called the "Dangerous Archipelago" because of their low-lying profile making them very difficult to see from sea. Now with chart-plotters and radar they are often visited by cruisers and tourist.
Our first stop in the Tuamotu is the atoll Manihi. We arrived at Manihi on May 21st after a 3 ½ day passage from Nuku-Hiva. The passage was relatively uneventful. The seas were a bit rolly and on our aft-beam so it was not the most comfortable motion but the winds were good and I had prepared meals in advanced so all went well.
The entrance into an atoll is through a blasted out passage through the coral. You need to time your passage during slack tide to avoid dangerous currents and/or standing waves. You can imagine that with the rise and fall of the tide much of the water in and out of the lagoon is going through this small passage. We time our passage well and have no problems. We make our way to the eastern anchorage and anchor in about 50ft.
Manihi is one of the northern most of the Tuamotu chain and is on the usual route from Marquesas to Tahiti. Made famous by its production of black pearls the lagoon once was full of pearl farms and supported a small resort for tourists. Now the world economy had affected this industry. When we arrive we find only a handful of pearl farms and the resort has closed.
As with all of the inhabited atolls there is a small village, on Manihi the village is Paeua. There is a small harbor for the local motor boats, two small stores, a post office, two churches, a bakery, schools and homes. The major form of transportation here are 3 wheeled bicycles with baskets, as the motu, the village is on is only about 2 miles long and half a mile wide cars are not really needed. All supplies arrive by supply boats that make regular round to the islands from Tahiti. One arrived while we were in town, it is quite the operation to watch, and it seems the whole town come down to the wharf to watch or pick up items they have ordered.
The day that we arrive we are greeted by the folks on the boat Moorgan, Arnie and Chris with their crew, Oralie and Oliviea, a young French couple that are going to Tahiti with them. We are invited for drinks that evening. The next day there is a storm that lasts most of the day with rain and winds that gust to 34 knots. Our anchor holds well and the boat gets a much needed rinse.
Many of the atolls are known for good snorkeling and diving. When the resort was open they would have dive tours to various areas of the atoll. We snorkel in front of the home of Xavier, a retired French merchant marine who has made his own little retirement paradise. He also hosts a Sailmail station, which means he maintains the radios that I can connect to when I go up on my SSB radio to send/receive emails and weather reports. Unfortunately we do not get to meet him as he is gone for the week. Too bad I really wanted to thank him for hosting the station. The snorkeling is great and we see many different colorful fish.
We spend 9 days here and with a good weather window it is time to head out. I am worried about our anchor and chain being wrapped in the coral heads, but with persistence the anchor is up and we are off. Our friend, John on Sapphire has a harder time, but eventuraly he gets his anchor up to. We will catch up with him in Tahiti
Our intention is to go to Ahe, about 8 miles west of Manihi. It is a small atoll but we heard that it is very pretty. When we arrive there are 3 boats in the small anchorage, all I see left to anchor are areas that are either very deep and I can see dark areas of coral, or very shallow areas where I can plainly see the coral heads. The only really good place left is in front of the wharf. As we circle around again for another look we see the supply ship coming our way so we must hurry and get out of the way. We decide that given the weather reports we would be here for at least 4-5 days, we are not comfortable being stuck here for that amount of time so we decided just to skip Ahe and head to the larger and more protected atoll of Rangriora, the next island on our literary.
The winds were great for the overnight passage and we were making good time, too good in fact. We needed to slow the boat down so we would not arrive too early at Rangiroa. The seas were building but not too uncomfortable.
On my watch we had a harrowing event. I keep a close eye on the radar as there were numerous small squalls around. I noticed something on the radar ahead of us. Soon I see a light on the horizon. A ship. I keep monitoring its position and it seems that we will be getting very close to it, closer that I would like. I have gotten Mel up as is prudent to do and we make a course change while the ship is still 4-5 miles away from us. Still it appears that we are getting too close. We make a more dramatic change in course. Still they are getting close. Mind you, we are going about 6 knots, they are going 13 knots, so there is not much time here, and at night things always look closer. We turn on the engine and move faster. I hail them on the radio asking their intention and if they see us. They turn on a spotlight so I assume they see us. I then ask what side they are passing us. The answer is not in English. I tell them we are a sailing vessel and please avoid us (I think I must sound pretty panicked) all I hear is "no problem, no problem". Well, there is a problem you are too close. We give the engine a full throttle and get as far away as we can. It is difficult to tell what his course is in the dark but soon we determine that we are now getting out of his way. After he is way past us we resume our course. In hindsight I should have radioed earlier and gotten his course and asked if he saw us. We then would have had more time to make course adjustments. Also, the ship did not act professionally and could have easily changed course when he knew we were a sailing vessel. Lesson learned, just because it is a large ship does not mean they are paying attention.
We are now safe and sound anchored at Rangriora. More on that on the next blog.
Rangiroa May 31- June 7
Rangiroa is the largest atoll of the Tuamotu group having a circumference of about 100 miles. It is also the second largest atoll in the world. In fact the entire island of Tahiti could fit inside of the lagoon.
There are two passes into the lagoon, Avatoru, the smaller and Tiputa, the larger pass. We have chosen to go through Avatoru, as the guides tell us that the currents are not as strong through this pass. The best time of course to enter the pass is when it is slack tide. We have found it difficult to estimate slack tide, but our best guess is around 9 or 10 in the morning. As there is a lot of wind and big swell in the ocean as we approach and we find the pass to be somewhat the same. It was a bit of a challenge getting in but we made it and then bashed our way up to the anchorage (what happened to the nice calm lagoons of the Tuamotu??) We find a nice place to anchor near Tiputa pass in front of the Kia Ora Resort. There are about five other boats here.
Rangiroa is known for Diving and Black Pearl cultivation (more on the latter is my next blog). People come from around the world to dive the Tiputa pass and its coral reefs. As we do not dive we found the best place to snorkel, Motu Nuhi Nuhi, located a short dingy ride away. This motu is also called the aquarium and it is aptly named. The water is crystal clear and there is an abundance of colorful fish. As it is snorkeled by lots of people the fish are used to you being there and carry on with their daily life. I got to see a Giant Moray Eel and they are very ugly and scary looking.
Another fun thing to do on Rangiroa is to go to the little park by Tiputa pass and sit and watch for the dolphin show. Many evenings groups of dolphins come to play in the waves and currents here. They put on a good show. We saw several dolphins jump, spin in the waves. I talked with one person who dove in the pass and said that the dolphins came up to the divers and wanted to play, they followed them as they floated in the current.
Blue Lagoon: One of the paid excursions you can take here is a trip to the blue lagoon. Basically it is a lagoon with-in the large lagoon of Rangiroa. We take a panga boat from the Kia Ora Resort to the other side of the lagoon. It is a very rough trip as there is still a lot of wind a surge in the lagoon. But our good guide gets us there. You pass through a shallow reef to a small island and you are rewarded with a tranquil blue lagoon. The guides prepare a lunch of fish; salads, Poisson cru and fruits, and they also provided the entertainment with ukuleles and songs.
After lunch we return to the boat and pass out of the reef into the larger lagoon. Here we tie to a mooring ball and everyone gets in the water with our snorkels on and watch as the guides feed the leftover fish to the black tip sharks that are there. They are used to this and are not aggressive to us at all. There must have been at least 50 black tip sharks and we saw two lemon sharks that are much larger than the black tips. It was fun and exciting. I hope my pictures do it justice.
Too soon it is time to be moving on. This is the last atoll of the Tuamotu that we will stop in. Our next port of call will be Papeete, Tahiti.
As we rounded the corner of Rangriroa on our way to Tahiti, we were treated to a dolphin farewell . A small pod came to our bow to play and perform for us. What a fitting end to our time in the Tuamotu.
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| THE BLUE LAGOON, RANGIROA |
Gauguin Pearl Farm, Rangiroa
One of the highlights of our visit to Rangiroa was a tour of the Gauguin Pearl Farm. Most, if not all, of the black pearls come from the Tuamotu. The industry that was once huge has been hit hard by the high taxing and regulations of the pearls and farms and by the world economy. Our guide book spoke of numerous pearl farms in both Rangiroa and Manihi but we did not see very many working "stations" in the atolls.
What we learned from our tour is it is a very long process to produce a black pearl. First you mush harvest the peal producing oyster. By law they can no longer harvest oysters that are on the bottom of the lagoon. So to obtain the oysters they float these long sponge like lengths of rope from floats. These lines capture the baby oysters as they float by. As they are captured they are left on the lines to grow to a certain size. Once they reach a certain size they are removed from the sponge line and put into hanging nets that have pockets where each oyster is placed and again hung on floats within the lagoon where they continue to grow. After about two years they are brought to the processing center to be "seeded" with a nuclei.
The nuclei they use to start the peal are made from oyster shells harvested in the Mississippi River. The shells are sent to Asia where they are cut a polished to form various size beads. These beads are then implanted into the black pearl oysters stomach along with a tiny bit of a black pearl shell (to produce the correct color) by a technician and then the implanted oysters are hung on a line with a protective plastic cage around them and returned to the floats in the lagoon. After 3 years the oysters come back to the plant to harvest the pearls.
The technicians are trained to quickly harvest the pearl without killing the oyster. If the pearl they harvest is of good shape and color they will quickly insert another nucleus of a larger size and the oyster is returned to the lagoon to produce another pearl (in about 2 years). Some oysters can produce up to 3 pearls in this fashion. If the pearl is not good they will not re-seed the oyster. That oyster is then cleaned and its shell is sold to markets in Asia and such for button making etc.
The whole process takes up to 5 years; this explains the high cost of these beautiful gems.
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| A PERFECT PEARL IS HARVESTED |
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