August 14, 2012
From the Coral Gardens on Tautau, there’s a beautiful view of Bora Bora in the distance. Soon, we’d be headed that way, but for now we appreciated this amazing view of it. – Cyndi
Author: richwest3
The Dinghy Ride Ashore at Tautau (Taha’a, Society Islands)
August 14, 2012
Just heading to shore at the coral gardens at Tautau, we were treated to some of the prettiest water we’ve seen. It’s so pretty I decided to give it its own little section here. After a lovely ride to shore we made a beach landing. -Cyndi
Tautau and The Coral Gardens, Taha’a, (Society Islands)
August 14, 2012
The second place we wanted to stay on Taha’a was actually a motu just off the island called Tautau. Tautau is the first in a string of about 3 motus, one right next to the other. Between Tautau and the next motu is a shallow area filled with fish and coral called the Coral Gardens. Tautau is also the site of Le Taha’a Resort, one of the most beautiful resorts in French Polynesia. I’ve always wanted to stay there, but for now I’d be happy to just stay next to it!
Anchoring here turned out to be a challenge. The anchorage is on a rather narrow shelf of land about 15 feet deep. On one side of this shelf it’s very deep, and on the other side it is way too shallow. The bottom is sand (good) and coral “bombies” (bad). The trick is to get the anchor into the sand and to make sure there is enough space between the tallest bombie and the bottom of the boat’s keel. Complicating the matter further was the presence of lots of boats here; we didn’t have much choice on where to anchor.
It took 3 tries, but we finally got the anchor set in a pretty good spot. The first thing we had to do was jump in the water and measure a couple of the tallest bombies near the boat. We do this by diving straight down and reaching out our hand to touch the top of it, then looking to see if our dive fins are sticking out of the water. In my case, if I am completely underwater from the tips of my fingers to the tips of my fins, the water over the bombie is deep enough. -Cyndi
Why all the posts all at once? (Haamene Bay, Taha’a, Society Islands)
August 12, 2012
Because we’re sitting at a nice, quiet bay and it’s relaxing and there’s internet* and it’s very conducive to getting caught up on our blog posts (Haamene Bay on Taha’a Island). Because due the the fast pace of our lives recently we’ve gotten way behind and the guilt outweighed the desire to just read another book. Because we’re missing folks back home and this is our way of connecting. Because we’re moving on soon to Bora Bora and then, after about 10 days at sea, to another island group and we’ll forget what all these pictures are of. That’s why.
*Internet Access: we are in a bay that doesn’t really have internet access but due to our great wifi antenna, we are able to get enough signal to post some pictures. We’re using an antenna we bought from Island Time PC in Florida. It’s a short antenna, mounted directly to an amplifier called a bullet and it boosts our 802.11b wifi signal. With it, we get wifi when others can’t. We bought the entire package from them, ready to go, including antenna, wire, bullet and a nice little 12 volt router. It works perfectly. Their service is great. In addition to having internet access, we have a little wifi hotspot on our boat and our Kindles and iPad can connect to the internet and to each other.
Internet access in French Polynesia has been great. There are about three companies that provide internet access for a price. It runs about $35 US or so for about 10 hours of access. It’s amazing the out of the way places that have one or more of these services. The internet access isn’t screaming fast and Skype calls and the like are laggy and difficult, but hey, look where we are. Even a few years ago, this would not have been possible. -Rich
Haamene Bay, Taha’a (Society Islands)
August 10 – 14, 2012
After our tour of Raiatea, we had an anchorage picked out: Haamene Bay. It’s a very deep bay, cutting about 2 miles into the center of the island, which makes it very still and peaceful. The other attraction was the restaurant at the head of the bay which was rumored to be very good.
After a busy morning of shopping and provisioning, getting untied from our mooring, and visiting the fuel dock, we motored the six miles or so to Taha’a. We motored into the bay, set our anchor and then just . . . relaxed. Sometimes it’s nice to just stay on the boat for a day.
The next morning we woke up and were treated to an especially beautiful sunrise. (As usual, this was accompanied by a chorus of roosters.)
We blew up the dinghy and went to town. It was a small but very pretty little town.
Our second night in the bay, we headed to the Taha’a Mai Tai restaurant for dinner. We had heard good things about it and were excited to try it. We were joined by our friends Tom and Monica who had just motored in that day and whom we had not seen since the Marquesas. The restaurant exceeded our expectations as the dinner was fabulous. We liked it so much, Rich and I went back for lunch the next day. We have been spreading the word about it ever since.
We were going to leave the next day, but we liked it so much here we spent one more day. -Cyndi