Tahiti and the Tuamotu's.

I've been really busy doing all sorts of things and so have neglected my writing here. I'm so sorry. I'm about to rectify that right now.
We've been sitting in Tahiti for just over a month now. Shortly after we arrived we were told that the weather was going to be quite rough out in the ocean and the waves would be high enough to climb over the reef and make life pretty uncomfortable for us. David decided to wait it out and see how bad it was. In the mean time he'd check over the boat at all the rigging and such to decide if he wanted to do any work on the boat here or if we could wait to get to New Zealand. Everything checked out okay..except of course for those two plates on the mast and the two plates supporting the seagull striker loads on the crossbeam that were broken on the crossing to the Marquises Islands. He knew about those and had taken appropriate measures to ensure that the mast was still sturdily held in place.




The day arrived when we were expecting this bad weather and wow, it sure got bumpy in here. We could not go ashore. The huge mega yachts left the marina because the waves were so destructive that one actually damaged their stern. The restaurants were closed due to the fact that the water was cascading over the top of the wharf. In fact the water was at least 3 feet higher than normal here. Many sections of the walkways in the marina got rather beaten up and broken. We swung and jerked around on the anchor but it held and we just waited. By the next day everything calmed down and we went ashore to see the damage.

A couple of boats having a meeting...the Cat was dragging her anchor..no-one on board either boat..note the rough water.

 The water doesn't look so bad in the photo's..but it was really rough.
 Oh yes....This yacht, (below), dragged it's anchor and came right down the side of Puddytat, David had to lean over our rails and push her off so she wouldn't hit us...we then gave lines to some chaps in a dinghy and they tied them to this boat and we tied off on Puddytat...I had the engines on very slowly forward, David was pulling up our anchor....We had to try and keep that boat off the reef that was just behind us. The owner was not on board, but the Port Captain gave some other sailors permission to get on board and try and get her motor started....They eventually did and were able to let our lines go and relay the anchor. Whew what a relief. There was a dog on board and he was very scared. He seemed to know that something was wrong..the boat's not supposed to move when the boss isn't on board...shame poor thing.

This boat literally swept down on us, David was fending it off as it  dragged it's anchor. 

The yacht we visited before the weather turned bad...notice the calm waters.

There was another Catana Catamaran anchored here. David said it was of the same vintage as ours and so we went over to chat with the owner. His was a year older than Puddytat. He told us he'd been dis-masted out at sea and then told us why it had happened. He took us around the deck to see the new rig and the changes he'd made. We went back to Puddytat with David in a thoughtful mood. The next morning he checked over Puddytat again to see if there had been any damage to her during that bumpy spat and there was. He was really surprised. If he hadn't checked he told me, it's probable we would have lost the rig between here and NZ. Gulp...There were a few more key structural rigging items broken! not just one but several...Oh heck, now we knew we'd have to get the mast taken off here, it couldn't wait for NZ...and we didn't have enough time. My visa was expiring at the end of September..what to do.

He went to our agent and explained the situation..she went to the powers that be and they said sorry no, no extension, you'll have to fly her out to Fiji where she can apply for another visa and then fly her back again. WHAT! Now that's what I call real friendly. I'm not the only one with this problem. There is a Captain, from Grenada in the Caribbean, of a charter yacht and he is experiencing the same problems. His Seaman's passport is also being ignored.

David had a more pressing problem in that he had to go to court in Trinidad, and therefore needed to know where he was going to be to arrange flight tickets. The obvious solution was to stay in Tahiti and get the rigging repaired while he went to Trini. But I had to stay on Puddytat to look after it.

He then spoke to our agent again..she told us..sorry they aren't listening to her, he was going to have to go and see them himself. Okay David thought, I'll do that.
He dressed himself nice and smart and went in to see the authorities. He was advised to write a letter stating that urgent work was required on the boat to make it seaworthy and that I was the only crew member and was required in order to look after the boat whilst he was away in Trini, and to crew the boat when we eventually left French Polynesia. It would also be necessary to have local confirmation that the work had to be carried out. The letter had to be in French of course ...... Google Translate to the rescue.

David hired a rigging surveyor to come and inspect the rig. He confirmed David's findings that the mast that the tangs for the cap shrouds and the front beam need work before going to sea. He wrote a letter to the high commissioner to confirm that urgent work needed to be done and that it would take 8 weeks to complete. This letter, plus David's did convinced the authorities to grant an extension.

They very reluctantly extended my visa by one month..BUT..I'm not allowed to leave the Marina area....so basically I'm boat bound. Now if we'd not really been getting work done and were trying to pull a fast one on these bods and had planned an extensive exploration of the island I'd understand their reasoning, but as it stands, I really don't.

They wouldn't even accept my seaman's passport because, they said, I wasn't on a mega yacht! first they said..If I had been the Captain of the yacht then it would have been fine, then they said, its not acceptable because it's Zimbabwean, Zim is landlocked it can't issue seaman's passports, so that's irritatingly stupid....it's in fact a South African seaman's passport, then they came up with the Mega yacht story!

So now we sit here, no mast as it has been taken off and David has taken the front cross beam off and examined it. he's having new plates made up to make it safer for our next leg to NZ. The cap shrouds and their mast tangs are being replaced. Our Genoa sail is being re-stitched, and as I write this David is flying back from Trinidad where he went to go and try and sort out the mess that involves a boat yard that destroyed his previous yacht..that's a whole other story....and so I'm all alone, with the CD player blasting out music, me painting, writing or swimming and having a great time...:-D

Before we got here we spent about a month traveling around the Tuamotus. There are an unbelievable number of these places poking their tiny strips of land out of the ocean and on some of them there are a surprisingly large number people living and working. A lot of them work on their own pearl farms. This is a full time occupation it seems, as it takes a pearl 5 years to grow to a decent size and they have to cultivate the spore, nurse them till they are large enough to insert a small piece of shell, that they have cut and shaped into a ball, along with a small piece of the mantle that gives the pearl it's colours, then they string them up in an area where there is no surf, a calm area with good clean water, and they watch them, scrub their shells clean so that barnacles and such don't take root on them. The shells have to be absolutely clean because when the pearl is harvested, the shells are sold to the Chinese who make jewelry out of them. They have to have a new batch every year so that after 5 years they still have more coming up ...to start they have to wait 5 years before they can harvest their first pearl...and...not all of the pearls are 1st class...so it's a lot of hard work.

The snorkeling on these places is fabulous!!! There are clams that are from a few cms to 15 or 20 cm in length with the most beautiful mantles of emerald green or brilliant peacock blue..I wish I'd had a camera to take a few underwater photo's.

Crystal Clear Waters in Paradise :-D

We went to one place, dropped the anchor and jumped into the water. We swam towards the little knoll that was reaching up out of the depths..we swam towards the ridge. The water seemed a dark blue on the other side and we were curious as to as to how deep it was there. Holy Toledo! an incredible sight met our startled eyes. The ridge was the top of a very steep drop. almost a wall...dropping away into oblivion it seemed... we raised our eyes and looked out and saw the hugest groupers and other fish that we'd ever seen on a reef. These guys were about 50 feet away from us and looked to be about 3 feet in length..wow! Just then we caught a movement out of the corner of our eyes and there was a shark..really interested in us..really scary...we swiveled around..we were holding hands so as to be able to call attention to things we saw and also it makes us look big and menacing to any interested sharks..I hoped....we hung in the water almost motionless and faced him.. he swam back and forth in front of us..like he was pacing and deciding just what to do with us....I'd never seen David so wary, he normally just shrugs and continues swimming, but I couldn't see a black tip or a white tip of the normal reef shark, this one was all grey..what was it and why was David so wary of it? It seemed to pace up and down for ages, I was rather scared I must say, I was trying to remember what I'd been told about how to defend myself against an attack...but I tried to tell myself..he's only about 5 ft long and maybe our combined size will make him think twice.... then he made up his mind, turned, and swam leisurely off back down over the ridge..whew...It sure hadn't taken him long to spot us, we'd only just poked our heads over for a few seconds when he came to see what we wanted...David later told me he thought it was a Mako....but later we realised it wasn't.
Well we had a wonderful snorkel after that, that shark didn't come back again, though we both kept a very sharp eye out for him or any of his mates. We did see others though, the black tip and the white tip, I spotted a cousin of the seahorse a tiny little thing, I forget what it's called, it looks pretty much like a seahorse :-D we also saw fully grown spider conch...they were easily 15 inches 36cm from tip to tip..absolutely beautiful. It was a really busy shelf with all sorts of life...

The next day we went ashore....by the way there was not another human to be seen for as far as the eye could see....we walked on the beach and around a knoll that seemed to have two different species of Terns breeding. They got really upset when we walked anywhere near to them so we stayed off a way. We saw, in two of the little rock pools, a Moray eel trapped by the fallen tide. Both of them were trying in vain to hide under a rock. What a glorious day we had.

We pulled Limo up onto the beach..it was tiny shells instead of sand..

Tiny shells.

The little island where the Terns were breeding..and Limo on the beach.

A brittle Starfish..in one of the rock pools.

Moray eel hiding ..caught in a rock pool at low tide.

A hermit crab in a super smart home.

There's a crab in here too..

Black Terns nesting ...

They were nesting here too..

Billy his wife, cat and dog visiting us.

One day we sailed into Katui and tied up to the dock there..it's free and sits in an eddy of the entrance, so the water a few feet away is racing by at 10 knots but it's really calm right by the dock. At the turn of the tide we went snorkeling with a local guy called Billy...we would never had tried this if he hadn't been with us..Absolute shock as we dropped into the water and took in our surroundings!.. Wall to wall corals..I cannot even begin to describe it...all shapes sizes and colours, white, yellow, greens, reds, brilliant blues, purples, pinks...and then there are the fish...yeah I was talking about the corals...astoundingly stunning. Billy was going fishing for his dinner. He had a spear gun. Now I don't like spearing reef fish, but he was going for Wahoo and other game fish that were cruising the area. He did shoot a beautiful parrot fish and I felt so sad...and at the end of the snorkel he presented it to us for our dinner...ugh...We couldn't say no thanks, it would have been rude so we took it and David filleted it. It was a huge fish and we barely got enough meat off it to eat..what a waste of a beautiful life... :-( During the swim, David had the privilege of keeping the speared fish on a line. He had to drag these behind him as he swam around..consequently about 5 reef sharks were rather interested in him :-) I didn't swim too close to him...they made me really nervous, but he didn't seem to be very perturbed. :-D

All in All if anyone wants to experience the South Pacific Islands then these are the places to go. The folks are friendly, there's not much in the way of what we think of as luxuries, but they would just spoil the whole area. The charm of these places lie in the absolute remoteness of them all, the peace and quiet, the turquoise waters and tranquil evenings...I hope they stay that way for a long time to come. One thing we noticed was that when we had some locals aboard and offered them drinks, they were horrified when they thought we were offering them alcohol, they'd only accept soft drinks, they didn't drink tea or coffee either..hee hee ;-)

Of course I haven't been to Bora Bora or any of the islands around Tahiti..so I can't say anything about them ...yet. :-D

Our Adventure in the Las Perlas Islands, Panama.

Saturday Night...Waiting at the airport for Claire and Denver was exciting. I haven't seen Claire since about 1980, and we used to spend just about every weekend together, like sisters. I could hardly contain myself. We were also expecting David to be called into Immigration to show his boat papers, proving that we were there to collect them. We had already sent a copy of our cruising permit via email for them to print out. Suddenly they emerged from within and not seeing us they wandered out of the entrance..I went around the wall and they saw me. Whoo hoo...so great that they have arrived. We hopped into a taxi and zoomed back to the marina, where we found a restaurant to relax, catch up and enjoyed a great Panamanian meal. After about three hours we caught another cab and were soon deposited at the dinghy dock, where we piled the luggage and us all into the dinghy. It was the first time that we'd had 4 people and luggage in 'The Limo'. David rowed us out to Puddytat.It was now really late, so we had a nightcap and staggered off to bed.

Dawn...Sunday morning.

Denver relaxing....

Panama City in the distance.

Next morning, Sunday, we decided to go shopping for food and drink, so we caught a cab to the Allbrook Mall. This was the first time we'd been there and it more American than the malls in America...Extremely posh and rather sterile. Anyway we found the Supermarket and proceeded to fill up the trolleys. The fresh produce was a huge disappointment, but we managed to find almost all we needed. David asked our taxi driver to take us to a place to buy Limes...This is where we should have come to in the beginning. He took us to a massive market with the most wonderful fresh fruit and veg...We think there were meat and fish areas, but it was so huge we didn't see it this time...we'll definitely be going back there. Once we got back to the boat we stored the food and ended up having to use the igloo in the cockpit to store the extra fruit juices and ever important beer.

The igloo is chocas...:-)

We still hadn't been able to find a tank of propane that we could borrow, ours were nearly out and the pick-up to get them filled was only on Tuesday. We'd arrived here on Thursday, today is Sunday...

Water collecting time.

Off they go to collect water..we're off in the morning.

Monday, David asked on the net if anyone would lend us a cylinder but we didn't get any offers. The decision we made was, we'd use the charcoal Barbecue / Braai and do all our cooking on that. So we left, upped anchor and started out on our adventure to the Las Perlas Islands.

Where we are anchored at Panama.

I zoomed out and here is one showing the islands.

The wind freshened to 15 knots, Claire was at the helm and we were scooting along at speeds of up to 10 knots. What a great first experience for Claire and Denver on a Cat! We had a fantastic sail and 6 hours later we dropped anchor at Isla Casaya.

There is an 18 foot rise and fall in the Las Perlas, so we have to make sure that we anchor in at least 24feet at high tide. This allows 3 feet under our rudders at low tide. This place is gorgeous. The island is covered with trees, some of which are in flower..what a lovely sight. The water isn't as clear as usual due to the Humboldt Current that has decided to well up to the surface. This has created a greenish hue to the water and made it much cooler than normal. Claire and Denver took the kayak and paddled around the water's edge. They discovered that they couldn't get ashore as the rocks were to steep or the sand was like mucky mud, so they stayed on the kayak and explored that way.

Off to kayak and explore...

Denver getting in...he didn't fall...:-p

Claire's turn...these guys are good :-)

Bye...have fun!

 Claire here...We managed to clamber aboard the Kayak from Pudddytat and headed into the bay. We were intrigued at how low the tide gone at low tide, exposing a tremendous muddy bottom. We circled the bay where it was deep enough to manouver and saw a huge fishing net about 150 yards long, now exposed by this low tide. We were intreaged to find a dozen or so fish flapping about on the mud, but most most amazing was a 6 foot long crocodile trapped with the fish in the net.

Sundowner time in the islands.

Great Sunset!

David had been painting a newly acquired batten with epoxy to stop the fiberglass hairs from catching in his hands, later he'll paint it white to protect it from UV. The rod was dry when our friends returned, so we stored it along the deck, tying it to the stanchion poles. Denver pulled the kayak back up onto the boat and we set about making a delicious dinner. We had a very pleasant night there.

On Tuesday Morning we set off for our next piece of paradise. This time we had periods of sailing and periods of motoring. The wind is very iffy. Mid afternoon found is dropping the anchor in Isla Espiritu Santo

That beach is actually huge...

A hole in the island...near the beach in the previous pic.

.

Claire and Denver went in the kayak to explore the beach. Watching them pull the kayak up we realised that the trees were much larger than we first realised, Claire and Denver were tiny in comparison. While they were exploring David and I made some sangria and stored it in the freezer. When we first arrived  Claire and Denver pluckedup the courage to jump in for a swim...brrr 22 deg C a bit chilly for me. Two hours after they left for shore they paddled back, hot sweaty and happy. They decided to go for another swim. The weather had warmed up, and even though I hadn't been doing anything I was hot too, so I plucked up my courage and jumped in for a swim with them...eeekk! it was cold. But amazingly enough it soon became rather pleasant.

Claire and Denver had found some treasure and seen some sights..Claire here....
I found this area to be breathtakingly beautiful, with large rock banks and three different golden isolated beaches hidden from view. Denver and I swam at all three beaches and explored the tidal pools. The vegetation was fascinating. Much we didn't recognise, but we saw Bromeliads and orchids, airplants and several varieties of palm trees. We were lucky enough to see a toucan and two green parrots, and listened to their screeching. We also saw many pelicans swooping and diving to catch their dinner and lots of cormorants. As we headed back to Puddytat we were lucky enough to see our second sea turtle, who watched us for a while and then dove, exposing it's beautiful back.

Pelicans feasting...

Our friends decided to sleep out on the trampoline, under the stars. It was a lovely night..and I think they had a really good nights sleep.

Wednesday Morning we were soon sailing/motoring again with Claire at the helm. We are teaching them how to handle the boat. Our destination today is a spot on Isla Del Ray. It's supposed to have a good forest and a pretty river, going by the photo's in the guide book. The bay is called Bahia San Telmo. We dropped our anchor in the part of the bay where the Rio Cacique river emerges into the sea.

Anchored in Bahia San Telmo

Claire and Denver..getting good at this..

We decided to go ashore..all of us. David and I went in the Limo and Claire and Denver went in the Kayak. The waves crashing onto the beach looked rather high and steep, but we decide to go anyway. Claire can fill you in here...ha ha their experience was quite something.....
Denver decided our best bet was to get ahead of the wave, paddle as fast as we could to catch it, and surf it into the beach. Unfortunately there was a big undertow, and as the wave broke, we ran out of water, the kayaks nose plunged 3 feet straight down into the sand, where it lodged itself and catapulted Denver and I 180 deg and we got dumped...big time. Both of us lost our sunglasses, and Denver fortunately didn't break his neck because he did land on his face. We staggered up hauled the kayak up onto the beach and then rushed to help Sylvie and David before they got tumbled too.

David and I decided to go in stern first, so David gingerly rowed us closer and closer. The waves rushed us towards the beach and as we neared it, another wave started to curl and break behind us. It smashed into us, soaking me, wetting David rather thoroughly and dumping a fair bit of water into the dinghy. Claire and Denver grabbed the dinghy and helped us to haul it high up the beach, where David set the anchor. We walked along the long golden beach, the waves cascading constantly, some gentle and some rather large dumpers. Unfortunately the beauty of the area was marred by a lot of litter. We saw a bicycle seat, children's trainers, adults slip slops, plastic bottles and lots of other broken bits and pieces. We decided not to notice them.

Claire found a coconut with milk and lots of flesh here...

The river mouth...

When we got to the river I had to sit, so David set out a chair for me. My back problem doesn't seem to be easing, instead the numbness has started to spread down my leg..It's a tad worrying. Claire had found a coconut, that when she shook it, it sounded like liquid was in it. We planned to open it back on the boat. We'd taken cold beers and kettle crisps with us, so after everyone had explored a bit they came back to me and we cracked open a drink. David found a skull that we eventually decided might have belonged to a dolphin. All in all a very pleasent way to spend a few hours on the beach. Getting back to the boats, we watched the waves very carefully, waiting for the big waves to subside and the smaller waves to take over....A very successfull launching was achieved by both boats and we paddled back to Puddytat, ready for dinner...steak, veg and baked potato tonight! yum! Oh yes, we opened the coconut..and it was full of lovely milk and lots of coconut flesh.

Top of the skull and top jaw.

Underneath the top jaw.

Going back to Puddytat after a day beach combing.

The anchorage has a swell and the waves are trying to climb up our back steps...makes rather a noise but it's fairly regular and it puts you to sleep. This morning, Thursday, Early, a chap paddled up in his dugout canoe to try and sell us some fruit. It was rather green but we bought some. He'd paddled a couple of miles to get to us, we thought he came from a village we could see in the far distance....at the moment we are waiting for the current to be in our favour so we could continue our adventure.  Finally at 10:30 we upped anchor and have been motoring until a little while ago when the wind came up and we are now sailing.

The fruit seller in his dugout.

Claire....the 4 hour trip was spectacular. We sailed past numerous beautiful islands with dramatic scenery, golden beaches, green foliage and rugged rocks. We were also visited by dolphin and sailed past schools of rays.

Steep sided islands..

Birds, birds birds...fishing..but we're not catching.. :-p

Reefs you must look out for...

The ocean crashing onto reefs....beautiful trees.

Dawn search for food.

Denver Fishing...

The anchor was dropped at Isla Bayoneta at about 4 pm. We were in a tiny bay and so could see a lot of the life around us close up. We sat and had sundowners and watched the birds fishing. There were  pelicans endlessly diving and elegant flocks of a white bird that was either a heron or and egret but they had curved orangy beaks. The trees reminded us of Africa. They looked like flat topped accacia and Massasa. The colours resembled the golden bush in the Afircan winter. Claire and Denver just couldn't get over the night skys with the incredible number of stars. We were also anchored within sight of at least 5 islands and only saw one distant light. What a paradise!

Denver dropping the anchor.

The white bird with the orange beak.

Fishing.

Friday morning...we got up at sevenish and David made us a breakfast that consisted of tortillia with sugar and squeezed lime, rolled up into a cigar shape and scoffed down as fast as possible. Then Denver and Clair dropped the Kayak into the water and took off to explore. David and I stayed to clean the barnacles off the bottom of the boat.
Claire says.... Denver and I found a passage between two islands and on the far side of the passage found two little beaches, one on each island. We explored the left one first. It was so beautiful and tropical, so dense that you couldn't penetrate it. It had tall overhead date palms and coconut palms. The water was clear with a green tint and the shells were plentiful. We scared an iguana which dived off the rocks and into the water. After a very cold swim we headed off to the other island, which was equally as beautiful. There we found a full grown Olivia Bulbosa in pristine condition..what a find! We were swimming again when David and Sylvie arrived in the Limo and persuaded us to paddle to yet another beach where we'd find cowrie shells...we hoped.

Sylvie....David rowed us around the corner and there we saw a lovely secluded beach protected by a large reef, so getting ashore would be easy. We gently wafted past rather a lot of those white birds, who were fishing off the rocks. Once we'd pulled the dinghy ashore we started to search for shells. There were hundreds of them, but a lot were broken up. Also on the shore were thousands of little bright multi coloured pebbles scattered on the sand. We explored that beach and then crossed over some rocks to another beach that extended deep into the island. We were pottering around collecting shells of various vibrant hue when David said that he'd found a jelly fish stranded in a pool. I had the camera so I started to climb over some still wet rocks and all of a sudden my feet just zipped skyward. I landed, hard, on my back and lay there stunned for a minute. David came over and helped me up. Amazingly, other than the initial pain of banging a part of your body, I was fine. So we continued to search for shells. We amassed a fair haul and a few hours later ambled back to Puddytat. Rowing back, the tide had gone out so far that we barely made it over the section inbetween the two islands, the sand scraping the dinghy's bottom. Soon we were home. I had a swim and a shampoo and then went to the bows to enjoy a sundowner with David whilst our friends had a swim and a wash. We lifted anchor soon after that and set sail for Panama City...

Claire watching her last sunset at sea.

Denver in his favourite spot.

Sadly our week in the Pearls was over.....We have the challange of cooking a meal on the barbecue/braai whilst we sail back. So far we've managed to cook a lentil curry and some pork, that may be ribs or not we're not sure.. ;-) We'll be dropping anchor at Flaminco island after sunset tonight....It was a week in heaven.