Tuamotus. Amazing!

Friday June 12th 2015

Ahoy there ! We are still traveling between atolls in the Tuamotus!! 

The sail between each atoll is usually done over night (as they are a close 40-60 nmiles apart and timing to leave one atoll in good light and/or tide, then arrive to the other in good tide or light) but we have to time our arrival just right with daylight to have the best visibility of the surrounding reefs. Sometimes this means slowing the boat right down or 'heaving to' (completely stopping) for a few hours in the night. 

An atoll is an old volcanic island which has eroded away leaving nothing but a thin rim of reefs with an interior large lagoon. Some of the breaks in between the outer rim offer us a safe passages (which thankfully have been well charted and marked for arriving sailboats. Still, when the time comes for us to enter the passage, it’s All Hand on Deck,  and quite exciting! 

Meg and Matt keeping watch when we enter the lagoon.

 

What you see when you look in towards one of these passages is a swirling, boiling soup of water , waves going in any and all directions and the current can be quite strong, it is an eerie feeling as your boat gets caught up into the current and suddenly your speed increases, you are being pulled in, and all your have to do is keep control of the boat , steer it straight and keep the engine going, just in case. Other than this little bit of steering control, you are quite at the mercy of the current for a few minutes, sort of like when the 'Millennium Falcon' gets pulled in towards the Death Star in Star Wars, except that instead of Storm Troopers and Lord Vader waiting for you at gunpoint when you arrive, you are welcomed by calm, ridiculously transparent, beautiful, aqua blue water. 

The dinghy dock at one of the rare "towns" found in the Tuamotus. This is the tiny village in Makemo.

The anchorages we've been to so far have offered great protection. The view never disappoints; the idyllic deserted island, palm trees, surrounded by 'bombies' (small reef outcrops). At night, the stars shine brighter than anywhere I've ever seen on earth and there is no one around! 

THIS is what we have to look out for while we are sailing in the  Atolls, there are many scattered all around us.

Because the water is so protected in these atolls, we have had some beautiful day sails. With almost zero swell, it is like sailing on a lake. Living onboard a monohull, we have grown accustomed to living while being constantly healed on one side, but these downwind sails have provided us with perfectly horizontal and steady ground to stand on, while still enjoying the fun of racing forward with the wind. The only think we have to be wary of are the many reefs, so one of us usually has to perch ourselves quite high in our rigging to keep a lookout. 

Mark finds a comfortable spot to look for reef. (Inside Makemo Atoll)

We have not been doing much fishing within the Atolls, as some reef fish have ciguatera (a type of food poisoning which is caused by an accumulation of toxins in the fish), but once back out in the deep, deep waters, we have thrown our lines in, but we have not had much luck recently, only having caught one large unknown fish who promptly jumped out of the water stealing our lure and swimming out of our reach before we even knew it happened! One day we were subjected to a particularly cruel teasing by a large school of tuna. They swam along side Amelie for over an hour, jumping on either side of us. We could see them clearly as they chased along side our hulls. We had two lines out and Mark even went to get a fishing rod and started to cast out towards them, and we caught NONE! Oh well, we still got to enjoy a delicious fish barbecue with friends on board SV Perry who were luckier and caught an enormous (5 foot) wahoo one day! 

Days have been filled with school, which is rapidly coming to an end (just a few more weeks before summer vacation starts!) and pretty spectacular snorkeling. It is amazing how quickly one adapt to sharing swimming space with sharks! There are just so many here! They usually come out to investigate when they hear our splash when we first jump in. They are pretty cool to see. Sure you get a rush of adrenaline (never fails), but then you see them gently swim on by. Occasionally they grant you a second or third visit to investigate you a little bit more, but nothing too alarming. We have mostly seen black tip (reef) and nurse sharks, usually in the range of 4-6 feet long, so not small, but harmless just the same. 

The reef fish are very colourful here, even more colourful, I think, than in the Caribbean, and there is a greater variety of all the species, just so many, its hard to describe. It is always a joy to experience this, it never seems to get old! 

A black tip shark in Tuamatous

Some colourful Clams in the Coral

‘Mark’, It rhymes with 'Shark'! A funny thing happened to Mark today as he was diving behind the boat (trying to retrieve a socket he had dropped while working earlier). He came up laughing telling us that a ramora fish (the kind you often seen attached to a shark's belly) was trying to attach himself to Mark (and or his weight belt) and I guess he was quite insistent about it. Mark had to push him away several times! We are slowly making our way across the Tuamotus, currently at Fakarava, on our way to the Society Islands (Tahiti) which we should reach next week. As always, we are sending you lots of love from this part of the world. 4Ms sailing 

Amelie IV anchored in Raroia

A tiny hermit crab, Raroia

View from the lagoon, with the Pacific Ocean in the background

Sunset, Tuamotus, French Polynesia

A close up of the Atoll, where we found the land crabs, Raroia

A Memorable Dolphin Encounter and crossing to the Tuamotus

Friday June 5th 2015

The Melon Head Dolphins we encountered on the way to Anaho Bay, Nuku Hiva. Photo by SV Seabbatical

Before I tell you about the Tuamotus I need to tell you about the Melon Heads ! 

Sounds like a the name of an 80‘s punk band but I am actually refering to  the huge dolphin pod we encountered on the East Coast of Nuku Hiva. On our Way to Anaho Bay, our last anchorage before the Tuamotus, we had a pleasant day sail where we first were greeted by a pod of small grey and white dolphins. They did their usual fly by, just enough to delight us, for about 10 minutes, but less than 30 minutes later we were surprised to see more dolphins appear at our bow, they were of a much larger variety, grey like Bottlenose dolphins but with very round heads, (that’s were they get their name: the MelonHeads!) These very social dolphins stayed with us for about 90 minutes !  This was a fantastic display that Meg and MC simply could not get enough of !  We abandoned school for the morning and sat with them at the bow of the boat. These guys were so much fun and they didn’t want to leave us !  At one point the wind died and so did our speed, the boat was almost stopped and we couldn’t believe it, but the usually speedy dolphins actually stopped too!  They slowed , turned around and came to hang out at the boat , swimming around and waited with us for the wind to come up again !  Making eye contact with the dolphins was a very special thing, every once in a while, one of them would turn to his/her side and look right into my eyes !  Meg and I were beside ourselves, and we even belted out a few songs to show the dolphins our appreciation What song do you serenade a dolphin with you ask ? Well, since we were dealing with highly intelligent animals, we chose everyone’s favourite classical: “Ave Maria” followed by “Edelweiss”. I think they liked it !  We didn’t scare them away anyways!

While in Anaho we enjoyed a hike over the hill to the nearby village where we visited another ancient archeological site and saw an enormous tree ! We then headed off to the Tuamotus !

Meg and MC sing to the dolphins

They stayed with us for more than an hour !

A most memorable encounter !

MC and Meg conversing with the 'Melon Head's at Amelie's bow (Photo courtesy of SV Seabbatical)

3 day crossing to the Tuamotus: Mark to the rescue! 

He says to me: "I think there's water in the engine". He looks grim. This is Day One of a difficult three day crossing towards the Tuamotus, a group of Atolls (reef islands) south of the Marquesas. Difficult crossing because we are close hauled (almost into the wind), the winds are 20 and gusting to 30, and the swell is bigger than expected. MC's seasickness has made an unwelcomed come back and generally everything seems ALOT more difficult than our 20 day crossing from a month ago! At any rate, Mark made the disturbing discovery about water in the exhaust when our engine would not start. He thinks the constant battering of waves hitting us from the side have pushed water back up the exhaust and made it into the engine....somehow..."How can that be?" , I ask, "These boats are designed to get hit by waves, and its never happened before?" 

We don't know how it happened, but one thing's for sure, this problem HAS to be solved within the next 48 hours, or we can't stop at the Tuamotus. It would be insane to try to navigate the atoll passes and reefs without a reliable engine, our PLAN B would be to keep sailing and head towards the Society Islands(Tahiti) another 2 days away . 

It is 4 pm and we have less than 2 hours of daylight left before sunset, Mark gets to work right away. He has drained the exhaust and turned the engine over by hand to ensure all water has been cleared from the cylinders, but wants to get the engine started to try to get any remaining water out, but there is a problem with the starter now. He looks worried. Even within the fog of seasickness, I am not. I have been married to to this guy for a long time and I have 100% faith that if there is a guy who can fix this problem out here, it's Mark. The starter for the engine is located in a difficult place to work on it, but he won't let that stop him, only stopping to eat dinner, he trudges on. At almost midnight, I can hear the roar of the engine at is starts. As I am lying in my bunk, I smile, he did it! 

When I come up for my watch at 03:00 am, he is visibly more relieved, although covered in cuts and bruises on both his arms and chest. This is the cost of doing work in heavy seas while underway. He deserves a medal. 

The next day Mark spent doing oil change after oil change (3 so far, and he's planning another one after the engine has run a few more hours) as it looked like some water got into the oil. We keep all the used oil on board, for later disposal, and he had bought enough oil and filters back in Panama and Columbia so we are ok. Looks like we will be seeing the beautiful Tuamotus after all! Thankfully, it doesn't appear any damage to the engine was done, but he'll have to figure out how to prevent this from happening again, and we'll have the engine more thoroughly checked out when we get somewhere with better services. 

We are now anchored inside the atoll of Raroia. There are no words to describe this place. It is so immaculate that it looks fabricated. There is no one here, this island is mostly uninhabited, but there is a very small village about 6 miles from where we're anchored and one building where there is a pearl farm. We can see the buoys indicating where the pearls are to be found. Scattered around us there are outcrops of reef which create a wonderful spectrum of yellow, green , blue and turquoise at the surface of the water where they break. 

Last night we went for a short walk on a small motu (small island), and discovered hundreds of large hermit crabs and land crabs. When we turned the flashlight on them, they all moved together, like in a well choreographed dance routine: And, FIVE, SIX SEVEN EIGHT and...LIFT claws up above your head,,, SLIDE to the left, three steps...thats it...and ...STRIKE A POSE... Freeze!" 

We were looking for the Coconut Crabs, the largest crabs in the world....and yes, they are big enough to haul away large coconuts and eat them. We will keep looking for them, but for now, this latest display by these smaller land crabs will have to do ! 

And now, the Tuamotus! 

The three day crossing was not much fun,  but the destination was well worth it !  We were anchored in such still water that it felt like we were in a lake. We spent nearly a week, resting and cleaning the boat, doing school work and catching up on laundry, reading and sleep. We were again surrounded by many of our friends , all 'kids boats', so there were plenty of water sports for the kids to participate in !  Meg had a go at windsurfing, with Justin from SV Misbehaving, a former instructor, giving all the kids an afternoon lesson. Meanwhile, Matthew enjoyed being pulled around on the paddle board. 

We also had a chance to visit the nearby Pearl Farm. I was really neat to see how the process is done: They implant the adult clam with a natural fresh water pearl; (Harvested in the USA, Mississipi river and then processed in Japan) and then allow the pearls to grow over a few months (they put the clams back in the sea water, all attached to one another in a long chain) until they are ready to harvest. While snorkelling on the reef near the boat we found a clam, probably a stray from the farm which had come detached, when we brought it back to the boat,  Mark was able to open it, and we found a black pearl inside !

Another neat excursion for us was to go and see the site where the famous Kon Tiki expedition ended (where the raft crashed into the reef) in 1947. There was a small plaque with all of the names of the men who had been part of this legendary crossing. Lead by Thor Heyerdahl, their crossing proved to the world that a raft launched in South America could make the journey all the way to Polynesia. We had seen the movie a few years ago, but seeing this site inspired us to re-watch it that night. Meg enjoyed it very much.

We are now anchored just outside the town on Makemo, another atoll island in the Tuamotus. Not since Tobago Keys in the Grenadines last July had we seen water this crystal clear !  It is like we are anchored in a swimming pool !  At 60 feet, I could still see the bottom !  We look forward to some more great snorkelling, already we have seen lots of  reef sharks, the usual multi-coloured fish, some turtles as well as giant clam shells. 

We will spend a couple of weeks here in the Tuamotus before heading off towards Tahiti. Where we are very excited to be welcoming some friends from Calgary on board Amelie, Megs best friend Olivia, her sister Alexis and their mom, our good friend, Sonia in July!

The pearl farm in Raroia

SV Amelie IV sailing on the coast of Nuku Hiva

Finding black pearls in the Tuamotus

Crash Landing site of the Kontiki expedition 

Meg tries windsurfing

Matthew practicing his "wake boarding"

The Pearl farm

Mooring balls with Amelie in the background

Mooring balls, Raroia

Photo taken by Mark from the top of our mast (65 feet up)

Raroia (taken with a GoPro camera that we attached to a kite!)

The breathtaking Tuamotus (Raroia)

Our anchorage in Raroia, taken by mounting a camera to a kite !

Last Stop in the Marquesas: Nuku Hiva

After leaving Ua Pou, we headed to Nuku Hiva, where we happily ran into our friends from SV Kazaio and Zorba. This is where we were also finally able to catch up with Simon from SV Mandala, before his solo departure to Tahiti, where he will try to haul out his boat. They have decided to take a year off, so that his wife can properly recover in Canada. We were sad to have missed saying Goodbye to Marie-Noelle and the kids, as they boarded a plane just one day before we arrived. (Meghan wrote them a nice letter and made little gifts for them that she gave to Simon though).

Although Fatu Hiva remains my favourite in terms of sheer beauty, there is much to love in Nuku Hiva. It is a place where I could live. Again we saw beautiful scenery, flowers, manta rays and warm welcoming people. We made breathtaking discoveries like a small river, straight out of a biblical garden of Eden, that we stumbled upon while out on the paddle board. We had a great hike to some very tall waterfalls, and watched more traditional dancing and signing in a village (they are preparing for a big dancing festival in August, with all islands participating).

We were able to rest and find fresh provisions (and found internet!), and there was plenty of time to socialize and meet new cruisers. One night they organized a "Dinghy Drift". People come out with snacks and drinks in their dinghies and they all raft up and drift together, meandering for a few hours until sunset.

Meghan had a chance to try sailing an 'Opti' (Optimist sailing dinghy) again (last time was in the BVI in 2011), and this time she had the guidance from a former Olympian! Owen from SV Seabattical, was on the 1996 Australian Sailing Team. Under his helpful guidance she really learned fast! What a great opportunity for her!

                                            

Photo Courtesey of SV Seabbatical

3 day crossing: Mark to the rescue!

He says to me: "I think there's water in the engine". He looks grim. This is Day One of a difficult three day crossing towards the Tuamotus, a group of Atolls (reef islands) south of the Marquesas. Difficult crossing because we are close hauled (almost into the wind), the winds are 20 and gusting to 30, and the swell is bigger than expected. MC's seasickness has made an unwelcomed come back and generally everything seems ALOT more difficult than our 20 day crossing from a month ago! At any rate, Mark made the disturbing discovery about water in the exhaust when our engine would not start. He thinks the constant batttering of waves hitting us from the side have pushed water back up the exhaust and made it into the engine....somehow...."How can that be?" , I ask, "These boats are designed to get hit by waves, and its never happened before?"

We don't know how it happened, but one thing's for sure, this problem HAS to be solved within the next 48 hours....or we can't stop at the Tuamotus....it would be insane to try to navigate the atoll passes and reefs without a reliable engine.....our PLAN B would be to keep sailing and head towards the Society Islands(Tahiti) another 2 days away .

It is 4 pm and we have less than 2 hours of daylight left before sunset, Mark gets to work right away....he has drained the exhaust and turned the engine over by hand to ensure all water has been cleared from the cylinders, but wants to get the engine started to try to get any remaining water out, but there is a problem with the starter now. He looks worried. Even within the fog of seasickness, I am not. I have been married to to this guy for a long time and I have 100% faith that if there is a guy who can fix this problem out here, it's Mark. The starter for the engine is located in a difficult place to work on it, but he won't let that stop him....only stopping to eat dinner, he trudges on. At almost midnight, I can hear the roar of the engine at is starts. As I am lying in my bunk, I smile, he did it.

When I come up for my watch at 03:00 am, he is visibly more relieved, although covered in cuts and bruises on both his arms and chest. This is the cost of doing work in heavy seas while underway. He deserves a medal.

The next day Mark spent doing oil change after oil change (3 so far, and he's planning another one after the engine has run a few more hours) as it looked like some water got into the oil. We keep all the used oil on board, for later disposal, and he had bought enough oil and filters back in Panama and Columbia so we are ok. Looks like we will be seeing the beautiful Tuamotus after all! Thankfully, it doesn't appear any damage to the engine was done, but he'll have to figure out how to prevent this from happening again, and we'll have the engine more thoroughly checked out when we get somewhere with better services.

We are now anchored inside the atoll of Raroia. There are no words to describe this place. It is so immaculate that it looks fabricated. There is no one here, this island is mostly uninhabited, but there is a very small village about 6 miles from where we're anchored and one building where there is a pearl farm. We can see the buoys indicating where the pearls are to be found. Scattered around us there are outcrops of reef which create a wonderful spectrum of yellow, green , blue and turquoise at the surface of the water where they break.

Last night we went for a short walk on a small motu (small island), and discovered hundreds of large hermit crabs and land crabs....when we turned the flashlight on them, they all moved together, like in a well choreographed dance routine : ...and FIVE, SIX SEVEN EIGHT and ...LIFT claws up above your head,,, SLIDE to the left, three steps...,thats it....and .....STRIKE A POSE.... Freeze !

We were looking for the Coconut Crabs, the largest crabs in the world....and yes, they are big enough to haul away large coconuts and eat them. We will keep looking for them, but for now, this latest display by these smaller land crabs will have to do !


We will spend a couple of weeks here in the Tuamotus and then will head off towards Tahiti. Where we are very excited to be welcoming some friends from Calgary on board Amelie, (Megs best friend Olivia, her sister Alexis and their mom,our good friend, Sonia) in July!)

Meghan On Amelie-May 2015

Before I start my blog, I would like to say that yes, I am going to post my blog about our great  Pacific crossing but at the moment, I apologize, I am not able to. To make a long story short, a water glass spilled onto my laptop during rough seas and it doesn't seem to be working. Luckily, I have everything backed up but I can't open my blog on my parents' computer. Again, I really apologize for the mixup and I'm hoping to get that blog posted as soon as possible but I promise you it will come eventually.Anyway,  during the past few weeks, I haven't really spent all my time worrying about my computer because I've had the  wonderful opportunity to enjoy the amazing Marquesas islands. Just so you know, because I got quite confused with it too, the Marquesas, Tuomotos and Tahiti are the three sets of islands in French Polynesia. It's hard for me to believe that we are officially in the South Pacific now!

I do have to say that the Galapagos would have won the first prize for diversity of animals so far on this trip but I'm pretty sure Marquesas is going to score first for amazing landscapes! Not just that but also for over the top nice people.

Every single Marquesan we've met seems to be so special in one way or another. Any village we go to, they welcome us with smiles on their faces and always show us something special ; whether it's playing a song for us on their hand carved ukalele or selling us fresh fruit from their garden. Sometimes, we would bring a soccer ball in to play with the local kids and the children never showed off or laughed like they were better than us (although they were!) but instead they would high five us and make us feel part of the team. We also couldn't believe how clean, garbage wise, every place was (which actually seems to be a tradition of the French islands). The Marquesans know that working together as a team and keeping peace is the key to the ideal world we are looking for!
We have been to five islands (including the one we are at right now) and those islands are:

Fatu Hiva
The island we arrived at after our 19 and a half day crossing across the Pacific. All I can say about it is "WOW!!". Definitely my favourite island in the Marquesas! The view when you come into the anchorage is nothing like you would ever see anywhere else and walking in the tiny, 300 populated village  under the towering mountain of endless green was inexplicable!

One problem though, we didn't have any Francs, the locals didn't accept Euros and there was no bank in that village. There was one obvious, simple solution: don't buy anything until we got to another island which had a bank. But then we realized that the locals wanted to trade their fruit and crafts for our clothes and other goods we didn't need but that they did.
We had run out of fresh fruit on about day 15 of our crossing so we were all for trading our old stuff we were just going to give away for free for good things we wanted that these people didn't need. Our first trade we did was for my old pair of crocs, three coffee mugs and my old old volleyball that leaks a bit, we got about eight big grapefruits, three little fruit called pomelos and two pieces of art painted on breadfruit tree bark! Another trade we did was for some walky-talkies, we got a beautiful carved wooden tiki which are their gods. 

Some of the things we collected to trade with the locals

With the adults, we would normally trade but with the kids, we just stuck to giving. Either than my elastic bracelets, we also gave them shoes, clothes, toys and just because they're kids, little candies! Now, the kids on Fatu Hiva didn't have any stores in their village except a little gas station-like store and the several stores in the other town on the island, Omoa so they have to be quite creative in the activities they do to keep themselves busy. The first time I met the kids, they were swimming in the small stream before dinner while the adults played their daily game of soccer. One of the girls was fishing and when I asked her how she did it, she showed me a piece of palm tree leaf that was tied and made a circle at the end. She said that she would put the tied end underwater and when a fish or shrimp swam through, she would quickly pull it up and grab it. Another girl told me to collect the yellow flowers that were on the ground and fill a plastic bottle full of water so she could make glue. She would crush the flowers, which were sticky inside, with a rock and then add the water to make it even stickier! Another day, we walked past the river when we saw a dead, blown up puffer fish on the shore. The kids immediately rushed over cheering and clapping. Then, one of them took a stick and started wacking it as hard as he could! Then each of them did it until it popped which resulted in the most disgusting smell I have ever smelled but I guess something had to replace the candy for this piñata! 

We also had the chance to go hiking on Fatu Hiva. If it weren't for the piles of rocks that marked the way, we would have surely got lost! The end view was spectacular! We knew we were hiking to a waterfall but I never imagined it would be as tall and beautiful as it was! It looked so much like a movie that the BBC South Pacific video theme song was in my head when I saw it!

One day, when coming back to the boat, we caught sight of big manta rays swimming right at the surface right near the boat so my mom and I jumped on in and came back with memories we will never forget!

Hiva Oa 
Here are some pictures from our car drive around the island of Hiva Oa:

Tahuata (pronounced ta-oo-a-ta)
They say that the Marquesas are not a beach destination and I would definitely say that's right except Tahuata. It was nice to be back in crystal clear water with rich reefs, manta rays everywhere and a beautiful sandy beach perfect for boogie boarding!

The part of Tahuata we went to was completely uninhabited except three people including a man named Steven who we met. When he was younger, he lived in Hiva Oa but decided to leave so he swam away to the part of Tahuata he lives in now which belongs to his grandfather. He ended up arranging a potluck for basically all the cruisers in the bay and caught and cooked a delicious octopus which was extraordinary!

Ua Pou (pronounced wa poo)
After Fatu Hiva, Ua Pou was the most beautiful island in my opinion. I said it looked like a magical fairy kingdom in the clouds! Look in the picture yourself and see if you agree.

Nuku Hiva
Now, we are here on Nuku Hiva, the capital of the Marquesas. 

The first bay we went to was Daniel's Bay. Daniel's Bay is actually just what the cruisers call it but the locals prefer we call it by their native name which unfortunately I don't know. Anyway, there is a river just beyond the bay and since it's too shallow to dinghy in there, my mom and I took the paddle board. It was one of those places where nothing could have been better. If you were to change anything, it would only make it worse. The water was so still it made a perfect mirror, there were herons fishing nearby, as we paddled in, the pine trees (yes, believe it or not there are pine trees here) would brush against our faces, there were little huts in the trees where some locals lived and just to top it off, when we exited, we got the whole view of the mountainous landscape! 

I also found Daniel's Bay a great place to try my first attempt of stand up paddling (normally we just use the paddle board as a kayak) and to do some paddle board surfing near the beach. 

As well as the Fatu Hiva waterfall, we also did a hike to a waterfall from Daniel's Bay. But this time, it wasn't just any waterfall, it was Vaipo: the third largest waterfall in the world! 

Now, we are in the main anchorage in Nuku Hiva, Tabhae, and this is, unfortunately, our last island in the amazing Marquesas but we are looking forward to the beautiful water and spectacular reefs of the Tuamotus! 

Again, hopefully I'll be able to post my April blog soon. 

Bye bye! 

P.S: Excuse the writing at the begining, I can't seem to be able to change the font.

Amelie in Daniel's Bay