Out of the Water

This is a sign on the side of a building in Fakarava telling yachties that they are not allowed to bring in genetically mutant giant cats and dogs into French Polynesia. At least not without a veterinary inspection first. (Sorry the photo isn’t better, but we thought it was too hilarious to not post.)
The town at the south end of Fakarava used to be the administrative capital of the Tuamotus. Now it is not much more than a couple of dive shops and some small ‘resort’ cottages for rent to the visiting divers. This is the old jail house.
The old 1874 coral church is still in good shape. It has in-laid oyster shell in its facade.

A couple of the cottages for rent; overhanging the water for a great view of the fish.

The number of pearl farms seems to be going down in the Tuamotus due to economic reasons. The stack of balls on the left side of these pearl farm buildings are the floats that hold up the frames that the black-lip oysters grow on.

Chris’ peacock colored pearl necklace haul.

These hermit crabs are devouring a coconut that they have clawed into. We have a good book that helps identify Pacific island reef creatures. For the crabs, the first thing you need to do is determine if it is a left-handed crab or a right-handed crab. There’s no explanation of this in the book, but it turns out to mean does the crab have a larger left claw or right claw. I’m still not sure on these guys, but I think they are left-handed.
When we were leaving through the north pass at Fakarava this mega-sail-yacht was on its way in. The question I have is it a mega-yacht or is it an aircraft carrier? If you click on the photo to enlarge it you should be able to see the plane that sits on the stern of the yacht M5.
Paul

Skin Diving Fakarava

We are continuing our shark desensitivity training. The pass at south Fakarava is known for its collection of sharks. They cruise around in the current waiting for fish to get swept in with the current for their lunches. There’s stories of dangerous breeds of sharks like tigers and bulls being in the pass. We only saw the black-tip, white-tip and grey sharks that are not likely to mess with a human morsel. I still wonder about the possibility of a young-adult psychopath going nuts on a few tourists. Growing up in Florida I learned the shark rules ditty about when they feed: 10 to 3, can’t bite me. So I’m always careful when I see a shark looking at its watch.
The collection of other fish on the reefs that line the pass are pretty impressive. They range from the small, colorful, typical reef fish like these Masked Bannerfish… 

To this monstrous Napoleon fish (or Bumphead Wrasse). These guys get to be as long as 7 1/2 feet. Not sure how big this one is, but I know he weighs a lot.

Here’s the same napoleon fish with Chris in the background filming with her GoPro to help show the size. That’s one big fish. And he was curious about the snorkelers.

A Golden Trumpetfish hanging head down so no one will recognize him and he can snap up unwary passersby.

A big Grouper checking out the photographer.

A Moray eel suggesting that she owns this nest.

Blacktip shark coming to close to a snorkeler for a photo op.

A Pineapple Sea Cucumber grazing on the coral.

A version of a unicorn fish that doesn’t have the unicorn spike.

I finally got a decent picture of these odd unicorn fish – proving that Unicorns do exist. They always seem to be running away from me. You can see the unicorn horn sticking off its head. Not sure what they use the evolutionary tool for.

Some pretty corals too.

A starfish hanging onto some coral

This is taken passing the piers near the side of the inner pass with the in-coming current. Blue Damselfish showing off their colors.

Important advice: let sleeping sharks lie.

Paul

Makemo Feast

We did an overnight from Raroia to Makemo. Entered the pass with a strong out going current that looked a bit like a fast river. Maybe 5 knots at times. There were no standing waves, so it was pretty easy. We anchored near the town of about 800 people. The oven in the bakery was temporarily broken, so no baguettes were to be had. But what we really wanted was 'essence', aka gasoline, for the dinghy. No essence till next Sunday's ship shows up. This is kind of a problem because when we left Hiva Oa there was no gas either– it was supposed to be in on the next ship too!
We spent a night in the town anchorage in light winds(16*37.6S 143*34.35W)  . Then sailed down 15 miles through the uncharted lagoon to a nice anchorage on a sand spit(16*31.2S 143* 49.37W). Its pretty tiring watching for reefs as you sail along.
Here's me in my color coordinated conning outfit. You can see the reef we were passing at the time. AS we sail across the lagoon, these babies show up about every 1/2 to 1 mile or so and come straight up out of 60 to 100 feet deep water to about 1 foot deep. They are pretty easy to spot when the light is right, but as soon as the sun gets low in the sky or the clouds cover it, they are deadly.
After a few days in this anchorage we headed to the west end of the atoll near where there is a second pass that we could exit in a few days. We worked our way between the shoals and reefs into a nice anchorage (16*27.11S 143*58.01W). We were sailing with Bob and Mona on Continuum who we met back in Bonaire. As soon as Bob got there he realized that the single local's boat tied up was his buddy he met in the main town, Vanui. Vanui and his fishing partner Jonas immediately invited all the cruisers into a pot luck that evening. They supplied the freshly caught lobster, coconut crab, Mahi Mahi and Wahoo.

Vanui (left) and Jonas BBQing away, Tuamotu style.

This is one of the coconut crabs that the boys had captured. They sell them in town for about US$50 a piece. Even though they were living off what they caught here, they insisted on cooking up the local delicacy for us. The lobsters were a little closer to our normal tastes.
That's the Mahi being pre-BBQed. It is amazing to see how they catch these. They have an outboard powered boat that has its steering station right up in the bow. They go out the pass into the open ocean and look for the Mahi. When they see one they go into a full speed chase. One guy driving, the other holding a long harpoon.  When they get up alongside the fish, in a flick of a second the harpoon is launched and the fish is on its way to dinner.
  This is the harpoon they use. They are in the water cleaning the day's catch here. The harpoon is being used to poke the sharks that keep coming up to get a little of the leftovers or maybe a leg or finger.

One of the black tipped reef sharks coming into the shallows right next to the beach looking for any leftovers

Here's Bob (from Continuum) in his element

 

The crowded BBQ top

There's an art to opening those coconut crab claws and Mona has it down using the all-purpose machete.

We were short a serving bowl, so Jonas went to work to quickly weave one. No need for extra plastic here.

We were also short of rum mixer, so Vanui climbed the closest coconut tree and knocked down 4 or 5 green coconuts to get the coconut water.

What great hosts these guys were – a time to be remembered.

Paul

Burning the Remains of the Kon Tiki Raft

We motored over to the east side of the Raroia atoll, dodging the corals and reef along the way for 7 miles. In between the reefs the water is 80 feet deep. We caught up with some friends on a catamaran --  yes, we do actually have cat friends. The boat’s name and their faces have been obstructed – for soon to be obvious reasons. They invited us over to the small motu(island) that is where the Kon Tiki raft wrecked in 1947 for a bonfire. What we didn’t realize was that they were collecting the left over parts of the raft to burn for the evening!
There’s a small monument to the Kon Tiki on the motu. The next night we watched the Hollywood version of Kon Tiki. Pretty tacky movie, but what a great venue for a showing.
Here’s the actual reef that the Thor and his buddies crash landed on. He did manage to show that 5 or 6 Norwegians led by a charismatic non-swimmer could take a  leaky raft from Callao, Peru, to the Tuamotus, French Polynesia, in 101 days at sea. Today, most of his theories about Polynesia being settled by early South Americans have been discredited.
  Before we left the Marquesas we stocked up on pamplemouse (Polynesian grapefruit) with this 60 lb bag that was harvested for us by tour guide extrodinaire, John, on the north shore of Hiva Oa.

Exploring one of the many small cuts between the uninhabited motus that make up the Raroia atoll.

There’s even some pink sand beach walks available.

The Fairy Terns were not too happy about us walking on their motu. They would raise up into the wind and stay in one spot right over our heads keeping a careful eye on us.

The blue-gray noddies were not happy about our presence either, but they keep their distance.

We snorkeled a reef just NW of the Kon Tiki island. We weren’t expecting much as it was a bit windy. Turned out to be a really nice snorkel. The shallow corals are a hang-out for small colorful reef fish, you can see some hiding down inside the crevices of this coral.

There were dozens of these Giant Clams. When ever you approached them they closed up and hid most of that blue mantle.

There were a few big fish around, including this shy grouper.

We think this is a Pacific Pearl Oyster, about 10 or more inches across. We didn’t check to see if he had a pearl inside.

The corals were healthy with some amazing colors.

Paul

Raroia Pass Drift Dive

We did our first drift snorkel through the pass on the atoll of Raroia, where we are anchored in the Tuamotus (in the east central area of 1700 km chain of atolls). This place is known for its sharks – actually all of the Tuamnotus are known for sharks. So I wanted to get the shark thing out of the way in the first picture.  The drift dives in the pass are just what they sound like. You wait till the current is going into the lagoon, go out to the ocean side in the dinghy and jump in holding a long line to the dink and float through the pass. When we first got there the pass current was probably 3 kts and you  jetted through the pass, floating over the corals, at high speed. By the time we were on our fifth or sixth run in, the current had laid down to a gentle shove.
On each drift in we saw three or four sharks cruising around. There is a pretty wide variety of sharks here. The upper photo being a Black Tip Reef Shark, the next one being a White Tip Shark. Both species non-aggressive, or so our book says. The unidentified sharks are the ones that worry you while you are in the water.
  The drift dives are really perfect for GoPros. Chris got some good video. A scene like the one above goes flying by you in about 5 seconds when there’s a strong current.

Reticulated Butterfly Fish. You can tell it is a reticulated one by the way she looks at you.

A Striped Surgeonfish (front) and a Steephead Parrotfish (back)

Moorish Idle idling away in the cut

Another Parrotfish, uncertain species, probably another Steephead.

Interesting sponge growing among the corals in the pass

I snuck this picture in because it is so cool, a Cushion Star we saw in the Marquesas

Did I mention that there are sharks in ‘dem waters?

And the correct direction for a shark to be swimming – away from us.

Paul