We sailed 38 nm from Bora bora upwind to the Paipai pass in Tahaa. The wind had shifted a bit to southeast, so we didn’t have to really sail upwind. A good portion of the crossing was on a reach until we finally arrived in Raiatea.

We had less wind, an average of 14 kts, reaching 18 at its peak and maintained a crossing average of 5 kts. Total duration was about 7 hours.

I woke up at 6 AM in Bora-bora, knowing this would be our longest crossing, since we aimed to go to Ha’amene Bay in Tahaa, north of Raiatea.

We were on the east side and had to go all the way to Teavanui Pass on the west side. Bella tried to sleep one hour further in the still waters of the lagoon without much success. That is really hard to believe since when Bella is on the deck and has her stomach filled, she can’t stay awake.

The weather was perfect. We took many pictures, lied down on the bow to read and ate snacks. We had an awesome breakfast on the way, with eggs, turkey, cheese, toasts, cereal, juice and, as usual, nutella bread.

Tahaa

Once we arrived in Tahaa through an entrance north of Raiatea, we motored around its south edge until we reached the entrance of Ha’amene Bay. Entering it and looking back to the lagoon was one of the most beautiful landscapes I saw on the trip, the fjord entrance.

Va’a (or outrigger canoe) paddling is huge in polynesia and there’s always somewhere around on the water. Walking around the villages we could see everyone has one of ’em laying around in the house. Their canoes are usually built from a tree that is considered part of the family. That is why they treat them in a rather sacred way.

While entering the fjord a paddler approached and, at first, I didn’t understand what he wanted. I slowed down to ask him how could I help and actually he wanted a ride on the boat’s wave. It was pretty cool to see him surfing our wave and this is something that happened a few other times during the trip.

Arriving at the fjord’s end, we had trouble finding the mooring the guide talked about. We found an alternative one at roughly 16 38.150′ S, 151 29.257′ W. There were two mooring balls and on the second one there was an abandoned sailboat. It didn’t look safe at all, but it was a low wind day and we observed it for a few hours and decided to spend the night.

Ha’amene Village

We arrived quite early, around 2 PM, and went out to explore the village. It is unbelievable how chill and quite the village (all the villages actually) is. Very few people around, couple of guys fishing, everyone just walks or cycles around. We were clearly outsiders and that is probably why everyone waived at us continuously. We ended up finding a charming bridge in which we sat down for a nice conversation and to watch the birds fishing.

At sunset, again, another one of natures spectacles. We relaxed in our already traditional way, on the bow with a hammock, beer and snacks. As usual Bella took many incredible shots of the sunset while laughing at the fact that I couldn’t do a hand heart.

Also a funny-looking fairly spooky fog came down and a nearby bridge just looked like a Caribbean Pirates scenery.

Ironically, as soon as we docked the dinghy back at the village at the evening, we started hearing drums rolling and found the largest party of locals we met in all of our trip. It was a friends gathering to play and dance! Was great to watch. Although my bid to socialize resulted in absolute failure. That is probably due to my lousy french though.

Chez Bruno

The main reason we went to Ha’amene bay was to eat at Chez Bruno (Tahaa Maitai). After it went dark we took a shower and off we went. We had heard wonderful things about its cuisine and that the cook (Bruno) was a huge whisky fan and had a big whisky collection.

The decision was well-taken: Never had we such a good Crème Brûlée and never, in French Polynesia, such a good Entrecôte cheese sauce. It was incredible!

Additionally, we had the chance to meet 3 families traveling together on a big 50′ chartered Catamaran. They’ve made longer crossings, including overnight, such as Moorea – Huahine. I really wanted to go to Moorea to get my traditional tattoo but we didn’t have the time. It was such a good experience exchange so that maybe next time we’ll do just the same!

At the end, in a rather french fashion, chef Bruno came to the table to ask for feedback and tell a bit about himself and how he left all in France to become a chef in French Polynesia.

Raiatea

On the next morning we went to Raiatea. We had arranged with a local guide called James to go up the Faaroa River, a river located at the and of Faaroa Bay’s fjord, the longest in French Polynesia. Again, off we went at 6 AM because we still had 13 NM to go. The entire navigation was inside the lagoon, so that it was quite pleasant to have breakfast aboard.

There were a couple of moorings being used, so we dropped anchor right at the rivers entrance while I called James to let him know we arrived.

As expected, James welcomed us paddling and told us to follow him using our dinghy or standup. Every guide out there, (such as the Moorings or DYC’s) will tell you that engines are not allowed in the river. James told us to use it but I insisted on paddling. After roughly one hour he again insisted and, by then, he already had told us how most of the properties around the river are his family’s. Thus, I decided to accept it since we were really slow and he was on a schedule.

James was an extremely friendly guy who told us about all the different ways his family lived off the river. He told us about the large number of black eels that lived on the river (which he called “his babies”) and took us to his family’s house and gave us several fresh fruits while showing us different kinds of plantation. He also told us a legend about how the two mountains surrounding the river in Raiatea got married and were named husband and wife.

James charges quite few for the tour (around ~15 usd) and it was very nice to have close contact with the local way of living and a good paddle.

Marae Taputapuatea

Fortunately, it was over quite early (around 1 PM) and we had time to head out to the Marae Taputapuatea. Because of it, Raiatea is considered the birthbed of the Polynesian civilization and is inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage sites. It is known, among other things, as the place the Polynesians used to eat their enemies after battle…. But as the DYC’s briefer told us “We stopped doing that, so no worries”.

It was unfortunate that we couldn’t find any guides for us. We could eavesdrop some information from another group that was visiting and read as much as we could on the signs. The functioning of the Marae even resembles a bit of the Roman empire. They had places to discuss leadership and judgements as they had society roles and several typical festivities.

It was a beautiful sunny afternoon and we sat down under a beautiful tree to relax a bit.

When we got back to the boat we jumped on the water for a bit and went on to another great french barbecue while emptying another bottle of french wine.

On the next day another challenging crossing awaited for us, going upwind to Huahine.