Opunohu bay

There’s a low pressure system trucking along from west to east, a few hundred miles south of Tahiti, which for us means rain, wind and unsettled weather. We’ve not seen the sun or stars for a couple of days. Only dark, wet clouds, and gusty wind. We moved over from the east side of the Opunohu bay pass to the west side a couple of days ago, a mile or two of winding through the coral reef, following channel markers to stay in the deeper water. The deep channel ends in a shallow patch of sand about the size of a couple of tennis courts, where we’re anchored now… in just 3.5 metres of water. Rafiki draws 2m, so it’s pretty close. But there’s no swell as we’re tucked behind the reef, there’s loads of room to swing as the wind and current shifts about, and the bottom is soft sand. The water is so clear we can see the fish swimming around the anchor when the sea goes calm.

First afternoon we were here there was a load of wind, gusting from all directions, up to 35 knots as it came rushing down off the hills. Anchor held and we didn’t bump into any of the other 5 boats squeezed in here, but one of the catamaran owners was a bit concerned about one of the other boats, and asked him to move a little further. I think he just swam down, picked up his anchor, walked along the sea bed with it, and dropped it a few metres away.

The rain and cloudy weather has kept the temperature down, which means that hanging out below decks isn’t like sitting in an oven, as it normally is during the day. We’ve managed to watch all three Back To The Future movies, Rose baked some muffins, we tidied up the boat, sewed up the rip in my hammock, and fixed one of my kites!

Yesterday it looked a little clearer so we clamped the outboard engine to the back of the dink and motored a mile or two along the coast into the wind and current, to a place where they feed the rays and sharks for the tourists. We arrived fairly early, only one small tourist boat there, and tied the dinghy to a rock. I hopped over the side and immediately came face to face with a large, grey stingray, perhaps a metre across… my heart was in my mouth for a few seconds before I remembered that these guys are not dangerous, and the tour guides have them crawling all over them at feeding time. Still, being next to a big creature in the water – very much their territory, not mine – is a bit unnerving. Rose clambered over the side into the water and we enjoyed an amazing hour or so of snorkelling – loads of rays, sharks, and many many coloured reef fish. Brave little ones swimming round our feet, taking a nibble wherever possible, timid ones hiding in the coral. Bright yellow and black inquisitive angel fish swimming up to the camera, shoals of long silvery pipefish hanging out just under the surface, sinister looking white suckerfish gliding along underneath the sharks, some only just a little smaller than their host. They have a strange sucker on the top of their head, to hold on to the shark belly, and where you’d expect a single dorsal fin there are two – one going out each side so as not to get in the way of the sucker.

Then on to the beach where it looked like there was enough space to launch a kite. I’d repaired my 9m, the wind was a bit light, but I could at least try and get it into the sky to see if all was OK. All bladders held air, and after a few tweaks to line lengths, it was flying! Overexcited and in hindsight more than a little rashly, I charged out into the bay, looping the kite to stay up on the board in the light wind. As soon as I was in the channel though, the current swept me downwind, taking a good few knots out of the wind speed. Not good. No way I was going to be able to stay on the plane to get back upwind to the launch beach. But I’d spotted another beach in front of a hotel further down the coast, so I threw the kite around the sky to generate as much power as I could and – only just about staying out of the water – I approached the reef between the channel and the beach. With the board as protection between my thin skin and the jagged coral I bumped and ground my way over the reef. Just a few inches of water underneath me – a great view of the colourful fish, but sightseeing wasn’t the main thing on my mind at that point. I felt the board get locked in coral, and just managed to wriggle free in time for the kite to power up and give me another surge of traction. Close call. In the channel, and directly upwind of the beach, I dropped the kite into the sea and wrapped up the lines, swimming the last few metres in to shore. Back to safety, and lesson learnt…

Sunday dawned clear and bright. The low has moved on, and taken the nasty weather with it. A good day to sail on to the next island – Raiatea – about 100 miles away so the plan is to overnight and get there in the morning. Picked up Dave, Eva, an ice cream and some baguettes from the little town ashore, and then headed out to sea in a light south westerly breeze.