Week #1: moving in !
Every journey starts with the non-glamorous joys of 21st century travel... Then our first week takes us to one of the most beautiful bays in the world, south of Huahine island.
Long flight...
Travelling to French Polynesia is always a challenging journey, but this one via SFO was pretty smooth. The 5am arrival is a magical moment as you are welcomed by Tahiti sounds and smells as soon as you get on the tarmac. Good news Yamini got her 120 day stay approved!
We now have 3h before our next flight to Raiatea, luckily the domestic check in counter is only 20 meters down the hall... Good to know if you travel with heavy luggage like us, Air Tahiti grants you extra luggage on inter-island flights if you have a scuba diver license!
A 45 minutes flight, a taxi ride to Uturoa town, a 30 minutes boat ride across the lagoon to Tahaa.. and here we are on Wallis !
Mundane activities
First things first when you get on a boat, you need to settle in: clean the boat after 4 months away, put it back together so it is ready to sail again (sails, anchor, dinghy, toilet, ...) and make sure that all is working properly: fresh water tank, engines, battery levels, ... All good !
Then come the mundane activities that never show up in sailing videos: make your way to the petrol station dock to fill in 200L of diesel, motor around the corner to a mooring buoy so you can take your dinghy into town to the supermarket and come back with 2 weeks worth of groceries. Luckily, we picked up the 30 bottles of drinking water while refuelling at the dock...
Before leaving Raiatea, we also managed to drop by the shipyard to leave 3 propane bottles that should be refilled by the time we come back and also passed an order for a new experimental rain water catching system. More on that later!
Sailing finally !
First sail was short but really sweet, a straight crossing from Raiatea shipyard to Motu Atger (check on Google Maps...) in 15kt of wind, playing with rain clouds to avoid getting too wet. That was fun !
After a day rest to enjoy this beautiful part of the Tahaa lagoon, we decided to cross to Huahine despite the rainy forecast. Most of it was on engine as the wind was not collaborating but we made it to the Fare pass by lunch time and picked up a mooring buoy for an hour, in front of the beautiful Hana Iti beach. The last part of the crossing was magical, sailing peacefully on the Huahine lagoon at an amazing 2kt speed.
We made it to Avea Bay (Hotel Mahana on Maps) for an end of the day swim with eagle and sting rays, before heading for a game of pétanque with our local friends...
