Letter from Atlantia July 2009

Dear All, It took five days to sail from Tahuata in the Marquesas to the Tuamotu Islands, south east. The Tuamotu Islands are the true atoll islands of the South Pacific. An atoll island starts out as a volcano poking its head above sea level and spewing forth flames, ash and such like. When it has finished doing that the warm seas around the volcano grow coral. There are many different types of coral but the basis is a small worm type of animal that secretes calcium carbonate to form a rock casing for itself. There are millions and millions of these animals that thrive in the tepid waters around the volcano. About ten million years later the volcano starts to sink into the earth’s crust and the coral grows in a ring around the mountain, always maintaining its top level around the level of the sea. Eventually the volcano sinks below the waves leaving the ring of coral still at sea level. The wind piles up a small amount of coral sand, and dry land is left for vegetation (coconut palms and hibiscus plants) to take root.

The volcano meanwhile sinks enough to form a warm and reasonably sheltered lagoon in the centre, sometimes up to 40 miles in diameter. The centre of this area, at present about 20 metres deep in most atolls, is the water that houses the pearl farms.

The Tuamotu Islands are still part of French Polynesia and stretch for over 1200 miles in a band about 200 miles wide from the Gambia Islands in the south east to Mataira in the north west. They all lie North of the Tropic of Capricorn and South of the Equator. They are in the area where the French tested their atomic bombs up to 1996, despite the fact that the atolls were almost all inhabited previously. We stayed well clear of the bombed area and made our landfall at Ahe, close to the North Western end. Ahe is a small atoll with only one way into the lagoon from the outside sea.

In the Tuamotus the entrance to the lagoon is called a “pass”. There are usually only one or perhaps two passes about 80 feet wide in an atoll so one can imagine how much water flows through it when the tide turns. Fortunately there is less than one foot of tide in the Tuamotus but nevertheless when the water piles up due to wind, rain and tide the current flowing can be quite severe, 8 knots in one case. We tried to time our entry through the pass at Ahe to coincide with slack water and this meant we had a leisurely sail to arrive at Ahe about 11-30 in the morning, in time for slack water in daylight. Since we didn’t have any tide tables we required to work out slack water from the positions of the sun, the moon, which had brightened our nights the whole voyage, and the amount of rain and wind from the last few days. You can imagine there was a large margin for error! We were however delighted to see one of the local cargo ships , which supply the islands from Tahiti, coming out of the pass just before we were due to enter.

This meant that we had probably managed our calculations correctly. In fact there was almost no current in the pass as we entered the lagoon. Very satisfactory. We proceeded to motor across the lagoon the five miles to the village of Tenukupara (approximately 14 degrees 30 minutes south, 146 degrees, 24 minutes west) in between coral heads, reefs and pearl farms. The channel is well marked with beacons and buoys and it was easy to follow these to a beautiful anchorage nearly surrounded by a coral reef and just off the concrete wharf (almost brand new) that was the focal point of the village. Fortunately we are back to the European system of buoyage, which means that red is on the port side when approaching port. How the Americans with their ‘red right returning’ managed to muddle their colours up so much, beggars belief. Perhaps their original navigation administrator was obtuse, or perhaps just colour blind.

We shared the anchorage with a New Zealand boat who had two crew from Edinburgh on board. Unfortunately the yacht (Semper Fidelis) only stayed one night and we had been recovering from our 5 night voyage before we spoke to them just as they were leaving.

It was nice to have the anchorage to ourselves however and we were happy exploring the little village knowing we were the only tourists about. We met an islander there, Edward, who had travelled extensively when he was younger and spoke very good English. He told us that in 1983 the island was inundated by a cyclone and that they were waist deep in water, in the middle of the ocean which covered the island, with not a tree left standing. They were eventually rescued, the water receded and the village was rebuilt. Fortunately coconut trees grow quite quickly in this region. The houses are almost all single storey constructed of concrete and look fairly solid. With global warming however there could well be no more South Sea Islands in the future, unless of course the coral can grow quickly as well.

We were visited by a number of people in boats selling cultured pearls. After a some negotiation we bought a number of very large pearls in exchange for a bottle of Panamanian rum and two miniatures of White and McKay whisky. Both sides seemed pleased with the bargain so we went on later to buy a pearl encrusted bracelet for Margaret and exchanged two half bottles of rum for some beautiful unmarked pearls with a pearl farmer.

We had sailed to the pearl farm in Dipper since the lagoon is not surrounded by an unbroken ring of land, rather a collection of small islands joined at almost all times by a damp stretch of coral and sand, except of course for the pass. The pearl farmer’s name was Quentin and he and his brother Maurice worked the farm to produce pearls, mostly for his mother to make into jewellery where she lived in the Society Islands, of which Tahiti is a part. Quentin came from Ahe and had been educated in New Zealand. He had some eighteen brothers and sisters. They had a French father who had sailed from France many years ago in a yacht, but not all siblings had the same mother!

Pearls are created in an oyster’s appendix which secretes mother of pearl around a humanly seeded base, usually made out of spherical shaped beads of fresh water mussel shell. The oyster can produce three sizes of pearl in as many years once it has reached the initial age of three years. The oyster is not killed during the seeding and pearl extraction process, although when the third pearl is created it is about 18mm diameter and the oyster shell is unable to contain it further. The pearls created in the Tahitian and Tuamotu Islands are the ‘black pearls’. Not named after the ship in ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’ but because the type of oyster used has a black mantle. The pearl is usually a lustrous dark green, but can be blue, grey or even white.

Of course all transport around the atoll is by boat and we saw the famous fibreglass proas paddling by

as well as the work boats for the pearl farms. These were numerous, and crowded around the quayside, especially when the wharf was visited by the local trading boat, with its bags of onions, building materials and large barrels of diesel and petrol, for the generators and outboards.

We had an overnight sail to the largest of the Tuamotu islands, Rangiroa. The sea was a bit lumpy and the moon had disappeared. We had to slow the boat down to 5.5 knots so that we entered the east pass at dawn having been through the pass at Ahe the evening before, again at slack water. Our luck held and we entered the lagoon at Rangiroa through the east pass of Tiputa with a slight current and no waves. For the rest of our week’s stay at Rangiroa the ‘pass’ was ‘impassible’ for most of the time due to high winds.

Fortunately we were tucked nicely in the lagoon in the shelter of a small promontory, although we did have two anchors out for a few days.

The anchors we use are a Scottish 75 pound CQR on half inch chain and an American aluminium Fortress 37 anchor with a small amount of chain and a large amount of rope. Both are excellent, and, if we can rely on the force only coming from one direction, the American designed and built Fortress is almost second to none in sand or mud, and it is very light. 37 pounds.

We went diving at Rangiroa. The dive master and owner of Paradive, Oliver, was charming and spoke quite decent English. We practised our French a little as well and managed to teach the boat handler a few words of English too. The boat handler was a large congenial Polynesian. He had one leg slightly thinner than the other, apparently the result of a shark attack, although we were assured that the sharks were friendly around the pass. We went drift diving, which means we started at the seaward end of the Passe de Tiputa and took the current to the lagoon. There was a stop half way in a trench 60 feet down to see some very large fish and the sharks feeding on them. Oliver held Margaret’s hand the whole way. Whether this was to reassure her about the sharks or for some other nefarious purpose was never really clear, although some things are more difficult under water. Will considered that in the 5 knot current he was flying, and spread his arms and legs as if sky diving. It was just like flying, although there was no falling. A wonderful light and free sensation suspended above, and speeding along over, the ground.

The weather was very mixed at Rangiroa and at times we thought we might be in the West Coast of Scotland. Then the sun came out and we looked at the palm trees and the turquoise water and knew that wasn’t the case.

On the dive we met a generous French teacher who was diving with his son, on holiday from France.. We were invited to their house for drinks the following day and sailed ashore in Dipper. Jean-Francois spoke good English but his wife spoke none, however we made ourselves understood and thoroughly enjoyed the 15 year old whiskey that had been bought by Jean Loup, their son, on his way out from France. Spirits are not readily available in the Tuamotus although it was possible to pick up the odd box of wine at great expense.

We used the bicycles again here although Will’s seems to have developed a ‘go slow’. ‘More steam McPhail’ (from The Tales of Parahandy), is the shout as we pedal into the strong headwind. We used muscles that we didn’t know existed and Will’s back is only just recovering.

We left after all the other boats had moved on, making sure that the weather had truly calmed down.

Our destination was Tahiti, the capital of the Society Islands and indeed of all the islands in the central and eastern Pacific that comprise French Polynesia. It was two nights and a day of easy sailing with a full moon, again slowing ourselves down to arrive in daylight.

Papeete (pronounced Papy/ettee) is the capital city of Tahiti. It is really quite a large town with some beautiful trees and gardens. It was quite a relief to motor in through the pass in the outer reef to the first real civilisation for 3500 miles. Tahiti is an atoll but still has its volcano, so the coral reef around the island provides wonderful protection for yachts and all boats.

More about Tahiti in our next letter. It is a fascinating place 150 degrees west of London, and although we have been anchored nearly 3 weeks, including Margaret’s birthday, we have been busy revamping various areas of the boat which have been shaken about on our voyage here. We touch wood when we say everything is now nearly fixed on the boat. We have also been socialising! (Quite a lot!) Hope you like the pics.

Love Atlantia