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| Crystal clear water |
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| Walking under the palms |
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| Watching hermit crabs |
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| Catching (coconut??) crabs |
Wow!…you know when you think of a South Pacific island, this
is it. Well, they aren’t actually islands but ‘motus’ which form a chain around
the ‘atolls’ (remnants of volcanos) and provide the idyllic and perfect safe
anchorages within the lagoon, or so we thought. Walking ashore through the
crystal clear water, meandering under the palms watching hermit crabs, collecting
coconuts and coconut crabs for dinner one cannot imagine anything at all that
could possibly be perceived as threatening; falling coconuts, black tip reef
sharks, and adverse weather, not to mention ciguatera poisoning.
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| Fresh coconut is a great snack, we lost a lot of weight! |
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| edge of the reef where it drops off to 300m into the Pacific ocean |
Zenna is equipped with 3 anchors, 10m lengths of chain, swivel, shackles and various other pieces to provide for good protection in a storm. The weather window looked fine, and as we had never put all this gear out to see how easy it was to go together, thought we would give it a go. As soon as we had most of it out (could only hook up 2 anchors as I couldn’t find the third when underwater) the clouds rolled in…..and yes, that’s right, here we go again!
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| here we go again! |
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| .....the wind certainly 'clocked' around, the shore (orange) is not that far off!! |
Now the problem with putting this storm system out is that you cannot
move the boat once it is set without diving to unshackle it all. We woke in the
morning to 30 knot sustained winds blowing from the west putting us towards the
shore with coral heads under the stern. Westerly winds, particularly at that
strength, is very unusual so I quickly put the motor on and relieved the
pressure off the anchor chain, obviously one of the anchors dragged. We spent
the rest of the day motoring around in the torrential rain staying off the
coral heads with the chain snubber snapping and us losing the chain hook at one
stage. The winds died and clocked around at nightfall so we rested a bit, but
kept a watch during the night.
We spent the rest of the week cleaning up the carnage the
storm created with Marion having to dive and retrieve the anchors and gear before
we moved the boat further offshore. I was suffering from an ear infection.
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| plenty of fish, ambon emporer within 1/2 hour |
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| Sunday picnic, amazing what you can scrape out of the bilges, rose, brie, beans, bruschetta and cold cuts |
The rest of our time on the eastern anchorage was spent
enjoying the fruits of Raroia. The fishing was plentiful, bartered scallops and
bok choy was obtained from the pearl farm, with plenty of crabs and cococuts on
shore. We managed to have one of our picnic lunches on another motu nearby
which also saw us find a whale carcass on the reef. A quick visit to the motu
where the ‘kon tiki’ landed also saw Marion catch a fish while pulling the line
in.
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| washed up whale |
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| 'nice hook up Marion', a yellow spotted trevally |
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| dinners......& sunsets |
It was all good, nice dinners and sunsets, and we wanted to
stay but the other atolls we are scheduled to stop in sound great as well. A
good study of the weather, ascertaining tides, and timing our next crossing to
Tahanea let us move over to the unprotected west side of the lagoon where the
town was. We were in luck here as a supply boat was due in and our new friends
Regis and Tatiana who owned one of the two stores held promises of fresh fruit
and veges, and after seeing a photo of the whale Regis was determined to go and
retrieve what we could. Immediately after lunch Regis, Tatiana and a couple of
other lads took us all across the lagoon to the whale where removal of the
teeth and hiding of other bones was carried out. I now have 2 of the teeth as a
‘finders fee’. It was great mixing with the locals for the day and we all had
dinner together, thanks Tatiana your poisson cru is the best we have had.
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| Regis, Tatiana & Co.......whale teeth extraction |
Our 3 weeks in Raroia went quickly and we could have stayed
longer with all it had to offer…..sad to go, but we must keep moving.
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