Maupiti photos from height

We scaled the 'mountain' in Maupiti yesterday morning - a fairly strenuous and hot climb (with ropes provided at three particularly steep bits). However the view made it all worthwhile and through the binoculars we could see whales breaching just outside the reef.

Here are a few photos:

 The pass through the reef

 An airstrip to test the nerve of any pilot!

King Peter and Queen Heidi of Stormvogel Land

The legendary Pole Dancers of Mauputi

Our last day in Bora Bora was a busy one - a trip to the cyber-laundrette (half an hour's internet connection with every wash!), a formal clear out at the Gendarmerie and a final visit to the supermarket.

The Bora Bora moorings

No tumble-dryer required!

We left at 07.00 yesterday morning for the 27-mile crossing to Maupiti and unfortunately the breeze never really became established so, after an hour's very pleasant but slow sail with the Parasailor, we motored the rest of the way to arrive at the pass into the lagoon just after midday - which is as close to slack water as you can get. The pass comes with lots of dire warnings on the chart - current of up to 9 knots flows out and meets the incoming south-easterly wind to create scarey standing waves in rough conditions. When we arrived there were white rollers crashing onto the reef but the entrance was easy.

Maupiti is lovely - a big surrounding reef and low-lying motus (islands) make it very like a Tuamotus atoll, except for a high, wooded island in the middle; about 1000 people live here so the village has a couple of shops and a bolangerie. We're surprised to discover it has just been annexed by Germany and renamed Stormvogel Land - see Peter's blog for details and some great photos of the pass.

We're hearing great reports, from other boats, of manta rays in the lagoon and whales just outside so we plan to go and explore tomorrow but this morning there was a rare sighting of the Pole Dancers of Maupiti:

Dianne scaled Maunie's mast - her first time to the top. It's 58 feet above the waterline so quite a scarey cimb so Graham was very proud of her for conquering her fear of heights. Meanwhile Heidi was at the top of Stormvogel's mast to investigate why the anchor light isn't working.

The view from the top of the mast is pretty good - here are a few photos.

Looking south towards the pass, Stormvogel in the foreground

   Looking west towards the main island

Looking east to the Motu Tuanai - Gallinago in the foreground

Video fans will find another YouTube posting here - we'll gradually add more videos to the Maunie of Ardwall channel on www.Youtube.com (just search 'Maunie of Ardwall) but there are five there now.

Another video link - and preparing to move on

We've posted on one of our Raiatea videos on YouTube so those with iPads can view it here (it's also a higher-resolution version of the one posted on this blog last week).

We're spending a last day in Bora Bora before making a very short (30 mile) crossing to the island of Maupiti, which is said to be stunningly beautiful (even more so than here!!). It has a slightly tricky pass to enter into the lagoon, however, so should only be attempted in calm conditions. As it happens, calm conditions are exactly what we're going to get for the next few days -  the SE Trade Winds look as though they'll re-establish themselves on Wednesday - so this should work out very nicely.

So today will see us meeting the Gendarme in town to formally clear out  of French Polynesia, do a last shop in the supermarket and prepare Maunie for what promises to be a gentle voyage tomorrow.

Diving in Bora Bora

Here's a video of Graham's two dives in Bora Bora, to give you a flavour of the sealife here; this one's posted on YouTube so iPad users should be able to view it:

Click on this link to view it:  Video

Blue sea and flying yachtsmen

We've moved back to the west side of the island so have wifi access to upload a few photos. The anchorages on the east side were very remote but stunning. With only 2 or 3 metres of water over white sand the turquoise was dazzling and the view of Bora Bora's mountain was much more dramatic:

Yesterday we had a walk ashore on the motu (island) sheltering us from the wind. A couple of yachties that we met the other night, Lionel on Kiapa and Patrick from Living were kite-surfing so Graham set the SLR to high-speed photo-drive and took hundreds of photos - here are a few of the more dramatic ones:

They make it look very easy but, of course, there were the odd spills:

Graham was thinking that this might be the next faintly dangerous sport for him (many years ago he gained his P1 Hang-Gliding License but never too the sport up) but for two reasons: (a) the full kit costs about $15,000 Aus and (b) he thinks he's about 20 years too old to start.

We're now in serious weather-watching mode as the forecast is incredibly unsettled. At the morning SSB net, Graham (today's  net controller) issued a novel weather forecast which ran:

"There is a slight depression centred over the yachts in Bora Bora who are realising that they've probably missed the weather window. Meanwhile the boats who have made it to Swarrow and other ports west are experiencing a high. The outlook for the next 24 hours is more troughs and furrows on brows as weather files are examined - expect more confused conditions."

So we'll see - it looks as though there might be a little opportunity on Friday to leave, though it looks as though the wind will be a bit lighter than we'd like. Meanwhile the delights of Vaitape (the town) await - a laundrette and the Chinese supermarket.

Pot Luck

We've moved down to another shallow anchorage (around 3.5m depth) in clear turquoise water at the south-eastern end of the Bora Bora lagoon. We're about 800m from the shore so the palm trees are providing a little bit of shelter from the 25 knot wind blowing from the east. It's slightly odd to see the anchor chain, straining against the pressure of the wind, pulling almost horizontally from the bow but the anchor is buried deep into the soft sand so  we feel very secure.

 

Nearby there are about eight or nine yachts whose names were familiar to us from VHF radio calls but whose owners we hadn't met. However, Irene from an Australian catamaran called Kiapa came over shortly after we dropped anchor to invite us over for a Pot Luck supper so this situation quickly changed. Pot Lucks are a great cruising institution where a boat broadcasts the plan over the radio and then crews from all the boats in the anchorage meet at the chosen spot, bringing with them their own booze and a bowl of food (typically a salad) to share. Last night the location was a beach where the house-holders had built a few tables with grass roofs; they welcomed us to use these and even lit a bbq (in an old washing machine drum) for us on the beach. We took a couple of beef steaks (imported from New Zealand and delicious) so had these with a selection of seven or eight different salads  and ate very well.

 

It was a very good evening and we met crews from American, German, Australian and New Zealand boats. Conversation is easy at these events – you start with a common bond of the sailing trip and quickly move into the other topics. There's a lot of shared knowledge at these gatherings so we have made some good contacts and will no doubt see many of the boats again as we head west.

 

Talking of heading west, we're ready to hit the high seas again (after a final re-stock of food and diesel) but the weather isn't really on our side at the moment. We're currently waiting for the weather to improve a bit (lots of wind just now but then confused and light winds coming mid-week) before we set off toward Raratonga in the Cook Islands and it looks pretty unsettled for the next 7 or 8 days. So we may be here for a while – but there are worse places to be stuck than Bora Bora!

 

Finally, Happy 18th Birthday to Goddaughter Amy! Hope that you have had a great day and that you received our email.

Making water again

We are delighted and relieved to report that our watermaker is back aboard and working. The service agent in Papeete, Gilles, was as good as his word and, as soon as he returned from holiday this week, fitted the new parts sent from the manufacturer in Italy and gave it a full test. He put it on an internal Ait Tahiti flight up to Bora Bora and we picked it up at the freight office in town yesterday morning – we were amused that the only address was "Graham and Dianne, Yacht Maunie" scrawled in large letters on the side of the box!

 

Anyway, as soon as it arrived we moved Maunie around to the east side of the island, though some very shallow boat passes, and anchored in 4m of water just off the hyper-expensive St Regis hotel (rooms are said to cost $1000 per night – our room has a better view for $0 per night!). Graham spent an hour re-installing the watermaker and we ran it for an hour or so and it seems that all is well. It was great that the fix, including air freight, was covered under warranty and we can move on again, confident that it'll work.

 

This morning Graham is going for a scuba dive, along with Matt & Charlotte from Gallinago so we hope to have some more photos and video to share once we return to somewhere with wifi (we've failed to guess the code for the St Regis Hotel wifi!).