Coral Garden
04 August 2017 | Tahaa
Gillian
We had a good day sailed to Tahaa with 15 knots of wind on a reach. The swell was a bit bouncy and I did not feel that good until we entered the pass into Tahaa. We entered through the Toahotu pass and although we didn't have a problem we could see that in stronger wind and swell conditions it could be quite dangerous. We anchored just off the small motu of Mahaea in 6m of sand and had a calm and peaceful night. Wednesday In the morning we made our way to Haamene village at the end of a long narrow picturesque bay, and anchored in mud. We went ashore and found two small supermarkets and a little market, managing to stock up on all that we needed. We decided not to stay in the bay as the muddy water did not look good for swimming and it was very hot and muggy. We motored up the East and North side of Tahaa and eventually dropped anchor off the motu Motuea and the famed coral gardens. We found Solace there and they joined us for sundowners, a beautiful evening with a rainbow over the mainland and the sunset over the striking silhouette of Bora Bora. Thursday We took our dinghy to the coral gardens - a shallow coral patch between the two motus - Moharare and Tautau. We left the dinghy on the beach and walked to the top of the pass and then snorkelled down with the current. So beautiful - lots of large fish and pretty coral and the best we have seen on the trip so far. It was quite shallow and times and we got a bit scraped by coral but well worth it. We met Matt and Amy of the yacht Florence and it was fun to share experiences with them of our trip from the UK. Tomorrow we head to the mystical Bora Bora, another day sail of about 20 nm.