Another day of wind, another bay
11 June 2016 | Hurepiti Bay
Stormy Bill
Blog 11 June 2016 Sent by SSB. We're out of Wifi range and will be for a few days, probably.
Hurepiti Bay
16 38.546�" S : 151 30.972�" W
In an interesting sequence of events, we�'re on a mooring owned by the Vanilla Tours family, the Plantiers: Alain, Christina, and the son, Noah.
We simply got too antsy starting a SECOND WEEK in Tapu�'amu Bay�...a second week, mind you. We decided to see something else, so dumped the mooring and motored against 20-25 knot wind to Patio, the administrative capital of Taha�'a. We found one of the yellow government-placed mooring and attached to it, and then dinghied into town.
It�'s small, but had a Casino Marche, a chain of grocery stores that we used extensively in Raiatea. We found all of the food items that we wanted, and dinghies back to the boat and mooring. Unlike most of the other government moorings, this one was very exposed, so we decided to either return to Tapu�'amu, or continue on to Hurepiti Bay, the home bay of our tour guide family.
We exposed a hankie of jib for the downwind motor sail and were pushed along, winds at our beam, at 4-5-5 knots, with the engine at an idle. Great fun! We motor/sailed past Tapu�'amu, scorning yet another night there, and continued on another two bays to Hurepiti Bay.
Hurepiti is large and deeply cut into the island. We radioed the Plantier family, connecting with Noah, and he quickly agreed to our using the family�'s moorings. Wonderful! They directed us to the furthest-in mooring and we grabbed it on the first try. Conni�'s quite adept at the helm and I have the reach to grab the heavy mooring pendants with the boat hook.
After shutting the engine and tending to boat tasks, we got another call from the Plantiers asking if we wished to join them for drinks. Wow! We were so honored! Of course we agreed to join them.
We hopped in the dinghy with a bottle of red wine, and motored over to their dock. The evening was warm and windy, but the conversation in the open air hut was so interesting. Alain and Christina, the mother, had arrived separately to New Zealand and met there. Alain is French and speaks French, English, Tahitian, while Christina is Swiss and was raised in Italy. She speaks English, French, Italian, German, and Tahitian. It�'s one of the things that I like so much about the rest of the world, their facility with languages.
Alain and Christina had been great friends with Bernard Moitessier, of course, and we enjoyed talking about my hero. We�'re using a mooring that he helped install. We sat in a building where he sat as he discussed his many books. I know that hero worship can be tiresome, but I had wandered into the mother lode of Motessier lore! The lives of both Alain and Christina were also fascinating and I enjoyed hearing about them. Meantime, Conni and Noah had another set of conversations, also interesting.
Son Noah attend college in France where he earned a degree in aeronautical engineering, but on return decided to join the family business, moved back home, and started giving the vanilla tours that his father had started.
Every little building that they�'ve constructed on site is for a specific function, rather like rooms, but separate buildings. We stayed in the kitchen/living room building with its three windowed sides and one open air side. We started with Noah�'s Hinano, then enjoyed our wine, and then back to Noah�'s Hinano again. The party was jovial indeed! We talked and laughed until 1930 and realized that they hadn�'t eaten, so took our leave back to the boat.
I�'m not sure when I�'ll be able to post this, so I�'ll also say that we we awakened to yet more wind and rain on Saturday morning, as the Maramu, the local and common weather pattern for this time of year, continued on its raging. We didn�'t want to take advantage of the Plantier hospitality, so released our hold the mooring and were going to drop our hook about 400�' away, but Alain was around in his boat and told us that we could stay another night. We were only too glad to accept the generous offer.
This Maramu is similar to the Mediterranean �"Mistral�" pattern with winds and rain for days, weeks, or months. They�'re normally from July to September, but often extend on either end. Alain had told us that, in fact, the last two years had been abnormal with so few Maramus. We thought that this was abnormal!