May 3 -4, 2011 Moorea to Huahine

At 5:30 pm, May 2 (Monday) we pulled up anchor and headed to Huahine, a 75 mile sail, going northwest. We usually like to leave at midnight or 2:00 am for an overnight sail but because there are coral heads and reefs between the anchorage and the pass to the ocean, we opted to leave while we still had some daylight. We were out the pass just as night fell. For some reason, once the sun goes down here there is very little twilight. It just gets dark, immediately. Our review of the weather reports available to us indicated that winds would be light overnight from the southeast with 6' seas. We expected to have to motor most of the way but liked the calmer conditions rather than the predicted 15 knots of wind with 8-10 foot swells for Tuesday and worsening on Wednesday. The twinkling lights of the few houses on shore and the sparse traffic on Moorea receded as we slowly moved away. We were in no hurry as we had all night to cover 75 miles and we wanted to arrive well after sunrise because we needed the sun to see our way through the pass between the reefs into the east side bay of Huahine. The swells from the south and light winds from the north made for a bit of a bumpy ride during most of the trip as we powered our way, first on one engine and then the other [during crossings we use one engine at a time to save on fuel and engine wear] with sails up for a little assist from the light winds. We arrived Huahine at 8:00 am averaging 5.5 nautical miles per hour. Since we have been landlubbers the past 8 months, we have grown accustomed to restful nights in a stationary house, so sleeping 2 hours here and there throughout last night while bouncing on the dark seas was a shock to our system. The next crossing will be easier now that we have our sea legs. We arrived through the well marked pass without problem and searched out an appropriate place to drop our anchor. We checked out spots behind two motus (smaller islands) in the bay, having to back off a number of times because the bay floor would suddenly rise to 3', hence the importance of having the sun to see the bottom. We dropped our anchor in 20', sandy bottom, nice holding near the pass entrance behind a picturesque motu. The 1985 cruising guide described this motu as a nice place for a picnic. If we did that today, we would be in someone's backyard as this little motu is now clearly inhabited; there are several houses covering its small area.

On May 4, we headed out the pass to make our way to the west side of the island, a 14 mile sail. The seas were 8-10 feet with winds blowing 15-20 knots. Powering out the pass with these waves pounding us on our bow made for an uncomfortable 30 minute ride until we turned on course and set the jib. It rained off and on during the 2 hour sail and it was pouring when we came through the west pass to the village of Fare, the capital of Huahine. We chose a shallow spot and between rains dinghied to town which is comprised of one street, single lane with a few storefronts, where we found an amazingly well stocked food market with fresh baguettes! We met the folks on a charter cat anchored next to us. There are 7 Americans on board for 10 days. Their enthusiasm for what they hoped to experience during their short charter and their interest in our long term cruising experiences reminded us of our pre-cruising charter days when we longingly looked at people like us who were able to break away and cruise full time. Now, we looked at these charterers and were envious of their ability to simply call their charter company if something broke on their boat! However, we were not envious of their need to follow a schedule so they could get to all of the places they had planned to visit in 10 days, rain or shine. And, it rained and the wind blew, registering 30 knots per hour, all afternoon and night. The weather forecast is pretty much the same for the next week. Lucky we are not on a tight schedule.

Fare is a very picturesque anchorage surrounded by green mountains and a road that runs along the water, plenty of turquoise water, and a surprising number of boats. There are about ten catamarans and almost as many monohulls at anchor. Many of the cats, and some monohulls are charter boats, which probably explains why there so many boats here. Last night in the east anchorage we were the only large sail boat in the entire bay but that bay had no commercial village. The leeward islands are the prime chartering area of French Polynesia, so we shouldn't have been surprised to see many boats here, we have just become accustomed to thinking about cruising boats and it is too early for many of them to be in this area as they are just now making the Pacific crossing as we did this time last year. The current weather conditions are making Fare one of our strangest anchorages. There is a very strong current which tends to push the boat to the North, and the very strong winds (15-30 knots) which change direction regularly and push the boat in whatever direction they are blowing. As a result the boat is constantly turning, often doing complete circles. Sometimes Dream Caper is straining against the anchor and chain, sometimes she is sailing up on the wind with the chain under the boat. Steve is getting very dizzy! On top of this, it is raining most of the time, so we're not that inclined to get off the boat and explore. Too bad. Time to move on to another anchorage 4 miles south but within the protective reef.