Huahine

21 July 2023

by Johan van Dongen

Huahine was the first of the Leeward Society Islands we visited, and we stayed there for about a week. This blog relates our activities on this beautiful and less visited island, including a bicycling tour, which almost ended in major calamity, a day tour of the island by rental car, a dinghy tour in the course of which we got a nice present, and a hike with some interesting discoveries.

The passage to Huahine

We had left Papeete at around 17:00 in the afternoon, knowing that the bit over 100 nm stretch should take us about 20 hours, and making sure that we would arrive to the new island during daylight. In the first few hours, during the night, we kept close enough to Moorea so that it would provide us with some reduction in oceanic wave heights, and far enough so that it would not take all the wind away from us. See track below.

Windward vs. Leeward Islands

Note that we were travelling from the "Windward" Society Islands to the "Leeward" Society Islands, where "Windward" and "Leeward" are terms used all over the world to indicated how the two island groups are lying relative to each other, considering the prevailing winds. At the latitude of these islands (a bit over 15 Degrees South of the equator) the prevailing winds are the Trade Winds, which blow from the South East. See the illustration in the map above.
Also this time the Trade Winds did not disappoint and we had the wind in our back and made good progress and already at a little after 10 in the morning we were at the South West corner of Huahine.

Arrival 21-Jul

Again, it looked impressive, especially the spray caused by the waves hitting the reefs all around Huahine. Approaching a new island by boat is always intriguing and exciting.

If one looks well, one can see the yachts lying at anchor, behind the reefs.

We went on to the one of the two entrances to the Wastern lagoon of Huahine, which are further to the North. See track below.

Once inside the lagoon, we saw a 3 person outrigger canoe training. Imagine a 3 person canoe, each with a single blade paddle - how do you keep your direction? It is an official racing class though (OC3).

We went on, and tried to find a good anchorage close to Fare, the main village on the island. Initially, we found a place really close to the village (see track below):

where I took this picture - the reef's waves look closer than they really are, due to the use of tele lens.

But then we decided to move a bit further away, and anchor next to a reef in the lagoon, where it was less deep, even if a bit farther away from the village. Here the view from our final location (21-Jul 12:30):

From our final spot we took the dinghy to the shore, to do some shopping in the local supermarket (mainly out of curiosity to see the "quality" of the supermarket - it was good!), and to drink something in the bar of the "Huahine Yachting Club".

The next morning, we had breakfast behind our "sun screen" (our boat does not have a cockpit enclosure):

And took the bicycles to the shore to make a trip. When close to the boat, we sat down a bit to have a look at our boat at anchor.

The bicycle trip 22-Jul

Here is a good map of Huahine (downloaded from https://lesdeuxpiedsdehors.com/en/)

It is not easy to see, but Huahine in fact consists of two islands (Huahine Nui and Huahine Iti) with a concrete bridge between them, one of the most interesting places on the island, in my opinion, is that bridge, or more accurately, the waterway below it, but more about that later on.

Here is the track of our bicycle trip. The trip was actually longer than intended, due to a navigation error on my side on the way back.

Looking across the Cook Bay:

The bridge between Huahine Nui and Huahine Iki

And fast forward we get to the bridge between the two parts of the island. Note that this was taken from the South side, i.e. opposite to where we came from.

What I found most interesting about the bridge is the strong stream, resembling a river, below it. Being that on both ends of this stream we have the open sea (via the lagoons), it is not obvious what moves this stream. Intuitively, I'd presume it to be the prevailing winds, from East to West, but the stream was in the opposite direction, so I am really at a loss. In any case it is a very photogenic place.

Looking East from the bridge, one can clearly see the next island, Raiatea.

One can also clearly see what looks like coral beds on te bottom of the stream:

And the same on the West side:

There was a family who appeared to be busy tending their vegetables on the riverbank:

Also on the West side one has a lovely farther view:

Along Bourayne Bay

On the way back the view on Bourayne Bay was great, and it could be well understood that someone would want to build a new resort here. BTW, this is one of the few "Hurricane Holes" in French Polynesia, I.e. a location considered so protected that one could possibly leave a yacht here while a hurricane passes through.

A beautiful yacht anchored in the same bay:

And here the gardens of some of the already existing houses:

And now from the other side of the bay:

By now we were already (unknowingly) on the wrong way and it took us quite a while before we realized we were on a dead end, and had to return on our tracks.

The almost-accident

Now something about bicycling on this island: the roads are quite narrow, and have no dedicated bicycle paths, and in many places not even shoulders, and in some places, there are even ditches right next to the road. I am an experienced cyclist from childhood, so I did not feel very challenged by this, but Ruth did not cycle in her youth, and learned to do so only a few years ago, and is less sure of herself. And thus it happened - at some point we were passed by a car in a place without shoulders, and with a ditch right next to the road, and Ruth got anxious, went too close to the edge of the road, lost her balance and went right down into the (sloped) ditch. We were very lucky that she did not break anything, and even wasn't bruised, but I felt very bad leading her into this situation. From that point on we walked pushing the bicycles, and later on I brought her bicycle back on my side, while she walked.

Motoring to Huahine Iti Avea Bay 23-Jul

We did not really like the anchorage next to Fare, and decided to move to another anchorage we had seen good reviews of, the Avea Bay in the South West corner of the island. We never went out to the open sea, but did the whole way inside the lagoon, behind the reefs. See our track below:

Ruth took the helm most of the way:

While I enjoyed the great views and took pictures:

Until we arrive to the Avea Bay

Taking it easy at anchor 24-Jul

The Avea Bay felt protected and was relatively quiet,

Even though it has a resort, with a floating bar.

And occasional taxi boats passing through:

I remember we just swam around a bit, schnorkeled, computered and read:

Towards sunset:

we had our favourite drinks (shandy)

Car rental, tour the island, visited the pearl farm 25-Jul

For the next day we booked a rental car which would be brought to us at Avea Bay early in the morning, and be taken back towards the evening of the same day.
We travelled around the island in counter clock direction starting in Avea Bay, and along the coast.

Anini Mara'e Shrine

Just around the corner of Avea Bay, facing the island of Motu Araara, we found one of the major religious shrines of Huahine, Anini Mara'e, dated to have been built from coral stone slabs around 1700 AD, dedicated (according to what I found later) to 'Oro (the god of war) and Hiro (the god of thieves and sailors)'. It seems that Oro especially was blood thirsty and the last priest of the site is said to have attested that the religious ceremonies performed on this site included human sacrifices. Gruesome, but now a very pretty site...

By the way, I found it interesting that thieves and sailors have the same god. Hiro. I deny any connection ;-)

Children's day trip

A little further we came about a lot of parents and children and I found out children were being taken by dinghy for a day trip to the island of Motu Araara.

Wonderful view

Again. a little further we came to a higher point with wonderful views. Some people were holding sailing races in the area...

Distillery and Hamburger

One of the items on our to-do list was to visit the Huahine Passion (Rhum) distillery on the way to Fare. We bought some of their products, and found they were very charming sales people!

From there we went to have lunch in "izzy's" in Fare, who turned out to serve a pretty tasty hamburger:

Father educates son

In the same area, I noticed a sporty local father giving his son (I presume) opportunity to familiarize himself with outrigger canoeing. It shows how important this sport here is. During our stay in the Pacific we saw so many of these canoes. It seemed that every second house had a canoe lying in its garden.

Actually, the child seems to be doing a pretty good job!

Pearl Farm

From there we headed to another item on our to do list: the Huahine Pearl Farm & Pottery, It has a reception on the island, where you park your car, and then you are taken by a motorized outrigger canoe to the exhibition and shop, which is in the middle of the lagoon, supposedly where the pearls are being grown. Not surprisingly, we left with a very nice big black pearl on a collier and a happy Ruth!

Huahine Airport

We checked out what was going on at the islands' airport - always a good place to see some interesting people, and it didn't disappoint.

Tepoa Bay

When we were close to "home", we had a quick look at the nearby Teapoa Bay. Another loverly site:

Dinghy trip and a nice present from a Huahine Resident 26-Jul

The next day we woke up to overcast and rainy weather:

Which however disappeared quite quickly, and we decided to try to explore our immediate surroundings a bit more using the dinghy. I was inspired by the water taxi's a number of which passed by during the day, and who (dis)appeared around the corner of the island. If they could do it, I could, right? Also, I was curious to explore the island of Motu Araara, where we had seen the children going to.
It turned out to be more difficult than expected. The depth of the water around the corner is nut much, in places close to zero. For the outboard motor of my dinghy I need a bit over half a meter, which turned out not to exist everywhere around the corner. Apparently, the taxi's need very little water depth, and know EVACTLY where it is deep enough, because I saw them speeding by at high speeds. After we (almost) ran aground a few times, I discovered that there are a few stakes planted in the water, spaced wide apart (a few 100 meters), so after we reached the stakes, we were fine. See the approximate track we followed in both directions below.

As one can see in the chart, the track passes by an opening in the reef around the island. One can even see the ocean waves coming in through the opening. We indeed saw those waves, which were pretty high and could have turned out dinghy over, but they were localized as shown in the pictures, and could well be avoided.
As shown in the chart. We arrived to the island. We searched for a place to land and tie down our dinghy, but there were only private houses with private jetties. We felt we needed a break to relax and look at the map, so I shouted at somebody sitting on his terrace near the shore, and asked in my very limited French if I could use his jetty. I asked, because reportedly there are local people who are not very positive about yachties. This man indicated that he had no problem. So we sat there for a while and contemplated what to do. It did not feel appropriate to start exploring the island through the private lands. We were making up our mind to continue, when the man said something to a daughter in the house, and after a while she came out and gave us two very pretty large Tiger Cowry shells (I looked it up). Below a picture we made after returning to the boat.
We were really moved by this (for us) extraordinary display of largess and hospitality, and thanked the family.

We went on a bit with the dinghy, but did not see anything of interest, and did not want to go too far, so from there we just returned in our tracks.

A hike in the area of the anchorage 27-Jul

Today we went to shore. And made a short hike in the area.
Here a view across to Raiatea.

A very remarkable grave

An outstanding thing we found all across the Pacific is that people give a lot more expressive attention to the graves of their forefathers than what we are used to in the West. The graves many times have good views, such as close to the sea, or on hills, some are in graveyards, but it is also very common to see graves in private gardens. Here we came upon a very special example of such grave in a private garden. I am sure that there is a lot of meaning to the various items that are exhibited on the grave.

Art

Almost on the opposite side of the road, we found this work of art out next to the house entrance.

Nice gardening

Also here, people like colorful flowery gardening:

Leaving for Raiatea 28-Jul

By now, we were ready to continue to the next island, Raiatea.

We got up to a lovely quite morning:

Note that the rumbling / hissing sound one hears comes from the breaking of the ocean waves on the reefs, about 500 meter away.

We disconnected from the permanent buoy we had been lying on. Note: one can see the whole length of the line attaching the buoy to the bottom of the bay.