Moving
28 August 2021 | Bora Bora
William Ennis | Hot and windy
Ian and I went snorkeling yesterday, still near the boat, but closer inshore. I've seen people snorkel there for a while, but never been myself. I made a mistake!
We motored in the dinghy all the way to shore, but had to paddle the last 50 yards because of shallow coral. After tying the boat, we began snorkeling and holy smokes! It was the best coral I've ever see here! Yes, there was a lot of dead coral, but there was a lot of living coral, too, and a lot of fish. We spent a few hours paddling around and then motored back to the boat.
With Ian's help, we prepared to leave Bora Bora by moving the outboard from the dinghy to the boat mount, then lifting the dinghy to the foredeck and tying her down.
We awakened this morning at 0700 and by 0800 we were motoring out of the pass by 0815.
Conni has been watching the weather for two weeks in preparation for our move from Bora Bora back to Taha'a, and she knocked it out of the park on this one. Bora Bora's pass is on the north side and our target was on the south side, so our first task was to round the island. After leaving the lagoon and rounding the worst of the reef hazards, I began a no-success fishing experiment and Ian took the helm. I'm not sure that he's ever seen a radar and such as we now have, so all of that was interesting. After an hour at the helm, his scopolamine patch made him too tired to continue so Conni and I took over that responsibility. We had good sailing wind and before our planned arrival, we were inside the Pai Pai Pass and into the Taha’a lagoon. 45 minutes of motoring got us to Tapuamu Bay, again, and we found it completely empty of other vessels. Amazing! We assume that it was the lockdown, but we're unsure. At any rate, we had our choice of moorings and were tied up and completing boat chores by 1400.