Monday, June 30, 2008

I wrote the blog on the vanilla tour about a week ago but just got a chance to post it today. Thought I would do a short update on our activities. We sailed to Tahaa and have been exploring that island. We have anchored in 4 different spots, one of which gave us a beautiful view of the famous twin mountains of Bora Bora. I spent an evening with my camera trying to capture the sunset, it was magnificent, and the picture does not do it justice.
The island of Tahaa is almost bisected by two bays. We anchored in the bay on the east side and then climbed up the road to see what we could see on the west side. We made a sorry looking couple, Barry gimping along with the help of a stick and me slightly limping even though I was wearing the prescribed supportive shoes. My foot is a lot better but still hurts when we walk a lot. Barry’s hip just hurts all the time! We had fun wandering about on this road.
Anchorage on the west side of island
We saw a papaya tree with fruit just falling off it, so helped ourselves to a few. I thought you might be interested to see how they grow.
The anchorage in the picture is on the west side, we sailed around the south side of the island and stopped there the next day. The following day I wanted to anchor near the motus on the north side of the island out by the reef. We tried several different spots but Barry was leery about the holding so we just stayed long enough for a snorkel and then headed off in a different direction. Generally the water is about 100 feet deep and then it shoals very quickly and you see coral and white sand. The trick is to find a spot where it is shallow enough to anchor safely and not too close to the reef so you don’t blow onto it and hit bottom. We had put the anchor down right near the drop off and when I was snorkeling I could see the edge of the coral where it got deep, I really enjoyed swimming around looking at the different types of coral and all the fish.
We are currently back anchored off Raiatea where I knew there was an internet site. We will probably stay here a couple of days and then head to Bora Bora. Hope everyone in Canada has a terrific Canada Day, enjoy.
A church along the edge of Tahaa, notice the boat just leaving the dock and if you look close you will see a bunch of villagers that were greeting the boat.