Bulletin

	Bulletin - 30 August 2001
Iles de la Societe
	Wind on the nose to begin with, flat calm, heavy rain squalls and finally a good sailing wind made up our short (300 mile) passage to Papeete, the “capital” of French Polynesia. We arrived off the main harbour just after dark, but were able to go straight in, guided by the brightest leading lights we have ever encountered through the fairly narrow reef entrance. The helpful harbour control lady had told us over the radio that we should anchor by the church “with the green roof”, which we assumed must be floodlit. It’s always really difficult to see one’s way round a strange anchorage in the dark, as unexpected things are brightly lit and give a false perspective. Needless the say, the church wasn’t floodlit, and “by the restaurant with the blue lights” would have been more helpful!
Nevertheless it was all fairly straightforward and we were pleased to be anchored, though take aback after all this time by the noise of traffic zooming along what we discovered in the morning was a three-lane dual carriageway! The shingle beach alongside the anchorage was stacked with fibreglass outrigger canoes, which were out at lunchtimes and in the evenings, training hard for the many competitions that are held around 14th July. We had a busy few days, doing many shore based jobs which a city made possible, and also relishing the selection in the supermarkets, which had charcuterie sections hardly bettered in France. The market in the centre of town seemed quite heavily oriented towards the tourist trade (there were at times three large cruise liners tied up to the wharf) but we had been told the Sunday morning market (0530 to 0730!) was a largely local affair. On the Saturday evening we saw many small pickup trucks pulled up all round the market, with people preparing veg and fruit, cutting off excess leaves, peeling, etc, clearly ready for an early start. The pickups had mattresses inside and were clearly going to provide the night’s accommodation for the stall holders. As luck had it, and fairly unusually for us, we woke up early on the Sunday morning and raced into the market to see for ourselves. At 7 am it was still really crowded, with the many veg and fruit stalls we had seen in preparation round the outside; with inside a fantastic selection of fish – some of whom we felt we had met while snorkelling; a coconut grating stall; a stall squeezing sugar cane into the sweetest drink imaginable and a number of Chinese meat stalls selling many unrecognisable meats. Many of the stall holders were wearing garlands of flowers on their heads and there were again lots of ladies with flowers behind an ear. Sometimes these seemed quite incongruous – such as the girl with a flower behind an ear wearing a striped baggy jersey and leggings and carrying a motorcycle helmet. There was the usual entertaining market hubbub, and we were really pleased we had woken up. We also managed to stock up for the next few days for ourselves. After breakfast back on the boat, we went to the service in the church with the green roof – a Congregationalist church. So far, the dress code has been pretty informal at all the services we have been to, but we tend to dress conservatively anyway – long sleeves, long skirt, long trousers. On our way, we were interested to notice what appeared to be a wedding party assembling, with all the women wearing white dresses and elaborate hats, and all the men wearing dark suits, dark glasses and ties – unusual, especially in the Pacific! However, once in church, this turned out to be the standard dress code. Every woman, apart from visitors, was wearing a white dress and a white or pale hat. Most of the men were in suits. At first, we thought “wedding hats”, but quickly decided that “Ascot hats” would be more appropriate – there were huge brims, flowers, bows, veils, every form of decoration you could imagine - David Shilling would do a roaring trade in Papeete! And to see women of all ages wearing white, many with a lace or frilly trim, made a delightful picture. Altogether the church was a spectacular sight, with a large upstairs three-sided gallery, and a beautiful stained glass East window, possibly interpreting the Sea of Galilee in local terms with a square-sailed canoe and palm trees. There was some segregation in the seating, with blocks of women sitting interspersed by blocks of men, again with the exception of visitors. The huge church was almost full when the service started – probably over 1000 people there. Once again, the service was not easy to follow, though the preacher included a few words in both English and French during his sermon. Instead of communal hymns, sections of the church took it in turn to sing for the rest of us, and the segregation became clear – it was to assist the singing. Each group sang unaccompanied, with no count in, nor starting note, just one lead singer and then the whole group joining in very fast. It was interesting that the groups choosing higher pitched hymns had a distinctly Chinese sound to their voices, whereas the lower pitched groups sounded slightly more mellow. To our eyes, there was a curious contrast between the very plainly suited priests, who did not process, and the plain altar cloths, and the very dressed congregation – the reverse of what we are used to! Communion was served to everyone in their pews, with small cubes of bread and wine served from trays in egg cup sized pottery cups. This made the service of communion very quick, for such a large gathering! After the service, everyone climbed into buses and pickup trucks, much like we had seen assembling outside the market the night before – perhaps the same ones, and some onto motor bikes, with white dresses protected by a coloured pareu (sarong) but hats still on. Altogether, Sunday is quite an occasion here! In another rest from catching up on our many jobs, we went down the coast, taking “le Truck”, a lorry with hard bench seating which takes the place of buses here, down the coast to the Musee de Tahiti et ses Iles. This was beautifully laid out and displayed, and gave an excellent diagrammatic explanation (of which more in a minute) of the geological development of the various islands and atolls in French Polynesia. The artefacts included beautiful early fish hooks made from mother of pearl, as well as tiny adzes and drill bits made from shells, which were obviously strong enough for the task; carved jewellery made from both whale and human bone!; a number of tiki in both wood and stone and other much more intricate carvings from the Marquesas; canoes made of planks laced together, rather than hollowed out logs, and a wonderful selection of photographs taken by a Hungarian Count on his 8 year honeymoon, cruising the South Pacific in the 1870s! Tahiti is one of the Society Islands, named by Captain Cook after the Royal Society which was his sponsor on his first voyage, and still today known in French as the Iles de la Societe. These islands all seem to be in between the Marquesas and the Tuamotus in terms of age. They consist of islands formed by volcanoes, surrounded by lagoons protected by fringing reefs. The Marquesas had no fringing reefs, which develop when coral grows up in the shallow water around an island which has been raised up from volcanic action. Subsequently the island in the centre gradually subsides (at a rate of about one centimetre per annum) creating first a lagoon between island and reef, and finally an atoll as we described in the Tuamotus section, with no central island at all. This makes the Society Islands particularly attractive, providing sheltered water inside the lagoon for swimming, snorkelling, diving, sailing, and so on, as well as sheltered anchorages for yachts. The water is generally very clear, as there are few rivers on the islands to wash down silt, and the fringing reefs allow a continuous flow of fresh seawater into the lagoons to provide a constant supply of nutrients to feed the coral growth (of course the coral has to wait for its food to drift past it!).
	Once we had completed all our work, we set off for Moorea, the nearest Society Island to Tahiti – just 12 miles away. One sees Moorea in the sunset from Papeete harbour and it looks most spectacular, with its jagged peaks, so we felt we should call in briefly. We anchored in a deeply indented bay for a couple of nights and made the strenuous walk up to a belvedere or lookout point with views down across thickly wooded landscape across our bay and the next almost identical and on across the reef.
	On the way up to the belvedere, there were a number of archaeological sites (marae) tucked in amongst the trees – an altar in a clearing, an archery competition area, and a dark tropical chestnut wood, where a guide was showing his group how the tree trunks resounded when knocked with stone to make very effective signalling drums. The photos, we hope, give some idea of the lovely scenery and atmosphere of the marae.
After this pleasant short pause, we set sail again for an overnight passage to Bora Bora, at the western end of the Society Islands. Our timescale meant missing the intervening islands of Huahine, Tahaa and Raiatea, all very popular. But we felt we had given enough of our scarce time in the Pacific to French Polynesia, and must press on. Many yachtsmen, with several years available for the South Pacific, spend the larger part of their first season in French Polynesia, in the eastern Pacific, then go down to New Zealand to escape the cyclone season and return to the central and western Pacific the following year(s).
	Bora Bora is famous for being spectacular even among South Pacific islands. From the air, it undoubtedly would be, with a green central island and a large blue lagoon and outer reef, well furnished with motus for much of the way round. It is beautiful from the water too, but has as a result been quite expensively developed, with well designed hotels in the local architectural style in many of the most pleasant parts of the lagoon. From our point of view, this means dread monsters like noisy wetbikes! However, it is a measure of how fortunate (not to say spoiled) we have been in the places that we have stopped, that we should consider Bora Bora to be spoilt!
We sailed into an anchorage immediately inside the reef entrance to find Pam and Simon on Aoraki at anchor – an anglophile New Zealand couple whom we had first met in the Canaries, and then in Panama and the Marquesas. They called out a supper invitation as we motored past to drop our anchor in front of them, and it was nice to see them again. From them and from another English boat (we don’t meet that many, interestingly) we learnt of some good places to snorkel here, some right beside the boat! There are many different coloured fish here, mostly quite small, and many so brightly and bizarrely patterned as to be totally improbable. The coral was said to be better at the far south eastern side of the island, so, after both having to swim round the boat to work out how to disentangle the anchor chain from the coral again, we went round to the other side of the lagoon. The route took us through a very shallow, but thankfully well marked pass, over a hard looking coral bottom, with Helen standing on the boom to try to ensure we chose the deepest patches where possible (you get a clearer view into the water from higher up), though we still only had 12 inches under the keel at times. From the other side, you could clearly see the remains of one of the craters, open on one side, but still towering above the island. The coral round here certainly lived up to expectations. An area known as the coral garden, in quite shallow water with a fierce current running through it, was delightful with amazingly clear water and a sort of coral forest, through which one could swim, looking at more multicoloured fish, while trying not to get swept into a sea urchin! There were isolated coral heads in the anchorage (though few enough that we were able to avoid tangling the chain this time) and we also noticed a large round shape, with long tail, under the boat. Bora Bora is known for its rays, though you often have to dive rather than snorkel to see them. We slid quietly into the water and sure enough, there was a ray under the boat, swimming slowly away from us as we followed it. Another appeared, so that we had one each for a while! Being able to snorkel from the boat or the dinghy is lovely – you don’t have that awkward wade out in flippers from the beach, or the worry of standing on stone fish if you don’t wear them. But there were also some lovely white sand beaches here too. After being able to anchor away from the hotels, and enjoying the snorkelling and the clear, clear water, with its many shades of blue, we decided that “developed” or no, Bora Bora was definitely worth the visit. We were still carrying out various small jobs on the boat in between snorkelling, and had planned to fill up with water at the town quay before we left to head for Samoa. However none was available, other than from a restaurant about which we had not heard enticing reports. But as we were wondering how much we would have to eat to earn ourselves the right to fill the tank, the weather worsened and the heavens opened for a day and a half, allowing us completely to fill the tanks, which made us feel completely ready for the 1200 mile trip (10 days roughly) to Samoa.
John & Helen Fleming Flame of Gosport 30 August 2001
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	There are more pictures in the gallery from this part of the voyage