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Firefly - Tahiti, Huahine and more of Moorea



Since our last log we have covered a lot of water and ground. Susie arrived back from the UK and with Paul they returned to Moorea for a few days. Meanwhile Peter set out to re-acquaint himself with Tahiti.



Peter had been in Tahiti almost 20 years ago sailing with friends Gavin and Nadine (and a very young Pamela) but a lot has changed since then and is hardly recognisable. The capital Papeete is such a contrast from the remote islands and atolls we have visited over the last 3 weeks in the Marquesas and Tuamotos. The city with a population of over 50,000 suffers from traffic congestion and migration from the inner city to the suburbs. Two features that have not changed are Papeete Market; which from early morning is a very cheerful place full of fresh produce and 'Les Roulottes' the small mobile kitchens providing a range of cuisine and open air dining. Every evening you can eat local fresh fish, French,Chinese even pizza and anything in between. Peter spent a couple of days in the city with David sight seeing and enjoying air conditioning with a comfy bed (his first bed since early January!) and then headed off to a guest house (Pension Damyr) in the suburbs closer to the marina and surprise surprise the dive school! The local Pension was a delight run by elderly couple Daniel and his wife, communications were all in French so a little challenging for Peter's 'O' level grade 4.



The diving continues to be superb and on the last trip, after Paul had returned we dived at the 'Vallee Blanche' also known as 'Shark Valley'. Its an area of sand and coral just outside the main reef where the dive school puts down fish bait in a cage and all kinds of fish are attracted. We descended to about 20 metres and after crouching behind some coral saw lots of black tipped and grey sharks, colourful snappers and trigger fish. The highlights were the arrival of a Lemon Shark followed by an enormous Tiger Shark with distinctive stripes on its body. All of the other fish and sharks moved aside when the Tiger Shark came towards the cage, and it finished off the contents, even carrying the cage away at one point.



Papeete was also the venue for the latest Rally rendezvous. We were entertained in the Hotel de Ville, firstly with a briefing on what to see in the Society Islands, a prize giving and performances from local musicians and dancers. Firefly collected a couple of prizes for the leg from the Galapagos to the Marquesas, coming 4th in our class and for contributions to the logs and website. There is a picture of Peter on this website attempting to play our prize - a bird whistle.



World ARC also put on a coach tour of Tahiti circumnavigating the whole of the main part Tahiti Nui (which we had not done by sea). We visited the landing points of the English and French explorers and the crew of the Bounty, we walked to the foot of another dramatic waterfall (to add to our collection) and after a delicious lunch toured the botanical gardens and museum of Polynesia. This last stop was particularly memorable with great displays on the social and geological history of many of the islands we have visited in French Polynesia.



After all this excitement last evening just before dark we set sail for Huahine. The 100 mile night passage (definitely Peter's last for a while) took us around the South coast of Moorea arriving at one of three passes through the reef (Passe Avapehi). We then navigated around the inside of the reef and are now anchored in a lagoon Port Bourayne. It has hardly stopped raining since we arrived but are hopeful it will so we can explore on land and under the water. We head off in a couple of days to Raiatea for the start of the Tahiti Pearl Regatta - so before we have quite a lot of preparation and polishing required on Firefly to get her into racing trim!



Paul, Susie and Peter

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