Monday the 30:th and we where done with Tahiti. We where supposed to sail away during the weekend, but everybody bought diesel to gain almost one $ because the tax increase the 1 of July.  We where a little bit worried about how this should work. But Monday morning there where new diesel to the old prize! We have heard rumours (hopefully) of a prize around 11$ a gallon in the Cook Islands. 
The short trip to Moorea, 10nm, was excellent with 15kn on the quarter. In the Avaroa pass to Cooks bay we met Tilda on their way to the neighbouring Opunohu bay. We turned around and joined them for lunch in Tildas cockpit.
We moved a bit deeper in the anchorage the next day and in the afternoon, Blue Marlin came from Cooks bay and we had lamb steak for four in Lindisfarne together with Chilean wine. (specially imported in our own bilge...) Wine is terrible expensive in French Polynesia.
The next day we moved some hundred meters again to be closer to the place where Sting Rays where feed. We used the dingy for he final 700 meter to near the Hotel Continental, which was the place for the event. It's fantastic to see these big Rays "hovering" over the bottom and then almost turn themselves upside down to reach the food. They have their mouth on the "downside" and to get hold of the food they have to press their body against the  feeder. The skin is very smooth, not at all like the skin of a shark. 
Among all the rays there where ten Black tipped reef sharks. To our surprise the where content with small left overs from the feeding.
Our respect and fear for sharks are almost gone. But we are fully aware that there are other very dangerous spices, and even these reef sharks can have dangerous behaviour in other atolls. You should in fact always ask the locals before diving.     

After this quite different experience we had to plan for the evening. Polynesian dance was on the menu. Bali Hai hotel in Cooks bay have dance show every Wednesday evening, so anchor up and three nm later we where anchored just outside Bali Hai close to Egret with Mary and Scott. We got a long table for three boats, Six Pack with their guests Robbie and Bob joined us. After dinner we where served Polynesian dance. Later when they started to bring all guests to the dancing ground, we escaped to Egret for a night cap.  
The next day we rented a car and toured Moorea in and out, up and down together with Mary and Scott. Moorea is a more beautiful and not so busy island compared with Tahiti.
Friday, again we changed anchorage, more or less depending of the better, not so crowded anchorage inside the reef west of Opunohu. 

Iris had returned from Tahiti, where John had picked up his wife Janet. Iris was one of the four boats in our "Rally" from Gambier. When Six Pack and Egret on top of that anchored around us, we where soon ten people in the cockpit of Lindisfarne, admiring the sunset together with some snacks and a lot of talking...    
Next day Janet and John invited us six to dinner. Egret went back in Tahiti to collect friends, and the next day even Six Pack left for Tahiti to leave their guests. Iris moved to the eastern anchorage and we got the our anchorage to our self for two days before we left for Huahine 80nm to the north west. We have now succeeded in getting our wind vane to work in all wind directions. In spite confused sea it worked perfect the whole night. Lucky for us as the new batteries we bought in Chile doesn't have more than 50% capacity left.    

We made landfall in Huahine by daybreak in a drizzling rain. We chose Avapehi Pass and anchored in front of the village Fare. Blue Marlin who had been here for a few days served us breakfast before they left for Raitea. After breakfast we slept for some hours during heavy rain, before we took the dingy into the village for some stocking up. We found a surprisingly big and well equipped supermarket. Loaded with vegetables, lamb, fresh tuna and more we came back to Lindisfarne and used the rest of the daylight to sail inside the reef to the southernmost anchorage at Huahine, Pointe Tiva, where we spent the night and had a feast eating sushi made of our fresh tuna.
Next morning, after a long walk ashore, we sailed back behind the reef and left Huahine for Raitea and Tahaa. These two islands are actually within the same reef and have a large sailing area protected by reefs.

We caught a Mahi-Mahi on the trip to Tahaa, a 7 kg big fish which soon after we anchored northeast of Tahaa was put into salt, sugar, white pepper and dill. This is the recipe for making "gravad" fish, ready after two-three days in the fridge. After that the lamb we bought in Huahine was put in the oven.

The lamb together with a good wine was perfect in the cockpit overlooking the sunset behind Bora-Bora some 20nm away.

The next day we sailed inshore on flat water for several hours, a very unusual experience in this Ocean, before we reach the pass to the west for going to Bora-Bora.
There where several Swedish boats in Bora-Bora and we told them over the VHF about our arrival and the Mahi-Mahi dinner in Lindisfarne.

The trip from Tahaa to Bora-Bora is a little bit special. First some miles close to and protected by the Tahaa reef and then  10-12 nm in open water, finally along Bora -Bora reef some miles to reach the Teavanui pass. There are a lot of good anchorage in the atoll, unfortunately a lot of them close to the main island are 20-30 m deep. We found several good anchorage with less depth, 5-15m, one even with good access to the road on the main island.

The latter one we used to bring our foldable bikes ashore to get some exercise, biking around the island. 

The fish meal was postponed one evening thanks to the yearly dance competition which everybody of course had to watch, but the next evening we had three boats for "gravad" Mahi-Mahi.
Everybody agreed that this was not the last time for this Scandinavian dish.

Then we had the 14:th of July and the parade.
It seamed that everybody on the island was taking part in the parade!
But that was all, no fireworks and other forms for celebrating, quite a difference from this day in France. 

One day we went on Roxy together with Blue Marlin and Six Pack across the bay and moored at the main wharf so everybody could do their shopping before we all had lunch at Bloody Mary´s, the famous restarant.
 

Back at the anchorage we found that Iris had arrived, and there was a big gathering by sundown on Roxy together with sushi and some wine.

Now we learned that the weather is not only sunshine.
We where covered by the island from the wind, but rain and gusts was coming around the island, sometime from an open sky, for two days.

This made everybody postpone their departure some days for the weather to settle.

We spend most of this time indoors and played different games with other boats.
Mexican Train is a domino game.

 

Monday came with clear sky and a lot of boats headed west leaving us almost alone in our favourite anchorage close to Bora-Bora hotel.
If we anchored close, we could have free WiFi in the boat. We spend two days updating our website and a lot of other Internet stuff.  

After this intensive time with many boats close around we start to se a pattern.
Around 10 boats are possible to keep in the "inner circle". More boats are quite difficult to manage to keep in touch with and have the time and interest to meet.
This makes it important to change some of this 10 from time to time to be able to meet new people.
We are now looking forward to sail alone westbound to meet new and old friends.   

23 July 2008
Annika & Björn
Lindisfarne

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