Thursday 31 August – more whales!

Rowan was busy with work from very early, while I had my usual leisurely catch up of messages and newspaper read. It was a gorgeous day, while Rowan worked I tackled cleaning all the fenders that had got disgustingly smelly and manky from their two months in the marina in Papeete. The new pressure washer helped and a lot of scrubbing that I hope has done wonders for my bingo wings!

Late morning we decided to head off in Jeldi Jeldi aiming for one of the remote inaccessible-by-car beaches, that we had passed. Quite a long dinghy ride, but the water was flat and the wind calm. We went past the pass entrance and hadn’t be going long when we saw a whale in front of us with her baby. I had no idea they would come inside the reef like this, but apparently it is where they like to calve. She very languidly made her way down the inside of the reef. We followed her from a good distance for a while, until we got to the beach we wanted to get to. i felt slightly vulnerable in our small dinghy compared to her size, but it was magical just watching her meander down. I felt nervous every time a boat came by, the sound of the engines in the confined passage inside the reef must be deafening for them. Most boats didn’t even see her, incredible how much we must miss.

Inside the reef

Mother and baby whale cruising down the inside of the reef

We got to the idyllic beach, it had a couple of dilapidated lean to shelters on it, but definitely nobody resident. It had sheer cliffs either side, so no road is ever going to make it there, hopefully! We had our kikois out and just enjoyed the beach. Rowan had a snorkel around while I went beach combing. Yesterday in a shop we saw load of heavy spiral shells and the lady told us they are the shell doors, basically the plug at the entrance to the shell. I found hundreds of them in an area set back from the beach, I couldn’t resist picking a few up. I consoled my guilt by picking up all the litter that I could find, which is very minimal, so nice after the load of rubbish in the Caribbean. Also spotted some enormous crabs with huge claws that Rowan thinks must be Coconut crabs, which are supposedly very good eating. We had to demolish a packet of crisps so that I could get some soil so that I could replant my Aloe Vera plants that Cain so kindly gave me in the Tuamotus. He managed to keep them alive while we were away and are now way to big for the tiny amount of soil in the pot.

Setting foot on our deserted beach

Wonderful shade on the beach, remembering not to be under any Coconut trees

Gorgeous blue water

A tree trunk with Raiatea in the background

We did a drift snorkel on our way back into the next bay, the current and wind were strong. The coral was pretty good and interesting, but not a lot of fish and all tiny. We got back into Jeldi Jeldi to head home and found our Whale and calf again, we watched them for a while as she headed into the light blue shallower water. We think she must be cruising up and down. Interestingly Doris our whale swimming guide told us that they come down to these warm waters to reproduce but don’t do much feeding here, they stock up with food in the colder waters.

Got back to PolePole and I finished cleaning the last of 9 enormous fenders! We have decided to move on tomorrow, so Rowan cleverly got us booked into the best restaurant in town – we got the last table but inside. We got there at 6pm even though the table was booked for 6:30 so they let us sit outside as long as we were gone in time for the reserved couple. We had a delicious meal, my lamb tacos were particularly good and the Tuna tartare with Chantilly wasabi was delicious too.The chef was French married to a local woman and they have been living here 28 years. They were turning people away, it was so popular. We also had a delicious bottle of Rose wine with the meal – it was a very good evening!