We decided to move on up the island to a lovely bay we passed on the way down, they only have 4 mooring balls so we decided to skip breakfast and move on. We’ve really enjoyed our stay here but feel it is time to move as we have set ourselves a deadline for Bora Bora on 11 September. Rowan has a board meeting and it is the last Society island that we can check out of before heading to Tonga.
Looking beyond the reef to the island Raiatea, where we are getting the engines serviced next week
We got to the bay and sadly all the mooring balls were taken , we explored inside the bay but it was too deep. We made one attempt to anchor as one other boat was anchored, but Rowan went and swam over it and said there was to much living coral about, and they do have people checking that you are not anchored. We reluctantly headed up to the Fare anchorage, the town we visited yesterday. Luckily we spotted the last mooring ball available, we made a dash as we could see a monohull coming through the pass and they might have wanted it. We had a couple attempts getting on, the boat is so high off the water it is hard for me to hook the buoys and then we were using a very long rope (line!) which got tangled and I had to let go of the boat hook. God knows how many times Rowan has retrieved it off the seabed – lucky he is so good at diving. We eventually got on and sorted, it is a lovely spot opposite a small hotel with a lovely beach, so not near the noisy part of town.
The lovely bay surrounded by odd shaped peaks
The markers guiding us into the bay
Looking out onto the island Tahaa
Lovely beach with dramatic black cliffs
Wonderful clear water again
Looking down the bay, its actually two islands separated by a tiny bit of water, too shallow to pass through
Closer up of the pimples!
By the time we were settled it was midday and we had not eaten breakfast so we headed to the nearest restaurant which called itself the Fare Yacht Club, which could be a bit of a stretch of the imagination, but it is very nicely situated and had loads of people eating there. I’m feeling so worried about eating fish these days, as I think everywhere here is overfished, we resorted to burgers with an egg, fooling myself it was breakfast. Afterwards we wondered around town, stocking up on a few bits and pieces and finally got the right connection for our new gas bottle for the BBQ.
While we were relaxing back on PolePole, I happened to look out to the pass going out to sea, we are very close to it, and I spotted a whale. I yelped which woke Rowan from his afternoon slumber. We had a good twenty minutes watching two whales playing around. A yacht was leaving via the pass and spotted them, and sadly I think it scared them off. They did not keep their 100m distance. It was lovely to see them so close. There were a couple of surfers going out to catch a wave and we couldn’t tell whether they had seen the whales, but they must have been quite close. The surfers were catching some very good waves, but my god there seems to be no room for error as they would soon be dumped on the reef if anything went wrong.
Our anchorage in Fare
The hotel and beach near us
The best I could catch on video
We had the best sunsets in ages setting over Tahaa, one of the two islands we go to before Bora Bora. After that we had the Super Blue moon rise over the mountains behind Fare on the other side of us. What a magical afternoon and evening!
Stunning sunset the pimple on the far right is Bora Bora
Super Blue moon over Fare
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