We woke up relieved that we had not heard the anchor alarm all night and that we had not budged an inch. A quick breakfast, and a goodbye coffee with Annie and Imanol from Mororo. Simon their Argentinian crew came over too, poor guy had to say a final goodbye to Meghan, he looked so subdued, there was clearly a little something going on there! We then made haste with our departure picking up the anchor as we had a four hour trip to get to North Fakarava and we wanted to do it in daylight and before any wind came up. Imanol and Simon helped pull our chain off the coral with a rope that Rowan had attached to the anchor. We were free and off. I’m sure we will come back here as it was an idyllic quiet spot.
The navigation charts show two passages up through the atoll, one wide and the other narrow, and both have bommies. Us girls kept up a half hour rota on look out, as it was boiling hot out there in the harsh sunshine, Rowan had to use my umbrella again as sunshade like on the Panama Canal. It all went smoothly until Rowan decided to leave the wide passage to cut off a corner, we were going along speedily when I suddenly notice a few buoys and told Rowan about them, then within a second we realised we were up against a whole barrier of buoys, we had nearly run into a pearl farm. We turned sharp right towards the narrow marked passage. The next minute we had a drone circling us and then a very angry motor boat came speeding out towards us, shouting at us to get back into the marked passage. We wont leave the marked passages again! This area is a World Unesco site and Han has read up that actually the pearl farms are very good for the marine environment, as the pearls only grow in clean unpolluted water, so a huge amount of effort is made to keep the atoll water pristine. There are big parts of the atoll where no boats are allowed at all, to protect the waters. The pearls are all black pearls and I think they are stunning, I bought a necklace years ago at a market in Napa, a string of irregular black pearls and have always loved it.
We finally got to the anchorage, getting the anchor down took a few stressful attempts in the wind, to get somewhere not too deep and away from coral heads, and other boats! Two Arc boats left as we arrived, both doing an overnight passage to Rangiora, the biggest of the Tuamotus islands. The Arc boat ‘Far’ was here, English captain with his American wife Lorraine, and they invited us for tea. The girls opted to pack as they leave tomorrow and we went on our own. Fascinating story they met in France when they were 25 as Phil’s parents owned some barge hotels that did upmarket wine tours on the rivers in France. They crewed on barges for a few years before heading to America where Phil studied to be an engineer, settling in Maine. Lorraine turned 69 the night that she coordinated Arc boats for the rescue of the sunken boat Raindancer. They have just decided to leave the World Arc here too, so no doubt we will see more of them.
We have had enough of beans and looked forward to a night eating out. We soon discovered that all the restaurants were closed on a Monday night. The Lodge was open but we couldn’t contact them to make a booking. We decided to walk there anyway, it was about a mile away and it was good to stretch our legs, amazingly it is dark at 6pm. Tragically the Lodge requires 24 hour notice for a booking, and all our pleading did not help, there were plenty of guests there, but she would not give us a table. She did make an enormous effort to find us some food, the few places were all closed. Finally she arranged a lift with a diving instructor to a restaurant another couple of miles up the road, where he was eating. There are no taxis available on a Monday night, so it sounded a good plan. We had to wait an hour or so at the bar while he finished his drinks with clients and then we set off. It was a very low key local restaurant hanging over the water, there was plenty of delicious raw fish treats for us, and the girls thought they had struck gold with an aubergine dish, but sadly when it arrived it was stuffed with chicken! They managed to scrape most of the chicken off, and enjoyed the chips and salad. It was a lovely setting, we will have to come back. The evening was on the girls which made it an even better treat. We returned to PolePole stuffed and very happy to have found some food.
Leaving our lovely beach
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