Velella Cruising Log

It was a shock to pull into the big city of Papeete, Tahiti after the peace and solitude of the atolls in the Tuamotus. (We haven’t seen a sizeable town since Puerto Vallarta.) After a light 3-day sail, we entered the busy pass of Papeete harbor, ducking a high-speed ferry, a Korean fishing boat and a small inter-island supply ship. We wanted to anchor in a quieter spot away from the main quai, where small pesky boarders are known to take residence so we could minimize our risk of taking on non-paying passengers (rats, ants, roaches, etc.) so we continued west inside the reef past the airport to Maeva Beach. Port Control requires that we get clearance to pass both ends of the runway, and amusingly enough, seconds after getting permission to pass the end of the runway a plane whizzed past our mast on its decent to the tarmac!

In Maeva Beach, we anchored in 12 feet of aquamarine water next to friends we hadn’t seen for over a month. It was like anchoring in a swimming pool! We could look down on our anchor and see an occasional stingray or conch sitting on the flat white sandy bottom. We were psyched to head into shore for a meal “out”. We went to one the restaurant trucks (called ‘les roulettes’) for an incredibly delicious $10 pizza. What a treat! ‘Les roulettes’ are basically outdoor eateries made up of a kitchen in the back of a trailer with either picnic tables nearby or stools at the counter.

While Papeete is incredibly expensive, there are a couple of deals: ‘les brochettes’ feature filling gourmet meals for $6-10 (steak in a pepper cream sauce with fries, fancy pizzas, Chow mein, seafood skewers and more tasty meals than I can even remember); baguettes are $.40; and ham baguette sandwiches are only $1 in the public market. For everything else, Papeete is an amazingly pricey place. I’d be hard pressed in the States or Mexico to drop $20 on produce without buying more than we could possibly eat before it rots. But in Papeete (and most of French Polynesia in fact), $20 will buy you a couple of grapefruit, a mango and a papaya, all of which is grown locally and is literally falling off the trees maybe a few blocks away. Many imported fruits and vegetables from Australia, New Zealand and the U.S. are cheaper than locally grown items and I am still trying to put my finger on exactly why. I guess the French subsidies drive up the prices for everything, especially labor, since you’d need to bring home a pretty good wage to want to work in this paradise. The subsidies make it is pretty expensive here but mostly just for those that arrive from outside sans subsidy. We noticed many of the souvenir woodcarvings and Polynesian style pareos for sale were made in Indonesia (probably for pennies since they probably couldn’t make a profit on stuff actually made here). Regardless of how expensive fruits and vegetables were, we were excited to have them again after running out in the Tuamotus.

The bus ride into downtown Papeete from Maeva Beach, where we anchored, takes about 30 minutes and costs about a dollar. While we were in town we kept busy doing our official check in and extending our visas, checking email, locating and purchasing marine parts and provisioning. The supermarkets were air conditioned and well stocked like in the U.S. and, after the limited selection available elsewhere, was an overwhelming blast of color and choices. There are food products from all over the world and we often have to guess at the directions that are in various languages.

After some provisioning, a friend kindly offered to tow my dinghy of groceries out to my boat so I wouldn’t have to row against the wind, but we stupidly went too fast and gave the groceries a drenching. I was afraid for the flour I had just purchased, the handheld VHF and camera I had in my bag, but found to my relief that only the outsides of the bags got wet. Lesson: Regardless of how fast a friend’s planing dinghy will go, my Avon Redcrest does not like to go fast and quickly becomes a submarine with any load. Fortunately, the lesson wasn’t as painful as it could have been. Ah, bet you never worried much about submarining your groceries before! Another time when I went ashore to run a quick errand, the wind piped up so much that I almost didn’t make it back to the boat that day. I found myself trying to row against 25 knots and chop, trying to pretend that I wasn’t exhausted because I knew that if I let up at all, I’d end up grabbing some piling several miles downwind of our boat as I blew by. At least I would still be inside the reef!

In the evenings, we heard the sound of the Tahitian drums calling to us to come watch the dancers shake their hips in stacatto style. We were able to see several dance performances, complete with choral singing in strong, clear Polynesian voices. Often for the price of a drink (a $10 drink, sometimes!), you could watch an impressive show from the bar. I’m not sure how those girls can swing those hips so fast, but I did notice there weren’t any over the age of 25, and most were much younger than that. One of the most impressive shows we saw featured seven year old girls that swung their non-existent hips most provocatively; These children were just as professional as the other dancers and twice as cute.

We had tried to make it to Papeete before the annual Fete celebration but only were able to catch the last week of celebrations. Fete brings together people from throughout the French Polynesian islands to compete over a month-long celebration. We did catch a few special events, including a crafts village, some canoe races and -our favorite- the fruit carrier’s race, in which Polynesian men in traditional dress raced around the city streets carrying 50 kilos of fruit tied to a log. It made my feet hurt just to watch them running by.

We planned a big double birthday party on the nearby island of Moorea, but had to break the party into 2 parts, because the birthday girls and half the invited guests were in different locations, separated by stormy weather. The tragedy of that was that Garth had to make his famous cheesecake twice so, of course, we got to eat it twice. Yippee!

Few cruisers visit the windward (south) side of the island of Tahiti, but we were really keen to go since it sounded so inviting. We sailed to Maraa to visit the Maraa Grotto, an incredible natural cavern, undercut deeply into the rocky mountain above and filled with a shaded fresh water lake. We enjoyed an intimate but brisk swim in the cave as water droplets fell and ferns hung down from the cavern roof above. Apparently Paul Gaugin reported that he swam an hour before he reached the back wall, but that is a bit of an exaggeration unless he was a very slow swimmer. It was a very special spot that we were very glad to see. We continued southeastward to visit Papeuriri Bay, another special place with several treasures to enjoy. When we arrived, we were surrounded and welcomed by a group of local young men in outrigger canoes that were pleased to have us visit. After anchoring and a little lunch in this pastoral setting, we headed ashore to visit the beautiful botanical gardens and the Paul Gaugin Museum, located near where he had lived and created many of his most famous artworks. Gaugin led an interesting life as a world voyager as well as the artist most famous for depicting the life of Polynesians. The waterfalls of Vaipahi offered yet another attraction to lure us to the area. Described as follows: “If you’ve ever had dreams of standing under a clear, cool waterfall in a tropical pool lined with giant ferns, here’s your opportunity.” How could we go wrong? We could stay for much longer except that we need to get moving to see the rest of what French Polynesia, as well as the South Pacific has to offer between here and New Zealand.

Cheers,
Wendy Hinman and Garth Wilcox
S/V Velella (Wylie 31)