We ended up on the west side of the island of Taravai in a bay called Anganui. It was a beautiful, uninhabited part of the island that made us really feel like we away from the rest of the world. Of course, we really were. The Gambiers are really remote, and without cell phone and wifi access, we felt pretty disconnected.
We were enjoying our time sharing the bay with Marcus, Diana and their guests on Allora. We even had “movie night” aboard Allora where they set up a projector and screen outside on their boat on a calm evening that really felt special. The next day, we all went diving outside on the reef where we had a spectacular scene of reef fish, pelagics, sharks and unique coral formations. I even spotted a few fish I hadn’t seen before.
Soon Allora left as they had to get their guests off to the airport, and we were left alone in the bay. We remarked that it was the first time we could remember having an anchorage to ourselves since we were in the Perlas Islands in Panama. Little did we know that we would be all alone for the next two weeks!
Shortly after Allora left, the winds picked up from the southeast. As we were on the west side of Taravai, we were pretty protected with just the occasional gusts making their way over the hills on the island into our little bay. We started watching the weather forecast as we saw the winds were blowing in the 25-35 knot range, so we decided to stay put. Our weather forecasters informed us that there was a convergence zone sitting over south French Polynesia, right where we were. This meant that the lows and troughs that come up from New Zealand essentially stall out and hang around one area. In addition to the strong winds, we had days of squalls and drizzly rain that had us cooped up in the boat.
We kept waiting for the weather to change, but every day the forecast was just more of the same. We were stuck. When the sun finally broke through the clouds, we would go ashore to pick coconuts or paddle around the bay. Mike also tried his hand a fly fishing several days while I read several books. There were a couple of days we got a little stir crazy, but then we just had to laugh about it and told each other that there were definitely worse places to be stuck than this beautiful little paradise.
The wind finally died down enough for us to leave our protected anchorage and head back to the village at Rikitea. We knew the supply ship was coming in, and we needed to get there in advance of the ship arriving. It had been a month since we’d gotten any supplies. And, this was going to be our last shot to pick up some gas and diesel before we would be leaving the Gambiers. We had taken on some diesel when the previous supply ship came in, but not enough to fill our tanks. We were also almost out of gasoline, which we use to power our dinghy, generator and scuba compressor.
There is no gas station in the Gambiers, so if you want fuel you have to get it from the ship. They only sell it in 200 liter drums (about 50 gallons). If you need less than an entire drum, then you have to make some deals with other boats to go in on a barrel together. This makes for a very interesting situation in the anchorage. Right as the ship is pulling in, you can see everyone out in the dinghies either rushing to the ship to purchase a barrel (which is a limited supply) or going from boat to boat to figure out how to split a barrel with other boats. It is a bit comical, and stressful, especially when there are sometimes language barriers.
Once you’ve got your barrel and a plan to share the fuel, you have to take your jerry jugs to shore in the dinghy. You use a hand crank pump to pump the fuel into your jugs, then ferry them back to the boat to put in your tanks, and then repeat the process until you’ve got all your fuel. I think it took us most of the day to get this accomplished.
Fuel was our first priority, but we were down to canned and dried goods, so we needed some more food. The magazins (small stores) get their orders at different times depending on how they come off the ship and get trekked out to each store. Then, the store has to decide how they are going to stock the new food. So, each store will open and close and put out the fresh food at different times. When the fresh produce does come out, it is like vultures appear. At one point I had just purchased a bunch of goods when the store decided to put out a box of fresh pears. Everyone dove into the box grabbing the pears, including me. By the time I got back and line and purchased the pears, the entire box was empty.
Once we were full up on food and fuel, we were ready to leave Rikitea and check out another part of the Gambiers. But, more on that next time…
~katie