Up the Mast

We left Raroia with our friends Dan, Dan #2 and Michelle on Kini Popo and our French friends Caroline and Phillipe on Ivadel en route to Makemo, an easy overnight sail to a new atoll. We were happy that Phillipe and Caroline decided to follow us, as Caroline has been helping me with my French, and in exchange I have been helping her with her English (which is much better than my French!). In addition to being able to practice what little vocabulary and grammar I know so far, Caroline has taught me useful phrases like, “Il ya un trou dans mon verre,” which translates to “there is a hole in my glass.” That is exactly how most of our French/English lessons go as Caroline and I hang out on the back deck of Ivadel with a bottle of wine while the boys hunt for coconut crabs (they still haven’t caught any.)

We initially anchored right off the village at Makemo, which was much more populated than the village at Raroia. They had paved roads, several magazins, a post office, a restaurant, a bakery, a church and a pretty good size school. The people were incredibly friendly and interested in all the boats anchored off their little town. We were able to pick up some provisions to restock our supplies, although fresh fruits and veggies were scarce. But, it was nice to get some fresh baguettes for a couple of days and eat some delicious poisson cru at the little restaurant.

While we were anchored at the village, we heard from another boat that a couple of the pearl farm guys were looking for a boat with scuba tanks to help them out. Mike and Phillipe offered to help. The next morning, the boys grabbed their scuba gear and headed off in a local skiff. The guys needed divers to descend to about 75 feet to tie some line around some coral heads at the bottom on the lagoon that they would use for their pearl farm operation. Mike and Phillipe descended with the lines and a camera, so that they could video it for the pearl farm guys. That way he would know that they secured the lines the way he wanted it. They returned later that day with big thank yous from the pearl farm guys. Mike & Phillipe weren’t asking for any compensation, but we wondered if they might give us some pearls for helping them out. We didn’t get any pearls, but they did give us five gallons of diesel and a bottle of honey, which is more useful than pearls anyway.

After a couple of days at the village, we decided to head to an anchorage about halfway down the lagoon between the east and west pass. It was about a four hour trip, and we had to go relatively slow to avoid any bommies. Bommies are large coral heads that grow up from the bottom of the lagoon and can be at or just under the surface. Some are large and look like small reefs, but others are small and difficult to see from a distance. One bommie we passed was just under the surface about 10 yards away, and we were in 130 feet of water. We had heard that a catamaran earlier in the season had hit a bommie on this route and punctured one of its pontoons! We did not want to take any chances.

It is easier to see the bommies if the sun is overhead or slightly behind you. If the sun is in front of you, the glare off the water will make it difficult, if not impossible to see them. And, these lagoons are not always fully charted, so our electronic charts are only slightly useful. In order to get a better view of the bommies from a distance, the best thing to do is to have someone go up the mast to the spreaders (about halfway up the mast, depending on the boat) as a look out. From that height, you get a much better view.

Our friends on Ivadel had gone a little bit a head of us, but we decided on a plan with Kini Popo. We would have one boat go in the lead with someone in the spreaders, and the other boat would follow closely behind in their tracks. The lead boat would radio back about any obstructions they observed. Because four hours is a long time for someone to sit up on the spreaders, we would take turns switching places.

Mike and I decided that I should be the one to go up the mast while he stayed at the helm. When it was my turn to go up, I slipped into the harness and attached the main halyard. We have mast steps, so I was able to climb up the mast to the spreaders as Mike tightened the halyard as my safety line. When I reached the spreaders, I was able to stand on the spreaders as I sat back into the harness. It was necessary to hang onto the mast so that I did not swing around as the boat moved forward. There was little wind or swell, so it wasn’t too bumpy a ride up the mast.

The view from the spreaders was great. I was able to call down to Mike and radio back to Dan on my handheld VHF about the reefs and bommies I saw in the distance and when we needed to adjust course. Aside from my job as lookout, I was able to enjoy the view from that height of the atoll and lagoon. It also happened to be my birthday, and I laughed a bit that this was quite an unusual way to spend a birthday!

Ivadel was several miles ahead of us, but Phillipe occasionally radioed back to tell us, “Small potatoes here, no good, no good.” It took me a second to realize he was talking about the bommies. We were able to mark his position on the chart to avoid. Later I said to him, “Je voudrais savoir por quois les pomme de terre.” He just laughed and explained that the French refer to the bommies as potatoes or “potat,” because they look like potatoes just under the surface of the water. I had to give him that, they do. So, we are now referring to the bommies as potatoes.

That night Ivadel invited us all over for a birthday celebration on their boat. Caroline had baked me a delicious chocolate cake, and we shared several bottles of wine. Caroline and Phillipe presented me with a large box as a birthday gift, which I was not expecting. But, I had to unwrap several smaller boxes to get to the actual gift, which was a beautiful black pearl! Dan also had a gift, but it was really a hilarious gift for everyone, as he brought out seven temporary Tattoo tattoos. They were stick on tattoos of the character Tattoo from the TV show Fantasy Island. We all laughed hysterically as one after another we applied the silly tattoo to various parts of our body. Dan #2 even applied it to his bald head! Thankfully, they came off in a couple of days.

We enjoyed a couple of days at this beautiful anchorage playing on the beach before heading toward the East pass. The anchorage by the East pass was a bit tricky, as we had to navigate around several reefs and try not to get our anchor or anchor chain caught on any coral. We had been managing the technique of floating our anchor chain with buoys we got from the pearl farm, but it is still easy to get caught up on the coral, and has required us to dive on our anchor when we set it and before we pull it up if there is a lot of coral around.

The main reason we wanted to stop at this anchorage was to dive the pass, which we had heard was beautiful. We did a test run snorkeling so that we could see where looked like a good place to dive, and found that the North side of the pass had a beautiful coral reef with a sloping wall down to about 60-70 feet. That was perfect.

The next day we got all our scuba gear ready to go in the morning. We were waiting for slack tide just before the flood. But, there had been a strong south swell which sent lots of water over the reef on the south side of the atoll. That meant that a lot of water was coming into the lagoon throughout the day, and even more water was being pushed out through the pass during the ebb. So, even though the low tide was predicted at a certain time, the ebb was lasting much longer. We waited and waited until we could see that the current was slowing down and finally jumped in our dinghies several hours later.

It was almost slack tide when we finally jumped in the water and got ready to descend. We tied Dan’s dinghy to ours, and Mike clipped our dinghy to his BCD with a 100’ floating line that he uses to secure his speargun. I’m happy that the line is getting some other use, because we are not spearfishing here. We’re told that the locals that spearfish have about 10 seconds to get the fish out of the water or into a box before the sharks will be on it. No, thank you!

We descended inside the pass down the sloping coral reef wall and headed out toward the pass. We knew that the tide would start to flood soon, and we would turn around and head back inside the pass when the tide turned. Because it was basically slack tide, there was no current when we initially descended, and we could easily swim and and enjoy the beautiful coral and reef fish. It was like diving in an aquarium. My favorite were these little purple fish that I kept seeing swim around the coral. There were a few reef sharks which were mostly cruising far above us in the shallow areas of the coral reef, but nothing like the sharks we saw in Raroia.

Just as we were getting to the outer edge of the pass, we could feel the current start to flood, and we all turned around and headed back to where we started. The timing was great. On the way back, Mike and I hung back behind the other three and looked under a few rocks, which paid off. First, we saw a lion fish, which is one of the most poisonous fish in the ocean. We obviously did not touch it and were wearing gloves. Next, we found two moray eels. We’ve seen lots of moray eels in the past, but this is the first time we’ve seen two in one hole. We looked down to see two heads sticking out with their menacing looking mouths open at us. Pretty interesting. In all, it was a wonderful dive, and I was pretty proud of the five of us for figuring out how to dive a pass ourselves. It made it all the more special.

Next, we were off to Tahanea…

~katie

p.s. Hoping to be able to post video of our dive when we get to Tahiti.