Moorea; French Polynesia
07/03/2004 - 07/08/2004
Beautiful Tahiti hillsides bid us farewell as we sail over to Moorea.
Au Revoir Tahiti
Escaping the vortex of the big city of Papeete left us feeling relieved. With a multitude of restaurants, shops and services available in Tahiti, we did not spend much time relaxing during the three weeks prior to departure for Moorea.
The distance between Tahiti and Moorea is approximately 20 miles. On a very light wind day, we motored away from French Polynesia's version of "The Land of Stuff", Tahiti, to the popular tourist destination, Moorea.
Every view of Moorea displays the remnants of its volcanic past. Blankets of lush, green foliage covers the shear peaks jutting up from the island to paint the perfect tropical island picture. Two large bays, Cook's Bay and Opunohu Bay, dip into the northern coastline.
Mountainous Moorea awaits our visiting pleasure. Moorea's jagged peaks reach elevations as high as 1207 meters (approximately 4000 feet).
Whisper settles in to one of the many beautiful anchorages. After a few weeks in the crowded anchorages in Tahiti, Moorea's anchorages seem peaceful and quiet.
Cook's Bay was our first stop in Moorea. With a name like Cook's Bay, you would think Captain Cook spent time in the bay. But no, he anchored in another bay called Opunohu Bay.
With views such as this one, it is no wonder that Moorea is a popular tourist destination.
After a lovely night in the Cook's Bay reef side anchorage, we decided to go check out the next large bay called Opunohu Bay. Beautiful Opunohu Bay provided a great view from every angle. Parts of the Mel Gibson movie Bounty were filmed in this bay.
Weather continued to be at the forefront of our thoughts during our stay in Moorea. Low pressure systems with high winds dominated the weather forecast. After the storm in Tahiti, everyone's "weather nerves" were on edge.
To add to the pressure, Duncan's sister, Susan, was scheduled to arrive in Huahine on July 11th. Via e-mail, we set her expectations that we may not make it to Huahine by the 11th and she may need to change her destination to Moorea. Luckily, Susan's flexible attitude relieved the pressure for us. In an email, she wrote "I've heard Moorea is beautiful, too". Phew, we will have fun whether we end up for her visit.
Resort luxuries abound at the Sheraton in Moorea. The beautiful white sand beach and overwater bungalows look inviting.
This building is home to the Sheraton's formal restaurant as well as the spa. We enjoyed a tasty lunch at the poolside restaurant.
Thanks to a children's sailing school, Whisper and crew had a front row seat to daily races in the bay. Contagious laughter, giggles and yells resonated from each sailboat.
Watching the Weather
The good news is in the huge Opunohu Bay with room for hundreds of boats, only 4 boats accompanied us. That left us all with lots of space between us...until a boat came in during the night and anchored 50 feet away from us. As Robin rubbed the cobwebs out of her eyes in the morning and peeked out the portlights, she noticed the boat right in front of us. "Hmmmmm, they must be right over our anchor chain", she thought silently. Then, as if they heard her, the folks started to haul up their anchor chain by hand. Phew, we would not need to ask them to move. For the sake of this story, we will call the boat Too Close.
Ugh, no windlass, what a drag for them - anchors and chain are very heavy. As Robin watched them struggle with raising their anchor, she realized their anchor must be firmly set on Whisper's anchor chain. Finally, the couple abandoned their efforts and went back to their cockpit.
Sitting in the cockpit one evening we noticed torch lit canoes filled with Polynesian dancers rowing out to this charter yacht. Quite a performance ensued.
By now, Duncan is awake and assessing the situation. He calmly inquires whether they plan to continue their efforts to pick up their anchor. Still unsure of whether they understand our English, they ask us if we plan on leaving today. Okay, they do understand English. After indicating we had no plans to leave, they settled back into their cockpit and started to relax.
Being the astute people that we are, we realized they just indirectly told us they were not going to try to move. Given the probability Too Close is anchored on our chain, we decide to move Whisper rather than risk Too Close being anchored on our chain during the potential high winds predicted to arrive during the night.
Red Dragon, a New Zealand mega yacht joined us in Moorea.
Duncan goes to the bow and Robin mans the wheel in preparation to move. In the mean time, friends anchored nearby on the boat Bobulona stand on their deck watching us deal with the situation. "Chink, chink, chink" goes Whisper's chain as Duncan starts to reel in the chain. Slowly Whisper gets closer and closer to the other boat. Within a few seconds, lots of stuff starts to happen. Whisper's chain is taut, vertical and not moving. A gust of wind funnels through the bay. Whisper is 10 feet away from the other boat and the wind is blowing her toward the other boat. Duncan yells to Robin, "Reverse, that way, fast". Robin reverses and steers while Duncan starts letting out anchor chain. Meanwhile, the folks on the Too Close are standing on deck watching Whisper come closer and closer to their boat. Just to add to the situation, 2 boats approach the anchorage and head straight toward Whisper inquiring whether this is a good spot to anchor. Duncan fends off as Whisper comes within 6 inches of hitting Too Close. Then, Duncan loudly responds to the approaching boats, " Just stay away from us"
The ultimate contrast in boat sizes - tiny little sailing prams race around the mega yacht. They are truly sailing circles around them.
At this point, our friends on Bobulona start laughing and clapping at Duncan's statement. Surprisingly, we laughed, too. The approaching boats realize something is not quite right and motor away from Whisper. Now safely 100 feet away from Too Close, we contemplate the next plan of action. At the same time, the couple of Too Close heads up to the bow of their boat and starts to pull up their anchor chain. During all of these antics, we must have dislodged their anchor from our chain and they were able to pick up their anchor.
At this point, we do not know whether Whisper's anchor is still set, so we picked up our anchor as well. Too Close then motored to the furthest point away in the bay and we reset our anchor. That evening on Bobulona, we shared a few laughs about the situation which we could do because no damage occurred.
A couple of rainy days allowed us to relax and watch the fog roll over the mountains. Even the fog is beautiful in Moorea. We hope to spend more time in Moorea in the future.
Time to Move On
While safely tucked into Opunohu Bay, the low pressure system arrived that night around midnight with rain and winds gusting up to 39 knots. With 300 feet of chain and the trusty CQR anchor, we did not drag and were thankful we resolved the situation with Too Close earlier in the day. Over in Maeva Beach, Tahiti, wind speeds were reported to reach 50 knots and one boat dragged onto the rocks.
As soon as the weather system passed, we left Moorea to move on to Huahine just in the nick of time before Susan's arrival. Our visit to Moorea was way too short. We will have to return to Moorea for more exploration in the future. For now, goodbye Moorea and hello Huahine.