Huahine, Raiatea, Tahaa & Bora Bora

With our new rudder made we were ready to carry on visiting the French Polynesian Islands. We set for Huahine on an uneventful overnight sail.

Huahine was lovely but strong winds aborted our plan of seeing the easter side so we stayed between Fare and Avea Bay, being the later and Teapaa Bay our favourites by far. Good snorkeling and shells, lovely walks and sand beaches. Asher, Turia and Kirahu from Moorea where in Huahine visiting some family so we were lucky to have a car to tour the island! We saw the sacred eels, the beautifully maintained Maraes and collected cockles with Turia's family in the northern Lagoon. It was quite the experience! We saw the century old fish traps still in use.

Then we were off again to Raiatea to collect Claudia, Casey and Nicolas coming from NZ for a week of fun.But it wasn't to be, a total tragedy in New Plymonth with one of Claudia's brazilian students being taken by a gigantic swell of the rocks during an outdoor pursuits group excursion, meant Claudia was in for an incredible amount of work and emotional stress. The poor girl stayed in New Plymonth for 2 weeks of much hope, sadness and frustration. But Casey came and we made sure he had a good time so he could send out love back to Claudia.

We toured Raiatea and Tahaa with Casey, and loved the twin islands. By far our favourites, right there with Moorea. Surf, shells, sand beaches, lovely hikes, there was something to please all onboard. Especially Brisa whom got her own personal entertainer in Casey!

The highlights were the river Faaroa, where we got to pickf fruits from Andreas garden and only payed him after much convincing after all he had 2 kids to feed as well; Marae Taputapuatea where as good Kiwis we paid out respects to the launching place of the Maori Canoes bound to New Zealand millenia ago; NaoNao Motu and Pass, a snorkel & shell paradise hardly visited by the cruising fleet. Our surf point of choice was Tetoora where the boys got some good waves and it was mellow enough at times for a visit from Brisa even! Uturoa was a love village with great crafts, I dropped a bit of cash there I must confess...

Then it was off to Bora Bora... well, it is beautiful, especially on the eastern side, but with the wind it was very hard to take the boat there so we got stuck on the western side with all the tourists. Unfortunatelly we could see what bad tourism can do to the island (it was by far the dirtiest, untided, area we have ever seen in French Polynesia), and the people seemed to have lost the genuine smile and friendlyness.

But it is still beautiful, Matira had an amazing turquoise lagoon we anchored in 2 meters of lovely white sand and looked like we were flying. Brisa loved playing on the beach with the local boys and the odd tourist. We walked around the thousand dollars a night hotels and I strongly believe we had the best bed in town! Russ loved the Bloody Mary's Bar, a Bora Bora Institution and one of the best themed bars we have seen. Everything had been thought of. And it was a pretty reasonable price for what was in offer. Russ thought the penis shaped flush cord was hilarious. They had awesome carvings everywhere and the bloody mary was good as far as bloody marys go. Not my thing really.

Having had enough we decided to carry on and are now in Maupiti, where we knew we would be pinned down as there is some fronts coming across the entire week. But it is a nicer place to be stuck than Bora Bora that we know already. Check the videos with the Mantas and drool on our prison paradise!