Taha’a is located within the same reef as Raiatea, and is a short hop from our last stop, Huahine. We first made a stop for a couple of nights right outside the boatyard in Raiatea. As this is a hub for charter boats, we were hoping to find someone to fix a couple of things that have broken lately.
We tried to find someone who could fix our bowsprit, which got damaged at the mayhem town anchorage in Fare, Huahine. No such luck, so we have to manage without our Code Zero sail until we get to New Zealand in November. We did, however, manage to find someone who could fix our busted ice cube maker, so we handed that in for repairs.
We decided to wait for the repairs at the neighboring island of Taha’a, which we found more appealing than the more busy Raiatea. We motored over there on yet another rainy day.
We went into a quiet bay, Tapuamu Bay, located on the west side of the island, and woke up the next morning to the birds chirping. The island is very lush, and we were surrounded by green hills.
We spent a few days exploring our local bay, and met another Norwegian boat anchored right next to us. We hung out at the local bar together, and visited each other’s boats. It is not often we meet other Norwegians, so it was fun to exchange news and reflections from home.
This island is perfect for biking, as the road circles the island mostly along the waterfront. We also had a couple of days practice from biking in Huahine, so we planned a bike just a little over 40km to circumvent most of the island.
We started out heading north, where we visited one of the active pearl farms on the island. There are three pearl farms here, and several vanilla farms. This island actually produces 80% of the vanilla from French Polynesia. However, we didn’t get around to visit a vanilla farm here, but we have been to one in Gambier.
We continued biking around the island, and were amazed how quiet it was. This was a Saturday, and what we thought would be a good day to bike to meet the locals and perhaps see some weekend activities, was not correct. We did get the impression that the inhabitants on this island are quite entrepreneurial and work hard. There are several pearl farms, vanilla farms and distilleries here, so we were thinking that they might have the weekend off to relax, and that most stay at home or are on the water in the lagoon.
The road that runs around the island, is mostly located by sea level, but we had a couple of steep hills to climb. Again , we chose to get off our bikes in most of these, as they are quite fragile and not made for high impact. But, we did feel we got a good workout from the trip even so!
We had lunch at a lovely beach restaurant, which actually was closed. But, the son in the family asked his mom if she could make something for us, and so she did. Lucky us, we had the whole place to ourselves and enjoyed an awesome meal of white tuna and locally made vanilla sauce.
The vanilla sauce can sometimes be too sweet for our taste, however this seemed to be the place to taste it again. The sauce was actually more savory than sweet, and the vanilla made a really nice, well-rounded flavor which accompanied the fish.
After lunch, we were ready to climb the last hill, and get back to our bay, where we planned some Rhum tasting at the two distilleries. However, we did a wrong turn at the main town, and continued towards the southern tip of the island without realizing until we came to the end of the road. There was nothing to do but to turn back, and bike the same distance to the crossroad we missed. That added another 16 kms to our bike ride, and by the time we were home, ,we had biked 58 kms. So, we were quite tired that evening, for sure…
As we didn’t get to do the Rhum tastings the day we biked, we were contemplating going the next day. However, in the morning a local man came over to us with his kayak, and started yelling at us for anchoring in his bay. We had been warned already about this guy, who harasses cruisers. We were located at a designated anchor zone, and there were another five boats in the bay. He visited all of them, screaming profanities at each.
We had heard from other cruisers who were here last year, that a SUP went missing from their boat the night after he had been there. So, we didn’t want to take any risks, and moved the boat from the bay to the outer reef. Just another example that cruisers are getting less popular in French Polynesia, unfortunately…
Taha’a also has some awesome snorkeling, and specifically one place is very well known here, which is at the outer reef, by a resort. The location is called The Coral Garden, and it sits between two small islands just next to the resort.
The captain returned to the coral garden with is underwater camera, and got some great shots. He also brought the camera as we visited another snorkel site called the Coral Maze, located a short dinghy ride north of our anchorage.
We left Taha’a after a week, went back to Raiatea to pick up our ice cube maker, and headed over to the next French Polynesian island to the west of us, Bora Bora. This was The Place to be in the 70’s and 80’s, and many had palm tree posters from Bora Bora on their rooms when growing up. We can’t wait to see its beautiful and iconic lagoon.
