WOW!! This place is what we have been waiting, planning and dreaming about for years. We are in the inner lagoon on Manihi Atoll. On this side of the lagoon the depth and bottom structure, which is (mainly corral and corral sand) varies gently. Because of the shallow water and slight depth variations, the water is full of beautiful colours that range between pale green turquoise and deep blue sapphire. The lagoon is surrounded by “motu”, which are small islets, covered with palm trees. Right now we are anchored in 8 m (25 ft) of very pale green water. 100 meters off our bow is a small white sand beach leading to one of these palm tree covered islets. Paradise at your doorstep, or in our case, bow.
We arrived outside the only entrance, Tirapa Pass, Wednesday at 6:30 am after a 3 day passage from the Marquesas. Everything we read about these atoll passes had us on alert. These passes can be dangerous we had read. Our experience has been that for the most part the guide books offer very cautious advice. To avoid lawsuits, I assume. However, this pass was running like a small river into the ocean when we arrived. That is not good. It narrowed to 130 feet, which is plenty, with as little as 7 feet of depth at the inner entrance, which is not “plenty”. New Paiges’ draft is 6 feet, 6 inches. As the reef on both sides of the pass were underwater, the exact location of the navigable 130 feet of width was a point of discussion. A big point of discussion between ourselves and the other boat, Myah, whom we were travelling with again. Mark, her captain, had arrived about 15 minutes before us and said he would try right away. A few minutes later we heard “engines, engines” in broken English over the radio. French Customs had a 100 foot patrol boat lying at the entrance to the pass, and its’ crew could see that Myah was having difficulty punching through the torrent of water coming out of the pass. Mark increased the power, made a few course corrections to where he thought the channel was flowing, and after 5 terse minutes, was through safely. Two miles back we were too far behind to see his course through the channel. He radioed to let me know about applying enough power, and to be very careful about the currents. As it was so early in the morning, the sun was in our eyes and we could not see anything in the water. Fifteen minutes later, with Joan standing lookout on the bow, we ploughed our way in. I briefly saw about 5 or 6 ft register on the depth sounder at one point under the keel, so where we crossed the inner part of the reef was about 12 feet deep. The guide book was not over stating the hazard. Mark has entered over 30 of these South Pacific passes, and I have navigated many passes in the Pacific Northwest, but this felt different. Later that day and the next morning 3 more boats entered. An American, a Canadian and a New Zealand flagged boat. Each skipper had a similar experience, and all said it was the worst pass they had navigated. Getting out will be very interesting as the current will be from behind and tends to push the boats of course quickly. But that’s a worry for another day.
After entering the lagoon we dropped anchor off the main village of Pauea, which has about 700 residents. The anchorage was deep and full of coral heads, and as we were at the southwest of the lagoon, the easterly trade-winds created a nasty wet chop when riding about in our dinghy. Not what we were looking for. The French Gendarme from the patrol ship stopped by to check our papers, and enjoyed a coffee with us. They were very friendly and polite. Anchored inside the lagoon was the sailboat “59th Street Bridge”, whom we had met in Nuku Hiva. Parents, Peter and Lisa are sailing for a year with daughters Marachelle (12) and Lilly (10). Kimberly was very excited to see the girls again. Later that morning a local black pearl farmer, Fernando, stopped by to see if we wished to tour his farm. Fernando picked us up in his panga, a 25 ft open boat with a large outboard motor. We, along with the crews of Myah and 59th Street Bridge and two other cruising boats, roared 3 or 4 miles up the lagoon to his farm. What a wonderful day. Fernando speaks French, Paumotu and a bit of English. At the farm his niece, who spoke reasonably good English, and a sons’ friend joined us. We had a great time learning how the pearls are cultivated. We toured by boat his area of the lagoon where they have 30,000 oysters seeded. Fernando had each of the 3 kids insert a “nucleus”, or seed into an oyster. Hopefully 14 months later using this process a pearl would be produced by the oyster. Then each cruising family bought 20 oysters for a modest price and took our chance on what we would find. Usually the success rate is around 30%. In the end Fernando let us open enough oysters until we each had 14 or so pearls. This was much more fun than buying stuff in a store, and we all got and education on pearl cultivation, and how hard the work is. Fernando also told us to move our boats to the very northeast end of the lagoon. The Paumotu call the motus at the far end of the lagoon the “Secture”, meaning away from their village, their “outback”. Fernando called it “Mon Paradise”.
So, on Friday morning we moved about 12 miles northeast to the far eastern edge of the lagoon. Fernando hopped on Myah and they towed his panga while we followed very closely behind. This was not charted on our charts, but the major reefs had navigation makers for safe passage around them. There were many corral heads along the way to be steered around. Without Fernando aboard, the trip would have been much slower. We dropped anchor in the paradise I mentioned above. Fernando had his 6 year old grandson with him. He was teaching him the traditional ways of living off the sea and land. So, after we were anchored they dove off the boat with a spear gun. In less than 25 minutes he had speared seven fish. There were snapper, grouper, goat-fish, and a parrot-fish. They took them to the beach, made a small fire pit and roasted the fish. At their invitation we joined them for supper. We ate the fresh, hot fish off large leaves with our fingers. It was delicious. During the meal Fernando suggested we have a pig roast on Saturday, cooked Tahitian style. So, that is what happened yesterday. There were 11 of us (cruisers) and Fernando with 7 of his family. It was great. Fernando and his family and some extended family arrived early yesterday morning with the pig on board the panga. We gave them a tour of New Paige. They loved the boat and the whole idea of travelling with our home on the sea. The pig looked like a big pet, and we were told his name was Vienanno. My first thought was ” Kimberly, Lilly and Marachele are going to freak out over this”, followed by, “I can see the three girls plotting to rescue Viennano”. The dads discussed the possible offending of our hosts by the girls discomfort with “dinner”. In the end it all worked out, with only a few hicups, which I’ll mention at the end. The guys went ashore to help. Viennano was hobbled so he couldn’t run fast, but was looking content on the beach watching the kids play in the water. I began to call him Freddy. A pit was dug in the sand, and we then collected broken corral off the ocean side of the motu and hauled it across in gunny sacks. We then placed coconut trees kindling in the pit, placed the corral chunks on top and set fire to the wood. The corral acts just like charcoal briquettes in a BBQ. After about an hour or so, the coral was very hot. After dispatching Freddy to the pig heaven, we dressed him and placed him on the hot corral. We covered him with wet palm tree fronds, then wet gunny sacks and finally covered everything with a layer of sand. As this was happening the ladies made local traditional bread, which tasted like native American corn bread. Then Fernando’s wife, Stella and their niece wove plates from coconut fronds, and wove hats for the three girls, who then posed for the Miss Manihi contest. We played Bocci ball, which is very popular with the locals, while we waited. Fernando played his guitar and sang native songs. We harvested coconuts and drank the sweet water. Then we feasted. It was wonderful, but, I think all us cruisers were a little sad about Freddy. Its easy to forget where food really comes from when you buy at the grocery store. Getting up and personal with dinner gives you a whole new appreciation for what your eating and how the food chain works. There are lots of sharks in the water. They are mostly 3 to 4 foot black tipped reef sharks, and are very, very fast. When kayaking they will sometimes cruise right to the kayak to check you out. When the reef fish, Anglefish, Triggerfish, Parrotfish come to visit, we get excited. When the shark pays a visit, you get very excited, in a different sort of way. They are reasonably harmless I am told, though there are many large ones within the lagoon. And I hear that we won’t even notice sharks after awhile, but, I’m not convinced.
Anyway, back to Freddys’ poor demise. When its time to dispatch Freddy, I sent three little girls back to their boats. Fernando grabs a kitchen knife and pulls the pig knee deep into the water. He straddles the pig from behind, holds his neck between his legs, snout in one hand and knife in the other . At this time up pulls a panga with four French tourists, out to see the more remote parts of French Polynesia, we are told. They are about 10 feet or so from Fernando and Freddy when the knife falls. Unfortunately for everyone involved, the knife is not very sharp. There are many blows, and it takes four or five minutes for Freddy to pass away. In those preceding 4 or 5 minutes Freddy’s squealed like the proverbial stuck pig. So loud are the squeals that Lisa on 59th Street Bridge can hear it clearly. It was pretty disheartening to those of us looking for a quick, more of less painless, end to Freddy. It was a very loud and messy end. To the horrified French tourist, it looked like sadistic murder on the beach. They covered their eyes, then their ears. One had her hand over her mouth, trying to stop the rising bile I guess. For a brief moment, They looked lite the tacky “see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil monkeys” you buy at thrift shops. They quickly left without saying a word to us. I think they have a different story to tell than we do.
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Out here, the world is a bit more real. Or, is it surreal.
Cheers,
Roger, Joan & Kimberly
Posted: May 11th, 2008 under Ship's Log.
Comments: 5
These atolls usually have one, and occasionally two passes that are navigable with a boat our size. But, they can be tricky. The currents inside the pass can reach 9 knots, and they can be very narrow and shallow. At times we may have only a foot or two under our keels. There are no published current tables. And just when your happy to be safely through the pass, usually the lagoon itself is filled with corral heads. To make it real interesting, most of the lagoons are not charted, and the few that are, not well. It’s all eyeball navigation. The water will be very clear, and we hope to have the sun shinning through. Corral heads look brown, light blue is very shallow water, and dark blue is deeper water (ie. good). Joan and Kimberly will have to direct from the bow. I’ll steer from up on the flybridge to get a better angle on the water. It should be interesting. Hopefully it’s sunny tomorrow.
