16 September 2024 – Raiatea Land Tour
We had watched Kill Bill 2 the night before which we enjoyed.
We woke to grey morning. I put on the generator to charge the batteries and we had breakfast. I heard the engine room fan go off and went to check it and noticed the generator was overheating so I turned it off. The fan would work manually but the automatic setting for when the engine or generator on was not working. This was annoying and I will have to look at it later and the generator. Either the coolant level is low or the impeller needs changing.
We had arranged to meet a car hire man at the entrance to Uturoa Marina at 9.30am. We got ourselves ready and went ashore. The marina seemed ok and was a Dream Yacht Charter Base and I spoke to the Office and they were happy for us to leave our dinghy for the day. They could not help with gas cylinders and just suggested the garage. The car hire man came at 9.30am and we went to his office by the airport a few minutes away to complete the formalities.
We then headed off for our tour of the island which was about 100km it is the biggest of the Society Islands. We started off at the capital town Uturoa which had quite a few shops and a waterfront. It has a two-storey fruit and vegetable market but we did not stop. There were also some artisan shops. Our next stop after about 20 km was the Jardin Botanique de Faaroe. This was a 3-hectare site and was an exotic garden and contained many flowering plants and trees. It had a river running through it and which flows into Baie Faaroe and is the only navigable river in French Polynesia. It was lovely to walk through the gardens and to see the lush hills above and the peaks above that.
The next stop was Marea Taputapuatea. This is a very important site and Muslims have Meca, Christians have Jerusalem and Polynesians have Marea Taputapuatea. It is that significant. It is at the centre of the Polynesian triangle, a vast marine region which extends to Hawaii in the North, East to Easter Island, West to Tonga and Somoa and South to New Zealand. It dates from the 17th century and was dedicated to Oro the God of War who dominated 18th century Polynesian beliefs. Any marae constructed on the other islands had to have a stone from Marea Taputapuatea. This was the center of spiritual power which spun out the triangle described above and the picture of the day shows the picture of influence. It was not quite what I was expecting as it did not have the raised platforms with large stones that I have seen in other islands but those that were inserted into the ground and in various flat areas. It was a large site of some 6 hectares and difficult to imagine what it would have been like then.
We continued round on our tour and did not stop off at various pearl farms or vanilla shops as we have done that in other islands. The tour took us round the road that circulates the island by the water mostly with the occasional diversion slightly inland. It has the same type of pretty flowers and shrubs like Tahaa; however, we thought the state of the houses, mostly one storey prefabricated buildings were poorer and not in such a good state as Tahaa. There was also more abandoned cars and other such rubbish. The scenery was still stunning and very lush green hills and rain forest. There were lots of palm trees and lovely bays some with little or the odd house. As we came to the South of the island it got quite remote with little population and no shops-just the odd little hamlet. The water due to the reef was very calm and there were a lot of millpond bays. It was a shame it was so grey and it would have been better to see it in the sunlight.
Eventually we came back toward the North and came across a couple of marinas before the airport. We stopped and had lunch and it was raining again. We then carried on past the airport to Uturoa and got out and walked around. The market was closed and it was quite busy with a little harbour and lots of boats coming and going. Once we had enough we dropped the car back and they in turn dropped us off at the marina.
We returned to Stormbird to find a sailing race going on in the harbour and kite surfers and windsurfers whizzing about which was fun. We had a cup of tea and I had a look at the generator. The coolant level was low so I thought there is a leak. I took the sides off and put more coolant in and turned it on. I could see coolant clearly coming out of various bolts where the pumps had been fitted as if there was no gasket fitted. This annoyed me as I have just had it all repaired. I got back in touch with Tahiti Crew and they will have to get the guy back again. This is a major problem as I need the generator to be working well as we use it to use the watermaker etc. I am steaming at present as I trusted them to get it right and paid a lot of money. I therefore had to turn the main engine on to charge the batteries.
Once I calmed down I made a goats cheese salad which we both enjoyed listening to some music. We chatted and have decided to move on tomorrow due to weather etc to HuaHine which is about 22 nm away.
Crewing Opportunity Year Two
In year two I will be going from New Zealand in early January 2025 across to Sydney and up the Eastern Australian Coast, Indonesia and then through Bali, Singapore and on to Thailand to end year two about the end of November 2025. I will need some more crew.
If there is any interest do email me at hine.nick9@gmail.com
The blog will continue as we move through French Polynesia and beyond. If you have any comments or suggestions about the blog do email me on hine.nick9@gmail.com