Cheese to Please

Two nights in Huahine was enough for our crew who were itching to get to Bora Bora. We’ve all heard of Bora Bora, with it’s azure water and towering volcanic mountain silhouette. So at 7am (another early start!?) we pulled in all 110m of anchor chain (which was painstakingly flaked to perfection) and slipped out of the reef to set our sails. The full mainsail and the jib saw us through a small squall before dropping off as the ocean swell rolled in. Andrew made a pot of coffee which kept us entertained for another 5 minutes, then we decided to set the asymmetric spinnaker, affectionately called the candy cane due to its red and white stripes.

Denise, Liz and Ken battling over BananaGrams

Candy Cane Sail went up

Up, up, up it went, all 21.5 meters of mast until the halyard reached the top. Once up, the sock was opened and sheets tightened until we were cruising downwind with the biggest headsail on board. This carried Silver Fern for several comfortable miles, adjusting our wind angle to suit the power up or power down through gusty patches and light patches of wind alike. Inside, a few games of BananaGrams were played, with Liz being the ultimate judge whether a word was real or not. If you’ve not played this game, please look it up, it’s so much fun! Crew alternated being on watch and studying the inside of their eyelids while Silver Fern comfortably covered 50NM. Despite a fishing line being out all day, all we managed to do was give the lure a thorough salt water rinse before we hauled it in, defeated.

The mountain by night

Off to explore the waters of Bora Bora

It was mid afternoon when we barreled through the channel in the reef to the sheltered waters of Bora Bora. A sneaky zig zag through a coral bommie area brought us into a mooring zone to the western side of an island called Toopua. And of course there was a 30kt gust of wind as we were securing the mooring buoy! It gets dark quite quickly here so we settled in for an afternoon of cheese and crackers before heading to bed early.

In the morning, we explored! Lots of snorkeling and swimming happened, Debs got her wing foil out and showed off to the other yachties. Jason took everyone in the dinghy to look for rays and sharks, through a coral garden and over shallow sand. The highlight of everyone’s day was swimming with black tip reef sharks and different types of rays. It was a busy day in Bora Bora, we were treated to lovely stars and an eerie glow behind the mountain before the moon came up and lit up the sky.

Black Tip Reef Sharks, photo taken by Ken

As Bora Bora is quite small and we’d seen what we wanted to see, we left the next morning after fuelling up Silver Fern. Jason and I put diesel in the tanks while Liz, Ken, Debs, Pattie, Denise, Ross and Andrew tried to jump ship! Turns out they just went for a quick walk around the town and came back with slightly warm baguettes and fresh tuna. Guess what was for lunch then!

Fueling up under the mountain of Bora Bora. I’m trying to remember how to say 200 in French. Deux-cent!

Liz slicing fresh baguette

Well underway sailing, we had our jib and main sail with 1 reef going upwind nicely at 7-8kts. Only 26nm to sail, we quickly had Bora Bora behind us and Taha’a in front of us. We were all giggling and saying “Bye-bye Bora Bora” until that joke got old but by that time, we could see the impressive waves breaking on the reefs of Taha’a. What amazing colours and sizes of waves! We dropped sail and motored to an anchoring area, testing the waters for shallow patches and safe swing room. Once again, all the anchor chain is out and we are sitting nicely.

The reef breakers of Taha’a obscure our view of Bora Bora

First on the schedule: coral gardens drift snorkel. Andrew stayed on board and Debs went for a wing. Ken, Liz, Pattie, Denise and Ross came with me in the dinghy for a wet upwind ride to a small passage that’s popular for drift snorkeling. We anchored the dinghy then walked the length of a small islet to hop in the water and drift back to the dinghy. There were some amazing fishes, eels and stingrays, and some huge anemones and coral patches. It was neat! You had to think fast about which direction you wanted to go as the current was running quite fast, and if you weren’t quick enough you’d end up getting stuck on top of a coral head - like a beached whale! Sure enough, the iodine came out once we were all back on board and we had to wash the sand out of our togs.

The drift snorkel through coral gardens. Look how shallow the water is!

More cheese and crackers (there’s a theme here) for sundowners then another fresh tuna dish for dinner. We demolished a bunch of chocolate afterwards and everyone was in bed by 8pm!

Tomorrow will bring a search for manta rays and more drift snorkeling, and perhaps some more cheese, crackers and baguettes…

-Hannah.