We sailed from Papeete on Sunday, and stayed in Moorea for 2 nights, staying in Cooks bay. On the second morning J came in and said “Mum,Dad, there’s dolphins outside!”. We both jumped up and went to see the dolphins. The other kids were all asleep so I suggested to J and G that they hop in the water and swim over near the dolphins. They did this and stayed in the water for about 30 minutes, getting a few glimpses of the dolphins. Then E woke up, she and I hopped in the water to see if we could catch a glimpse of these beautiful creatures. We watched them dive under the water a couple of times, before we returned to the boat to view from there. By this time H and S were up, we all enjoyed watching the pod go back and forth about 25 metres from the boat.
After our dolphin show we picked up our anchor and headed to Opunohu bay for the day. We had been watching the weather and had decided that the best time for a passage to Huahine was going to be tonight. So we spent the day snorkelling, and preparing for our overnight sail. The passage was easy, no squalls on my watch, I saw 3 other vessels so this was a busy night for ships!
We sailed in through Pass Avemoa just before lunch time and after an interesting anchoring attempt in an area with lots of bommies, attached to a mooring ball instead. We stayed here for the next 10 days and enjoyed being close to the village of Fare, where we could get fresh baguette every day, enjoy happy hour most evenings at the local yacht club and watch the sunset. The kids also spent some time playing with some local kids, swimming and jumping off the town dock. Even though they spoke different languages they still had lots of laughs, pushing each other into the water.
After a refreshing swim, we rode on looking for the blue eyed eels. As it was getting late, H and I kept riding, as I thought we must be close, but the others started back toward Fare to return the bikes. H and I got to the village of Faie and saw a sign for the sacred eels. We saw at least 20 of these large blue eyed eels, which are revered in Polynesia, as being sacred animals. There is the belief they are linked to the afterlife of their ancestors.
H and I then peddled as fast as we could and caught up with the others just before reaching Fare. We returned the bikes and had a well earned dinner out at the yacht club.
Our next anchorage was just outside Port Bourayne, about half way down the west side of Huahine. We spent the night there, then motored down to the southern most anchorage in Avea Bay.
S,E,H and J spent their days wakeboarding, kayaking, swimming, and bumming around in a small sailing dinghy with their friends on Sangvind. S got up on the wakeboard on her second day and loved it. J and H spent 2 full days in the sailing dinghy, tacking their way around the bay.
We also went for a walk into the village of Parea to check out another Marae site then spent an afternoon on the beach at the Relais Mahana resort, utilising their paddle boards and enjoying a delicious lunch on our anniversary.
From there we moved back to Port Bourayne for a few nights. The kids went to shore and played on a horizontal coconut tree, bouncing up and down and having lots of fun. We also went for a dinghy ride into the large bay, going under the bridge that joins Huahine Nui (big island) and Huahine Iti (small island). We stopped in a small village and went for a walk, then headed out to the pass and watched the surfers before heading back to the boat for a swim. We found a lovely coral garden with lots of fish, G said “ head that way, and turn back to look at your fins, as all the fish follow you”. H and I did this, and there were hundreds of fish following us as we swam through through gaps in the coral.
