Category Archives: Locations

Places around the world

Ta Ta Tahanea

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After our 5-day passage, we arrive at the Tahanea pass with 4 knots of outgoing current.  Not ideal for our incoming arrival.  But we power up the engines and make it through the pass with no problems.  Yeah us!

Anchoring in Tahanea can be “tricky” as you have to avoid getting your anchor stuck or your chain wrapped around one of the gazillion bommies (little black marks in the photo).  In the middle of the photo is shows the pass where you enter the lagoon.  You can see there is an outgoing current at the time of the phot.

As we were approaching the Tahanea pass we saw a rather large cruise ship on AIS.  Super strange as these are not the “normal” cruising grounds for that type of vessel.

The World

A completely foreign occurrence happened the morning we arrived in Tahanea.  Typically, you will only see a small handful of other sail boats here.  However, a rather large, 196-meter cruiser ship entered the pass and dropped the hook right behind us!  WTF!  Seriously, why would you bring tourist here when there are NO services.  OMG What is this world coming to? 

The cruise ship is called “The World” and it is the world’s largest privately owned yacht.  All of the cabins are privately owned (like condos) and evidently you have to be worth over $5M to be considered for a cabin.  A 700’ cabin will run you about $300,000.  But you will be draped in luxury.  Lucky for us, they left around 5:00pm the same day and we had our anchorage all to ourselves again.  Matt said it “farts rainbows.”

 Boobies, Boobies, and more Boobies

As you know by now, boobies are a type of bird that are super common in French Polynesia.  There are red foot, blue foot, and brown foot boobies.  And they are all super fabulous

There are lots of nesting motus where the a large variety of birds mate.  We enjoy seeing them, but keep our distance so as not to scare them off.

The adolescent boobie (top left) was with a friend and they literally walked or rather waddled up to us.  I took the funniest video (check it out on my instagram account).

 The boobies in Tahanea nest in the trees and on the ground!

Some of the young adult boobies are super curious.  One little guy decided he wanted onboard Sugar Shack!

 Turtle Nest

On one motu we spied these tracks from the water to a spot below a tree.  They were turtle tracks – most likely a large turtle like a leatherback!  One set of tracks left the momma up to the nest and one set of tracks left her back to the water.

A little Relaxation Station

We head to a motu near the eastern most pass and discover a small village.  It is used as a communal area for locals visiting from other atolls.  They even built an outdoor seating area.

 Tahanea Anchorages

 The anchorages here are simply breathtaking!  It is so difficult to express in words so here are a few photos.

 And my favorite anchorage, called “7”  The reef makes a natural “7” in the lagoon.

Tahanea 7 Anchorage

Tahanea 7 Anchorage

So very beautiful.  Our anchorage near the pass at sunset.

We take our time migrating from Gambier to Tahiti (see migration post).   The migration began 25 Feb. in Gambier and ended on 26 March in Tahiti.  Our blog posts run 10-12 weeks behind our adventures.

Goodbye Gambier (na na)

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After four seasons in Gambier, we are finally saying “farewell” to the beautiful Gambier archipelago.  We have been unbelievably blessed with all the friends we’ve made here.  So, it was a bit difficult to say farewell.  By the way, “na na” is “goodbye” in Mangarevan (the local language in Gambier).

Our first arrival into Gambier was in April 2019 and we stayed for 6 weeks.  Then we returned in January 2020 and stayed for 4 months.  The third visit had us arriving December 2020 where we stayed for 5 months and our last visit was December 2021 where we stayed for 2.5 months.  So, over the course of our 3 year stay in French Polynesia, over a year of it was in Gambier.  That is how much we liked this archipelago!

We save all of our tracks as we move around.  The image below made me laugh because we had so many yellow tracks all over Gambier!  The green dots are noted anchorages, the yellow triangles are warnings of obstructions, the orange dots are points of interest.  Clearly, we’ve been in and around most of the islands in the Gambier Archipelago.

Tracks around the Gambier Archipelago

Tracks around the Gambier Archipelago

Saying “Na Na / Farewell” is super hard…

Over the course of a few weekends, many drinks, and multiple occasions, we capture our farewells to everyone.    The first person I met here was Stefan (or Tanavai) and his beautiful wife Manu.  We’ve spent countless hours with them at their house, on our boat, at Puaumu, Christmas, New Year’s Eve, and more. 

Dada was gracious enough to showcase his pearl farm and all of his spectacular pearls with us and so many of our friends.

Heifera taught us how to carve the pretty pearl shells and gave many cruisers tours of the carving school.

Stefan, Manu, Dada, Heifera

Stefan, Manu, Dada, Heifera

One of my very special friends is Poerani (“Popo”).  She teaches English, art, and dance.  She has brought so much joy to our lives.  It was especially hard to leave her glorious smile.

Poerani a true joy

Poerani a true joy

The top photo is Titoan (he runs a small yacht services and charter business) and Juliet who is the local nurse.  Teva (lower left) is the heartbeat of Gambier and has all the connections.  Danny is a teacher and always has a pretty smile on his face!

We met Tehotu and Noella during our 3rd and 4th visit which is a shame as it would have been lovely to get to know them better.  Truly blessed family with so much love and heart to give. 

Taina (lower left) owns Taina Pearl and Keishi and she is an amazingly talented jewelry designer.  And Atuona (lower right) greeted me daily at Magasin Jojo’s. Always brought a smile to my face.

On our last night in Rikitea (the main, and only village in Gambier), we had our cruising friends over for a final farewell happy hour.  Photo: Matt, me, Dave, Pia, Daniela, Leo.  Front row: Jan, Rita, Doug, Kobe.

We head over to Taravai for our last night.  We invite Valerie, Herve, and Ariki for dinner and enjoy an intimate evening with our good friends.  They loaded us up with lots of tasty fruits and beautiful flowers.  It is Polynesian tradition to gift visitors with a shell necklace and flowers to set in the sea to welcome you back in the future.

It was super hard to capture the flowers in the sea as we were traveling 6kts, but you get the idea.

We have had countless sunsets and sunrises in Gambier, but here are a few of my favorites.  A short farewell to the day made brighter by its brilliance.

The iconic Mt. Duff on Mangareva lit up by the sunset.

A dance, fun run, and raffle during the Valentine’s Day Gambier Fundraise (see passage post).  Events from this post occurred mid-February. Our blog posts run 10-12 weeks behind our adventures.

Valentine’s Day Fundraiser

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The College St Rapahel De Rikitea is a middle school in Mangareva, Gambier.  They host several fundraisers each year to help pay for school supplies, books, dances, and school trips.  We were lucky enough to be present for their largest fundraiser in February.

There were many events held over Valentine’s Day weekend.  Here is an idea of the line up (just from what I heard; we did not have the actual schedule):

Fundraiser Events:

  • Friday evening included movie night and games
  • Saturday day held more games, sporting events, an artisan market, and bake off
  • Saturday evening was a school dance show with dinner
  • Sunday was a “3k fun run and valentine lunch”

We gathered a few of our cruiser friends and met for take away dinner (typical Polynesian steak frites, chicken frites, poison cru, waffles) and grabbed some seats to watch the dance show.  Our good friend Poerani (the English teacher) is one of the MCs for the night.

Poerani (Popo)’s class went first.  They did a traditional dance with about 40 kids (bottom photos in red and yellow).  Then the older classes came out and continued with the “traditional Polynesian” dances.  I loved the costumes, albeit not as flashy as the Heiva dance costumes, still colorful, bright, vibrant, and beautiful.  The kids costumes (upper right corner) were colored leaves and were just beautiful!

The older kids also put on a few “modern / rap” dances interspersed with Polynesian moves – super creative!

The musicians were also students showcasing their musical talents.  Poerani upper right corner and Danny (dance instructor lower right corner)

Then the teachers came out and did a beautiful Polynesian dance.  Poerani captured the show as she radiates beauty, grace, and style!  I was so proud of her!

Fun Run Fundraiser

We managed to convince 4 boats to join us on the “3k Fun Run.”  There was a total of 39 teams and our participation included a T-shirt, flowers, and a raffle ticket.  Everyone had their arms marked with their team number. We were number 1 simply because we were the first to sign up.  This is our cruiser group.

Because it was 13 February it was a Valentine themed event.  All the balloons were red and white, some shaped as hearts, the shirts were red with a big heart on the back.  Matt and I and our friends Jan and Daniela

A lot of our local friends joined in on the race as well.  Teva (center photo with me), Danny (upper right), Poerani and Danny (bottom left), Titoan and Juliet (right center), Poerani and I (bottom right).

As many of you know, I am not a runner!  I don’t even like to run when someone is chasing me!  I do love to walk and I can walk at a pretty fast clip (or so I thought).  Matt wore flip flops as he was convinced, we would go slow.  I was outfitted in a work out top, shorts, and tennis shoes!  Yes, I wore shoes.  As it turned out, our friends Jan and Daniela came in 4th (lost to the 3rd place couple by 9 seconds).  We came in 13th and that was only because Matt pushed me.  It was fun, but let me tell you, not my cup of tea :0

Raffle

After the race there was a Valentine lunch where they did the raffle.  Some how each of our cruiser friends won something, which was super cool!   We won a heart shaped candle set and a photo shoot. 

The weekend was a huge success.  I believe the fundraiser generated to $10,000.  Keep in mind that Mangareva is one of the richest islands in French Polynesia!!!

We showcase Gambier highlights and our favorite spots with our friend Wayne.  Did you see Part I and Part II?  Our blog posts run 10-12 weeks behind our adventures.