Tautira

0800 Position 17-45S 149-10W. At anchor in Tautira Bay, Tahiti Iti

This is the fifth time I've sailed across the ocean on a small sailboat and made landfall on the island of Tahiti. It is one of the most iconic sailing destinations in the world, and arriving here is always memorable. First one, and then the other of Tahiti's two mountains rose out of the sea looking like separate islands. As we got closer more features appeared, the deep valleys that are cut into the mountains, the old cores of volcanos that remain now as spires, and steep cliffs. Closer still, and the island started to turn green and the two mountains merged into a single island. Manmade structures came into view, and there was a debate about what they were. We saw a sailboat that turned into a barge that turned into a church as we got closer. The water became smooth as we passed through the barrier reef. We tucked up under the reef and behind a peninsula and dropped anchor in twenty five feet over a black sand bottom. There wasn't another large boat in sight, just a dozen or so one man outrigger canoes that the locals are playing with near the beach.

We had planned to anchor on the eastern end of Tahiti Iti, but the wind shifted unexpectedly to the southeast overnight and we couldn't lay that end of the island. No problem. I dug out the cruising guide and saw that we were headed for Tautira. We anchored there when I circumnavigated Tahiti on my Ranger 33 in 1986, and I recall it being a pleasant and protected spot. So we decided to go to Tautira instead, and it turned out to be even nicer than I remembered.

Tautira marks the end of the coastal road around the island of Tahiti. The cliffs are too steep and coastal plain too narrow east of Tautira to build roads, but people still live there. Their highway is the protected lagoon between the barrier reef and the cliffs and boats are their vehicles. That's where we were headed yesterday before the wind shifted. We'll head over that way later today.

We dinghied in to the black sand beach and walked around town finding the supermarket where we had to sample some ice cream and pick up some fresh produce. On the way back we found a local entrepreneur selling fruit at the end of his driveway and bought his entire stock.

The wind died off completely later in the afternoon, so out came the inflatable stand up paddle boards. The rum came out at about the same time. Our preliminary research indicates that SUP performance is inversely proportional to rum consumption.

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