We decided to get an early start, so right after daybreak we continued our counter clockwise tour of Raiatea. It is not a good idea to move around the lagoons when the sun is low as that makes it difficult to see the coral, but we powered slowly and made it out Punaeroa Pass at Raiatea's southwest corner without hitting anything. Once outside the pass we put out the fish lines and put down the pedal as we powered north towards Tahaa.
After losing four good lures between California and Tahiti I have decided to try a different approach. I have collected a lot of lures over the years. There was even a time back in the '70s when I cast my own resin heads. I still have all the rejects buried in my tackle box at home. When I was home last week I dug through the box and picked out the most hideous and ridiculous lures in the collection and brought them along when I flew back to Tahiti. I figure if Rob's simple cedar plug is hooking fish then anything will work, so I will give anything a try. No luck so far. We didn't catch anything during our hour or so of powering north outside of Raiatea's lagoon.
Our destination for the day was The Coral River, a drift dive between two motus out on Tahaa's barrier reef. The southern motu houses the Tahaa Resort, reputedly the best resort in French Polynesia. We anchored right in front of the resort hoping to pick up free WIFI.
A few minutes after we dropped the hook we heard some yelling from the direction of the hotel. At first we thought it was someone telling us that we couldn't anchor there, but it turned out to be somebody in the water. A bit more yelling, and we determined that it was Paulo Schaeffer who the crew had partied with in Huahine a week earlier. It turns out that Paulo and Charlotte had turned in their catamaran and were spending their final few days in French Polynesia at the Tahaa Resort. He recognized Van Diemen immediately and swam out to say hello.
Paulo and Charlotte dove The Coral River with us yesterday afternoon under gentle winds and sunny skies, and we decided to have dinner together at the resort. After pupus we dinghied in to meet them.
The weather had been beautiful all day. In normal trade wind weather the anchorage off of the Coral River is a lee shore, but when we arrived a gentle breeze was blowing from the north making it a nice anchorage. The weather forecast we had received yesterday morning predicted that the wind would back around to the south east and increase to fourteen knots just after dark. It looked like a front was coming. We didn't want to mess up our dinner plans though, so we decided to stay put and tough it out.
The wind shifted as forecast and it started raining while we were enjoying dinner. We ended up having to dinghy back to the boat in the rain. We hung out where we were until 11PM when Rob decided that we'd be better off a mile or so away in the shelter of Tapuamu Bay. Moving the boat in the pitch dark and pouring rain is not easy. There were already a bunch of boats anchored in Tapuamu that we would need to avoid, but we have a radar, GPS, and depth sounder to help us feel out way in.
Up came the hook and we worked our way across the lagoon and in past three super yachts that were fortunately lit up like Christmas trees to anchor near the head of the bay. The radar paid for itself helping us locate the poorly lit boats and even the reef markers. By midnight we were put to bed. Mike and I were in our cabins trying to get dry when he said, "Hey Noodle, will you take my picture?" That seemed like a strange request. I looked at him, and his face was covered in blood. He had gone aft earlier to grab a flashlight and had banged his head on the main hatch. It was a minor scrape, but head wounds bleed like crazy and Mike's face looked like a Halloween costume. It would have been a gruesome picture if he hadn't been smiling..
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