S/V Tethys French Polynesia,
Tuamotus
May, June, 2000
Of the hundreds of atolls and motus that make up the Tuamotus, we visited four; Raroia, Makemo, Tahanea, and Fakarava on our way through the archipelago to Tahiti.
Raroia is an atoll about 25 miles long and 10 miles wide. This is the atoll where the raft Kon Tiki made landfall in 1947 on its voyage from Peru. The raft was almost destroyed when it landed on the eastside reef but eventually it was rescued and transported back to a museum in Norway. People in the village still remember the event and especially one of the crew who decided to stay. They even name some of their children after 'Danielsson'.

Five years ago pearl oysters were brought to the Raroia to start a black pearl industry and now the local economy is based on pearl harvesting as well as copra (coconut oil for soap and cosmetics) and soursop (a fruit which is used for medicinal purposes locally known as nono).

 Black pearl oyster (14840 bytes)
Raroia reef (12083 bytes) We spent a couple days anchored on the west side of the atoll close to the village. There is a 'main street' which is defined by the street lights with solar panels to collect the electricity during the day to power them at night. Otherwise the street is a dirt lane.
The village is tidy and the houses, built in concrete, are whitewashed and obviously taken care of. There is little water for gardens, because all water is caught and saved in cisterns, yet some people manage to grow papaya trees and flowering shrubs. The church is a pretty white building, always open, with the altar, cross, and lectern decorated with pearl shells. The inner part of the pearl shell, when polished, is a beautiful silver colour with turquoise, purple and green highlights.There is an elementary school on the island but high school children are sent to the large central school on the atoll of Makemo.
The east side of the atoll is made up of motus, small islands perched on the fringing reef. We anchored behind a motu in company with ASTROLABE, GRAY HAWK, PHANTOM, IMANI, TRIUMPH and SCALDIS. Anchoring behind a motu protects us from the prevailing easterly winds. Unfortunately this atoll has an overabundance of black tipped reef sharks and lemon sharks so we didn't snorkel as much as we would have liked. After five days at Raroia we were on our way again, overnight, to Makemo.
The winds were light, but that was fine for an overnight passage to Makemo, only 80 miles away. We wanted to arrive at the Makemo pass around 0800 in the morning to catch an incoming current with a rising tide. 
Makemo is a more developed island with about 300 people, lots of scooters and some trucks and cars, a large church, two stores, a bakery, the local boarding school for secondary students and (amazingly!) internet access at the post office.  The prevailing winds are from the east and the villages tend to be on the west side of the atolls (because that is where the largest motus, the most coconut trees and the best protection from the sea but for us at anchor it is best to be on the east side behind the reef where there is no fetch across a lagoon creating waves. 		Sand beach on a Makemo Motu (18864 bytes)
We crossed the lagoon in the afternoon to have the sun at our stern to make seeing the coral heads easier. The two motus just visible from the village are joined by a sandy beach on the inside of the coral reef and give quite good protection from both wind and waves..
The weather deteriorated and we had continuous rain squalls and fairly strong winds for a couple of days.. Finally the weather improved and C'EST ASSEZ and ION crossed over, followed by KOOKABURRA and FIO OKO and the following day TRIUMPH and SKIMMER. Together we explored the reef, keeping an eye out for black tipped sharks, we forded the many of the shallows reaching into the middle of the reef from the lagoon.
In the evenings we often built a campfire on the nearby motu and shared pot luck finger foods, barbecued fish and told cruising stories. We watched the sunsets and moonrises, watched the hermit crabs attracted by the smell of roasting coconut creep slowly towards the flames, shared recipes for the various hors d'oeuvres, shucked and cracked open coconuts for the water and meat.
After a week in these idyllic surroundings we decided to move up the atoll and on our way visited a pearl farm with friends aboard TRIUMPH. We exchanged gifts with the family and now have some pearls to add to our souvenir collection. Another several days of snorkeling, fishing, and partying in the evenings before leaving for Tahanea.
Makemo to Tahanea is only fifty miles so we went up to the northern pass in the morning while the light was good then anchored near the pass until just before dark, leaving just as a rain squall hit. We sailed through the night but shortened sail in an attempt to slow the boat down and make landfall off Tahanea just before dawn. We came through the middle pass at Tahanea about 0630 with just enough light to see the reef, and anchored to the right of the pass. This is a nice anchorage with lots of sand between the coral heads and good protection from southeasterlies. We stayed at Tahanea for more than a week, along with ALLONS'Y and other boats, visiting several of the motus along the northern edge of the atoll, fishing in the passes, looking for shells along the beaches, visiting the abandoned village sites, doing laundry and other chores on the boat, and socializing with other cruisers.
Tahanea has interesting birds, some of which were nesting. There were lots of curlews on the motu nearest the pass and we saw mounds of cracked turban shells which they break on the flat rocks to get the hermit crabs out. Clever birds. There are also large flocks of brown boobies and some frigate birds. We were lucky enough to see a couple of Tuamotan Sandpipers, fairly rare birds elsewhere whose survival is threatened by rats, but safe on the rat free motus of Tahanea.
On the motus to the west of the anchorage White Terns and Red Footed Boobies were nesting.   We could see the booby chicks clearly, big balls of white fluff with huge black beaks, sitting in untidy nests in the sea grape trees but we were constantly warned away by the white tern adults so we knew they must be nesting too.
Finally Vlad spotted a "nest". He found a single grey and white mottled egg, carefully balanced in the fork of a branch - no nest at all! A bit later we found a chick, a grey and white blob of fluff with two huge black eyes, clinging tightly to a branch while his parents scolded us from a neighbouring bush. They certainly don't waste any energy on nest building.
While we were here, all the boats in the anchorage   (ALLONS'Y, C'EST ASSEZ,KOOKABURRA, SKIMMER), had run out of bread so a tortilla making session was held aboard C'EST ASSEZ. Check out our Flour Tortilla Recipe.
Fishing at Tahanea was excellent, both just inside the passes and  outside in the ocean when the swell was down so there was no chance of going hungry!		 Fairie Tern egg on tree branch (20979 bytes)
We finally left Tahanea very early on Saturday June 3rd for the south pass of Fakarava, 45 miles away
Mahi mahi caught enroute to Fakarava (4823 bytes) As we came past the end of Tahanea atoll we caught a huge dorado. Its head was at least a foot from top to bottom and it must have been five or six feet long and weighed at least 50 lbs. Vlad got the gaff on him but then just as we tried to start bleeding him he gave a huge jump and tore off the gaff. Unfortunately he was bleeding from the gaff wound and took the lure with him so its possible he became shark food. We were very disappointed but about an hour later we got another hit and again it was a dorado but a smaller one, about four feet long which we were able to land without any difficulty and we had fish tacos for lunch.
When we arrived off the Fakarava pass just before 1500, the entrance was calm. We could see two posts which seemed to be leading marks but the sun was too low and in our eyes to get a really good view and our charts showed no buoys at this pass. Unfortunately we headed too far to the left side of the channel and went aground in coral!  After much scraping and bumping, Vlad turned TETHYS in her own length, until finally we were balanced on one little bit of coral but lined up the right way to escape. As Vlad gunned the motor, TETHYS hovered, hesitated and then finally slid off the coral into the deeper water and headed for the channel. Our hearts beating wildly, we followed our friends on ALLONS'Y round past a cardinal buoy and into sand and coral just north of the village site where we thankfully put down our anchor.
Once anchored we donned masks and fins and went down and confirmed that we had mainly removed bottom paint but we did have a couple of big gouges, one on the bottom of the rudder and one on the bottom of the keel. So we were able to relax a bit and let the adrenaline subside.
We spent several days at the south anchorage just off the Tetamanu village. We visited the church and several of the old buildings, many of which have dates from the 1870s and which are abandoned. There are only about five families living here now and they all live in modern cement houses although several have the small sleeping bungalows made of coconut palms which we were told are for tourists. Among the old buildings are the old schoolhouse near the church, the old church which is next to the new (1874) one and the mairie. There are several cemeteries scattered about with large coral grave markers. The village has two grassy roads, both very old and perfectly straight, marked with coral stones at the edges.
From the village anchorage, together with ALLONS'Y, we followed the buoyed channel inside the lagoon to an anchorage about 15 miles away on the northern side of the atoll where we spent a couple of days exploring the outer reef and finding many different shells. There are a lot of spider conch in the area and we had conch fritters for dinner.		 Fakarava cemetary (25540 bytes)
Traditional Fakarava house (16206 bytes) From there we motored up to the large northern village of Rotoava, close to the north pass out of the lagoon. The anchorage at Rotoava is deep and the water is murky as it is in most of this lagoon but the village shops had potatoes, onions, garlic and even some cabbages which we bought enthusiastically as we had not had any fresh vegetables for over a week. This village is the largest we have seen with many trucks and cars. Still, the local dogs lie unconcernedly in the middle of the dusty streets, relying on the drivers to go around them.
Rotoava was hosting a weekend of canoe races with teams from several of the neighbouring islands, followed by a celebratory dance on Sunday night, so we decided to stay over the weekend. There were 7 six man canoes involved and twice that many chase boats. The canoes raced from Rotoava to Tetamanu and back on Saturday. Then on Sunday they paddled to the neighbouring atoll of Toau and back with each leg being a 25 mile course including 12 miles of open ocean. It was amazing how strongly the teams were still paddling at the finish. Sunday evening we attended the village dance and barbecue with Tom and Nancy (EQUINOX) and Jim and Patty (LUCID DREAM) and the next day we left Fakarava for Tahiti in the Society Islands.
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