Tikehau, The Tuamotus
We were anchored in Mo’orea waiting for a weather window to get us back to the Tuamotus and shark diving, when in from the coconut telegraph was word of manta rays in Tikehau. Let’s go!
Wind and seas are generally geared towards sailing west. Since this trip was east, we picked a weather window predicted as basically no wind. The prediction was accurate but once we got out there, there was about a knot of current against Holiday which slowed us down a tad bit.
Let me tell you, sometimes friends think we can get from A to B just like you would in a southern-California car – hop in, turn the key and drive. That’s hardly ever true; there is so much more to consider. But in this case it was true. Engine on, jib furled, main down; smooth “sailing”. And, since we were creating our own wind, we left engine fumes behind! (When there is almost no wind, but just enough coming from behind you, you get the damnable experience of sitting for hours in your own exhaust.)
As I may have mentioned before and probably will again, entering or exiting a pass can be hairy. But with no wind and slack tide here’s what it looks like (outside of pass looking into the motu).
Easy breezy! The dive boat you can see in the picture was on its way out. The captain let us know to give way by loud horn blast. This pass it not wide enough for two boats (depth is in the middle), so we were happy to wait and watch a deep-drafted boat go through before we entered. If they could clear bottom, we could too; with room to spare!
We dropped anchor near the town (about six nautical miles from the pass) and went via dinghy to go snorkeling in search of the mantas. No luck.
On day 2, after a post-passage early bedtime, I woke up to this:
A good omen perhaps? Sure enough. Soon we were joined by Curiosity. We left them in Tahiti (for Mo’orea) and had planned to meet up again in the Tuamotus. They left later the same day we did, hoping to catch some wind, and hoping to get a stop in at Makatea. While we did an overnighter to get to Tikehau, their passage was two nights, and so they arrived on the morning of our day 2. Reunited with Curiosity, we were off again to what we read was Manta Island (unofficial name). We dinghy-drove around the area and snorkeled full circle around the island. We were out there for hours. No mantas.
The last day of February was upon us, and back out to Manta Island we went. Did we see anything? No, just a few sharks. That’s how spoiled we’ve become; when seeing a shark or two or a bunch is “no, I didn’t see anything”. But, in our defense, we were searching for mantas. No luck snorkeling with Curiosity. No luck scooter-snorkeling on our own.
March 1 morning dawned with doubts. Are there really mantas here? Are they seasonal? Are we searching the right spot? A few days’ perseverance and attention to what some of the local boats were doing paid off. MANTA RAYS!
After seeing mantas for multiple days, we decided it was time to break out the scuba gear. Two dinghies loaded up and off we go (four people + dive gear x4 is too much for one dinghy). Since it was shallow, we stayed down over an hour. No mantas. It was a fun, easy dive anyway, and we did see some cool stuff.
After no-manta diving we made our way, via big boats (Holiday& Curiosity) to the anchorage by Tikehau’s pass. Rangiroa, the next over motu, is supposed to have hammerhead sharks this time of year. So maybe this pass will have them too? Over a couple of days we did some snorkeling and one dive at the pass.
Results:
hammerheads = 0
other sharks = 4ish
fish = a bazillion
Anxious to see some hammerheads we left for Rangiroa. Do you guess that we’ll see any? Please say yes. As I am writing this, the answer is no, but so far CJ and I have only made one pass dive on our own (towing our dinghy). Curiosity is out there right now with CJ manning the chase dinghy. Can’t wait to find out how it goes.
Other Tikehau goings on
Town anchorage: Bocce ball on the beach and a gorgeous sunset. We don’t have pictures, but I’m thinking Curiosity’s will show up online at some future date. This was our first spin with our newly purchased Bocce balls. We were searching for Bocce balls in Papeete but the only ones we found were in the neighborhood of a couple hundred US dollars (six balls – French version). We later found some at the Marina Taina area Carrefour “superstore” for about $15 USD (eight balls) and nabbed them. The cheapo balls are clearly not as nice or durable as the heavy Papeete set, but suited the likes of us just fine. The lighter weight just added to the challenge of making a good throw. Singa (Curiosity’s cat) also joined in on this shore excursion and from time to time came by to inspect our gaming progress. That might be stating it backwards, really Singa went to shore and the humans joined him.
Pass anchorage: More gorgeous sunsets and a trip to the shore. While Nikki was making delicious pizza, Jason, CJ, Singa (the cat) and I went to shore for a walk and explore about. Jason found more floats washed ashore for Curiosity’scollection. There are many abandoned pearl farms so I suspect these floats came loose over time and ended up on shore. (Black pearl culture is the second largest industry in French Polynesia after tourism, however, the black pearl industry had a major crisis at the beginning of the 2000s – prices fell from 100 to below 5 US dollars per gram and many farms were abandoned. Overproduction and disorganized trade circuits are blamed.) Meanwhile ashore, Singa found some tasty grass, I found seashells, and CJ found conversation.
Passage notes
from Opunohu Bay, Mo’orea, Society Islands
to Tikehau, The Tuamotus
departure February 26, 2019 ~6:30 am
arrival February 27, 2019 ~12:30 pm (at the pass)~175 nautical miles