Move over Moorea

We were really looking forward to Cooks Bay in Moorea. We had heard so much about it from other cruisers. Exiting Tahiti's hustle, bustle and commercialisation that is common in all "capital" cities. 

The only thing that kept us in Tahiti for so long was waiting for our propane bottle to be filled which took a few days. 

The sail to Cooks Bay was great. We had 15 knots of wind and flew the spinnaker much of the way. 

We cruised through the pass and headed deep into the bay. The one thing the French have done very well is buoyed the whole of Polynesia. Lights blink at night; greens and reds are where they are according to the charts. 

There were a total of 5 boats moored in the bay. Nice! We love uncrowded. The Bali Hai hotel is written up in the cruising guides as "The" place to be and anchor off. It would seem a lot has changed since 1985 when the guide was written. The Bali Hai is a fairly dilapidated hotel with a few huts balancing precariously on sticks in the water. Bored looking tourists take the occasional dip in the fetid water at the bottom of their private staircase into the Pacific to stare at whatever may inhabit the grey coral.

We puttered around the bay looking for an anchoring spot in less than 50 feet of water. We found an area near the treacle brown river of what may have been human effluent. I usually dive on our anchor to ensure that it is bedded. This time I passed.

We stayed 2 nights as it gave us an opportunity to explore and go for a great walk to the nearest village. We then upped sticks and headed for Opunoa Bay. This time choosing not to go into the bay but rather the anchorage between fringe reef and land. Much better! Anchored in 15ft of crystal clear water. Stingrays sidestepped us on their way to feeding spots. Eagle rays fornicated (or wrestled…if there is a difference) on the reef in front of us. 

Our friends on Living were also in the anchorage (along with numerous other boats and we could see why) so we spent a lot of time with them. Patrick and I went off spearfishing on the outer reef. Although we had our guns, it became mainly just a free diving practise session in beautifully clear water on windless days. Fish larger than one's thumb were rare and coral not yet recovered from the last hurricane (apparently). 

Walking to Belvedere Point was a good adventure. It is all along the road so easy to get to. A great view of both the bays and just fun to get "inland" a bit. A cruise ship had just anchored in Opunoa Bay and disgorged a bunch of either translucent or sun reddened passengers who then rented cars (or 4 wheelers) and then zoomed past us to take their picture at the lookout before hustling off to the next attraction on the Lonely Planet "Thing to do in Moorea if you only have 3 hours" to do list. 

There is a spot near the Intercontinental Hotel called stingray city. It was about 2 miles from the boat (by dinghy). Although the route is fairly well marked, we still managed to beach ourselves on coral and had to walk the dinghy back into the deep. Thank goodness we have a hard bottom dink, and flip flops at the ready! Once there we plopped into waist deep water with a tin of tuna in oil and octopus pieces (also in oil). Don't judge our culinary taste, this was the best that Panama bulk buying had to offer! 

Tuna tended to flake in ones hand. The fish enjoyed it, but the stingies were disinterested. Then we brought out the occy. Man they did enjoy that. Holding it in our fingers the ray would swim up to you and came a difficult task of getting a little piece of octopus into its mouth without losing a finger. 

In all fairness to the ray, you try eating something when your eyes are on the back of your head, nose on the top and mouth where it currently is. Mistakes happen and twice was my index finger mistaken for a delicious piece of long dead marine creature. Needless to say that a ray has an interesting mouth with hard rough "plate like" jaw. While a nip on the finger is rather disconcerting, it is not painful. A group of 6 small black tip sharks circled the proceedings with keen envy while their arch nemesis the rays received plenty of not only food, but attention too. I expected a ray's skin to feel similar to shark. It can't be further from it. It is beautifully soft and smooth on the wings and then hardens to a bumpy plate like texture along the backbone. 

The ever friendly rays would come right up to you and then try and mount your chest in a perverted attempt to cajole another piece of food from you. They also seemed to have a fun game of sneaking up on the more skittish of tourists / yachties and surprising them. So much so that some of the more nervous retreated to the safety of their dinghies. I supposed Steve Irwin's memory was still fresh with some of them. Another interesting fact (depends on the definition I suppose) is that the stinger is half way along the tail, not at the tip of the tail. 

After a few days of chilling out in fantastic calm conditions, the wind made a reappearance and we decided to make the most of it and head to Raiatea. After a good day sail, once again having to slow poor old Orion down to make landfall in daylight, we entered the fringe reef. 

Anchoring is terrible in Raiatea and if we had to do it over / recommend other options, I would say go to Huahine and then to Bora Bora (skip Raiatea and Tahaa). We eventually ended up mooring alongside the town dock (which is free) and staying for 2 nights. 

We had a long walk to the other side of Raiatea and went to the start of the Heiva festival to watch the singing and dancing. As there was a large blow expected in the next few days, we wanted to get into a better anchorage so left for Bora Bora.