After a fantastic few weeks in the Marquesas, we picked up anchor from Nuku Hiva and set sail for an atoll called Ahe in the Tuamotu archipelago.  The Tuamotus are comprised of 78 islands, all but two of which are coral atolls.  I had to look up what an atoll was.  I thought it had something to do with volcanoes as everything in French Polynesia seems to have developed from them.  But an atoll is a coral reef surrounding an island which continues to grow despite the island land mass being submerged underwater over millions of years.  All that results is a ring of coral (forming low lying islands) with beautiful turquoise blue calm water in the middle, and pounding surf on the exterior.  And this is exactly what Ahe was.  However I’m jumping the gun a bit.

We had a three day sail from Nuku Hiva to Ahe which was relatively uneventful – good weather with a little bit of rain to wash the boat down.  Rob came into his own on this leg of the journey by bagging a huge yellow fin tuna which when cut into steaks gave us at least 8 meals for the four of us on board plus a meal or two when we had visitors on board for dinner.  We dropped anchor on 22 April in the lagoon of Ahe atoll which is also known as Peacock Island, why I’m not sure.  While the Marquesas are all about jagged mountains jutting high out of the ocean, the Tuamotus are just small mounds of sand (eroded coral) pushed up out of crystal clear water, dotted with palm trees.  A picture of what island paradise looks like when imagined!  We anchored in a natural harbour formed by coral outside the small village of Tenukupara.  Rob and I, being explorers, couldn’t wait to go ashore and took the dinghy out that afternoon to have a walk around.  Again we saw very neat properties all clearly demarcated with a fence or neatly trimmed shrubbery.  We found it surprising that properties were “segregated” in such a small community.  Everybody seemed to get around on quaint, grown up versions of tricycles with a basket on the back behind the seat.  We saw two cars on the island, but the purpose of them is yet to be determined as there were no roads linking the islets.  It took us about 10 minutes to walk the length and breadth of the entire town so clearly it was a case of everyone knows everyone there (I later read that there are less than 200 inhabitants on Ahe).  We met up with another English couple from the boat Panthera, Richard and Geri, and Rob and Captain (fondly referred to as Blue Team whenever there was a man’s job that needed to be done) went over in the dinghy to help them get their anchor loose after it got stuck on a rock (easy to do in those parts as the sea floor is dotted with coral “bombies” just waiting for an unsuspecting anchor).  The Aussie couple from another boat we had met previously was also around so our first night was super social with tuna steaks on the barbeque for everyone.

Rob and I spent the next day exploring as much of the islets as possible.  We saw our first reef shark swimming in the shallows around the coral, right where we wrote our birthday message for Rob’s mom!  This part of Polynesia is also renowned for its black pearls, and we were visited by a local vendor trying to sell off the rejects that didn’t make the export cut.  Our afternoon was spent snorkelling the reef which forms the natural harbour.  I had been raving about the great snorkelling in the Marquesas but it was nothing compared to what we were experiencing in Ahe.  Never mind the abundant fish life, the different and vibrant colours absolutely amazed us, especially the mouths of the huge oyster shells embedded in the coral – red, blue, green, turquoise, purple, orange, you name it.  Our third day was spent shelling along the seaside part of the island, although we didn’t find any shells, and thereafter we cleaned the hull of the boat and snorkelled the reef again.  We didn’t have as good visibility as the day before but we still thoroughly enjoyed ourselves.  Here we were enjoying our underwater vista, paddling along when the next thing, a pretty large reef shark came literally out of the blue in front of me and swam past us.  Rob says all he heard was me shouting “Shark, Shark!” underwater and that was our snorkelling done for the day!

After a quiet couple of days just doing boat chores we picked up anchor and had a slow overnight sail to the next atoll, Rangiroa, which is the second largest atoll in the world (the largest being in the Maldives, information I know thanks to Google and another destination added to the list!).  We saw whales in the distance during the sail, and I was lucky enough to catch the edge of a large squall during my night watch so my few hours on deck were spent getting wet!  Richard and Geri sailed with us and for once it was comforting to see another masthead light (tricolour to be correct!) in the distance.  The entry through the pass into the lagoon side was timed perfectly at the turn of the tide so the water in the pass was flat calm.  The water in the lagoon of Rangiroa was so unbelievable clear we just stood on the bow of the boat staring into the water.  It felt like we were in an aquarium with all the fish life teeming under us.  Early the next morning we caught a lift ashore with Richard and Geri and rented bikes from a fancy hotel nearby and had a ride around town.  We noticed that the town wasn’t as eco-friendly as Ahe (no solar panels where Ahe had a whole solar panel farm providing power) but still extremely clean and tidy.  Also surprisingly there was no local transport and busses were for school children only (which was also the same in the Marquesas).  Riding along the shore we spotted at least five reef sharks in the crystal clear water but more about the sharks later!

Over the next two days Rob and I spent a lot of time with Richard and Geri.  We seemed to share a love of travelling and adventure, and they really love the African wildlife having travelled extensively in Namibia and Botswana.  Richard actually applied to be a game ranger in the Kruger Park but this was in the mid-eighties and decided to become a detective with Scotland Yard instead!  They even got engaged in Cape Town so we had some great conversations with them.  One afternoon they picked us up and we went snorkelling in the pass between the sea and the inner lagoon of the atoll.  We later found out that the music video from Beyonce’s “Running” was filmed in the very same pass!  The snorkelling was not as good as it was in Ahe so we then decided to move on to One Palm Island just inside the lagoon for a snorkel around that reef.  Rob and I jumped into the water very enthusiastically while Richard and Geri trailed in the dinghy.  Next thing Rob stands up in the shallow water, pulls me up next to him and says “Sweetie, don’t panic but we are surrounded by sharks”.  I look around and see about 10 BIG black tip reef sharks around us.  At this point we decided to walk towards the shore of the island trying not to cut our bare feet on the coral, or splash too much lest we attract unwanted shark attention!  Even ankle deep water had baby sharks coming up to us.  Eventually we got back onto the dinghy after much laughter and exclamations.  We spent the rest of the afternoon with Richard and Geri at a local cafe overlooking the pass, enjoying a beer and watching dolphins frolicking in the waves caused by the outgoing tide.

The next two days followed along the same vein with an early morning run ashore and a couple of hours on the boat, Richard and Geri picking us up about noon for a snorkel then the afternoon ashore with them.  We enjoyed some great snorkelling, near One Palm Island (minus the sharks this time), where a local on a boat threw stale bread into the water around us, putting us in the middle of a fish feeding frenzy.  Richard and Geri were kind enough to take lots of photos and video footage of us snorkelling and cycling so we have some different photos in our digital album.  We left them in Rangiroa as Captain wanted to make a move to Tahiti while the wind was good but were lucky enough to catch up with them again in Bora Bora.  Although it would have been great to spend more time in the Tuamoto archipelago, seeing more of Rangiroa, such as the Blue Lagoon, and the rest of the 78 islands (except the ones used by the French for nuclear testing!), we were keen to explore the third and final archipelago, the Society Islands.  First stop Tahiti!