Diary 24
June 20, 2020
Return to Papeete after the lockdown; Huahine and Raiatea
We leave the suffered anchorage of Fakarava after the violent storm that left two wrecks and others with repairable damage.
The locals confirmed that it was an ultra-exceptional event, the last one dates back to 15 years earlier … and they talked about a particular phenomenon associated with the Maramu, the feared, angry and unpredictable south-west wind, to be assimilated to a trumpet marina. We do not run away, but we must return to Papeete and take advantage of the favorable wind to retrace the 160 miles towards “home”. We choose the afternoon to exit the pass with the current in favor and to sail slowly, since we will have to arrive early in the morning in the northern pass of Papeete. These calculations are necessary when moving between islands with the reef; entry and exit from the passes have rules to respect, and navigation is adjusted accordingly. So two nights and a day of ocean dance, slow because we have to keep an average of 5,5/6 knots so as not to arrive in the dark, so no stress and a lot of relaxation because the wind is weak, but enough to push us with white sails at the required pace, plus this step falls on June 7th, my birthday, which we celebrate with the classic Ceci pizza and a rosé de Provence. Milanto follows us and we enter the marina of Papeete paired at 8 on Monday 8 June, which we had discarded during the lock down period, but which we choose now that everything is reopened and close (the marina is a 3-minute walk from the center) and every facilitation for the jobs we have to do. The Marina is new, welcoming, clean and safe, equipped with fingers (pontoons between one boat and another) that allow easy mooring in the bow and the descent to the side of the boat, thus favoring the work of our workers. The reports of the pilot books,and friends from a couple of years ago describe this place as unsafe and uncomfortable due to the incessant traffic of Papeete. It will be that they have practically redone it again, and it will be that Covid has eliminated tourism, so we can instead appreciate the pleasant proximity to the life of a colorful town, smiling and happy to see people still sitting to drink a coffee, and the images that we recorded in our minds during confinement where everything was a sad desert are immediately canceled. Papeete is a place where street art, or where many artists have been able to express themselves by decorating the facades of buildings, previously gray and anonymous, so much so that it has become the home of the Ono’u International Festival of Contemporary Urban Art since 2014.It will be that they have practically redone it again, and it will be that Covid has eliminated tourism, so we can instead appreciate the pleasant proximity to the life of a colorful town, smiling and happy to see people still sitting to drink a coffee, and the images that we recorded in our minds during confinement where everything was a sad desert are immediately canceled. Papeete is a place where street art, or where many artists have been able to express themselves by decorating the facades of buildings, previously gray and anonymous, so much so that it has become the home of the Ono’u International Festival of Contemporary Urban Art since 2014.It will be that they have practically redone it again, and it will be that Covid has eliminated tourism, so we can instead appreciate the pleasant proximity to the life of a colorful town, smiling and happy to see people still sitting to drink a coffee, and the images that we recorded in our minds during confinement where everything was a sad desert are immediately canceled. Papeete is a place where street art, or where many artists have been able to express themselves by decorating the facades of buildings, previously gray and anonymous, so much so that it has become the home of the Ono’u International Festival of Contemporary Urban Art since 2014.smiling and happy to still see people sitting down to drink a coffee, and the images we recorded in our minds during the confinement where everything was a sad desert are immediately canceled. Papeete is a place where street art, or where many artists have been able to express themselves by decorating the facades of buildings, previously gray and anonymous, so much so that it has become the home of the Ono’u International Festival of Contemporary Urban Art since 2014.smiling and happy to still see people sitting down to drink a coffee, and the images we recorded in our minds during the confinement where everything was a sad desert are immediately canceled. Papeete is a place where street art, or where many artists have been able to express themselves by decorating the facades of buildings, previously gray and anonymous, so much so that it has become the home of the Ono’u International Festival of Contemporary Urban Art since 2014.
At 9 am the first experts for the work to be done arrive, the steelmaker, the carpenter, the resiner, the electrician, all very young talented guys, real craftsmen, mostly around the world with their own boat and their talent , and those transferred from France or those native, but autonomous and free. A discovery and a great pleasure to see so much good will and I must say high professionalism. In 3 days everything is repaired very well, and indeed, I take advantage of the electrician to get rid of the last battery of the unfortunate Zenith “long life” series and finally restore the 12 volt fleet and the engine room cooling fan with two new Victrons, retired for a couple of months, but nowhere to be found elsewhere.
We spent the dead time that every craft work brings with it walking through the lively but not crowded streets, discovering an ancient vinyl record shop that Lorenzo di Milanto has well described in his blog, to which I refer, (click here), as well as Pizzeria Italia, which however has only the name of Italian, and for this reason continues to attract customers, proposing, however, from Italia dressed, frozen pizzas of well-known Southeast Asian companies. Miracles of globalization.
Next destination is Huahine, the first pearl of the leeward islands, which includes Raiatea, Tahaa, Bora Bora and little Maupiti. The navigation program plans to visit them all, also because for now we cannot leave French Polynesia for the west, we will hardly be able to reach Australia as it was in the initial project, and we must adapt to the decisions of the various governments, undecided and understandably confused to the management of international transfers at this time “covid” or rather post-covid. So we can’t make plans except within the Society Islands, then we’ll see. So first stop Huahine, 90 miles that we travel at night, to always arrive in the morning in the north pass, the easiest of the island, where there is the capital, Fare. Departure from Papeete at 17, and guest on Ariel the friend Lorenzo Cipriani,art historian, musician and writer who can’t wait to sail with an HR. Unfortunately, there is no wind and we are forced to advance by motor in an irregular ocean with wave residues from the previous storm and with the swell exactly on our side. But Ariel did her best and at dawn Huahine welcomed us, less famous than her neighboring sisters, but still worth discovering. The geographical feature is particular, with deep fjords and relative brackish lagoons, although always surrounded by an abundant reef that protects it from the majesty of the ocean. The north pass opens onto Fare, but we decide to proceed south, skirting the inner part of the reef and the bright green of a crazy vegetation. The anchorage to the south is safe and surrounded by one of the few white coral beaches, where the usual resort has made the knot,fortunately closed, restoring the primitive beauty to the landscape, nevertheless giving a sad background, almost of abandonment. At anchor we are 6 boats. In periods of normal tourism with the 100 catamarans of the Dream Yacht or the Moorings in this bay there are at least 40 or 50 on weekends. Here, in fact, there is Chez Tara, the most famous restaurant in Huahine, all Polynesian, which on Saturdays or Sundays, depending on the season, offer a buffet of food in a single large room in wood and bamboo with roofs of laudanum leaves traditional. We arrive on Sunday, but we discover that despite being open, because it is family-run, it offers only a few dishes based on tuna, which here is like salami in Emilia. Bread, Parmigiano-Reggiano, ham and salami in Parma. Raw, grilled tuna, coconut sauce, bananas and pineapple in Huahine.
We leave the anchorage on Monday morning after swimming next to a manta ray towards Fare, to discover the village and to rent cars or electric bikes to enter the heart of the island. We discovered this mode of e-biking in Moorea and Fakarava, and it is a must of these islands, relatively small to be covered by pedaling with electric assistance, and effective to satisfy many tourists. Now it’s just us, super discounted prices are set and there is never a queue. Everything is there right away. Ceci, Paolo, Amancio and Mark the cyclists, Valerio and Lorenzo more towards the car. The circumnavigation is about sixty km that we cover in a day, stopping in the most suggestive corners, discovering the pizzeria of an Italian from the North East, transplanted here for some years, but not at all nice, like the Art Gallerie of Melanie,a French of the sixty-eight period, painter, alone with cats and dogs, who snatches a purchase of a numbered lithograph of these spaces. The inhabitants of Huahine, however, are not very hospitable unlike other realities, they are afraid, they are wary of us sailors. They have scary television news, so they treat us from the sea as possible carriers of the monster. We understand them, their balance after the consolidation of a probably suffocating tourism is broken, and they are confused. Closed resorts and hotels, suspended flights, and those few sailors… well, and take refuge in the omnipresent coke, devouring Western foods of the worst kind, as in a far-sighted plan to annihilate a people. We observe common and opposite characters in these islands testified by the coexistence of several generations,that have been too exposed to the violence of globalization. In 50 years the country has been devastated. The elderly who were children 50 years ago resist, thin, toothless, but elastic, still toned and go fishing, like half a century ago; their children are for the most part obese, perennially hooked to a smartphone, inventing activities that can guarantee a livelihood, and the grandchildren, alas, all obese. France intervenes with campaigns that promote the damage to health of sugars, then they unload pallets of Nestlè products. Hyperglycemia, a local doctor explained to me, is the scourge of Polynesia. Diabetes is present in over 60% of the population, but what is shocking is the increase over the last 30 years, over 500%. While the French who come here, strangely, remain thin,they gradually occupy positions of command and crucial for economic and administrative management, and sooner or later they will remain the only true owners of the paradise of the islands of the South Seas. It’s just a matter of time.
And we are among the last to enter the few spaces of authenticity of these people and these lands, alone and confused, like coral, which by itself had stopped growing, aging until it died without reproducing, as a natural response to uncontrolled invasion . The cost of living is unsustainable at the levels we are used to, so the state doubles the salary for the French who work here, and the locals necessarily become the living example of modern slavery. Gone are the times when the governor of Huahine gathered the tribal chiefs in the “palace” – Marae – with a bamboo cane floor, resting on stilts in a lagoon, now the only museum witnessing a millenary history that smartphones, chips, coke and lots of beer are burying. But the most fascinating aspect is the soul of these peoples,that transcends a devastated body. A soul that brings a smile, and the desire to keep their garden alive. The islands, not the houses, are gardens, clean, tidy, where the guard rails are colored hedges; for them to live in the beauty of a generous nature is indispensable. Here we rediscover the tombs of their loved ones in the gardens, as we will see very many also in Raiatea, to keep the continuity between past and present close. The future for a Polynesian does not exist, historically, they live the day, the light, the sun and the rain (very frequent however); the night is alive only if illuminated by the moon, and only liveable in some parties, sometimes on Saturdays, for the youngest, but never beyond 11pm.neat, where the guard rails are colored hedges; for them to live in the beauty of a generous nature is indispensable. Here we rediscover the tombs of their loved ones in the gardens, as we will see very many also in Raiatea, to keep the continuity between past and present close. The future for a Polynesian does not exist, historically, they live the day, the light, the sun and the rain (very frequent however); the night is alive only if illuminated by the moon, and only liveable in some parties, sometimes on Saturdays, for the youngest, but never beyond 11pm.neat, where the guard rails are colored hedges; for them to live in the beauty of a generous nature is indispensable. Here we rediscover the tombs of their loved ones in the gardens, as we will see very many also in Raiatea, to keep the continuity between past and present close. The future for a Polynesian does not exist, historically, they live the day, the light, the sun and the rain (very frequent however); the night is alive only if illuminated by the moon, and only liveable in some parties, sometimes on Saturdays, for the youngest, but never beyond 11pm.historically, they experience the day, the light, the sun and the rain (very frequent however); the night is alive only if illuminated by the moon, and only liveable in some parties, sometimes on Saturdays, for the youngest, but never beyond 11pm.historically, they experience the day, the light, the sun and the rain (very frequent however); the night is alive only if illuminated by the moon, and only liveable in some parties, sometimes on Saturdays, for the youngest, but never beyond 11pm.
Now, without tourism, the pace of life is back to that of many years ago, slow and marked only by light. From 6 to 18, then dinner and then rest.
Tomorrow we leave at dawn for Raiatea, the best equipped island after Tahiti, let’s say more urban, but we’ll see. The distance is ridiculous, it’s 25 miles, but we prefer to arrive early to have the day to organize the discovery. It is called the sacred island, and we will find out why in the next diary.
