April 22 Friday
We had a great time at Rangiroa. It was a little less developed than Fakarava and not as well maintained. The Tuamotu Atolls are my favorite place to stop so far on the whole trip. The people are happy and friendly, the water clear warm and flat in the protected Atolls.
We were walking about the town and Jacqui started talking to some local fishermen who wanted to sell us some fish. In broken French and English we worked out that they spear the fish and we could get 2 fish about the length of your forearm for $10. We agreed on 4 or $20. They asked if any of us would like to watch them catch the fish. Jeremy and I agreed to go along. We went back to the boat to get our snorkel gear and took our dinghy to meet them out in the lagoon.
We thought that they were just going to go out and catch four fish and return. However we ended up spending a couple of hours with them spear fishing. This was how these two guys earn a living.
We followed them about 500 yards out into the lagoon before they started looking down into the water. They appeared to be looking for a particular spot. When they thought they had found it the anchor went down, we tied our dinghy to theirs and we all put on our snorkel gear and got into the water.
After a few minutes one of the two locals got back into their dinghy and indicated for us to hold onto line trailing behind their dinghy. He them started his outboard engine and started moving to a different spot.
Imagine this situation. You are holding a line (rope) about 8-10 feet behind an outboard motor moving through the water much faster than you can swim. The cord holding your bathing suit on is not as tight as it needs to be. You have the jet stream from the propeller of the outboard motor washing across your face as the guy in the dingy changes direction back and forth looking to the correct spot, one hand on the rope pulling you along and the other hand holding onto your bathing suit to stop them ending up around your ankles. Between all of this and laughing so much you have to get your head above water to get some air. This is really good fun.
We finally got to the spot they wanted and I could adjust my bathing suit cord to make sure it would stay on.
Jeremy and I had regular amateur snorkel gear and flippers. These guys (two brothers) had some serious kit. Weight belts, flippers nearly as long as your leg, knifes strapped to their belt, gloves and one had a GoPro camera mounted on his spear gun to film his catches. One had a bandage around his leg. We found out later that the bandage has to protect a wound he had received recently from being bitten by a Moray eel.
The tide was just after slack tide and the water is flowing out of the lagoon pass which is about 500-800 yards down current from us. The current at this stage is quite low and easy to swim against. Because the water is coming from the lagoon and not the ocean it is filled with white stuff that is almost like snow so the visibility is only about 30 feet. The water is about 50 feet deep and we can just barely see the outline of the bottom.
One of the brothers goes head down and legs up and descends out of sight towards the bottom. He hardly moves his legs as he descends. As a comparison when I free dive I head down for about 30 seconds then have to head for the surface which can take another 10 seconds before I can take a breath so a total of 40 seconds. I started counting to see how long he stays down. In seconds 30 40 50 .. 60. 70 80. I am now very concerned and start swimming frantically towards his brother to raise the alarm.
Before I reach his brother I see the diver at about 30 feet down slowly ascending. He is dragging something behind him, it is his spear which is attached to the spear gun via a line. On the spear is a fish.
The fish is killed. After seeing this process a few times it becomes apparent that different fish are killed in different ways. For some it is a knife cut through its spine just behind its head, for others it is the spear pushed through its eye into its brain. In all cases the fish stop moving instantly.
Most fish are just taken back to the dingy and put into a large cooler bin. For one particular type of fish while it is still on the spear (after it has been killed by a well-placed knife) its scales and intestine are removed and left to float about and slowly sink. We are soon surrounded by small fish that fight over the removed intestines. Then I see a couple of sharks ascending from the depths towards us. Luckily they are just black tipped reef sharks quite harmless phew.
Once I see this process happen a few times I indicate to the local divers that to leave them more time for diving I will take the dead fish back to the dingy and place it in the cooler. After seeing a few more sharks join in on all the fun I begin to think that this may not have been such a smart thing to do.
A couple of times I tried to follow either of the brothers down. I could get to about 30 feet and see the bottom at least another 20 30 feet below me. At this point I have to return and just watch the local diver keep descending. They can stay down for up to 2 minutes. Talking to them later we ask if many other divers use this spot as it seems like every time the dive they come up with a fish. They said no, they have very little competition. I can understand why,
After about 2 hours or more we return to the dock.. The fish that were caught are sold to locals within a few minutes. They gut and fillet the fish that were for us. This normally costs another $2 per two fish but for us because we are friends who helped them they would not charge us for it. We were invited back to their house for a coffee which we accepted. So for $20 we got about 20lb of fresh fish plus, a cup of coffee and the most fun afternoon of the trip so far.
The following day we out again for about half an hour then said our goodbyes as I had some things to do on the boat.
The things to do included putting on a new sacrificial zinc on the port propeller, and changing the bolt that holds the Watt and Sea Hydrogenerator into the water. All these tasks went well.
During our stay in Rangiroa Erich and Sabine rented bicycles and toured the Atoll Jeremy hitched hiked about the Atoll and Jacqui stayed aboard resting and allowing some wounds on her foot to heal. With some help from Jeremy I fixed a leaking deck hatch.
On Wednesday afternoon the weather grib files indicated that the storms over Tahiti were swinging south and it was now safe to leave the protection of the Atoll and head for Tahiti. So at about 8:00am on Thursday we weighted anchor and headed for the pass. It was about 45 minutes before full slack tide so there was still a slight current taking us out the pass and some half a meter standing waves on the other side of the pass before we get to open ocean. It was fun going through the pass. Erich and Sabine were sitting up on the bows raising up and down a meter or two as we charged through the standing waves. Spray was coming over the bows and unfortunately Erich and Sabine were having so much fun they forgot to close the hatches in their cabin. Within a couple of minutes their bed was soaking wet. We have plastic covers protecting the mattress but they had to wash their sheets and towels that were on the bed.
At the time of writing this entry we are 85 miles away from Tahiti. Sailing downwind with just the code zero sail out doing a slow 4.5 kts in a 6-8 kt breeze. This is slow but Ok because even at this speed we will get into Tahiti early Saturday Morning. The marina does not open until 9:30am so even if we had stronger winds and could go faster, it would be to no advantage because we would have to sit and wait for the marina to open. It is very hot and humid today. It is hard work sweating over a hot keyboard.
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