Plastic in Pacific Crusade – Part 24 – Society Islands Pt 3 – Raiatea

by Ian Thomson on 8 Apr 2016 2016 Plastic in the Pacific Crusade - Raiatea is known as the sailing capital of French Polynesia.

Tahaa is the island just north of it and is enclosed within the same reef. With a length of 23nm north to south and nine nautical mile east to west at its widest, there are plenty of areas to explore within these two islands themselves, let alone the fact Huahine and Bora Bora are just a short sail east or west.

We set sail from Huahine once the wind had abated a little. We were forecast to have northerlies so the 20nm run across should be quick and easy, however nothing is that simple in sailing. With more weather around, we of course had rain and that meant shifty winds and as we got half way across, the wind turned hard on the nose which meant changing our course to another entrance. Lucky there are 11 options between these two islands. Instead of heading through Teavapiti pass we ended up further south at Iriru Ou Maire Pass. No big issue as we would cruise back up to Teavaptit pass inside the reef.

We wanted to get to Teavapiti Pass as the pass dive here is the best in this chain, especially famous for the shark pre-school that hangs out on the 10m contour. However as we approached, and with all the rain, once again, visibility was shocking with run off. We still anchored on the south west point of Ofetaro Island and would have a look later in the day. One thing with pass diving is you want to have an incoming tide and the tide was due to change at 1645.

We set up and took our two lady guests to the island whilst we went diving. We went out the passage to find the tide had not changed so we opted to dive the inside wall. Whilst visibility was poor, there were hundreds of trigger fish and the coral was actually quite good, well for hard coral gardens, still finding it hard to compare to the Great Barrier Reef which is still the best in the world in our opinion.

Once we finished our dive we picked up the ladies and they had renamed the island ‘Cat Island’ with over 10 stray cats running around. Scattered amongst the cats were once again lots of rubbish, mainly plastic bottles. This is a perfect little island that people dream of visiting, no buildings, just palm trees and beaches, surrounded in reasonably good reef. Yet so much debris. Later in our trip we did actually see some locals cleaning it up so maybe there was a function for the island coming up or something, but no one should need to clean up other people’s mess. I thought we all learnt as children to clean up after ourselves.

After our dive we went and anchored out the front of Uturoa Marina. It is a bit rocky but good holding. You can go to the public wharf in Uturoa but unfortunately with the turn down in tourism, there seem to be some desperate people and it is quite common for vessels to be boarded at night and things stolen, so we weren’t going to risk that. It would be O.K to pull up during the day but leave before dark. The following morning we went for a walk into Uturoa and did some shopping. There is a large supermarket that seems to be the most expensive in the island chain, and local market just down the street for fresh goods and souvenirs. For some reason there seems to be a lot of electronic goods shops.

Back on the boat and we wanted to dive a wreck called the Norby which is a 53m triple masted sailing vessel that sunk in 1900. I’ve never been on a wreck that old before so we were looking forward to it. It is located in the north of Tepua Bay located off the, now closed, resort. There is a mooring and a white bottle. We picked up the mooring and not knowing if this was like Tahiti and the wreck was at the bottom of the mooring or if it was on the white bottle, we descended down on the boat mooring.

At the bottom we came across sand so we headed to towards the milk bottle. It was still not good visibility and as we cruised along the bottom it was barren, just sand. And then out of the murkiness appears some darker patches and then a shadow appeared above us. The wreck is on her Port side with the bow pointing towards the west. It obviously had a steel hull covered in a pretty good paint as the hull still seems in one piece.

The deck however was timber and it has the steel frame left, meaning penetration of the wreck is easy as the timber has mostly rotted away. The only growth on the wreck after 116 years seems to be giant clams, however there were quite a few fish and a giant moray eel slid out of the bow near the anchor chain that was deployed, so it was obvious this wreck sank whilst anchored.

In our next edition we head across to Bora Bora, what was once regarded as the most beautiful island in the Pacific, if not the world. Why is it not regarded as that now, well we would find out pretty quickly.

Ocean Crusaders are out to change the way people treat our oceans. Our online education program is free to download at www.OceanCrusaders.org/education where children can learn of the issues our oceans are facing and how they can make a difference. The Plastic in the Pacific Crusade is about educating the South Pacific Islands, finding out what is happening in these islands and updating our programs.

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