Plastic in the Pacific Crusade – Part 27.1 – Tetiaroa

by Ian Thomson on 29 Apr 2016 Having spent a few days at Moorea, we woke up early to get underway at the crack of dawn. We wanted to get to Tetiaroa as soon as possible. If we couldn’t stay overnight due to swells, then we wanted to spend as much time there as possible before sailing overnight to Huahine. The sail across was hard on the nose, but just 10-12 knots, so it was all good. On approaching the island we saw how low it is, more like the atolls of the Tuamotus.

There is no break in this atoll, and the lagoon is far too shallow for a yacht anyway, but there is a resort there now and they have boats cruising the lagoons. I believe they have also created a shallow entrance in the reef north of the resort, which is on the southwest corner. The island is made up of lots of smaller islands around the edge and reef links them all.

We anchored off an island called Rima Tuu. There are several moorings close in. We took one further out, as a small swell was rolling in. Day trips used to come from Tahiti and I’ve heard stories of the tenders going up over the reef to land people on the beach. There was no way we were going to try that, it looked very dangerous. The reef literally dried as the wave cleared, even at high tide.

As we picked up the mooring, a grey reef shark swims by in the perfectly deep blue water. It was a good sign. I love the colour of the water in these sparsely inhabited places. Deep blue ocean waters meeting the reef and you have the perfect recipe for a great dive. I checked out the site by snorkelling and then we had lunch before taking on the diving.

The reef is O.K. Nothing special, but as a dive there was one section that made the diving truly awesome. You are diving along the wall and then all of a sudden you see a crack in the reef and the whole area has swim throughs, caves and the contours are amazing. Hidden in caves are sharks sleeping and lots of soldier fish. We did three dives with the kids snorkelling above us with whoever sat out each dive.

The biggest issue with the diving was that there were so many really beautiful shells that locals had already taken the animal out of. So what is the problem? They were scattered on the bottom and I loaded up on one dive so much that it was a struggle to surface. But those shells are now boiled and bleached and will come up beautifully when I clean them at home. The issue was choosing which ones to take and leave. It was like treasure hunting.

With the swell rolling through and with the kids suffering from a little nausea, we decided to sail overnight to Huahine, so they could sleep for the trip. It was really light, but we set off just before sunset and it was a pretty simple sail across with the motor on most of the time to make our ETA early morning. As the sun rose we had rounded the southern point of Huahine and we were on a mooring near Fare by 0900. We checked out town before cruising down to Mt Teapaa again, where we did the walks and enjoyed the beaches.

Joakim and I even tried our hand at spearfishing, except we never saw anything of size, let alone a good eating fish. In our entire time in the Societies, we never caught a fish or saw anything worth eating. It is so over-fished and in Fare they had strings full of fish that they were selling and it had juvenile cods and dory’s on it. I would only call them fish fingers, they had no meat on them. They should consider a marine sanctuary somewhere so the reef fish can recover. Closing an area for five years would allow the fish to breed and multiply. They would spread outside the area and everyone would be happy. However they want fish and they want them now, so they haven’t done this.

One thing they have done, however, is to put in moorings in some regions. They are going to ban anchoring in these regions and only allow anchoring on a sand patch south of the main entrance. Personally I believe this is good, as it will allow the reef to recover. Anchors do a lot of damage as the chain swings over the reef. I know a lot of cruisers want to anchor as it is free, however we all love to snorkel and some of us dive and moorings are a great way to preserve the reef. The cost of the moorings is only XPF1500 so about US$12 a night. Well worth it in my opinion.

Ocean Crusaders are out to change the way people treat our oceans. Our online education program is free to download at Ocean Crusaders website 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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