Tahaa & Vahine Island Resort

Marina Apooiti

August 1, 2013

Island of Tahaa
We left Raiatea in the morning and motor sailed around the north side of Tahaa to see what we could find. We had read about the Vahine Island Resort.  This is a cool little hotel on a privately owned island. See the little islands  of coral are called motus or islets...not very big. Some are inhabited, most not. Some have swanky hotels on them. Like this one...

Private resort on Motu Tuvahine, the Vahine Island Resort

This unique hotel has only nine Japanese styled structures, dining room, bar and three bungalows over  the water with white sands beach and palms. It's the perfect Fantasy Island Paradise!

Mooring ball just off the reef for the Vahine Resort Hotel

The Mooring Ball...pretty cool out in the middle of the lagoon

Fantasy Island !

While sailing, we called ahead and they welcomed cruisers to take a mooring ball at no obligation…but of course we planned to have lunch.  The chef had to be consulted to see if there was enough food for two more. The restaurant and bar are open to outside visitors only for lunch; the dinner is reserved for the paying guests of the hotel.  The mooring ball is just off the coral reef..so we had to dinghy in about 300 yards to the resort over shallow coral. The water is just so turqoiuse blue!

Honeymoon suites!

We stopped to check it out, have a beer while pretending to be on our “honey moon”. (John promised this trip would be "the honeymoon we never had" 37 years ago!).  We met a “just married” couple  from Arizona and a couple from Silicon Valley. We haven’t met many Americans in French Polynesia…so it was funny to meet two American couples (plus us makes three) here on this remote  Tuuahine Islet. Both found this special place on the internet…both trying to find something different that the glamour hotels of Bora-Bora.

The Vahine Island Resort

Tropical oasis on Tuuahine Islet

As good as it gets...!

Dining room and bar

Relaxing with a Hinano...

We walked in the shallow coral fields just off the hotel on the outer reef and saw many beautiful formations, psychedelic colored clams and a plaid-colored worm that we’d never seen before!

Beautiful coral reef on Motu Tuvahine

 Also, several spiny starfish eating on the coral. These culprits are the known enemy of coral and can wipe out an area. We thought we should kill it, but just couldn’t. They are too beautiful.

Starfish ... the enemy of the coral

Psychedelic colored clams!

Underwater beauty 

Plaid colored worm!

We hung out for a few beers while watching the sunset…the bill for relaxing in paradise? A whopping $34.00 for 3 beers and a $19.00 Mai Tai! Come on…that’s crazy!  But, we figured it’s the least to pay for a free mooring and the fantastic ambiance of a private island resort! Check out http://www.vahine-island.com

Anchored in more protected Puehera Bay...with beautiful Kiwi boat, "State of Mind"

At 5:00 am in the morning, we were awakened by strong howling winds that had picked up through the night. The boat was pulling on the mooring lines, “hobbyhorse” style rocking back and forth. This you don’t want as you can pull off equipment from the boat or drag off the mooring. The poor dinghy tethered at our side was pitching up  and smacking down. I feared the engine might pop fall off…on hindsight, we probably should’ve brought the dinghy up on boat for the night.  Anyway, as soon as daylight allowed us to navigate, we released from that mooring, turned downwind  to find shelter in a protected cove.  We saw some catamaran in the distance anchored off another “swankie island resort”…so pulled in close to the reef…oooh, too close!!  I see the coral heads loom up close, John,driving, sees the depth meter….0less than 4ft ..oh, back up! He throttles in reverse slowly…we slowly slide back out the way we came into the reef area…whew! A close call! These waters turn colors  showing the depths; from deep blue, to lighter blue to turquoise…the turquoise is  the shallowest, sometimes  only 3-5ft.  It comes up quickly. So you have to be careful.  We decide this is way to close to a reef to anchor. Those catamarans have something on mono-hulls; no draft. They can anchor in 4 ft of water.  Guess we can’t visit that swanky hotel. Back to a deeper bay for shelter.
We stopped in Pueheru  Bay as we saw other mono-hull boats anchored here. It’s north of Patio, the capital of Tahaa. We thought we might go visit the town, but the day still has strong winds from the east and the dinghy ride will be too wet!

Village of Tiva  and the church built at the water's edge

This  paddler waited for us to pass by so he could "ride" our wake! 

We decide instead to travel a short distance, to the “Love Here Pearl Farm” for a tour of how they make those “Tahitian Black Pearls” that I LOVE so much! (It’s really called the Love Here Pearl Farm). The tour guide told us there used to be 50 pearl farms on Tahaa, but due to competition and the declining tourist  economyy there remains only two pearl farms. That's why they play"let's make a deal"...

Pearl farm tour at "Love Here Pearl Farm" in Tahaa where they showed us how the pearls are implanted.

What’s so interesting is how the deep colors are copied by one oyster when a graft of membrane from an oyster with beautiful “membranes” is implanted into the pearl sac of the host oyster -surgically implanted with little dentist tools.  This oyster copies that color and encloses the irritant (plastic ball) with colored membranes. In less than two years a 10 mm pearl is harvested… larger ones take longer.
Stunning are the variations of colors in blue-greens, purple–dark grays.  Size, luster and shape grade the pearls.  Grade A definitely is the best with luster and reflections.  Beautiful…and yes, I did by more pearls…Check out http://www.loveherepearlfarm.com

Yes, this a repeat photo, but just to show the pearls:-)

Lonely boy on the dock....

The weather has been windy and cloudy with light rain. Not the kind of "blue-sky-paradise" we were expecting...even though it's warm, it's gloomy. The winds have kept us at anchor.

So here we are hunkered down on the boat, reading, writing, and waiting for the winds to subside…the weather forecasts call for strong winds (35knt) for two days, then back off.  We will move to Bora Bora in a few days.

The Captain has new shoes...Crock Docs...Shindig style!