Fakarava!

Chicken, French fries, “poisson cru au lait de coco”, and chocolate cake, that’s what Liza had put on the menu for us yachties, all anchored in Hirifa, the kite beach in Southern Fakarava. After weeks of “boat-cooking”, it was an absolute treat, never mind the free-roaming pigs on the premises. Equally delightful was the international company of sailing nomads, especially Gerard. With a charming French accent, he cheerfully announced that his name was Ladybird. Ladybird? “A oui, mon nom c’est Damoiseau”. As it happens, we have a bottle of Damoiseau on board O2. It is a rum brand, and Gerard is indeed a proud member of the family that owns the “rhum agricole” distillery in the Grande-Terre region of Guadeloupe, with roots back to the 19th century when it was a French sugar plantation (worked by slaves). According to both Wiki and Gerard, Damoiseau is now the leading rum company in Guadeloupe, producing more than 8 million liters per year and exported to more than 40 countries worldwide, including French Polynesia. So whenever we enjoy our “Ti’Punch” now, we have to think of Gerard and his adventurous life in “La France d outre-mer.”

Fakarava is a playground for tourists, with e-bikes for rent and a proper kiteboarding school. Fakarava is also a diver’s Mecca. A solitary shark sneaking up on you when you least expect it can be the stuff of nightmares. But a fleet of sharks where they are known to hang out? That’s just a dream. And that’s what we experienced when we went diving in the Fakarava South Pass. At high tide, the dive masters drop you off just inside the pass so that with the tide you float further in over a carpet of coral as far as the eye can see, with a multitude of grey reef sharks hovering on either side of you, quietly minding their own business. We have never felt so in our element among a crowd of apex predators. Unfortunately, our underwater camera memory card crashed. A good thing the pictures were captured by the mind’s eye in a spectacular way.

It was magical and deeply tragic at the same time. Tragic not because of a crashed memory card but because we also spotted vast patches of ghostly white coral starkly standing out like sad skeletons among the blue, yellow, and orange of their still healthy neighbors. This was a sight beyond depressing and it nearly made me cry. Back on board the diving rib, the dive master explained about the ocean temperature overheating to 32 degrees Celsius this summer, with the deadly consequences we had just witnessed as a result. Some of the coral will pull through- provided conditions improve – but the majority won’t. And this season it has happened all over the planet in what is called by NOAA (= National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration) “the 4th global coral bleaching event.” Fakarava is a protected UNESCO biosphere reserve but UNESCO is no match for climate change.

In the meantime, we have moved from the south side of the lagoon to the north to arrive around the same time as the supply ship. The whole village of Rotoava came running for frozen meat, fresh veggies, and fruit—and so did we.We were able to grab potatoes, tomatoes, oranges, a couple of apples and pears, a pineapple, a papaya, leeks, and even a cauliflower.

The next morning, at 6:30 AM, My Captain queued up in front of the boulangerie to get some eggs. (I stayed behind on O2. Somebody has to brew the coffee and set the breakfast table.)On May 28th, the supply ship will bring another batch of goodies, but this time we made sure to get our fair share: we ordered online. Collect and go Tuamotu style.

Now, we have just come back from two dives in Fakarava North with a diving agency named O2, which we took as an auspicious sign. And oh boy, it certainly was. There were only four of us and the dive master. When suddenly, everybody was looking in my direction with the dive master making excited signs, I turned around only to stare in the left crazy eye of a hammerhead shark curiously approaching us. He was VERY inquisitive. The wildlife pictures we have seen of hammerheads with those weird-looking eyes meters apart on either side of that broad head always made me snigger at how ridiculous the design looked. But that snigger turned into an appreciative ear-to-ear smile when we witnessed the real thing gliding by in all its majesty. The design is not wacko, it is just perfect. Once again, we have no pictures to show off, but within four weeks, our house photographer will be arriving, and he will set things right. 

The marine life we have seen in the Fakarava North Pass exceeded all expectations: an army of blacktip and grey sharks effortlessly moving among schools of colorful tropical fish, much like lions that have the habit of taking a so-called innocent stroll among herds of impalas. It’s only when the hunt starts—at dawn, dusk, or during the night—that all hell breaks loose. We were delighted to see them so relaxed in such high numbers, including the huge nurse sharks, or “requins dormeurs,” taking naps under the ledges while constantly opening and closing their big mouths in order to pump water over their gills so that they can breathe. We could easily peek under those ledges as we had to stay close to the bottom to beat the current. At times, we had to pull ourselves forward by holding onto dead coral or digging our fingers into the sandy bottom. It was so much fun, and we will definitely do it again.

This evening, we are treating ourselves to a celebratory dinner at the fancy Havaiki Lodge & Restaurant. “Havaiki” being the name in Polynesian mythology of a “fabled original homeland from which the Polynesians believe themselves to have come and to which their spirits return after death.” Unlike Liza’s nice little shack, we don’t expect to find any free-roaming pigs around there.