Poking his head out the hatch, the salty breeze slaps his captain across the face. Wet, he caresses her face, threatening rain. Like lead, the southern sky is an endless flat gray expanse from the horizon upwards. Either you’re sailing into a weather system or it’s another local anomaly. Running a printout of the weather fax does not show any major systems in your portion of the ocean. Recalling a similar situation on the run to the Tuamotus when she lost her shroud, her crew reefed her mainsail just to be safe. By mid-afternoon, the cloud turns blue and, with the sun breaking through, the breeze once again sets the ‘Trades’ free. Her crew shakes the reef and in a blink of an eye she’s back sailing in grand style, at her usual seven or eight knots. Her waterline, scrubbed before she left Raiatea, has the water bubbling merrily along her waist and sleek, puffy sides: she feels great.
By saying goodbye earlier in Raiatea, the arrangement is to meet again in Tonga, if not sooner. Both ships are heading the same way, visiting Niue along the way, but as the vhf has a range of only twenty-five miles, it will be hard to keep in touch with your friends. Leaving Raiatea headed towards the top end of Taaha Island, and looking into one of the ‘Passes’ our crew saw one of the meanest surf breaks imaginable. Curling at the tip of the Passe, towering over the reef, the glassy black rollers rumble over the jagged coral, the snow-white spray jumps high. A few surfers ride them and risk their lives every time they catch one of these monsters. Our crew could hear the cry of the occasional surfer brave enough to try to ride it out, surviving.
Her captain, looking out to sea, is once again struck by the multitude of different moods that she exhibits herself, revealing everything, but revealing nothing. Every day is different, from shimmering blue to stone gray, sometimes even almost black, from calm to harsh and sometimes stormy, and back to calm, sometimes bright and sometimes threatening, constantly changing, so even half an hour can make a difference. The only constant is constant change. It is no wonder that artists always struggle in their spots to capture the true image of the sea. She is so elusive, even in a fractured moment, too much for the artist’s eye. Capture it on film, that’s fine, but transfer it with a medium to canvas or paper and something’s always missing. The restlessness on a human face can be conveyed in a portrait, but the constant, constant, incessant churning of the ocean is beyond our capabilities. The best the artist can hope for is a fair representation of this element that covers seventy percent of the surface of the planets. That statistic, plus the fact that our bodies are seventy-two percent water, makes you wonder if there’s any connection between the two, and in the end, we’re all mixed together, like in a giant washing machine, and some of it huge. gigantic whirlpool called life. Whatever it is or not, water, in all its forms, fresh or salt, sea or lake, river or pond, has a colossal effect on our lives as joint occupants of this Earth.
Blowing up the stairwell, a fragrant smell of freshly baked food snaps you out of your musings, and your thoughts turn to a more basic requirement: food. “Unbearable glutton!” she makes fun of the captain of her. ‘That’s all you think about: filling your belly!’ There are few things more pleasurable than demolishing several hot buttered buns in the cabin of a yacht on a tropical afternoon with a fine breeze and washing them down with pure drinking water with a hint of lemon, from the watermaker.
In Bora Bora, our little boat sailing quietly now that the breeze dies down, notices an increasing number of sticky floating objects gliding by. These are the round, mushroom-shaped, transparent type jellyfish with four darker rings placed precisely in their center. By the time our crew notices them, they have multiplied to legion proportions and their bow is cutting through them, knocking them aside by the hundreds. They travel like this for about thirty minutes and during this time the animals are so thick that they have a cushioning effect on the surface of the water, smoothing it from a regular surface of light to moderate breeze ripples, to a gently rippling mass of these strange creatures.
They can’t say how far they went from our little boat on either side, but considering the time it takes to sail through them, the shoal must number in the millions. Our crew idly wonders if these animals have any natural predators; perhaps they are whale fodder, and because there are now fewer whales, the jellyfish have thrived. With this rubbery carpet of living jelly flapping around you, even though the breeze is still there, a kind of eerie stillness pervades the scene. It goes through them at about five knots, but leaves no trace. Her cutwater pushes them aside and they slide along her sides, along her entire hull, to immediately close again as they pass under her stern.
There is no trace of where they have been a few moments before. The phenomenon raises the question, why such a concentration of these animals here? What are you doing here? Are they going somewhere? Or are they just drifting on the globe’s ocean currents? Are they here preparing for mating? If so, there is no shortage of options! Nature takes care of its own, maintaining a balance, and without a doubt it has them here as part of its master plan. Breaking through the other side, the dwindling numbers shake and she moves forward, away from the mass concentration. A few minutes later, she has cleared most of them and they are down to the occasional stragglers slipping by and following in her wake.
The twin peaks of Bora Bora rise from the horizon and the island takes shape exactly as described in the pilot. Part of your captains mind is always amazed at how the geographical features of a new destination, seen for the first time, are a faithful replica of a printed or photographic description, as if there is any chance of any change or difference,! or that the cartographer was wrong! And then there is this faint feeling of surprised satisfaction that the real matches the representation and has been narrated correctly. The leisurely approach of a sailboat enhances this feeling and gives our crew the opportunity to study this jewel of the island up close as they approach. Bora Bora is known as ‘The most beautiful’, and from that distance it is shaping its reputation. James A Michener immortalized it in his ‘Return to Paradise’ with the following: ‘I saw it for the first time from an airplane. On the horizon was a speck that became a tall, blunt mountain with cliffs plummeting down to the sea. Around the base of the mountain, narrow fingers of land stretched out, forming magnificent bays, while around the whole sprawled a ring of coral of utter perfection, dotted with small motus on which grew palm trees. The lagoon was crystal blue, the beaches were dazzling white, and always on the outer reef the spray jumped like a mountain in the air.
On this perfect South Seas day, the sun casts its flawless, radiant light on the island’s mountaintops, it is indeed paradise personified. Gleaming off white sand below, the lagoon’s delicate pale aquamarine reflects upwards off the underside of the fluffy white clouds around the twin peaks, creating a uniquely dazzling, floating, turquoise display in the skies. The coral reef surrounds Bora Bora like a necklace that is nearly perfect in its symmetry and equidistant from the main island. Fortunately there is a Passage, the only one, on the western side of the reef. It is called Passe Teavanui and leads to a magnificent deep water bay just below the splendid and towering twin peaks that Bora Bora is famous for. Our small boat navigates easily through this wide pass, across the bay, and to the Bora Bora Yacht Club, located in an inlet about a mile north of the main town, Vaitape. The clubhouse water is fifteen fathoms dark and calm, dotted with boats of various descriptions and antiques. In addition, there are a number of orange mooring buoys in the bay and one of them is headed instead of dropping anchor in these deep waters.
‘Take the least line of resistance when offered’. She thinks, the captain of her competing directly. She judges perfectly -there is no wind here- they hook up, her captain turns off the engine and she settles down to rest in this, another corner of paradise.
