Huahine

'Peaceful' is the best word to describe Huahine. The best way to describe Huahine is ‘peaceful’. There are no trains of buzzing jet skis or roaring cavalcades of quad bikes. No packed tourist boats zoomed through the anchorage. The soundtrack was provided by the wind, the surf pounding on the reef and the constant crowing of cockerels.

Our first anchorage was off Fare, the main town, which consisted of a few stores, a very well-stocked supermarket, a few stalls with fresh fruit and veg and a patisserie (if you were up early enough to grab a tasty treat before they sold out). We anchored on a sandy spot near the reef, an easy dinghy ride to get ashore to the shops and yacht club. The yacht club sold ice, so we were able to keep the fridge cold and top up with veggies, yoghurt and cold fruit juice.

Our first day was spent exploring the town (which didn't take long) and recovering from the sleep deprivation and seasickness of our rocky overnight passage. By the second day, we fell into a very pleasant pattern. Bill and I would get up and go diving in the morning, whilst Jim would go ashore with his bike and try not to get into too much trouble while unsupervised. By ten we would be back on dry land, then de-salt, grab an early lunch and hire bikes for the afternoons.

We were pleasantly surprised by the quality of the diving. The reef around Huahine was decimated by a plague of crown-of-thorns starfish, then smashed by storms. Annie of Mahana Dive says that the storms were the saviours of the reef, creating a bare moonscape free of dead coral. The starfish moved on or starved, and the bare rock provided a sturdy ground for the reef to regenerate. Now there's a healthy coral garden on the outside of the barrier reef, teeming with fish and invertebrates. Nearby is the Avopehi Pass, where currents provide a highway and feeding ground for a mass of pelagic species- half a hundred gray reef sharks cruised amongst huge schools of barracuda, a squadron of ten eagle rays soared above us, and we saw numerous tuna and schools of jacks. On the reef, we searched for nudibranchs, tiny crabs and shrimp hiding in the coral, beautiful shellfish and lurking moray eels. All in all, the dives rivalled- and surpassed- many of the sites I visited in the Tuamotus.