Whales and waterfalls

It's been a busy week here on Prism! We bought Jim a bike and left Papeete, initially for the Tahiti Yacht Club on the north west side of the island. There's a decent anchorage nearby, nicely protected by the barrier reef. It turns out that we dropped the hook near to the finish line for the outrigger canoe racing on Saturday mornings- so enjoyed a few hours of drinking coffee and watching the races. Of course, I pulled out my sketchbook and attempted the challenge of capturing the blur of limbs as the paddles moved through the water. We also enjoyed some great music from the drumming school on shore.

Our plan was to explore some of the sights of the north coast. There was only one problem- hills. Big ones. I will walk up hills if they are in my way, but am almost allergic to cycling up them. But if I was going to see anything of Tahiti, I needed to try, as weekend buses are only slightly more common than unicorns round here. Our first excursion was to Point Venus and Matavai Bay, where Cook went to help measure the distance from the Earth to the Sun and Captain Bligh and his soon-to-be-mutineers went gathering breadfruit. The call of history helped me up the hill when I thought my legs were going to fall off, and the views from the top and the freewheel down the other side almost made it worth it.

Point Venus was a pretty spot, with monuments to Cook and Bligh and an attractive lighthouse designed by Robert Louis Stevenson’s dad. We ate lunch on a shady picnic table, enjoyed the swathe of black sand and cooled off in the rain, which inevitably fell halfway through every sketch (my drawings now have an interesting speckled effect). It rained all the way home- which did make tackling the hill cooler- and Jim scored a haul of mangos from a roadside stall.

The following day we tackled that hill again, and found a few others beyond. This time, my motivation was the Three Cascades, a group of waterfalls 22km from Papeete- so about 20km away from us. This time my foldup bike and I complained less as we tackled the first hill, though by the time we’d gone 18km (up numerous hills and into a stiff headwind), I was wondering if my legs would fall off before we made it. Which was of course the sign for yet another hill to go up. Hills aside, the scenery was rugged and spectacular, the ocean bobbing with surfers enjoying the beach breaks on a Sunday, then warming up on the black sands.

Somehow I made it- to find that the sign for the turn-off was labeled ‘ferme’. A 20km cycle and our destination was shut? We pedaled up the road to the falls anyway, in the hope that SOMETHING might be visible from the road. We saw two falls tumbling down the sheer hillsides- and a steady trail of people ignoring the ‘closed’ sign and walking to the falls anyway. Normally I'm pretty rule-following, but I'd just cycled a very long way (with hills and headwind, in case you'd forgotten), and was in no mood to behave myself. And Jim never behaves, so we slipped over the low slung piece of bamboo barring the way.

It turned out that the falls I'd seen from the road were not the main attraction- they were shrimpy distant cousins. The Vaimahuta falls were 80 metres of tumbling water, sparkling in the sun, fringed with lacy ferns and dripping with moss. White tropicbirds swooped past, elegantly long tails gliding like banners behind them. Tourists came and went, I sketched, it rained, my ink ran, falling water on my waterfall. I wished I had the skill and knowledge to show how the sun made the rain sparkle like diamonds before it hit my paper.

I took the gently winding trail to the second and third falls, Haamaremare Rahi and Haamaremare Iti. Two different watercourses pour themselves down opposite sides of a huge rocky outcrop, both clearly visible from the viewpoint. I listened to the water, the birds and the falling red leaves. I drew, watched and listened. The rain stayed away and I absorbed the tranquility.

My legs made it to the nearby blowholes, then somehow got me home. A rest day was in order (I had paintings to finish), then we set sail for Moorea. We had a beautiful downwind trip and Prism flew along. We anchored at Cooks Bay (a misnomer as the famed Captain actually went to neighbouring Opunohu Bay), and went ashore for ice cream. A family were sitting in the beach, having a sing song, and invited us to join them. They played guitar, ukelele, drums and spoons, the adults teaching the children to keep the beat as they wove rhythms. Our musical talents are lacking but we added applause, and played with the puppy who chewed our toes. A thank you song as the sun dipped and we went our separate ways, glowing with the warm welcome.

I'd started this page by drawing Prism, then sketched the family, then decided to combine it all together. cross hatched shadows try to hide the fact that the legs had gone horribly wrong, and I ended up choosing a limited palette of cobalt teal and quin gold to try to bring some semblance of unity to the thing. I actually like the way the light turned out

The next day we sailed to Õpūnohu Bay- where Captain Cook visited Moorea. It's a spectacular anchorage, with a white sandy bottom and a fringing reef protecting it. We were greeted by a large pod of dolphins, who returned to see us every time we entered or exited the reef pass. Ashore is a lovely white sand beach with decent snorkeling off it. The mountains tower over it, changing colour with the light. I didn't need to leave Prism to get lots of inspiration for sketching!

We did spend a lot of time exploring on land. I got my legs in gear and we cycled up to the Belvedere for amazing views over both bays. My legs didn't like me much but my eyes were very happy. The route up winds its way through an agricultural college, where we stopped for home made ice cream and large glasses of mango juice to refresh us for the rest of the slog upwards. Above the college are a series of archaeological sites, sensitively restored. We found ceremonial sites, an archery platform and a marae, constructed out of round rocks and sacred to ‘Oro, the god of war. Nestled amongst the buttresses of mapē trees, the area was special enough to encourage me to cycle up again the next day and walk the Ancestor Trail, through beautiful forest scattered with ancient ruins and reconstructions of traditional Polynesian buildings- plus the occasional lovely waterfall and hundreds of chickens. Brought over with the Polynesians for food, these days they run free as most people prefer the tender chicken offered by the supermarket.

Such a great view I had to add extra paper to fit it all in!

One morning we were awoken at 4 by the sound of an engine stuttering and stalling. I worried that someone was in trouble. Jim worried that someone was stealing the dinghy. We rushed outside to find humpback whales cruising through the anchorage, chatting to each other with broken engine sounds. Nobody needed rescuing and we watched them as they swam away through the middle of the busy anchorage in 5 metres of water. I couldn't get back to sleep, but really couldn't complain too much about the cetacean alarm clock.

The following day, I spent the morning painting a whale in the bay. Lunch time rolled around, with a small gaggle of whale watching boats floating not far from the bay. Following a tip from Cinnabar, our neighbours, we hopped in the dinghy and motored out to see if we could get a daylight whale sighting. One of the tour boats approached us, I was expecting them to try to shoo us away but they kindly offered to look after the dinghy so we could both swim. In the water we went, towards the snorkelers and the two humpbacks resting in the water. We watched them blowing spray into the air for a while, then they started to move- swimming right past me. The white underbelly, tail and fins of the nearest whale were clearly visible underwater as it dove and finned down into the depths. Ten minutes later they were back, quite a way off this time, but we were treated to a spectacular double dive. We saw them twice more, once at a distance and once close up. The boats and occasional visiting jet skis all kept well away, and had their engines off whilst the whales were nearby. We stayed on the land side of the whales at all times so they would not feel cut off from the open ocean. After the fourth surfacing, we all headed off to leave the whales in solitude for a while. I was impressed with how the encounter was handled, and awed at actually being in the water with these amazing animals.

The next day was Monday. The best way to spend a morning seemed to be with a visit to the Rotui distillery, where we tasted their excellent fruit juices and rum punch. We can't play all the time though, and spent the afternoon giving Prism’s hull a much-needed scrub. Some of the algae was very hard to remove- Jim tried using a tough, spiky seaweed as a bio-friendly scrubber but sadly results were below par and we resorted to one of the scoring pads from the kitchen instead. By the time we'd finished, hull, keel, rudder and propeller were all pristine and we'd earned ourselves a glass of the fruit juice we'd bought from the distillery as we watched yet another gorgeous sunset.