Our Voyage aboard Favignana

Our visit to the Tuamotus was in fact a visit to one single Tuamotu, Fakarava. Before we arrived we were warned that Fakarava is one of those sticky places where cruisers get stuck for weeks that turn into months that turn into years. And as promised, we spent 6 weeks happily stuck there.

We entered the south pass of Fakarava after a gusty 4 day passage with most of the wind and swell on our beam. We were a little trepidatious to enter our first atoll pass, especially as a squall was quickly approaching, but our previous experience calculating tide tables and navigating swift moving passes in the pacific northwest prepared us well for what turned out to be a pretty benign entrance. The crystal clear water in the pass magnified the shallow coral beneath the boat and messed with our depth perception. The squall caught up with us right after we made it through the south pass and we were grateful to have to wonderful satellite imagery provided by SV Migration, and the previous track of our buddy boat SV Lorien, to help us navigate safely to the Hirifa anchorage in the SE corner of the lagoon. We fumbled with fenders as we attempted to float our chain the first time. This is necessary in the Tuamotus to protect the coral below, and also to protect your ground tackle from getting stuck or wrapped around the coral bommies. We eventually streamlined this process after obtaining some carabiner clips and collecting some of the abandoned plastic pearl floats that end up strewn about the leeward shores like easter eggs. Treasure hunting for these floats was one of Elliot’s favorite Fakarava activities. We were happy to reunite with Amy and Lance on SV Lorien after being separated for over a month. Lance explained that we are, in fact, not buddy boats, but bungee boats. We travel together for a while, then go our separate ways, then reunite. This pattern has worked out really well for us since meeting Lorien in Coos Bay, Oregon. We highly recommend finding yourself a bungee boat.

We quickly settled into a relaxed pace in Fakarava. Exploring the coral strewn beaches, swimming in the turquoise waters, crossing paths regularly with sharks. The bottom of our boat was teeming with remoras hungrily awaiting our kitchen scraps. Hirifa is often windy and attracts a lot of kiteboarders (ourselves not included). When you land on the beach you are greeted by a very friendly, thirsty, and cuddly cat, a sickly looking dog and a small family of roving pigs. Our first time fording through the shallow lagoon water, I was surprised to see what looked like lots of little turds (& some big ones too!) on the seafloor, only to quickly learn that these were not forgotten poops but tons and tons of dark brown sea cucumbers. Either way, we made sure to step carefully around them. Strolling the beaches here is not for those with delicate toes- sharp coral pieces in all sorts of shapes and patterns are underfoot. At any point in the atoll, it is only a short distance from the interior beaches to the more rugged windswept exterior edge, but crossing that distance can take a while with the overgrown vegetation, quicksand-like mud pits, and hard-to-navigate coral graveyards. While Elliot was busy on these land adventures looking for the elusive pearl floats, I found myself hunting for the beautiful long purple pencil-urchin spines that wash up on shore. After days of finding just fragments of these fragile spikes, broken as they are tossed about the abrasive reefs, I had one lucky day stumbling on a trove of over a hundred intact urchin spines! That same day Elliot found 5 pearl floats, we felt like we hit the jackpot! I have transformed some of the spikes into windchimes, they make a magical tinkling sound.

We eventually travelled north to Rotoava in search of some fresh vegetables and other provisions (Elliot’s beer). Crossing the interior of the atoll is still a 6 hour adventure! We quickly familiarized ourselves with the three magasins (french word for a small store), each with their own merits. A full re-provisioning adventure requires a visit to each of these stores, as they all carry different items, and is most successful on a wednesday afternoon after the supply ship comes in. During our time in Fakarava, we made a couple loops inside the lagoon, visiting the Rotoava anchorage 3 times, and the Hirifa anchorage 3 times, as well as the south pass anchorage once and a small anchorage on the east side once. We would have stayed longer at this beautiful little small anchorage but our boat was inundated with swarming flies. Installing insect netting on the windows is a boat project that remains on Favignana’s to-do list.

We did some excellent snorkeling in Fakarava. 8 of us piled onto SV Genesis, our friends Noah and Ky’s little sailboat and we drift snorkeled the wide north pass. We watched a pod of dolphins play deep below us and felt like we were flying in the water in the strong current. We explored lots of vibrant bommies and saw a fish that changed color from teal to brown. We also drift snorkeled the south pass from our dinghy, a carpet of sharks beneath us, and a garden of corals that hid all sorts of fascinating fishy surprises.

Speaking of fishy surprises, I feel it is important to recount my most unpleasant fishy surprise in Fakarava, my run in with an aggressive remora (or shark sucker)- basically a grey meter-long eely leech. Backstory: A couple days before this incident, I had heard through the boat grapevine that a woman in the anchorage had gone in for a quick swim to rinse off after breastfeeding her child and had a remora bite her nipple (they are ravenous for food). This disturbing image was floating around my brain when I went for a swim. Normally the remoras that hang out under the boat will leave you alone. They might be a little curious, and come say hi, but will swim away when you shoo them. This day was different, I was out swimming far from the boat and here is my account of what happened:

Relaxing into my stroke, weaving around little bommies and their colorful resident fish, stretching out my pregnant body and at home in the water, something bumps into my leg. I swing around and stare into the wide ugly eyes of a remora as it rams itself again against my shin. I thrash my legs and think that should scare it away but this one is persistent and it follows me. I quicken my stroke, switch to a 2 stroke breath pattern, a splashy aggressive kick, but still I feel it catch up to me, trying to sidle up to my body. As I swat it away, panic rises, and I think I lose it for a couple moments only to feel it try again and again to latch onto my bare skin. Then it goes for my belly, my growing orb of a belly, it is trying to hitch a ride on that wide expanse of skin. I twist and wriggle and scream it off, I get most of its head in my palm and pull it away from my body, I know it could bite me, I feel protective- like it is after my unborn baby. My breath is uneven and my heart is racing and even though the boat is getting closer it seems forever away. I swivel around, it is doggedly persistent, it won’t give up and those eyes are burning into my backside. This is not about feeling like my life is in danger, because I know it is not, but the horrible feeling of being pursued by something unwanted, the creepy feeling of being stalked in the water, the violation i feel as it targets my sensitive center, like it could suck my baby from my womb through my skin. Finally I reach the boat, Elliot has heard me shouting his name in panic, I scramble up the ladder and he wraps me into his arms, I’m still breathing hard, I’m safe but mildly traumatized.

It took a little while after that to not feel jumpy in the water. I don’t know enough about remoras to know why this one in particular seemed to chase after me so aggressively, while all the other ones I’ve shared the water with wanted nothing to do with me. A quick google search of “remora stuck to person” produced a gallery of images of people, people obviously less squeamish than myself, proudly displaying their remora-decorated limbs. I’m OK not being one of these people and I am happy to report this has been an isolated incident (so far!).

Although we sailed all around the atoll, Hirifa anchorage was the place that felt like home. We made some new friends, Brian and Anne on SV Pelican, and felt the comfortable hug of a boating community there. Brian even started a morning net that helped us all feel more connected. We had bonfires on the beach, celebrated Ky’s birthday, learned to weave palm fronds into baskets and misshapen hats. Our time in Fakarava was wedged between necessary pregnancy appointments in Nuku Hiva, and upcoming pregnancy appointments in Tahiti. Although I recognize the importance of having regular midwife visits during pregnancy, it was hard to ignore the ironic fact that I felt like I was taking better care of this growing baby inside me by procrastinating my regular appointments and by taking a mental break from thinking about baby logistics. It is no secret that the best thing you can do while pregnant is be stress free, and we discovered that for us, it meant postponing some visits and tests, and staying as long as we could in Fakarava, where it is almost impossible to stress out.