Day 7 (July 29, 2011):
Goodbye St. Regis!! Today we start part 2 of our honeymoon adventure – where we leave our 5 star hotel, concierge & butler service & “rough it” (as I like to say). Curt says we will hardly be “roughing it” on our 40 foot catamaran, but I'll be the judge of that. I was not born a seaman, so I may require an adjustment period before I feel like a real yacht woman haha.
After boarding the yacht from the St. Regis to the Bora Bora airport, I got a bit mopey. It was the same feeling that I got every time I would fly back to NYC or Curt would fly back to SF, during our 21 month cross-country trips. It's the “I'm leaving something amazing right now & it will be a while before I can enjoy it again” feeling. We actually chatted a lot about how we wished our stay at the St. Regis was longer, so we made a tentative plan to return to Bora Bora for our 5 year anniversary (leaving any children behind with their grandparents). Who knows - maybe we'll stay in the royal overwater villas when we return (there are only 5 of this specific room type & they are the furthest out in the water, largest, have swimming pools on their decks & are much quieter/more peaceful).
We got to the Bora Bora airport, checked in and waited an hour for our flight. Our flight was pretty full, as it had two stops (1st in Raiatea & 2nd in Papeete). The flight was literally 10 minutes long. Very strange feeling to ascend & descend with very little air time (I was very thankful for my Earplanes). Once off the plane, we were greeted by our taxi driver. She was scheduled to bring us to Sunsail's marina (literally 2 minutes away in the taxi).
Sophie & Marseille were the first to greet us at Sunsail (Sophie was the manager & Marseille was our real life Captain Ron). Since neither of us has experience chartering large catamarans, Sunsail requires us to sail with a captain the first day. It was nice to have Marseille on board to show us were our water tanks, gas tanks, instruments, etc... were located.
Marseille helped me unpack, while Curt dealt with paperwork in the office. I had us fully unpacked by the time he got back. We picked up our snorkel gear, put away all our groceries & were ready to go by 1PM. Marseille navigated us out of the marina. Curt took over the wheel when we were out in deeper water, while Marseille manned the sails. We had a lot of wind & needed two reefs in the main sail during our afternoon sail. Curt told me that I didn't have to do much today (he was Marseille's first mate), so I lathered up with suntan lotion, manned the camera & tanned on the trapeze (occasionally checking to make sure that everyone had enough champagne).
We sailed from Raiatea to a Motu on the outskirts of Tahaa. We were pretty close to the reef, which had great waves breaking over it. Marseille explained that this Motu was pretty tricky to sail into or even to take our dinghy in to because it was shallow with a lot of coral. Sunsail suggests that you anchor by 5PM, since the sunsets at 6PM in the French Polynesian islands, so we turned around here.
We headed back to Raitea to anchor where Marseille suggested. We set our anchor near Motu Tahunaoe (anchoring proved to be quite difficult this evening because the current & wind were moving in opposite directions, plus we were anchoring on the edge of deep water so little changes meant we could be anywhere from 1m to 25m in our depth). After a successful anchor, Marseille showed us how to operate our dinghy (lower it into the water, outfit it properly with the motor, etc...).
Curt & I attempted to take the dinghy out near the Motu & watch the waves crash over the reef during sunset. This proved to be a bit more difficult than we anticipated because of the change in depths. We noticed that we couldn't get very close to the Motu because of the shallow water & coral. Other dinghys had their anchors set far from the Motu & a few people were walking from the dinghy to the Motu (that's how shallow the water was). We got stuck navigating our way through very densely packed coral gardens.
We found a nice spot & watched the waves for a bit before exploring a bit of the coastline. We headed back to our boat, Mahana VI (Mahana means sun), for some snorkeling before the sun went down. Snorkeling without a guide freaked me out, as this water was less clear than our previous snorkel spots, there were no guarantees that a giant shark would not eat me (not really possible in the depth/location that we were swimming) & the depth kept changing (you could go from deep water to being able to stand in no time at all). Curtis didn't seem to mind the murky water, but I swam back to the boat after a bit.
We rinsed off, opened some wine, set out cheese & crackers & prepared for sunset. It was very peaceful out near the Motu, since we were one of only 3 boats anchored (the other 2 boats had their dinghys out near shore). I decided it was time to prepare dinner, but was at a loss as to what dinner would actually be. Curt asked what I was cooking & I really wasn't sure since the provisions he got didn't include any veggies, meat or fish (he opted for the “Get Up & Go” package – which I think only really includes things for breakfast, a lot of pasta, rice, condiments, etc...). I surveyed our options & decided to make a macaroni & cheese (of sorts). I caramelized onions, while Curt prepared garlic bread. In my “mac & cheese,” I used tuna canned in oil, caramelized onions, herbs de provence, gruyere cheese, heavy cream & lots of butter (really the only suitable options we had for a meal).
We sat out in our saloon with white wine & our dinner. Marseille joined us for dinner & told me it was delicious. I think he was being polite, as I wasn't really convinced that it was a yummy dinner. However, itt was the best I could pull off with very little to work with & supplied with a teeny-tiny galley kitchen. Gordon Ramsey would not have been impressed with my lack of creativity, but it was dinner (let's see his Master Chef's try & pull off a gourmet meal, with barely any suitable ingredients, in an itty-bity kitchen. We decided that we should definitely hit up the market tomorrow morning when we dropped Marseille back off to Sunsail, so that we could pick up fresh vegetables, fish & meat (& hopefully prepare a proper meal tomorrow night).
Marseille turned in for bed about 7PM. At which point, I decided it was time to shower & get ready for our first night on the boat. Curt joked that if I held the shower head above my head, then I would feel like I was back at the St. Regis in our rain shower. I didn't see the humor in this & wasn't very keen on showering in this stall at all. To the bathroom's defense, it did have hot water & I only needed to use the shower pump-out one time. All in all - not a terrible experience, but definitely not the St. Regis (maybe it would have been better to do the sailboat before the St. Regis so I wouldn't have known what I was missing).
We decided to settle in on the trapeze with a bottle of wine, pillows, my travel snuggie & Avatar playing on Curt's laptop. The trapeze was extremely peaceful at night & with only the anchor light on we could see many stars in the sky, as we enjoyed the movie (pointing out all the details Cameron borrowed from Bora Bora). The wind picked up a bit during the movie so we relocated to our cabin where I fell asleep with Avatar playing in the background.
Stay tuned to hear about our first day at sea...ON OUR OWN!!!
Sent from a remote location on Tahaa - while regaining our land legs at l'Hibiscus during happy hour
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