Tahiti and Moorea

Hey friends!

It's been over a month since we left Fakarava so I figure it's time for an update! After one last amazing snorkel of the pass in Fakarava we made the 2-day passage to Tahiti. This was my first taste of blue water sailing and I couldn't have asked for a better intro! We had decent (albeit shifty) breeze and reasonable seas the whole way so I didn't get too seasick but I definitely felt it coming on. We landed a nice size skipjack tuna while trolling underway. According to Dave, this fish was surprisingly good eating compared to other skipjack he's caught.

We had a lot of business to handle upon arrival in Papeete, namely bureaucracy, boat work and food shopping. I also got my first taste of Tahitian surf, and more aptly, my first taste of the reef! The wave, called Taapuna, is a dredging lefthand tube. The takeoff is steep and the lip lands in no more than two feet of water over a very sharp coral reef. The local surfers and boogie boarders have it dialed and this is a tough spot to get waves. I paid for the scraps I got with skin and dings to my surfboards. You most definitely have to pay to play around these parts. At least we made time for a post-surf sand-barbeque one fine sunday afternoon. The locals here are about as friendly as they come.

Next we headed down the coast to the infamous slab at Teahupoo. We arrived just in time to witness the best day of the year thus far. The experience was nothing short of spectacular. You can sit in the relative safety of the channel and still feel the spit get blown out of the barrel of these giant perfect waves. The surf was out of my league on this day, fortunately my boards were safely stowed on Tusitala so I couldn't be tempted. I still wanted to get a feel for the lineup so I swam out with my GoPro and got a couple of shots.

The next day most of the crowd had disappeared and there was still some mixed up swell, with the occasional bomb in the water. I knew we were leaving the next day but I needed to have a piece of the action. I gave the beast a paddle. I was scared shitless to be completely honest. It's hard to tell how big a wave is going to be as the swell approaches. The wave drops out below sealevel more than it rises as it breaks. Adding to the intimidation, I was sharing the lineup with pro-grom phenoms Taylor Clark and Jack Robinson and a few other surfers who surfed nearly as well. I scratched around the lineup trying to nab a small one without getting caught inside. After about an hour I finally mustered the courage to get into position and push over the ledge on a smallish one. I aimed my big-wave 6'7 pintail straight down the line and shot like a rocket right to the boats. No barrel, no turns but I didn't care, I was psyched just to get a wave out there. I decided to stop while I was ahead since we needed to get going to the next anchorage.

A few days later we cruised over to the island of Moorea and surfed a much more friendly left-hander at Haapiti. This spot is idyllic, with beautiful mountains and a relatively consistant wave in perfect, clean blue water. We've spent the better part of the last month here surfing ourselves silly. My surfing has definitely improved leaps and bounds; I've never spent this much time at a lefthander before. Surfing a long wave, frontside is a whole new world for me and I've really gotten to practice just the functional fundamentals of riding waves. My timing and positioning has improved, my balance for manuevers etc.

Surfing has been great, but boatlife has it's pro's and con's. The hours and hours of downtime when the surf's not great or it's raining can most definitely can mess with your head. You have all the time in the world to make mountains out of mole-hills and it's important to stay busy and keep the mind occupied lest you go crazay!

Till next time folks!