Tiny Toau

It was an overnight passage of about 100 nautical miles from Rangiroa to our next stop, Toau.  Toau is a small atoll lying south east of Rangiroa, with a false pass on the western side which makes a secluded and quiet anchorage.  A false pass is a kind of blind alley, or cul-de-sac where there is a break in the outer reef to pass through but it doesn't open completely into the inner lagoon.  What’s formed is a bay, or inlet, and the Anse Amyot in Toau, as it is called in French, is one of the most beautiful examples in these islands.

We left Rangiroa around 1pm to ensure we would exit the eastern pass there in good light.  This left us a few hours before sunset to put out the fishing rod.  Just after we rounded the northern corner of Rangiroa and established our heading for Toau, we heard the reel screaming and I jumped down to the back, only to lose the bite after 20 seconds or so.  But just a few minutes later off it went again, and this time I reeled in a nice Wahoo - now becoming one of our favourite fish to eat. After filleting the wahoo and packing away the meat into the refrigerator, enough for two good meals, we set the lure again, and within 30 minutes it was off once more.  A short fight later and we pulled in a nice yellowtail tuna - not a huge specimen but again enough for two large meals.  It was proving to be a good fishing day!

The passage otherwise was uneventful.  On this side of Toau, there is only one family - Gaston and Valentina, who live here in a small house with a couple of guest bungalows on the north side of the bay.  They maintain a few mooring balls in the bay to allow several boats to moor and make best use of the relatively small area available.  We arrived around 10am and slowly motored into the bay to find the western-most ball available, so we manoeuvred to pick it up.  As we slowed for me to reach the ball with the boat hook, I saw the shapes of two large sharks swimming below in the crystal clear blue water, only 20 feet deep.  I was reminded for a second of our mooring ball fiasco in Guadeloupe where I fell in over-reaching to grab a particularly stubborn ball, and I made sure to double check my grip as I reached down.  In any event, these reef sharks are harmless so would probably have simply thought ‘WTF’ if I had splashed down on top of them.  Safely hooked, I tied off the ball on both bow cleats and we completed our post-passage check list before retiring for a nap, as we often do after an overnight passage. 

The following day we took the dinghy over to introduce ourselves to the infamous Gaston and Valentina - as we found out later in Fakarava after talking to a resident there - ‘everyone knows Gaston and Valentina!’.  No sooner had we said ‘hello’, than Gaston jumped into his ever-ready fishing boat and sped full-tilt out to the open sea.  We looked at Valentina, and she gestured at the flock of large sea birds in the distance and said ‘humpback whales!’.  We too, along with a couple of other dinghies that got the memo, sped out to where Gaston was now bobbing around, in hope of seeing a whale.  It seems the whales scare a lot of fish, which is lunchtime for the birds, so a large group of feeding birds can often mean a whale.  If not, Gaston had hoped, it meant at least a larger fish chasing the smaller fish for the birds.  On this occasion, it was neither. The whale had moved further out to open water, and Gaston broke his handline after hooking some sea monster.  Back at base, we continued our conversation with the pair and enquired tentatively about dinner - the rumour was that this friendly couple would cook guests up a lovely local meal of fish, chicken and lobster if there was enough interest.  In fact they were somewhat busy preparing a lunch, with the help of one of the crew, for about ten guests on a charter catamaran that had anchored in the centre of the bay that morning.  Unfortunately, even after we had canvassed some interest from two of the other boats there for a dinner the following evening, it transpired that G & V were exhausted after the lunch marathon and needed a day or two off from cooking!

No problem, there was a lot here to enjoy anyway.  We immediately jumped into the clear blue water off the back of india to snorkel the extensive coral heads.  There were many beautiful live corals with the usual myriad of colourful fish of all sizes swimming about.  And as expected a shark here and there.  These black-tip sharks would swim into our peripheral vision, in curiosity, but soon speed away when we showed any interest in them.  Most, if not all, of the sharks found in the shallow waters of the reefs and lagoons here are harmless.  One sees reef, nurse, black-tip and white-tip sharks, beautiful animals in there own habitat. Some of the grouper we saw snorkelling here were huge, and some of the biggest we had seen anywhere.  Not safe to hunt and eat unfortunately due to the risk of Cigueterra poisoning.

This also proved to be a great spot for our SDPs - if you remember that’s ‘Sit Down Paddleboards’.  We rowed them like pros from one side of the pass to the other, over the reefs, to the neighbouring Motus, and everywhere in between.  A good workout for us lazy sailors.  Also the weather here was perfect for drone flying - almost no wind and bright blue skies,  We spent some hours one day flying the drone all around, both during the day and at sunset, and made some beautiful footage to show the layout of the Anse Amyot.  Before we left, we wanted to find out more about the pearls we had seen Valentina sorting a day or two earlier.  At her table in the shade she had sat with a plastic tub full of bags of pearls of all sizes and colours.  Since Dara had fallen in love with the Polynesian pearls, we were determined to buy some for a necklace at some point, to match the bracelet we had bought in Taha’a a couple of months previously  So, finding Valentina at a lull in her usual busy day, we asked about the pearls. Yessss! Of course you can see them!! And they are for sale too!!!  So it was we spent a lovely hour or so, poring over all the different pearls in Valentina’s plastic tub. They literally were all sizes and colours.  Dara painstakingly looked at every pearl in the size range 8-10mm, looking for the most round examples, the glossiest ones, and the most interesting colours.  She was able to pick 65 beautiful examples, enough to make a generous necklace, and we struck a deal with Valentina which made us all happy.  I think she has given each of them a name, but see the photo below to spot your favourite.

That evening, G & V offered to cook lobsters for us, on the grill with garlic butter, along with four others from two other boats.  We met before sunset, bringing cocktails to share, and also some gifts to offer, which is traditional for the local inhabitants, since they rarely see some of the luxuries we are used to.  We brought an old pair of sunglasses. (always useful in this climate), some olive oil, corned beef, after sun lotion, writing journal and pens, and a spare 12V battery I had been storing for a while.  We drank and chatted for a while as the lobsters slowly grilled to perfection. We learned all about the menagerie they tend here - chickens, pigs, bees, puppies and kittens.  The chickens and pigs are for food, and they eat the super cute little piglets at about eight months old - we were invited back for a suckling pig roast next time!  The bee hives in particular were flourishing and we bought a jar of honey they make themselves.  Shortly after sunset we took our three lobsters back to the boat, to eat with salad and garnishes, only to hear later that we missed some fun as a slightly tipsy Gaston and a couple of equally tipsy guests tried to retrieve a chicken from a tree...   Never a dull moment in paradise.