An outdoors social network for the traveling & outdoors enthusiast - MyOutdoorAdventure.com

Tahaa Lagoon & Coral Garden

Posted on April 06, 2009 by: Traveler

Closest City: Uturoa, Raiatea
State:
Country: French Polynesia

Tahaa Island Tour & Coral Garden Snorkel

If you have read the previous two write-ups for our adventures on the island of Raiatea, you would already know Danielle and I had to wait until our final day to take a bout tour of its sister island; Tahaa. If you haven’t then click on the Hawaiki Nui Pearl Beach Resort to find out how Danielle and I got to these islands and then Raiatea Coast Road Drive to see what we did after learning the weather was too bad to take this tour the previous day. After reading my lengthy dissertations (sorry) please come back to find out what happened on this day!

As promised, the weather cleared our final morning and we were picked up at the end of the Hawaiki Nui deck stretching out over the lagoon. Our boat driver, a younger Polynesian male, introduced himself as Elvis. He must have seen the smirk begin to form on our faces at the irony of a dude who lives on Tahaa Island in the South Pacific having the same name as “The King”, because he quickly followed up his introduction with the exclamation, “But I don’t sing”.

We boarded the excursion boat with a French couple and Elvis quickly sped off for the outer edge of the lagoon; an hourglass shaped reef surrounding both islands. Elvis navigated across the deep channel separating Raiatea from Tahaa and then pulled into a small bay of the mainland of Tahaa to pick up our female “English-speaking guide” (seems Elvis was just the driver). We could now say we were visiting our sixth island of this adventure.

Our next stop would be Vahine Private Island. Vahine Island occupies a motu along the northern portion of Tahaa’s lagoon. There is crystal clear water surrounding this motu and white sand along the beach sweeping far off to the left and then curving into the lagoon. Two lounge chairs appeared to be resting in the water but they were really at the end of this long left sweep of sand. The following describes what we were looking at- Out of our price range – but apparently some more fortunate souls could splurge. Aboard hopped six more passengers. Our new guide told us Vahine Island Resort is the longest operation for Tahaa at roughly 40 years. With the beautiful setting, I could see why.

There were going to be three parts to this “Tahaa Lagoon Tour” snorkeling, a motu picnic and a tour of the Vai Poe family pearl farm and vanilla plantation. I don’t know if that meant Elvis and the other female guide were Vai Poe family members or their employees. Anyway, the first stop we would be making was at the Coral Garden to “drift snorkel”. Interesting to Danielle and I was that we had already been scuba diving in Rangiroa’s Tiputa Pass and Fakarava’s Tumakohua Pass. These are both deep-water passes of the Tuamotu Islands which “Rangi” and “Faki” belong. The thrill of dropping down on the ocean side of the reef system and riding the current into the lagoon through the pass in a “drift dive” was truly a life experience for us. Just how would snorkeling in shoulder high water compare?

As we pulled up to the shallow area near the end of the Coral Garden (the lagoon side) I looked off to the left and saw the Le Tahaa Island Resort & Spa. Some Le Tahaa guests were frolicking in a shallow part of the lagoon where a yacht was moored at the edge of the deep water. NOTE: if you go to the website link below for Le Tahaa you will see aerial pictures of the resort. The channel to the right side of the picture is the Coral Garden and the mountains along the horizon are Bora Bora’s high peaks. Our guide commented on how expensive the resort is and I later checked online to see some NIGHTLY room rates push above the $2000 mark. Ouch! This gorgeous setting reminded us of our three nights spent at Tetamanu Village on the edge of Tumakohua Pass.

From where the boat had stopped, I wasn’t immediately impressed with the prospect of simply snorkeling. Might just be an excuse to get in the water I surmised. Snorkel masks and underwater camera in hand, Danielle and I walked along the right side of the Coral Garden to far side of the motu (ocean side of the Coral Garden). The incoming high tide was flowing through the pass into the lagoon of Tahaa and we would simply get in the water and drift through the coral outcrops while avoiding all the pointy sea urchins. As soon as we started drifting, I knew why this was part of the overall tour. One guide (Elvis was no longer with us) jumped in with us and began to feed the reef fish one of their chopped brethren. The experience was very surreal drifting past coral in only shoulder high water but the neatest part was all the anemones. We had seen our first anemones a couple days prior while diving in about 40 feet of water at Bora Bora. At the reef of Bora Bora, we saw only couple anemones grouped together. Here in the Coral Garden, they were in much larger groupings. It was interesting to see them in such a large concentration and this close to the surface of the water. Maybe the cold tidal exchange provide a sustainable environment. The anemones had white tentacles with a velvety red / pink undersides. Clown Fish swam close by protecting their lair and picking at our intruding hands. After drifting the length of the Coral Garden I wanted to run back and do it again but instead pulled out my “regular” Nikon camera for some island pics.

Back on the boat, we headed to Motu Payant for our picnic. A little slice of heaven in the South Pacific, this motu is jointly owned by three families. Our female guide demanded we not stray beyond a certain area. The Vai Poe portion of Motu Payant was cordoned off with barbed wire. Definitely not the same “motu experience” Danielle and I had had after getting dropped off near Tetamanu Village by our proprietor; Sane. I wondered if I stuck my arm through the wire would an alarm sound and four large Polynesian males (wearing loin cloths for a visual) would advance upon me to repel my intrusion… not hardly. Ok, we thought, this area looks fine to us with some nice palms hanging out over the water so no need to stray beyond your Vai Poe border. Danielle and I were pretty much the only two non-French speakers and as such were not included in any conversation. I was there to take pictures and enjoy time with Danielle (hopefully she had the same thought about wanting to spend time with me) so we didn’t mind being excluded and simply wandered around “within the boundaries” as the fare was being laid out under a tent. We were the only two guests who had any “want” to explore and all the others stayed at the tent.

By the time we came back over to the tent, everyone else was gorging on food. Our selections included chicken curry & rice, poissan crue, tuna sashimi, Tahitian-style bread and legumes. Dessert was grilled bananas in a bourbon liqueur sauce. We filled our plates and sat down with the group. We learned ALL the other members of the group had signed on for a land based 4X4 Jeep tour through the interior mountains of Tahaa and would not be joining us for our Vai Poe pearl farm and vanilla plantation. We didn’t even know 4X4 to be an option on this tour but probably would have passed anyway because of the added expense. So far we had kept to a budget and we told ourselves we could splurge a little at our final location on the island of Moorea.

After all bellies were full, the tour excursion headed back to the Vai Poe farm (the first small bay of Tahaa’s mainland that we had originally picked up our female guide). I was actually looking forward to the pearl farm tour because I hoped we would get to dive in the water and see strings of oysters hanging down from the surface buoy. With a crowd of two in the presentation area we sat through what actually ended up being an intriguing process. Each oyster has a “shelf life” of (4) pearls. An oyster surgeon has approximately 30 seconds but not more than (1) minute to insert a nucleus (grain of sand) and a piece of shell into the oyster before it dies. With such a small window of opportunity, the surgeon grafts these two items into the oyster on the deck of a boat in the lagoon and then immediately hands the oyster to a diver who strings the oyster from a line at a depth of 20 meters (about 60 feet). Eighteen months later (that’s right, 1 ½ years) the pearls are harvested and the process begins anew. NOTE: Interestingly enough; the shell piece inserted into the oysters comes from the Mississippi River in the United States. French Polynesia is world renowned for the beautiful black pearls grafted in the lagoon waters of her isles. When asked if we would get to see the pearls in the water our female tour guide looked at me like I was crazy. Obviously we would not be permitted to swim with THEIR pearls!

For our vanilla farm presentation, we simply turned our chairs around to have a view of four rows of Vanilla Plants. Vanilla is another export French Polynesia is known for and if you think harvesting pearls takes a long time then don’t even consider getting into the business of vanilla extract. After years of waiting, the vanilla plants finally produce its crop. The window for picking all these vanilla beans last only three months. After plucked, all beans are laid out into the sun for approximately four hours a day… for four months straight! I’m not quite sure what the process was after all this because our guide began to lose me. I felt like Charlie Brown in the back of the class… drifting. Again, the presentation was interesting enough yet boring in that it was not a hands-on experience.

After both presentations, we walked with our guide over to her family shop. They had very nice pearl necklaces and other jewelry but Danielle had no interest in owning any of it. One necklace with a matching bracelet caught my eye though. All the pearls were the irregularly shaped (20 total in the necklace) and had green lines infused across. I actually liked these “imperfect” specimens the best and made Danielle put both pieces on. I asked how much the set cost and was told by our guide a price of 1000 CFP. A quick CFP to dollar conversion meant the pearl necklace / bracelet set would be a hundred some odd dollars. I took one last look and handed our guide my credit card to buy the set for the love of my life. Danielle took off the pearl necklace and I began to look at the price tag which had a “1” and four “0’s” for a total price of ten thousand CFP. A quicker conversion meant the NEW price would be over $1,100 dollars. Ah, gimme back my credit card please and here’s your pearls that we won’t be purchasing.

With everyone still on the 4X4 Jeep tour, Danielle and I were transported back out to the Motu Payant. A Polynesian girl and an older woman were lounging in the lagoon water so we decided to join them and their two dogs; a Rottweiler and a Dalmatian. Besides the Coral Garden snorkel, lounging with this pair was one of the best parts about our Tahaa Island excursion. We asked to walk around the edge of the motu to the Pacific Ocean side. They were hesitant but finally told us it would be ok. Danielle and I didn’t want to abuse someone else’s generosity so we stayed off the land of the other motu owners. Right about the time that Danielle and I got bored of lounging at this small area of this small motu, we heard the sound of an approaching boat. This would be our final ride back to pick up the 4X4 guests and head back to the Hawaiki Nui Resort. We arrived back at 5pm making it an eight hour tour. That seemed like a marathon time compared with the standard tour length of 3-4 hours.

We enjoyed our last night at the Hawaiki Nui by eating at its delicious Le Nordby restaurant. I had a fillet of Mahi Mahi and Danielle had a fillet of Salmon (which was probably imported from Alaska). We later packed up and eagerly anticipated arriving at our final Polynesian destination; Les Tipaniers Hotel on the island of Moorea.

Back To Adventures