We left Tahiti through the southern pass, which is closer for us than going back around to the north. We had been leery of using the southern pass, reading in our cruising guides that it can be treacherous. The rally to Moorea had used the southern pass and it was no problem, so we were confident in using it this time. It is a bit hard to see, but check out the surfers catching waves on the reef. It felt like we were heading out to see through surf, but the pass itself only had minor swells. Going through was easy.

Our intended destination was Cook’s bay, on the north side of the island. We were told it was beautiful. As we neared the island, we got a call from Special Blend. We passed right by them. We had nice following seas, they had head seas. Here is Special Blend.

They recommended another anchorage at the edge of Opunohu Bay, the next bay over from Cook’s. A much shallower anchorage and close by to other cruisers we know. Both Cook’s and Opunohu are beautiful. Part of South Pacific was filmed in Opunohu, so most of you have already seen it.

Our anchorage is really nice. We are in 10 feet of crystal clear, light blue water. It is the shallowest anchorage we have been in yet.

We had to re-set the anchor three times. The first two times we were either too close to another boat, or coral, or both. In addition to the three times the anchor hit the sand, there were a couple more false starts where the wind and current pushed us away from where we wanted to be, so we had to pull the anchor back up, move the boat and start lowering the anchor again.

As soon as we got Kosmos situated, we headed into shore to explore. We are incredibly close to shore. There is a small white sand beach that you can land the dinghy on. Finally, a white sand beach. We were beginning to doubt their existence! Moorea, like Tahiti, doesn’t have many beaches, so we are really lucky to be at one. There was a group of kids playing soccer. There were a bunch of small tents, almost like a cub scout camp out. There were several large pits dug into the ground. The sand was in a large mound next to each pit, and each pit was full of trash. We found the trash pits odd.

The main road parallels the water, so we walked out to the road and wandered along. There were mostly houses on both sides of the road, but we did find a small grocery store, a couple of restaurants and a Sheraton resort before heading back. Like North Fakarava, the yards are all nicely landscaped with a variety of plants, especially flowering plants. We noticed a few of these funky birds of paradise plants around.

We stopped at one of the restaurants for dinner. We ordered our favorite raw fish in coconut milk and decided to be wild and try something we have never heard of before. We got shrimp in Kari sauce. The lady asked us “For to eat here or take away?”. Take away? We hadn’t even considered that any of these places allowed you to take out food. It had never occurred to us to even ask before. We were so excited about being able to get it “to go” that we ordered “to go” even though we had planned to eat there.

Back at the boat we eagerly opened our mystery meal and tasted it. Shrimp in a mild curry sauce. So much for being wild and trying a new food. We both like curry and it was very good. Dinner was followed by another mellow night aboard Kosmos.