Teahupoo
We are finally having a fat jol, this place is just totally blowing our minds. Had 2 sessions at Teahupoo today, solid double overhead pigdog pits, insane. We love it here, good anchorages and a wealth of surf, finally we are having a high surf hit rate, easily as high as a Mentawai charter, without a bunch of other boats, just relaxed mellow locals. We have another 50 days left on our visas in French Polynesia and we are already crying about having to leave! But around mid June we will cruise westward again towards the Cook islands, Tonga and Fiji. Then Oz by end November.
Teahupoo is about as heavy a wave as i have ever surfed, even more so with a fairly full lineup, when the sets come its a scramble, the wave shifts around the reef quite a bit, so its easy to get too deep. Its also got a few weird corners which can let you in quite easily, other times its just pure over the ledge crazy shit. It takes pure commitment. But my pigdog is working well, i backdoored a few ridiculous pits which had the whole gallery hooting, such a kiff feeling. Also had one no-hands. Ate shit a few times too, almost had a 2 wave hold down, the white water just would not let me back up. Did a full cartwheel out of the lip, i refuse to pull back, cant throw name here.
There is a Billabong junior contest at Vairao this week and the trials for Teahupoo also start pretty soon. So it may be time for us to move on, get away from the crowds a bit. Then again we are really enjoying being in a vibey area, we have had enough uncrowded solitude on those long crossings to last a lifetime! Not sure what to do. Moorea, the island right next to Tahiti has 4 or 5 sw facing reef passes, including the navigable Avarapa Pass on the very south west corner of the island which has a known wave with a village called Vairapa nearby (=fresh baguette). Further up the west coast there is another navigable pass called Matauvau and then two non-navigable passes (Avamotu and Taota). All looking very promising with plenty underground rumours of ridiculous waves on Moorea.
The other half of the society islands are called the Leewards, of which the main surf ones are Raiatea and Huahine. They have insane surf, these islands are the same kind of formation as Tahiti and Moorea (mountainous, fringing coral reef, calm inner lagoon, REEF PASSES). But they are more than 100 nautical miles west, which means an overnight sail to get there. We need to do a haul out on shimmi, the travel lift in Papeete turned out to be 10cm's too narrow, so we have made a booking with the yard on Raiatea on 11 May for a haul out. That's 3 weeks from now that we have to be in Raiatea. So maybe another week here, 10 days in Moorea and then head over to the Leewards? Our haul out will use up about 3-4 days, so by mid May we can start exploring that area, by which time we will only have a month left with our visas in French Polynesia...
Anyway, the swell is dropping fast now so tomorrow is going to be a family beach day. Only problem with the coral reef/lagoon thing is that there are very few sandy beaches and we really need to get Indie off the boat and running around. Tomorrow's mission: Indie must run!
Au revoir
