We have been in Ahe for five days and have decided to leave tomorrow. The stay has been most pleasant. The views are not as spectacular as the Marquises, but we found a wonderful anchorage, and we mixed with others more than we have at past anchorages.

We were told a supply boat was coming today, but is 1600 and our expectations are diminishing. We were told it has been in the lagoon all day, but is somewhere else. I suppose it is at one of the other Motus. The fact that we can't see it, when all of the motus form a near circle, with no convex parts, indicates how large the lagoon really is.

During our time at Ahe, we have not been able to buy anything, because the main store was closed, and the second store was almost sold out of goods, because the boat has not visited the island for a week. There really isn't much that we need, or would buy anyway.

We have met a number of people on Ahe that I would like to tell about. We learned a lot about pearl farming, and I went fishing with some permanent residents, and met other full-time residents.

 Meeting Richard

I took my kayak into a very shallow inlet to see if I could get to the ocean, very close to our anchorage. I couldn't. While trying, I spotted a young man cleaning fish by the water's edge. I paddled over and said, "Bonjour." It is sad to use one's entire French vocabulary at one time, but it is important to make a good, first impression.

He asked if I spoke French and I asked if he spoke English. He said a little. He asked if I like fish and I said yes. He invited me to clean fish. I put my kayak ashore, and stood beside the outcropping of rock to help. He ran for another knife and when he returned, he urged me to get out of the water, using the word danger. I obliged. Shortly after sitting on a cement block to help clean fish, he pointed to exactly where I had been standing. I looked and a moray eel had its head sticking out of the outcropping, eating fish parts, right were I had been standing.

His name was Richard (in French), and he worked on the pearl farm that we can see from Cosmos. His wife and two kids were in town. We cleaned fish until after dark. He asked how many people were on our boat and he gave me enough fish for us to have dinner. I left some gifts on his door sill the following day and haven't seen him since.

Meeting Others

We fly the flags according to etiquette. We hoist the U.S. flag at 0800 and lower it at sunset. The home country flag should be of a certain size, depending on the size of the boat and should be flown on a short staff above the transom. Cosmos warrants a 3' by 5' U.S. flag which we fly, so that is what we fly. It is easy for everyone to see where we come from, so it attracts English speaking people to us. We also fly a "courtesy flag" of the host country on a halyard from the lower starboard spreader once we have cleared immigration, and been given permission to lower the yellow quarantine pennant.

A fellow named Bill noted our U.S. flag, and came along side to ask what we have heard of the news back home. We asked him to come aboard and he did. He asked about the news, not so that he could fill us in, but because he thought we might have more news than he did. Actually, we both knew about the same basic facts

We inquired about his background and he was glad to share his story. He said he was in Hawaii in 1972 when two fellows asked if he would like to go the French Polynesia on their sailboat. He signed on, and ended up here for a while, met a local woman, married her and they traveled back to the States for 8 years. They also lived in Papeete, Tahiti for some time. His wife owns an Ahe Motu, so when they were able to "retire," they returned to Ahe.

 Pearl Farming

Bill and his wife decided to live on her motu and to start a pearl farm. Pearl farming is now the biggest business in the Tuamotus. Our guidebook indicates that the entire copra crop brings US$8 million while the pearl crop brings US$165 million. This is particularly amazing because pearl farming only started in the late 1960's. Bill told us a great deal about pearl farming.

They hang plastic catchers that look like long pompoms at intervals along 200-meter long rope that is then suspended between one and two meters below the surface of the lagoon. Oysters attach and grow on the catchers. The catchers stay in the water from November to late October when they are pulled to shore.

At shore, the oysters are removed and sorted by size. A small hole is drilled in their shell, and they are attached to another rope where they will stay for the rest of their lives, which can be as long as 15 years. Of course wild oysters never move either, once they attach to a stationary object.

A manufactured ball made of mother of pearl and a piece from the lip of another oyster are implanted by a specially skilled traveling person. Until recently, these people were all Japanese, because the Japanese invented/developed the entire process.

When a string is complete, they are suspended in the lagoon, once again. The depth of their suspension can change, depending on the temperature of the water. They are left there for the mother-of-pearl coating to be put around the culture. The original culture is slightly less than 3/16ths of an inch. In about three years, they hope to extract a 3/8ths inch pearl. When a pearl is extracted, another culture that is about the same size as the removed pearl is inserted and the string of oysters is re-submerged into the water. A specialist also performs the removal and reinsertion of a new culture.

Bill, his wife, his adopted daughter, her husband, and one other couple, tend 3,000 oysters and earn about $40,000 in a good year. They sell about 500 pearls a year through a salesman that finds the best buyer and gets a 2% commission.

We hoped to visit a pearly farm, and we started out to go in the dinghy earlier today, but when we rounded a protective underwater point, behind which we are anchored, the waves splashed us so much we turned around. The pearl farm was about another mile or two and we did not want to arrive soaked with salt water.

Pearl farming is one of the few industries that is ecologically non destructive. This new industry has caused many natives to move back to their home islands from city jobs in Tahiti and New Zealand. It has also made the locals care very much for the ecology of their lagoons, because the oysters can be killed off by pollution. They are even concerned about global warming, because the motus are only about six feet above sea level. Bill said he believed the water levels have risen about a foot in the past three years.

Going Fishing with Manuela Hiva and the Gang

Two days ago, Victor, the French sailor, said we could go fishing with a local man named Manuela Hiva. A day later, he asked if I wanted to go fishing with him and Manuela the following day and of course I said yes. He said Manuela was at his boat and had said Manuela was planning to bake a rum cake for his family. But he had no rum. I brought out the Cosmos supply and had no rum either. I asked Victor to go and get Manuela from his boat and let Manuela determine if any of the other forms of liquor would do. Manuela selected the brandy and took half a bottle for his rum cake. (I guess that is payment in advance for taking me fishing.)

They picked me up at 0730 the following day in a 14-foot Carolina Skiff. They consisted of: Manuela, who is a high energy fellow retired from the French protective service and returned to Ahe after living all over the world; Eric, a fellow who looks to me to be the personification of a 50 to 60 year old man who stayed happily all of his life on Ahe; Vincent, and Vincent Jr.

Manuela headed west about two across the lagoon and directly into a rain shower. We got soaked, but like everything else in the Tuamotus, the rainwater was about 80 degrees, so we were not uncomfortable. About two hundred yards from shore, Eric abandoned his job at the outboard with a loud, high-pitched, pleasant laugh and a roll backward into the water without warning. Manuela assumed the job of driving without any sign of concern while Eric swam away from the boat. The rain stopped. We arrived at and journeyed down a 1/2-mile long pass that was about 200 feet wide and that did not quite make it to the ocean, but just missed by 100 feet.

In the pass, we used small hooks to catch some fish about 8 to 10 inches long. Manuela filleted the fish and then used them for bait on the most unusual fishing rig I have seen. The rig consisted of an 18-inch long piece of bamboo with a dozen hooks lashed onto one end, forming a circle. The fish filet was tied to the middle of the bamboo and only a three-foot long piece of line was attached to the end opposite the hooks.

Even more unusual than the rig, was how it was used. Manuela searched the sandy bottom at a depth of one to two feet until he found a one inch diameter hole with a particular pattern in the sand around it. He stuck the entire bamboo down into the hole and flicked his finger into the water above the hole. I am sorry to say that even though he tried six or seven holes, he never got a bite. He said the fish could be up to one meter long. I was dying to see what this fish looked like.

Victor said that about three weeks ago, this pass was full of mating squid. We went to the end of the pass, and found dozens of squid still there, some mating. The squid were about 18 inches from eye to the end of their tentacles. Bigger than I have seen before. When they mate, the male extends one of his tentacles to the female, and she deposits eggs under a rock in about one foot of water at low tide.

While we were looking at the squid, Eric came walking down the shore with three floats tied on a line. He must have seen the floats on shore and decided to go after them. He was delighted with his find.

We left the pass to fish in deeper waters. To secure the boat, Manuela had a piece of coral with a rope tied through a hole in the coral. Eric would motor from the down-wind side, up to a tall but submerged coral head in otherwise open water. Manuela would throw his coral anchor to the windward side of the coral head and Eric would let the boat drift backwards with the wind. The coral anchor would catch on the coral head and we would be secure to fish in 20 to 40 feet of water.

We fished with hand lines set with one or two ounces of weight and then an 18-inch leader to a small hook that was baited with hermit crab. During the hour or two that we fished, Eric cracked the shells of the hermit crabs with a rock he had in the boat, broke the back-end of the crab from the legs and head, and we used the back ends for bait. Eric cracked the legs and head into chum, which he threw into the water while he made bate. Eric also cleaned all of the fish as they were caught.

On one anchorage, Eric once again laughed out loud and rolled backwards into the water. About 100 yards from the boat, he grabbed something in the water and swam back to the boat. It was a sturdy plastic basket with rope handles.

Eric is overweight, all of his features are large, and he looks and dresses like the characterization of a south pacific native who has enjoyed the good life for a long time. All of that might be true, but that is not all. I noticed on the boat, that our energetic, enthusiastic leader, Manuela, would ask Eric for French-English/English-French word translations. From under his locally made straw hat, Eric would speak on a low voice directly to Manuela and you would hardly know what happened if you weren't paying attention. Eric liked to celebrate his own joys and hide behind his persona. He spoke excellent English.

I later stopped to talk to Eric in the village when I saw him chopping copra in his yard. He talked about what he does with the copra. He splits it several times, pulls out the meat, dries it for three days in the sun, and then bags it and sells it when the ship comes in. Later, his wife came out to chop copra also. When I first met Eric, I thought he was someone that some people might laugh at. After I knew him for a while, I thought he was laughing at me; deservedly so and with good humor.

Back to fishing. Vincent did not fish, but Vincent Jr. caught most of the fish. We ended up with about fifteen, 8-to-14-inch fish of such a wide assortment of colors markings, that this Marylander felt they can't possibly be eaten. I caught about four. Eric and Manuela caught just a couple because they were busy baiting lines and making new rigs as old ones were snagged on coral and broken off as the only way to retrieve the line. We lost so many rigs, that before long, we were using old nuts and spark plugs for weights.

 Meeting David

When we returned, we all had a pate and salted pickles on homemade bread for lunch aboard Victor's boat, Naussica and a lot of good conversation. Another Frenchman joined us. His name was David and he has worked on a pearl farm on Ahe since he crewed in aboard a yacht three years ago. He said life on a motu is very much like life aboard a yacht. He said on a "family" pearl farm, you constantly interact with the same few people day in and day out. You fix all sorts of stuff in sometimes make-do, temporary, or jury-rigged fashion. And periodically, you go to the village to talk to other people and to pick up a few items. He also reminded me that in the south pacific, meanwhile, the air temperature is 76 to 84 degrees, depending on what time of the day or night it is. The water temperature is 78 to 83 degrees, depending on what time of year it is. And even if it rains, the rain is not chilling. There is also nothing on land or in the water that wants to sting or bite people. David plans to return to France for two years starting this coming November, to learn refrigeration installation and maintenance. He said he loves to travel so much and refrigeration is needed everywhere these days, so his options will be wide open.

 Cooking Fish

I have cooked fish two times so far; on successive days. The first attempt was cooking the fish given to me by Richard and the ones we caught. They turned out terribly, by the time they were put on the table. Wanting to keep the fish smell out of the boat, I cooked them right on the grill. By the time they were finished cooking, they had no skin and lots of bones. They were not a favorite with the crew, and I expect no second requests for that recipe.

The next day, Vincent and Vincent Jr. came to the boat with some extra fish that Vincent Jr. had caught from the back of their boat. They were still alive in a bucket. I cleaned, filleted, rolled them in flour with salt and pepper and fried them. They were delicious. They appeared to be grouper.

Grouper are fish that feed along coral and eating fish that feed on coral can be dangerous. An illness called ciguatera that can give awful and weird symptoms for a year or even more is a form of fish poisoning caused by microscopic algae. The weirdest symptom is that when stricken, hot can feel like cold, and cold can feel like hot. The good news is that fish under five pounds are very likely to carry ciguatera. So we can eat reef-feeding fish that are less than five pounds, and we can eat any open-ocean fish.

 Snorkeling and Goodbye to Ahe

I also did a lot of snorkeling and a little bit of super-snorkeling in Ahe. About 100 yards from our anchorage, is a submerged island that has a reasonable amount of coral, and all kinds of fish. George and I also went diving on a submerged point that is a short dinghy ride away. The diving was good, but not spectacular. We enjoyed ourselves.

Tomorrow, we leave for Rangiroa. It is 80 miles away and we should be able to get there by sailing one day, and one night and we should arrive on the second day of sailing. We are getting low on water, so we will make water for most of the passage. We don't make water in harbors or on anchor. We also could use some charging of our batteries, a sure indication that it is time to move on.