Hane Moe Noa Bay

We relaxed in this beautiful bay on Tahuata Island for one week and enjoyed snorkelling with the Manta Rays when they came into the bay in the morning to feed on plankton. Ian took a great photo of me diving down with a Manta so I finally got to be on the other side of the camera. We only planned on staying a few days in the bay but this uninhabited part of the island and crystal clear waters captivated us. We also had a lot of cruiser friends drop anchor in the same bay and almost every night we had a social call to make in our dinghy. One night we had sundowners on Faraway and 10 people managed to squeeze into our cockpit. We drank delicious sangria made by Lilliane off Meikyo and lots of beers. Ian and I kayaked over to the island a few times and collected lemons and poplamose fruit from the trees in the abandoned grove behind the swaying coconut palms that fringed the shoreline. We also collected a few coconuts which proved to be delicious once we had worked out how to open them. After a few days we longed for fresh bread and more fruit so we took a 2 mile dinghy ride with the family from Saba to the village called Vaitah. It was a rough dinghy ride in open ocean but the mountain scenery along the way was spectacular. Strong winds funnelled from the mountains into the bay as we approached the village and we had a tough time securing our dinghies to the jetty wall. The village was small but very neat and tidy and most of the houses had million dollar views of the bay. There was a stone church in the village with beautiful blue stained glass windows and a polished tree trunk that served as a bible stand. We went to 2 small grocery stores and managed to get fresh bread sticks and some canned food. Silka from Saba came across a local guy in the street and she negotiated with him in French to bring us some bananas, oranges and mangoes. He came along to the jetty an hour later with a back pack full of produce and we agreed on a price for them. On July 21, the last day in the bay, Ian and I organized a beach BBQ for all the cruisers. At 1:30pm we took the dinghy over to the beach and built a fire pit and raked an area around a wooden table that had been used by many cruisers before us. A few hours before sunset cruisers from the yachts Meikyo, Saba, Spirit, Alchemist, Lullaby,Terrwyn, and Luna arrived and we sat around the fire and cooked our meat, ate and drank. We all watched the sun set behind our yachts in the bay and it was the perfect finish to our stay. A few of us stayed on around the fire until 9pm for more drinks and to watch the stars come out.