March 10: Fakarava, Tuamotu, French Polynesia

Fakahava is part of the Tuomotu Islands. It is located about 150 NM east of Tahiti. It is an atoll with a population of 880 people, and it is the definition of being in the middle of nowhere. The land mass is shown in yellow, with some too small to see in this image. The atoll is 37 miles long and 13 miles wide. At the bottom of the image, note the water depth of 3,281 feet just a short distance outside the sunken part of the lagoon.

Today we needed to tender ashore. Pam & I had a leisurely breakfast while waiting until those eager to be there first had achieved that lofty objective. When we departed the ship, the tender we got on was nearly full. We had to take seats that everyone else had shunned. On the upside, the tender left for shore almost immediately.

Today, my seat was on a bench at the bow of the tender. This was my view of the world tendering ashore this morning. It was like being in the middle seat is the middle aisle of a jumbo jet with no view to help you orient yourself. You just wait for the change in engine pitch and the bump, which are the giveaways that you have landed (or something bad just happened, but let's not go there).

Picture of the tender pier taken when we were returning to the ship.

Ashore, we glanced around for the rental bike concession. Not seeing it, we turned east along the road that runs down the spine of the island. Passing by the first beach because of the number of people occupying it, we soon came to a beach that looked like a good place to swim. We were not put off by the reef shark that swam by about 10 feet from shore in 3 feet of water.

The water was great for swimming. It was less so for snorkeling because of the white-sand turbidity washing out all the colors and the few varieties of fish. We still had fun.

Out of the water and getting ready to return to the pier area, we first went into a small church across the street from the beach.

The inside of the church was simple, but the intricacy of the shell-work hanging from the ceiling was considerable, reflecting skill, time, and effort.

This guy, in a uniform, but not a Holland America one, quickly and skillfully removed the shell from what appeared to be several coconuts without damaging the contents. He then handed some money to the local who had stood there the whole time. The local refused. The man in uniform insisted, then happily walked away with his prize. Curious!?

When we returned to the tender pier, the location of the bike rental was blindingly obvious, although, in our defense, some people we spoke with who tried to rent bikes mid-morning said there were none available.

Considering ourselves fortunate that some of the early renters had turned their bikes back in, we were riding down the road a few minutes later.

We decided to ride towards the lighthouse and the airport.

The road was relatively smooth and the riding easy, but the general sameness of the view became monotonous. 

Okay, I accept that bitching about the view while riding a bike on an atoll in French Polynesia is not going to garner any sympathy. I will therefore categorize my statement as a first-hand observation.

We eventually got to the airport and with it, the end of the road. Had someone stolen the lighthouse?

Riding back, Pam spotted it down a dirt side road, so we turned and bumped along until we got to it.

We were rewarded for our effort with a structure of utilitarian blandness. There was absolutely nothing about it that was interesting, other than that it was so uninteresting.

From the base of the lighthouse, we could look back down the road we had turned onto and see the water inside the lagoon.

Look the other way, we could see the open ocean.

We could rule out elevation as enhancing our perspective in both directions. We were 11 feet above sea level.

After sitting on the ocean side of the atoll for a few minutes, we were back on our bikes, continuing our return trip. Another biker we encountered commented about it being harder to ride into the wind. We politely agreed and tried to look as if we were sharing his pain, but that's hard to do when you are casually pedaling along on an e-bike with power-assist turned on. 

Our luck with catching a tender about to depart held. We were on our way back to the ship less than 5 minutes after stepping aboard. Bonus, there were only a few people on the tender, so everyone was comfortable.

During some general remarks by the captain before the ship got underway, he said there were six shots of anchor chain in the water. One shot = 90 feet. He added that the combined total weight of 540 feet of chain attached to a 13-ton anchor was 45 tons.

By 5:00 PM, Nieuw Amsterdam was working her way along the eastern side of the atoll towards the passage through the channel located at the north end.

At 5:30 PM, the ship cleared the atoll and was back in the open ocean.