Tahitian Exploration II

2007, July 3. Tuesday—9 a.m.
During the night of June 25th, while anchored inside of Little Vairo Pass (the right I ended the last blog at), the swell picked up noticeably. With Little Vairo nearly maxed out it was time to head further south to the big boy, Teahupoo. I followed close on Windekind’s stern as we weaved through a couple narrow, shallow channels inside the lagoon. Within an hour we both anchored in a small basin just north of the Havae Pass, home to the famed Teahupoo left.
With the hook set I hitched a ride in Windekind’s dinghy and we headed out the pass to check the surf. The conditions were calm, wind slightly offshore, and fifteen people were out in the six to eight foot perfect waves. From the channel I felt for the first time the true power of Teahupoo. As the swell approached from the southwest it leapt from the sea nearly horizontally onto the shallow reef of the pass. A massive tube rolled down the line, too fast to ride, till it finally reached the drop zone where somebody would brave the steep drop, pull into the massive pit, and either pull out before the closeout section or wind up caught inside scratching to get off the reef. The inside is what looked so fierce. Whitewater would suck down off the reef with each approaching wave, defying nature and creating an uphill slope of water you’d have to climb to get onto the reef. After watching a couple sets roll in I was actually surprised by how manageable the waves looked. Myself and the three other surfers in the dinghy decided it was time to paddle out.
Thirty minutes later Windekind’s dinghy was moored in the channel and Eric, Will Austin (15) and I were paddling to the lineup. Eric immediately paddled deep into the peak and picked off two quick waves, one a nice barrel, and the other ate him up. I was on the 6’ 6” Mike left on board, and quickly found it wasn’t big enough for the wave. Every wave I paddled for rolled beneath me, heaved up, and left me behind.
The swell was picking up with each set, and when I turned around from paddling for a wave I saw the crowd scratching for the channel and followed suit. Next thing I knew a heavy fifteen-foot wave was breaking over the reef, throwing a massive barrel that could easily have fit Avventura inside it. I was able to duckdive under the lip and opened my eyes to watch as the monster rolled on. I was relieved to find no waves behind it; but when I looked inside I saw Eric and Will in the cauldron of whitewater left in its wake. Eric was clinging to the back half of his board, Will’s was gone altogether (broken board to go with the snapped leash as he later learned), and another broken board was drifting around in the cauldron. One wave took out three boards, and with that we headed back to the boats to regroup and reload.
On Avventura I quickly threw a sheet of fiberglass and gobs of resin over where my 7’ 0” had buckled (my first session in Tahiti, at Taapuna) to give it some added strength. Just as the resin was drying the Windekind guys picked me up for round two. I threw some sandpaper in my pocket and hopped in the dinghy with the freshly-repaired board. Eric was the first to paddle out while the rest of us watched from the dinghy. The swell had not only picked up, but was shifting further west as the day wore on, making it harder to get out of the waves once you were in and causing for some big, heavy closeouts. On Eric’s first wave he dropped in deep, pulled in to an impossible tube, was eaten alive, and emerged from the soup with another broken board. He swam back to the dinghy frustrated, not about the broken board, but that he hadn’t made it out of the barrel. Within minutes of his return we all paddled out, Eric on a brand new board, and me on my 7’ 0”.
Eric and Will continued to charge the set waves as the wind picked up a bit and the crowd fled the growing swell. On Will’s second wave he pulled in from behind the peak and was eaten by the eight foot (?) wave. In the tumult he smacked his knee on the reef returning to the lineup bleeding and saying he was done for the day. As Will returned to the dinghy a group of Australian surfers paddled out. I mostly sat watching as Eric, one of the Australians, and a Hawaiian guy traded off waves I didn’t have the guts (or the board) to paddle for. Every third wave they seemed to make to the channel, but the rest were unmakeable and led to the inevitable underwater dragging and long hold down that seems to come with every Teahupoo wipeout. When you did come up you still had to take the next couple waves on the head.
Little Austin caught a couple insiders, putting me to shame and increasing my paddling efforts to get into a wave. I managed to get myself into one of the smaller waves, made the drop and a bottom turn, and raced for the channel. No monster tube spitting behind me, no awful wipeout; but at least I can say I caught a wave at Teahupoo.
A half hour after catching my lone wave I was on the inside when the wave of the day came through. I saw it coming early and Little Austin and I scratched for the channel as the Hawaiian (called Biff, which seemed to be a running joke with the Windekind fellows) took off right at the peak. The wave hit the reef and grew into an eighteen foot face (my guess; definitely the heaviest wave I’ve ever seen up close) as Biff paddled into it. As he got to his feet the bottom fell out of the wave and after air-dropping for a short while he began to cart-wheel down the face. A couple seconds later he hit the water for good, only to be sucked back over the falls as I duckdove under the lip. Biff’s wipeout was enough to chase me back to the dinghy and end my day of “surfing” Teahupoo. Two sessions, one wave. Not a great showing, but to surf it again I’d want a bigger board so I could get into the waves before the bottom dropped out, as Eric, Will and the Aussy were able to. As for Biff, he wound up in the hospital where they had to remove chunks of coral from his back; which I’m told looked like a sheet of blood despite the vest he had been wearing.
On the way in from Teahupoo I was invited to the famous “Pizza Tuesday’s” on Windekind. I headed over around sunset and we passed the night having a few beers, eating homemade pizzas and playing cards—a nice way to unwind from a heavy day of surf.

Dawn revealed a more westerly swell and Teahupoo was no longer an appetizing place to surf, so Windekind and I headed out the Havae Pass, skirted along Tahiti’s barrier reef, and returned to Big Vairo Pass (Tapuaeraha Pass on the charts) where we had surfed three days earlier. We anchored in the same little cove off the “Ifremer Centre Oceanologique du Pacifique,” a marine biology research station. [As a sidenote this little cove proved to be a great anchorage in 45 feet over a muddy bottom, one of the few shallow places within dinghy distance of Big Vairo Pass, supposedly one of the better waves in Tahiti and more mellow. GPS POS: 17˚48.49’S by 149˚17.64’W]
Unfortunately soon after leaving Teahupoo the wind picked up to fifteen knots, blowing sideshore and adding an unwanted chop to the good-sized sets that were rolling through Big Vairo Pass. After waiting unsuccessfully for the wind to die we paddled out for an afternoon session anyways. The surf was much more manageable than Teahupoo. Though still sizeable, there was a much gentler face and shoulder to be ridden after a steep drop. Though the good waves were hard to pick out of the jumbled mess the wind and swell had created, I had a fun session and caught a couple good waves. Adding to the enjoyment was the simple pleasure of watching the massive rooster tails sweeping off the big rights across the pass. The downside of the wind, coupled with the cooler water the swell churned up (81˚), was that after an hour and a half I had goosebumps on my arms and was conscious of being cold in the water for the first time since the Galapagos.
The following morning saw the arrival of Robyn’s Nest at the anchorage, and I was glad to hear they had come into a good swell at Faaite just two days after Mike and I left. With their arrival came the passing of a weather front over the island (same as had happened on the day I arrived in Tahiti a couple weeks earlier), which brought with it thirty knot southwest winds and periods of heavy rain. The front brought four days of lousy weather during which Windekind decided to brave and return to Papeete while Robyn’s Nest and I hunkered down in our little cove. I awoke on day two of the nasty westerly weather with a sore throat, beginning what has been a five day sickness to date. My sickness still lingers on, perhaps accounting for the fact that I can’t find any sort of writing rhythm in this damned blog. Sorry about that, but I wanted to get it out in spite of this.
After a few days of waiting out the weather, while still feeling sick, I decided to brave the conditions and return to Papeete in search of medicine. Despite periods of thirty knot winds and no autopilot that could cope with the eight foot swells I made it back to Papeete on the evening of July 1. I entered the Papeete Pass as the sun set, and awaited permission to use the Faaa Chanel for fifteen minutes while planes came in low overhead. The harbor authority finally gave me the go-ahead and I scurried along before the next plane came in to the channel-side runway. I carefully followed the channel markers around a bend in the reef to the opposite end of the runway where I tucked into a cove off the Intercontinental Resort (formerly the Beach Comber) and dropped the hook in the dark; collapsing in my bunk moments later.
Yesterday I moved back to the normal anchorage off Marina Taina and made it to a pharmacy where I picked up a couple medicines which, though everything is written in French, I was told will help me. After a day of medicating I’m beginning to feel better and am hopeful that the fourth of July will see a return to my former good health. Either way I’ll be taking it easy till I recover fully, because being sick in the tropics is no fun.

Again, sorry for the disjointed, choppy writing and lack of rhythm to this blog; I’m attributing it to my sickness and the medication-induced drowsiness and malaise. I’ll be posting more pictures soon at www.flickr.com/photos/avventura.