MOOREA
After a two days sailing heading southwest we arrived to the Society Island archipelago and the first island we visited was Moorea. There, I found a totally different landscape, with greenish high mountains, a characteristic of young volcanic islands. As we were approaching, I saw a huge splash coming out from the water surface to the sky in a v shape, followed by the appearance of a huge black spot that submerged quickly. It was a humpback whale mum with its calf swimming peacefully in really shallow waters. The baby, curious as they are, came really close to the boat, and that’s when we felt comfortable to snorkel with them.
This was another mind blowing experience, seeing these huge animals, underwater, swimming so close to us. At this time of the year the humpback whales come to this area to reproduce, give birth and feed the calves in the warm, safe waters of the south pacific ocean, so it is common to see them really close to the shore. There was another large swell forecast so we decided to check the south west pass of the island and a left hand wave we had heard about. We arrived too early and the waves were still small. I waited patiently for a couple of hours and then it started to build really quickly. As the waves were building, so too was the current and the channel was getting smaller. I even had to jump up to my semi gun sup 8’6” because the 7’4” was too small and the big sets were starting to intimidate me!
I couldn’t believe that we started with ten surfers and by the end there was only myself and another guy with a SUP on the water until he broke his leash and I got worked really hard on a closeout big set. I swam back to the boat and told Markus, the captain, that the locals where warning that if the waves would get any bigger as forecasted we would get trapped inside the bay with the boat, because the pass would close out, so we decided to leave immediately and head to Teahupoo!