The atoll of Ahe is a quiet island that surrounds a large lagoon full of reefs and coral heads. Once inside, the lagoon resembles a large lake. Although Ahe is a single island, from a distance the shore appears to be broken by numerous passes to the open ocean. In fact, these opening are coral reefs barely rising above the water and often awash during high tide. These reefs do not support vegetation and the gaps between the thickly forested stretches effectively separate the atoll into a string of extremely small motus (the Polynesian word for “island”), often only supporting one or two homes. In addition, makeshift huts propped up on stilts sit throughout the lagoon on shallow areas of coral. These huts are typically used as a workplace for processing the many oysters that yield the black pearls for which the Tuomotus are famous. On Monday morning, we went ashore to visit the village of Tenukupara. As the main village on Ahe, Tenukupara is considered the bustling center of activity for the atoll. With roughly 200 residents and only about a half mile around, the village literally took about five minutes to explore. There is a church, a post office, a school, a spartan store, some houses, and a concrete pier. That’s it. The pier is the gathering place and center of what constitutes the social life on Ahe. In the morning, motorboats stream in from all corners of the lagoon to deposit small children hauling backpacks and hustling off to school. The traffic slows in the late morning when the only action comes from residents coming to check their mail or pick up a friend to head off to work in one of the oyster shacks. Later, in the afternoon, school lets out and the pier is transformed into a playground with children swimming, fishing, and playing soccer until sunset. During the evening hours, the pier takes a slightly seedy turn as young couples smoke cigarettes and likely try to pair off despite the undoubtedly limited choices available. The highlight of the empty social calendar is the arrival of the supply ship. Immediately after pulling up to the pier, an armada of powerboats descend on the village to collect their prized possessions: TV’s, lawnmowers, outboards, vegetables, and an assortment of other items that cause the town to become giddy, producing a festive Christmas-like atmosphere. The attraction of Ahe is obviously not the social activities nor the entertainment available ashore. What draws cruisers to Ahe are the watersports and the idyllic surroundings. To investigate the rugged coral coastline of the lagoon, we launched the kayak and set off in search of something interesting. While the kayak ride provided a decent workout, the coastline had little more of interest than the quiet village. Instead, we found miles and miles of bright white coral guarding the bare forest of palm trees. Occasionally, a small house would come into view, though the basic structure and corrugated metal construction showed a tendency towards practicality instead of aesthetics. We had hoped to find a nice sand beach on which to land or a small lagoon to break the monotony of the uniform coast, but the hard coral shore offered little in the way of variety. Slightly disappointed, we returned to the boat and held out hope that perhaps rowing the other direction might yield something more exciting. One thing that Ahe has in abundance is reefs. In the afternoon, we took the dinghy to one of the many navigational hazards in the middle of the lagoon and dropped into the warm, clear water. Fortunately, Ahe is more interesting below the surface of the water than above it. The colorful reefs are teeming with fish and oysters. We had visions of bagging large quantities of oysters and later shucking said oysters to find shimmering black pearls. Unfortunately, our knowledge of oysters is non-existent and we had not the slightest idea of where to find black pearls. After mauling a couple of colorful oysters without finding any treasure, we felt bad and contented ourselves with swimming around and taking pictures of small fish before returning to the boat. We were later to learn that naturally occurring black pearls are extremely rare, so we are thankful that we did not inflict more damage on the oyster population in our fruitless quest for something beautiful. Waking early enough on Tuesday to watch the sunrise, the peaceful surroundings inspired me to put to use the limited amount of yoga that my Mom has taught me. Meditating on a yoga mat to the gentle rocking of the boat, it is difficult not to achieve a sense of serenity that I am certain I will crave when I return to my former life. I’m not certain what I got out of the exercise, but it seemed like the right thing to do considering the peaceful setting. The sun salutation was followed by a refreshing swim and some coffee before we set out once again in the kayak. Not surprisingly, rowing the opposite direction did not result in the opposite outcome of the previous day. The barren coastline continues uninterrupted in both directions and our only excitement came when we tried to thread our way through extremely shallow coral and ran aground in about three inches of water. Also, paddling past one of the more impressive houses on the island, a pack of dogs began barking vigorously and took to the water in pursuit of our craft. I’m not sure how effectively a dog could attack us from the water, but we did not stick around to see how such an attack would transpire. Following snorkeling and some boat maintenance, we cleaned up and prepared to settle in for the night. As I changed below, Anna yelled something in Polish from the cockpit and I emerged to find our boat under invasion from a group of native children who had swum out from the pier. It was all we could do to keep the kids in the cockpit as they curiously toyed with anything within reach. Several boys were curious about my kayak and quickly learned that the western version of the kayak is not as stable as the French Polynesian version. With a look of terror, they held on firmly to prevent the waterlogged kayak from sinking. Eventually, we were able to right the boat and bail out the water before they happily paddled around the anchorage. Just as we seemed to have the hoard of children under control, Anna unleashed a frenzy of excitement when she produced some hard candy to give to them. Finally, we were able to usher them ashore by taking them for a ride in the dinghy with the promise of playing soccer on the pier. Wednesday brought more of the same: yoga, kayaking, and reading. The only stress came from fending off the ever-present children that once again launched an all-out offensive on our vessel. The kids were temporarily pacified by fishing and managed to catch more fish in half an hour using my poorest fishing line and nearly bare hooks than Audentes has hauled in during the past six months. Due to the inability of Anna and me to speak French, the children seem to have reached the conclusion that we are half-wits and must be wondering how we managed to be fortunate enough to end up on a yacht in the South Pacific. This is a valid question and one that I cannot help asking myself from time to time. The best answer that I can come up with is that I was lucky in the genetic and geographic lottery when I was born, although there is little chance of communicating this cruel concept with my limited French and my French-English dictionary does not have a direct translation for “life isn’t fair”. On Thursday, I set out in the kayak in search of pearl farmers with the goal of trading for black pearls. My initial attempt at communicating my desire to exchange wine, DVD’s and magazines for pearls was met with an assortment of incomprehensible grunts and general confusion. The visit to the second oyster hut was more successful since one of the pearl farmers spoke passable English. He showed me how they had hauled up long ropes with cages containing about 100 oysters. These oysters were then opened and one source suggests that about half of the oysters contain a valuable pearl. The men did not have any pearls at the hut, but promised to come by the boat later to trade. Rowing back to the boat, I was dismayed to see the anchor raised and the boat moving through the anchorage. Getting closer, I saw that a number of fellow cruisers had come to the assistance of Anna to help her raise the anchor in order to avoid the supply ship that was pulling away from the dock. Anna performed admirably in my absence, although our inability to suitably reset the anchor resulted in the decision to depart Ahe a day earlier than planned. As we motored through the lagoon on our way to the pass, we were approached by a motorboat with two young men in it. One of the men, Josh, split his childhood between French Polynesia and San Francisco and is now the owner of Kamoka Pearl Farm (link: www.kamokapearls.com) in Ahe. The other man, Laurent, also spoke English and is the manager of Josh’s pearl farm. The men invited us to visit the pearl farm and offered us a mooring near their oyster hut. Threading our way through the rows of buoys marking the pearl farm, we managed to pick up the mooring in the southwest corner of the lagoon. We then joined a group of men as they went out through the oyster field attaching buoys to unmarked lines and placing cages containing oysters that would be allowed to develop for about a year before these oysters could be harvested. Back at the oyster hut, Anna and I brought over some Panama rum and were shown a variety of beautiful black pearls ranging in quality based on their shape, size, color, luster, and surface. For anyone familiar with the classic movie “Point Break,” the group of men living in the oyster hut resembles the characters from that masterpiece. However, instead of robbing banks to support their travels and surfing habit, these men work at a pearl farm. The young men, all under the age of 30, are a diverse group hailing from Uruguay, Chile, France, Tahiti, and the U.S and conversations smoothly altered between Spanish, French, and English. The only woman present was a volunteer cook visiting during a vacation from art school in San Francisco. The hut itself is surprisingly comfortable. A narrow dock extends about 100 yards from the shore to a roughly 1,000 square foot platform supported six feet above a shallow reef by wooden stilts. The leeward side of the platform is a dock on which boats tie off and cages full of oysters are hung from a web of lines through openings in the deck to soak in the water below. The open air dock leads into a covered work area full of tables for shucking oysters and cages for cultivating new oysters. Beyond this work area is the living area, which includes amenities that a sailor can only dream about. The spacious, open area contains a large wooden table in the center of the room, a sink and stove on one wall, a long bench and several shelves on the opposite wall. Surfing pictures adorn the upper walls. The entire room is surrounded by large open windows that provide a panoramic view of the surrounding lagoon and allow the soothing sound of waves breaking to drift up from below. Solar panels, wind generators, and a generator provide ample power to support the stereo that blares constantly and the workers have iPods, cell phones, and televisions to keep them entertained. A discreet staircase towards the back of the room leads up to a small cupola above that serves as an airy bedroom. The entire home has the feeling of a frat house and about the only thing missing from the nice arrangement are females. After finishing work on Thursday, the pearl farm workers set off for the pass to spearfish and soon returned with an assortment of large fish. While the fish were cooked, some men played chess, a few leafed through surfing magazines, and others compared stories of different locations throughout the world where they have surfed. We stayed for dinner and enjoyed the good food and interesting company before returning to the boat. On Friday morning, we took the dinghy over to the only entryway to the lagoon and drift snorkeled through the pass. The fish were spectacular and this was probably the best snorkeling that I have experienced during my trip thus far. During two trips through the pass, we saw a large number of sharks, a variety of colorful fish, and beautiful, sparkling coral. In the afternoon, I headed over to the oyster hut and spent several hours working at the pearl farm. The work was fairly mindless and my task was to help make cages by tying a piece of fencing into the shape of an elongated basket. Since one of the four annual harvests just took place, the work currently is focused on replenishing the oyster cages that were pulled out during the harvest and planting the new cages to cultivate another round of pearls. The work at a pearl farm is hard, physical labor, but the camaraderie among the men, the ever-present rap music, and the satisfaction of being able to view the work that has been completed provides a rewarding sense of accomplishment that seems more accessible than that experienced after a day of playing with numbers in an office. On the other hand, I am not sure that I would want to be hauling heavy cages full of oysters when I am fifty and, even at forty, I would probably prefer to play with large, albeit intangible, numbers for a living. On Saturday morning, I again volunteered at the pearl farm in exchange for some black pearls. The work this time involved diving down to clean up some of the support beams from an old structure that had fallen onto the floor of the bay. Initially, we had planned on using dive gear, but since I have never used a dive tank and am unfamiliar with the rules governing compression, we chose to stick to skin diving. The diving ability of some of workers was amazing, especially Josh who could easily dive 70 feet and stay underwater for about two minutes. My limit was established closer to 30 feet and 45 seconds, which is far more than I am accustomed to. Afterwards, I met Josh’s wife, who is a writer for the Lonely Planet and just finished updating the book on French Polynesia. She provided an assortment of helpful suggestions for things to see and do on Tahiti and Mo’orea. After a pleasant week in Ahe, we departed on Saturday afternoon for Rangiroa. The passage was uneventful, but, this being the Pacific, we had no wind and it took two days to cover 80 miles. Another lovely anchorage greeted us in Rangiroa and we look forward to spending time here as we await for the arrival of my cousin, Eric, and his friend, Nick, later this week.