Raiatea 080311

Wednesday 08032011

Last Wednesday was a pretty mellow day, sort of. We all ended up cleaning the waterline on the hull during the afternoon Josh did the majority of it from the dinghy (was preferable to homework), and Dennis and I did touch ups from the water. Not exactly as mellow as I had anticipated, but the waterline looks great and it was nice to be in the water.

We left at 5pm for Huahine. We motored for the first few hours, then the wind came up enough to sail. There were at least 6 boats headed for Huahine that night, so the radar screen was pretty busy. I came on watch about 1230 am. We were making about 3 kts. I could see the navigation lights of the other boats all around us, but nothing within 2 miles. Around 0130 I saw a target on the radar about 6 miles out that appeared to be heading in my direction, so I turned the target tracking on, and sure enough on a direct course towards us at about 15kts. For you non sailors out there, the rules of the road out here give boats under sail the right of way and all boats are to avoid collisions, no matter who has the right of way. Well this boat never altered course! I ended up having to head off course by 30 degrees and at 3 kts we don't move very fast. To add insult to injury the boat spotlighted me on its way by. I had tried to hail them on the radio earlier, but no answer. After they passed and I readjusted my course I made a general call on channel 16 to the boats behind me to be aware that this vessel under power was not giving way. Moondance who were on the same course as us about 3 miles behind also had to alter course. That was a real first for me I have had large cargo ships make major course changes in order to get out of the way. Thankfully the rest of the night was less eventful.

Dennis came on at 0630 with Huahine in sight. Shortly thereafter it began to rain. The wind and swell had been increasing since about 400am and by 0700 it was rocking and rolling! At 0900 we jibed around to line up with the pass. Raining hard by now and seas pretty big. Just as I was preparing to call Josh to close a port I can't reach we took a wave - right into that hatch. I bet the look on my face was priceless. No real harm done, but to see a wall of water come in the port, drench me and things across the cabin from me, swirl around on the floor and head into the bilge. Just not any every day occurrence (thank you very much). Given the state of the seas, I basically threw all the wet clothes in the sink in our head and the rug out on the deck to get rained on all to be dealt with after we anchored. Our destination on Huahine was Fare (far-ay) on the Northwest side of Huahine. The pass in was a piece of cake, but anchoring in 20+ kts of wind and current is never much fun. We finally stuck on our 4th try. By then we were all cold and wet - definitely ready for coffee and a big breakfast, okay it was more like lunch by then but it felt like breakfast time.

I cleaned the seawater mess - washed floors and hung the salty clothes out in the rain, made breakfast and had a nap. The wind stayed strong all through the day Thursday and Friday with gusts in the high 20s. We did a lot of heeling in the boat as the current was so strong we never came around into the wind.

Friday we did some exploring in Fare. They have an awesome grocery store. Josh made the comment that we seem to spend a lot of time looking in grocery stores these days. Yeah, the highlight of my day - finding something we haven't had access to. This store has lots of stuff, but funnily enough no loaf bread, only baguettes. Cooked fresh at least twice a day. Fare is not very big, so exploring didn't take too long. We came back that evening for happy hour and dinner at the roulettes.

Saturday we took a pretty long walk - tried to hitchike, but no luck. We were hoping to get to the marae which is an old Polynesisn village/religious place - or in Dennis' words - an old pile of rocks. We were picked up by a "truck" which is a flatbed with a cabin with seats, or in english a bus. No charge for a ride all the way back to Fare. Do they have a regular schedule? No. Once back in town, we saw that the only bike rental shop was actually open, so we made reservations to rent bikes the next day. Then went for a picnic on the beach. Meanwhile, Josh had met the kid on Phoenix (Jayce) and spent the day with him. They had skurfed for awhile in the morning, then hung out in the boat the rest of the day.

Sunday dawned overcast but less windy. Josh was too tired to go bike riding, so we went in without him. By the time we got to the dock it was raining, and noone was at the bike shop. We waited for 35 minutes, and then decided it was just not going to happen. We ended up taking a long walk in the other direction and having Josh pick us up in the dinghy. When we got back to the boat, we decided that we needed to move to a better anchor spot. Which we did. We didn't move far, just enough to be back over shallower water and out of the channel. We sent Josh out swimming with the hand held depthsounder to see how far away the 10 foot depth was. Remember the current? Well, he got a pretty good workout. He never did get to 10 feet, but 15 was pretty far away, so we felt comfortable with our anchor spot. Late Sunday afternoon we met with Moondance to see how they felt about heading to Raiatea Monday instead of going to the southern anchorage on Huahine. We were hoping to catch up with Loose Pointer or Don Quixote (kid boats). They agreed, so we made plans for an early provision run and then crossing to Raiatea. We would try to leave by 1000am for the 20 mile crossing.

Monday. We made our 1000 departure time. Provisioning went well and quickly. I even scored some MahiMahi from a local fisherman - fresh that morning. The crossing went well, about an hour out we put up the spinnaker and had a nice couple of hours flying it. Is so weird to think that we go faster under sail than we do with the motor...... Is quieter too. We had our fishing lines in the water, thinking that okay, the spinnaker is up and we just bought fish so we are primed to actually catch one of our own. Sadly, no luck. We brought the spinnaker down about 6 miles out of Raiatea and finished with the jib. As we approached we were hailed by Adam on Loose Pointer. Yeah! They were still anchored In the lagoon at Raiatea. The pass into the lagoon was pretty straightforward and we found Loose Pointer easily. Anchoring ended up to be a challenge, but we finally set the hook to our satisfaction and settled in. It seems that the lagoon around Raiatea is deep and falls off the reef steeply - not much sand to anchor in. So our anchor is in 30 feet and our stern is over 90 feet. Dan and Katherine invited us for drinks that evening and we had a nice visit with them and Doug and Carla - catching up. While we have been having generator problems, their windlass (pulls up the anchor) just died a sudden death. A new one isn't in their future until American Samoa. Those guys are going to be totally buff by then pulling up the anchor with a chain rode is hard work.

Tuesday. Josh got a good deal of homework done in the morning and the rest of his day was spent with Adam hanging out and doing whatever they do when the hang out and have their laptops with them. Dennis and I went into town (Uturoa) around 2pm. Didn't do too much - checked out the grocery store, had a beer with Doug and Carla, walked to the marina to check it out and came back to the boat. We are anchored quite a way from shore and this is the windward side of the island, so the dinghy rides can be pretty wet. By general consensus all three boats decided that we had enough of this anchorage and would like to go someplace new on Wednesday.

Tahaa is the next little island to the north and does not require leaving the lagoon to get there. So we agreed to head to TuaTua on the west side. Hopefully it will be more protected and have better anchoring conditions. I will let you know. Loose Pointer has already upped their anchor this morning and is at the fuel dock as we speak..... I guess I better finish my coffee and bring this to a close.....

072711

Wednesday 07-27-2011

Moorea has been lovely. We arrived Saturday after a only a small hiccup on the big engine. We motored out of the lagoon southwest of Papeete into an 8 - 10 kt breeze, got the sails up and were going along at around 5 kts for the first hour or so. The wind died down to almost nothing about an hour out, so we decided to go back to motoring. When we turned the engine on there was a huge squealing noise. A belt on the water raw water pump was malfunctioning. Since we are a sailboat, we put the jib back out, let out the main and went back to sailing - very slowly. Dennis fixed the problem quickly and we were back to motoring in no time. He was a little seasick after that - a common side effect of working on the engine underweigh. It wasn't real bouncy, but the whole head down, butt up position is very conducive to motion sickness.

As we approached the anchorage to Moorea it started to sprinkle, which is okay and we were treated to two beautiful vertical rainbows. We anchored without a hitch and prepared to get down to the business of relaxing.

We had a very mellow day on Sunday. Dennis even laid down in the cockpit for awhile - amazing. It was very nice to just hang out on the boat and putter around. We went to Moondance for drinks and hors d'hourves in the afternoon. Nice to just sit around and chat. We made plans to go to Cook's bay with our dinghies the next day.

Monday - turned out to be the dinghy engine's day to have problems. We made it to Cook's bay with lots of stops and starts. Dennis cleaned out the fuel filter when we got there hoping that was the problem. Once again we managed to arrive at the "witching hour". That is the 1200 to 200 timeframe when just about everything is closed. We explored the area for awhile then decided to dinghy further into the bay to the store which about to open, buy the rest of our picnic lunch and eat it. Cleaning the fuel filter didn't fix the problem, but we pressed on. Lunch was good, cheese and pate on baguettes with oranges, pretzels and beer. Doug and Carla ended up giving us a tow back to the boat. We motored when we could, but sure got home quicker than if they hadn't. Dennis and Josh immediately got to work on the problem and by dinner time it was fixed. Some sort of carburator problem. So now all of the engines have had some attention and hopefully that will be the last of it for awhile.

Tuesday we took our dinghies to the west side of the bay exploring. We stopped at the little town with one of the oldest churches or at least it is on the site of the original oldest church. Anyway, nice little town. veryone made their phone calls, we picked up another picnic lunch and headed off further to the west. Quite beautiful, white sandy beaches, clear, clear water. We had a great picnic on our own private section of the beach, walked around the little motu and finished our tour with some wine at a picnic table in a very pretty little bay. We ended up at the same village we started in so Dennis could call NZ to order the final parts for the generator. Was very nice to have a day where nothing needed to be fixed!!!!

Doug and Carla had dinner with us that evening. Yummy steaks and garlic potatoes and greek salad with port and chocolate for dessert. After dinner Josh taught us to play a card game called spoons. Bascially a card version of musical chairs. What is that saying about "age and cunning will overcome youth and vitality"? Poor kid didn't stand a chance. We all had a good time though.

Today we will prepare for the overnight passage to Huahine. It is about 70 miles, so we will leave around 5pm in order to arrive after dawn tomorrow morning. So it will be a pretty mellow day around here. We are looking forward to seeing someplace new and Josh is hoping we catch up with some of his friends. Would be nice

07 23 11 from Moorea

072311

Saturday - Well it was a long week. The generator is functioning, but not fixed. We spent the first half of the week getting a new stud made. The machine shop promised us Wednesday afternoon, and Voila, it was ready. Finding an inserter for the heilcoil was not so easy and in the end they not only gave us the helicoils, but also loaned us the inserter. Jean Paul the owner of that shop - Poly industrie - was so helpful. Actually pretty amazing, and one bright spot in an otherwise frustrating and dismal week. The new stud went in fine on Wednesday night, Thursday when Dennis put it all back together another stud stripped. Well, we decided to just put it all back together and see if it worked. Which it did. So after a week where we walked at least a zillion miles and oscillated back and forth between optimism and frustration we finally left Papeete for Moorea!!! Yeah!!!

We will order the necessary parts, and fix the generator the rest of the way when they arrive. In the meantime we will carry on in the Society Islands - Moorea, Huanine, Terteroa (?) and BoraBora.

Josh is doing well, even though kids his age will be fewer now. He spent most of his time the last week with David from Nina, hanging out, going to the beach and seeing some of the polynesian sporting events. I think he was also ready to leave Tahiti if not David, as well. As he says, it is expensive and there is not that much to do. We plan to keep him busy in the water snorkeling, spearfishing etc. Will be good for us too to be more active. A little less work and a little more play is definitely in order.

Adventures in anchoring.

As cruisers we are able to get duty-free diesel. The trick is knowing what days you are actually able to get it. In Hiva Oa we were denied fuel until after the second ship came with fuel. In Nuka Hiva we had it delivered in Jerry cans, but the delivery people only worked Monday thru Friday. Tahiti fortunately has a real drive up fuel dock open every day. But duty-free fuel is only available Monday thru Friday. Makes upping the anchor, fueling up and leaving a bit difficult on the weekend - if you need the fueling up part.

We wanted to leave on Saturday, but needed the fueling up part. So Friday afternoon after I got back from returning the helicoil inserter and Dennis got the generator all back together we had to head to the fuel dock. We didn't expect too much trouble as the fuel dock is close, the anchorage had space (so we would have a place to reanchor) and it wasn't windy. We all took our places, engine on - check. Anchor up - no problem. Steerage - ooops no steering. Okay, we can handle it. As we drift into the channel Josh climbs into the dinghy tied to the side of the boat and he will steer us back to a place to drop the anchor. HMMM here comes the wind. So we end up using the rudder from the windvane (emergency rudder is its secondary purpose). In the meantime you can see the possibilities going thru Dennis' mind. He says, " watch the boat." We are somewhat out of the channel, but not anchored. I hope the boat is not going to do any new tricks while I "watch it." So he runs down to our cabin, takes the bed off, opens the compartment with the hydraulics for the steering (next to the generator) and turns a lever and "Voila!" steering. Seems one of us leaned on that lever during the generator deal and turned off the hydraulic part of the hydraulic steering. All things should fix so easily. Fueling up and reanchoring were a piece of cake after that.

Monday July 18

071311

on the subject of separations. I have to say one of the things in life that I really dislike are goodbyes. Cruising provides a wonderful opportunity to meet many different people from all walks of life but at the same time also provides too many opportunitesto say goodbye. We have met folks that seem to have an unlimited cruising budget to people that are on a tighter shoestring than us. Big boats, little boats, new, old, one hull and two, there is always something/somebody new to meet. Thankfully other countries learn english, so we are able to communicate with people that we meet from all over the world - europe, south africa, australia, new zealand. It has been and continues to be a life enriching experience for all of us. Josh is meeting kids from all over the US and the world. The only downpart to all of this is when it comes time to say goodbye in a final sort of way, not in just a "see you at the end of the crossing" or "catch up to you at the next anchorage" kind of way. Today for example two boats we have known since La Cruz Mexico left for Hawaii and the end of their cruising experience (at least for now). I really hate this part. I guess it says a lot for the tightness of this community - especially among the cruisers with kids. We are a smaller subset of the whole. As parents we feel our own sense of loss at the goodbyes and as well as the pain experienced by our kids. There is no consolation in the fact that they have had more kid time than we ever dreamed they would, or that they still have friends to "hang" with. Josh wants his pack whole. So for me I am feeling my own discomfort but know from experience how small a world it really is. Josh and his friends just have to take our word for it - and how many teenagers believe that us grown ups understand their pain? So, Phambili and Calou we'll see you later, if only to prove to our kids that it is possible.

On generators. A totally different kind of pain to be sure. Dennis spent the whole day tearing apart the generator in order to replace the head gasket. After 10 hours, the gasket was replaced and only the putting back together to do.

Thursday July 14th - Bastille Day

Well, the polynesians have been celebrating their Heiva for 3 weeks now, so a major French Holiday is a good reason to shut everything down. Carrefoure closed at 1230, no buses, no restaurants or shops. Our plans were to take the bus downtown for the canoe races in the morning and then head over to the Tahiti museum in the afternoon to watch the polynesian sports. As I said, no buses. But, this day will be one we look back on and say "remember that time in Tahiti?" A toursist van came by the bus stop while we were waiting for the nonexistent bus and the driver agreed to give us a lift into town. He was a very nice gentleman from the Cook Islands. He dropped us off right where the parade was going to be. The parade was pretty much a nonevent, but we did get to see all the different types of military, the gendarmes and the pompiers (firemen). Very short and sweet, no floats or candy. From there we headed to the waterfront for the canoe races. Start time was supposedly 1100, but hey 11 or 1230 whats the rush? The first paddlers were kids in 6 man outriggers. The next heat was 16 person double canoes - women. We watched them, but did not want to wait another hour to see the men's 16 person race. So we headed to the bus stop (did i mention no buses?) and got a ride within 5 minutes. The man was going to the same place as us - the museum, so score - an airconditioned ride in a mercedes!!! I have to say that 70+ miles per hour feels fast these days!!! The competitions going on at the museum included Javelin throwing, stone lifting, coconut husking and copra collection.

The spear chucking (as Dennis calls it) was pretty wild. All the teams threw their spears at a coconut on a pole about 25 feet high. The ground around it looked like toothpicks gone wild. What is even more impressive, is that they actually hit the coconut pretty often. All the men wore pareos wrapped sort of like diapers - not my favorite look, - and one team had traditional headdresses and loin cloths - hmmmm not much left to the imagination.

Stone lifting makes my back hurt to watch. They were lifting a 100 kg rectangular stone from the ground to their shoulders. There is definitely a technique to it. When we were at the rendevous in Moorea there was a demonstation by the reigning champion. Very cool, but we decided we would save our back injuries for boat work.

The coconut husking is done on a sharp stick planted in the ground. Those men sure get to the nut fast Again the technique was demonstrated to us on Moorea. Carla and I tried it out - it isn't as easy as it looks. if I did it for a living I would probably be missing some fingers.

My second favorite (after spear chucking) was the women's competition of harvesting copra. Copra is the meat of the coconut and is a major export of Fr. Polynesia. The way it works is one woman has an ax and chopps the whole coconuts in half (husk and all). Let me say right now, that the coconuts you see in the grocery store are the "nuts". The nut is encased in a thick fibrous husk when it is on the tree. You probably knew that, but just in case. Anyway, the first lady halves the coconut, and the other two use a curved heavy metal spatula- type implement to peel out the coconut meat. Each team had about 20 coconuts, first one done wins. To be finished, all the coconuts had to have the meat removed and all the meat had to be then put in a burlap sack. What hard work. Those ladies are tough. There was coconut milk flying everywhere. Again, i would be the one chopping the coconuts that had no toes. Pretty amazing to watch.

The copra harvest was the last event and then it was time to figure out how to get back to the marina. Once out at the road, Carla and I spotted the guard we had talked to last week about the games. His english is pretty good, so we asked him about a bus. He just shook his head and said "no bus". Then to our amazement he started flagging cars down and asking them to take us to the marina. The fourth or fifth car was a small citreon with a youngish french driver named Frankie. We crammed in like sardines and were off to the marina. Frankie spoke pretty good english as well, so we were able to invite him to come to the boat (Moondance) for a drink. Very nice young man - here from France to work at the airport installing atutomatic blinds and lighting. We hope he enjoyed meeting us as much as we enjoyed meeting him.

So, I ask you, what would be the chances of 3 rides to exactly where you wanted to go all in the same day? And that is if you dared to try to hitchike at all!! What a great day.

Friday July 15, 2011

Back to generator work. It started off well, but in the end we still had bubbles in the coolant. So in we went to make phone calls. Dennis got a few more ideas to try. After the calls we walked to Carrefoure to pick up distilled water. In the automotive section if you are ever looking....... Picked up frozen pizza to do on the grill and came back to the generator. Dennis decided that the bubbles are probably from the water pump, as they continue when the engine is off and just the pump is running. So hey - seems like all is good to finish up in the morning. Had pizzas cooked on the grill, so we wouldn't heat up the inside of the boat. I burned the bottom of the first one because the grill was flaring up from grease on the bottom. But, the top was good. The second one was slightly undercooked. The grill had tipped forward during cooking. Number three was perfect, and Josh got home just in time to eat it. Impeccable timing huh?

Saturday July 16, 2011

Plan for today was to put the generator back together and do final provisioning in preparation for leaving on Monday......Well, that plan went to shit pretty fast. One of the bolts/studs that holds the head onto the engine gave as Dennis was torqueing it down. Well hmmm. What to do? Back in to make a call. Fortunately Dennis was able to get hold of a mechanic willing to come out immediately. They got the stud out and yes it is stripped at the end and no we won't be able to get the widget (helycoil) to fix it until Monday. So that is where we stand. I guess Dennis will spend the rest of the day taking the generator out of its compartment.........Suffice it to say that the frustration level on Evergreen is pretty much at capacity. The ramifications of no generator are painful. Not dire, but definitely require a major change in habits on board. We have to run the big engine to charge batteries (which isn't really good for a diesel to run on no load). The solar panels generate some power, enough as a rule to make water, but not charge the batteries enough to maintain the rest of the boat. The big engine uses a lot more fuel as well. So, we will continue trying to fix the generator. I'll keep you posted.

Sunday

Well the generator has been out and is back in its compartment waiting to have the bolt fixed. It only took all day. Just goes to show, shit happens just about everywhere. We turned on the main engine to charge the batteries and pumped diesel from the generator into the generator compartment - about 2.5 gals. worth. Man!!!!! So, the soundproofing on the bottom of the compartment had to go as it was totally saturated with diesel. We pumped and mopped and pumped and tore out soundproofing and pumped and transferred to disposable containers, mopped and pumped and finally cleaned out the generator compartment. Then Dennis worked on the engine. So 3 hours on the generator and 4 hours on clean up. Yeah, Evergreen has seen happier days. But, on a positive note no fuel got into the bilge and our cabin does not smell like diesel right now. If the mechanic actually gets the part tomorrow and is willing to install it on Tuesday, we may be out of here by Thursday - hey it could happen...... meanwhile I guess we will be spending a few more days in Tahiti.

July 11, 2011 Tahiti

07112011
Moorea/Tahiti
Moorea Tahiti Rendevous 6/24 thru 6/26
Friday we headed downtown Papeete for the welcome speaches and
cocktails. Lots of standing around waiting, but was nice. Cocktails
were a little too sweet for my taste, but who can argue with free?
After the speeches, the whole group of puddle jumpers headed to the
waterfront for dinner at the roullettes. Roullettes are a very French
Polynesian dining experience. The equivalent of US roach coaches, but
more upscale and in general good food for a reasonable price. We
ended up with chinese - was good. There were native dances going on
as well, so really a nice experience.
Saturday was the race/rally from Tahiti to Moorea, we were up pretty
early for what we thought was a 930 start. They ended up moving it to
1000 - could have used that extra 30 minutes of sleep! Not much wind
for sailing, so we motor sailed for most of the 18 miles. Mooread is
beautiful. It is a heart shaped Island with the lobes of the heart to
the north. We anchored at the head of Oponuhu bay. I hope we don't
ever get immune to the beauty of these Islands, but it seems we go
from one beautiful place to the next. The water is so clear, you can
see your anchor in 50 feet of water. Sadly at this point I was
starting with a cold - Dennis shared it with me. Nice huh? He had
been pretty miserable with it and I ended up being miserable with it
too. We got all situated, I think Josh was off the boat with the kids
before the dust settled. Tahiti has been great for him kidwise - lots
of kids to hang out with. It will be hard when we leave here as boats
will begin scattering to the winds dependent on schedules and final
destinations.
Sunday was a day of traditional polynesian activities. We had a team
for the outrigger canoe race, which was a blast. I was able to make a
flower lei/necklace, there was a booth for palm weaving, one for
dyeing pareos, and demonstrations of rock lifting and coconut husking.
There was also a race carrying a load of bananas. Josh and Francois
both won their races. For lunch we ate traditional polynesian food -
I am sure it was a good experience, but wish we had only bought one
ticket's worth, not 3. Later in the afternoon there was more dancing
and an awards ceremony. By then I was back on the boat having
succumbed to the misery of my cold. Dennis said the dancing was quite
good.
Monday was kids day after the rendevous. Many boats left, but the
anchorage was still pretty busy. The kids spent the day on the beach,
we went for a walk to some botanical gardens, nice, but a long way
uphill! That evening the adults met on the beach for happy hour was
nice to get to know some of the boats that did not come from Mexico.
Kudos to Toast on DonQuixote for arranging the kids day, watching all
of them all day on the beach, and setting up the happy hour that
evening. Great job! Everyone had a good time. We took on an extra
kid - David from Nina. Nice kid. He and his Mom are at the Marina on
their boat while his Dad is working. So, was nice for him to have
some extra kid time.
Tuesday we took the dinghy across the channel to a couple of snorkel
spots. The first spot had Tikis that had been submerged for some
reason or other. We saw a really unusual fish too, sadly I couldn't
find the name of it anywhere, but very unusual. After that we went to
a spot where the stingrays swim with you. How amazing! Kind of
spooky too. They are soft to touch and the tails are scaly. I didn't
see any barbs, but I'm sure they were there. By then I was freezing
as was David, so we went in to the hotel for drinks and to warm up.
Wednesday David left for Tahiti with DonQuixote. We went with
Moondance for a hike up to the Belvedere, Josh went on the same hike
with Phambili. We enjoyed the hike, the view was worth every uphill
step. Met a couple on their honeymoon from San Jose. Is always funny
talking to nonsailors....He wanted to know how we got here??? Sailing
we said - How far??? 3000 miles we said. You should have seen his
expression.......priceless. As was the expression on Doug's face when
the mouse ran between his legs. Which then made me empty out my pack
to be sure I didn't transport one of the little buggers back to the
boat to wreck destruction.....
Tahiti #2 06/30 thru 07/11
Thursday we headed back to Tahiti - had a beautiful spinnaker run
back, very cool. Josh was able to hook back up with the kids, and all
was well in his world.
Friday I spent pretty much the whole day sewing. I took on some work
to help out another boat, and the extra cash was nice too. We had our
final violin concert Friday night. John who had been crew on Calou
was leaving on Saturday, so gave a final farewell performance on the
dock. It had been very nice to get a regular dose of culture. John
is a fantastic musician and will be missed. After John played, Pacal
and Bruce from Calou performed (she sings, he plays accordian) so, we
had a very nice musical evening.
Spent Saturday sewing as well. Saturday night we got together on Nina
to celebrate David's 16th birthday. Again very nice. The kids enjoy
being together. Nina is a schooner that was built in 1928 for the race
to Spain, which she won. Beautiful boat. Josh asked if he could have
a sleep over on our boat - 5 boys!!! So, they all invaded, Dennis and
I retired to our room, and the boys used electrons, zoomed back and
forth to each others boats and generally had a good time.
Sunday was a quiet recovery day.
Monday the fourth we had generator issues - again. We are hoping it
is only a leaking head gasket which we spent all day trying to order.
We finally got it ordered from NewZealand with promises it would be
here on Friday. (currently it is the following Monday, and no sign of
it.....). We were supposed to get our extended visas, but the only
lady with the authority to sign them left for vacation until the 15th
without signing them......AARRGGHHHH!!! Nina hosted a July 4th party
on the dock that evening. Gotta love the fact that we can let Josh go
all the way across Papeete to hang out with Phambili at the Yacht club
(Francois and Tyler were with him too). At the party on the dock that
night we were given the message three times (on the VHF and in person)
from people he saw in town to say that he was spending the night with
them. It is so cool how the cruising community keeps track of the
kids and each other. We may be mobile, but we are still tight.
Tuesday - spoke to Cindy (our agent) who said it would be fine to go
to Bora Bora with out the visa. Went to town looking for parts, spent
the whole day with very little to show for it. Saw Tommy from
Phambili at the marine chandelry. They were hauled out for repairs on
their saildrive (they are a catamaran) and bottompaint. He and his
wife are physicians from Canada. I think I have mentioned before that
they live in Canoe Cove on Vancouver Island - the same place we had
our boat! Anyway, I had him look at the rash that was driving me
crazy on my back. Turns out it is shingles. Which explains why
nothing I put on it was helping! I have had quite a time with it,
fortunately it is only moderately painful. My ibuprofen consumption
has reached an all time high, but I have seen much worse cases.
Wednesday - Carla and I did laundry - of course it rained!!!!
Immigration visited Moondance - Very concerned about lack of visa -
gave them a paper saying not to leave Tahiti
Thursday - Talked to Cindy who talked to immigration, who talked to
the High Commisioner who then gave another person authority to sign
the Visas - Wow!!! what a pain, but it all works out. We rented a car
with Doug and Carla to tour the Island. It was still raining, the
laundry was well rinsed! We went to the James Norman Hall house (he
wrote Mutiny on the Bounty with a guy named Nordhoff). We stopped at
Point Venus - where James Cook watched the transit of Venus across the
sun. Next we stopped at the blow holes - notable for the fact that
one goes under the road and if you drive over it at the right time, it
sounds like it is right under the car. Still raining, so we bypassed
the waterfalls and continued on around the east side of the Island.
We turned around before the Isthmus to head back. It had stopped
raining at the waterfall, so we stopped - it started raining again,
but we decided to walk to it any way. Very impressive especially with
the extra water from the rain. We were all soaking wet by the time we
got back to the car. Again at least it is a warm rain.
Friday July 8th - Happy Birthday Dennis. We picked up our visas first
thing, Josh's had to go back to be laminated, but otherwise all good
to go. We continued our car tour southwest on the Island. Our first
stop was at the Tahiti Museum. It has a very thorough history of the
geology, sociology and biology of Tahiti and French Polynesia. Its a
good thing not all the explanations were in English, we might have
been there all day!! Next we went to some grottos, then lunch then
down to the isthmus. We returned to the Marina and agreed to meet
for drinks on Moondance. Josh had deserted us for Phambili who were
moored at the city docks in town. I opened one of our last 4 bottles
of good california wine to celebrate. Carla made a yummy chocolate
cake. So, I think Dennis had a good birthday.
Saturday - We made an early run to Cost and Co the Fr. Polynesian
cousin of Costco for US cereal etc. Stuff that is bulky and hard to
carry on the bus. Doug dropped us off at the marina then returned the
car. Dennis, Carla and I went back to the boats to unload our
purchases. We all met back at the dock to go into town to the market
and to watch the finish of the canoe races. Tahiti celebrates Bastille
day with a months worth of traditional festivities. The canoe race
started at 0800, they paddled to Moorea and back. The first boat
finished at 215pm. Sadly the market was closing down, so we did not
make any purchases there. That evening we had tickets to the
dance/chant contests. We had dinner at the Roullettes by the arena.
Good and inexpensive. The chants were interesting, the first dance
group was good - man can those women shake it!!! But, the second dance
group was incredible! It was the Tahitian version of Opera with
dancing. The only down side was all the words were in polynesian, so
we were not able to really understand what it was about.
Sunday - Josh spent saturday night with Phambili again. I slept in
until 1030. Too many early mornings and busy days in a row. Was nice
to laze around. Phambili arrived in the anchorage around 1100. In
the afternoon we went and hooka'd on a plane/boat wreck close to the
anchorage. Was nice. Another early night for all. Josh fell asleep
at 8pm!!!!
Monday. Well we now possess all of our visas but no generator parts.
Cindy just laughed when Dennis asked if she had it. We are at the
dock in the neverending search for free or semi free internet.
Hopefully Dennis will be able to download new drivers for our antenna
so we can get signal at the boat. The one thing about being here in
Tahiti is that we seem to be so busy that I can't keep up with the
blog, we also spend way too much money. We are all looking forward to
leaving for the more remote islands. Josh is spending the day with
Francois. It will be their last day together as Calou and Phambili
are leaving in the morning to start their trek to Hawaii. Will be
quite a subdued boy for the next few days. He and Francois have been
fast friends since they met in February in La Cruz. Fortunately for
him there will still be kids for him to hang with, but he will really
miss Francois. Well, I guess we are now all caught up. Hopefully the
internet will cooperate so I can up load this to the blog..........

Tahiti

Hard to believe we have been here a week already!
We arrived last Thursday morning and after several failed attempts to find the place we wanted to go we anchored with little fuss southwest of Papeete.  Sure could have used a map app on the ipod to help us find the marina we wanted to anchor by!!  But all's well that ends well, we had lots of daylight and no pressing engagements, so it didn't matter that we were a little lost. 
We are in a nice anchorage, close to the marina.  The marina has dinghy docks, bars/restaurants, fuel and is within walking distance of the grocery store.  What more could a cruiser ask for?  (okay cheap beer would be nice, but this is Tahiti, nothing is cheap!)
Friday we met with our agent to deal with paperwork, then took the bus into Papeete.  We strolled around town and the market, then hit the grocery store on the way back to the boat.  What a beautiful store!  Almost all the comforts of home.  It is good to know we will be able to provision well for the second half of our trip.

Saturday we had plans to return downtown in the morning, which we did after Dennis worked on the generator again....... Was a fried fuse holder this time.  Kind of scary for awhile, not knowing what was wrong, but all better now.  We were able to pick up fuse holders at the chandlery in the marina which was convenient.  we finally made it to the market downtown.  It is pretty amazing- lots of pearl and mother of pearl jewlry, pareos, wood carvings, crafts, and flowers galore.  So colorful.  On Sundays they have a vegetable market from 0500-0800 (yes in the morning).  The buses don't run on Sunday, but we decided it would be an okay dinghy ride.......I don't quite understand the whole buttcrack of dawn vegetable market thing, but it is pretty much the rule here in FP.  A painful rule I might add.  Sunday we were in the dinghy by 0630.  The vegetable market was impressive though, just about everything you could possibly want.

Monday we met our agent Cindy to go to the High Commisioners office to complete our extended stay visa. Pretty much a typical bureaucratic visit.  Is somewhat of a cultural shock to see government workers in flipflops, but hey even the construction workers wear them!!!  Spent the rest of the day walking to the marine store and the hardware store.  We hit the grocery store on the way home, and then had an awesome dinner on Moondance. 

Josh had been (and still is) a real trooper hanging out with the adults.  The kid boats left Fakarava several days after us, so he had to trail around after us for 4 days.  The kid boats arrived in Tahiti on Tuesday, so he is back to having kids his own age to hang with.

Tuesday was laundry day.  Funny we can only do as much laundry as we have lines to hang it on, so was a 2 day deal this time.  The good news being that there are machines at the marina, so we were able to do sheets and towels and cotton things.  Was/is nice to get all those things really clean.  Met a girl we initially met in Hiva Oa on the dock, and she cut my hair.  She is from Holland and a hairdresser by trade.  She did Josh's hair in Hiva Oa and did a great job on mine.  Feels really good to have the nasty dry ends gone. Tuesday night we had dinner with 4 other boats at a restaurant here at the marina - 18 people total.  Was good fun.  Good pizza too.

Yesterday (Wednesday) I finished up the laundry.  Was an all day affair pretty much as we had to wait for washers.  Got back to the boat in time to make my calorie difficient men some lunch, clean up, have a rest then make dinner.  After dinner we dinghy'd over to the Intercontinental hotel to see a Polynesian dance troupe.  It was Marquessan style dancing and very good.  It is hard to describe the style, almost Native American style.  The men especially made it look very savage and it wasn't a stretch to imagine them prepping you for their dinner!!!!

Today so far has been pretty lazy.  It really is the first day without a morning appointment off the boat.  We are expecting the watermaker guy this morning sometime.  The watermaker is working, but even with new filters the parts/million is 600.  Which is safe, but higher than you would expect.  So we are having it looked at.  This afternoon will be another provisioning run.  We will leave on Saturday for Moorea with the Puddle jumpers, will be at Moorea for about a week, then return here to restock the pantry prior to heading out to the rest of the Society Islands.  It is 1000 and we are still waiting........

more later......

June 15 2011

Well, Happy Birthday to me. Sure wish I would get a little wind for my birthday. We are motoring along with less than 5 kts of wind, en route to Tahiti. Would be nicer if we could sail (not to mention less expensive), but oh well we take what we get.

We left the south anchorage of Fakarava (Tekamanu) on Saturday. It was a pretty easy motorsail/sail up the channel. Sort of like following cairns on a hike, only it is on water and you follow the channel markers, staying left or right depending on the color of the mark. The marks by the way usually sat on coral heads, so good things to avoid. pulled into the north anchorage around 1500. Calou called and said it was a Holiday weekend, so the store was closing at 6pm and would not reopen until Tuesday. So, we quickly put our dinghy in the water and went into town for a few provisions. Didn't need much except bread, which they were out of. Bought a couple of Hinanos (tahitian beer) and walked around with Doug and Carla. Another very nice little town. Is very weird to be able to stand on the street and see water on both sides. Different water to be sure, but still.... After our walk (we resupplied our Hinanos) we made arrangements to dive the next afternoon. We watched the sunset from the dive shop dock, then headed back to the boats.

Sunday
Kind of a busy pre dive morning. Made plans to have a pizza party on Phambili (they caught back up to us after going to Tahiti, Borabora etc with family) that night a get together and pre birthday celebration for me.
The dive was excellent. Josh did great. Was my first tank dive in 7 years and the first time I dove with Josh. Technically I was a little rusty, but enjoyed it all the same. We saw big grouper and a huge tuna and of course the requisite sharks (not too close). The coral was beautiful as well. Dennis came up with zero air as usual, and I could tell it had been awhile for me, cuz I had less than 50 bar.
The pizza party was great! We had a large variety (each group brought some). It was my first pizza with peanut butter (thai chicken). Carla made a totally yummy yellow cake with chocolate frosting. MMMMMM!!! Have I mentioned lately, that it is all about the food?

Monday

Dennis fixed the generator. Sounds familiar huh? This time the glow plug wire was routed too close to the engine block, got hot, melted and shorted out. Thankfully mechanic extraordinaire was able to figure it all out and have it fixed by noon. We rented bikes for the afternoon (one speed beach cruiser kind) and toured the Island a little bit. Did a total of about 12-13 miles, which was about all our backsides could handle!!! We stopped for a late lunch at a roullette (read french polynesian roach coach). I had a tuna steak and fries and Dennis had a burger. Again yum. Had a pretty quiet night in preparation for departure on Tuesday.

Tuesday

Didn't quite get into town early enough for bread. Hard to believe they were out of bread before 830. These people are so nice though. The proprietress of the grocery store shook her head in disgust when I told her the boulangerie had no bread, and let me buy one of hers. Wow! Where else would that happen? So, we stocked up on a few more snacks, eggs, premade sandwiches for lunch and called it good. Had the anchor up by 1015 and made it out the North pass by 1120. We were able to fly the spinnaker for a few hours, but the wind died so the motor came on and has been on ever since. After all the wind we have had in the last few weeks, you would think there would have been some to spare for this passage, but apparently not. Was a beautiful night watch - big full moon, no squalls.

Wednesday

So, here we are about 120 miles from Papeete. No wind and pretty hot. We hope to be there by tomorrow morning, and will be there for a week, then will head out with the Tahiti Moorea sailing rondezvous, then will come back to Tahiti for final provisioning before heading out for BoraBora etc.

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