Our friends on Orcinius needed to put a new headfoil on their boat, so that was most of our day, other than a couple hours mid-day where we went shopping while they were getting some parts.

A new headfoil means taking the headstay completely off the boat. Not a simple task, so it was a long day. I think we finished around 1900. They graciously took us to dinner to thank us for the help.

While I was doing that, Ann was cranking on the sewing machine. We now have all new diesel and water jug covers, a repaired stays’l cover, repaired storm jib cover, a domino bag for playing Mexican train and a cover for our American flag, so we can furl it at night.

We also found some needed stuff in town. Cruisers pay attention. Here’s a list of stuff we didn’t bring that we should have: -A new fresh water pump-our current one is noisy and I’m just waiting for the day it quits. Finally found one here. Happy to have a replacement for when the other one quits. General lesson: if you think something sounds odd, buy a replacement because it will likely break. If it’s critical, buy a replacement even if it works great. It’s all easy in the States, but virtually impossible once you are cruising. There are just no stores that have reliable supplies. -Rash guards. Also known as sun shirts. We forgot to buy them in the States where there’s a lot of choice and they are cheap. Basically a lycra shirt that protects you from the sun when you’re swimming. A regular tee-shirt doesn’t cut it because they are not tight enough and float up over your head. The lycra means they are tight/stretchy so they stay put. Some of our friends out here have body suits made of this stuff. It’s handy because if you’re going to snorkel a long time, the sunscreen wears off and the sun is very intense. -3M 5200 in small tubes. This stuff is the strongest glue there is and is useful in situations where nothing else will work. We’re thinking it might be our last resort glue to repair the keel tube in the dinghy. Bought two small tubes (at $14 each) so we can use on for the dinghy and have the other as a spare since inevitably the open tube will harden within a couple weeks. -Dinghy bilge pump. This is a biggie. We had one, but one night when we had to re-anchor, while moving the boat with the dinghy tied alongside, it flipped. Lucky the engine wasn’t on, but unlucky the bilge pump was in it and fell out never to be found. These are manual pumps and incredibly useful since it rains so much and the dinghy is always filling with rainwater. Your only other choice is to use a sponge and take twenty times as long to empty the boat. (Along with this is a dinghy anchor. You WILL use it in the South Pacific as there are few docks. You mostly anchor your dinghy in shallow water and wade into shore. We use a grapple type anchor since it folds easily and stores out of the way.

OK, that’s it. Exciting huh? Well, we’ll have a few more days like this just getting ready for the next four months of our cruise, then we’re back to island cruising. Probably leaving here Monday.

By the way, we hope everyone is enjoying a fine long weekend for the 4th of July. Strange being here where it’s nothing but another day.

One of the fish stalls in Papeete market

And the rest of the market hall. We like shopping in places like this. Each vendor has their own spot. The only hassle is you have to pay each vendor when you buy stuff. The just rent the booths.

Selling lamb whole. This is one of the freezers in the market. What's really weird is seeing one of these in a shopping cart!

Today, the big event was Ann getting out the sewing machine and making covers for the jerry jugs up on the bow. There are seven, five-gallon plastic jugs. Two have diesel, one has gasoline, three have water and one has rum. They are our “last resort” jugs if we run out of essential liquids (yes rum is essential in the tropics). Since they are plastic, even though strong plastic, they are subject to deterioration from the sun, hence the covers. Hard work sewing in the hot cabin, even with the fans on. Sweat shop conditions.

I got up “early” (meaning before Ann, but only just) and walked up to the store and bought croissants and baguettes for breakfast. My only other real contribution for the day was to download pictures for the last month or so to this blog and to Facebook. Time consuming, but not hard.

I walked back up to the market just before lunch as Ann reminded me we were having Bob and Linda from Bright Angel over for dinner and I was cooking tuna. We didn’t have any tuna. I had to get some from the store and the local market closes at 1400. I think the person I bought the tuna from was impressed that I asked to smell it. I wanted to make sure it was fresh and she looked happy that I took an interest.

We had a great time with Bob and Linda and dinner came out great. Tuna marinated in soy sauce, wasabi, lemon pepper and a touch of chili pepper. Grilled rare inside and served over rice with Haricot Vert (French beans that are about two feet long-I cut them into two inch pieces) and Linda’s cole slaw. Perfect night.

That’s another part of cruising. We didn’t go anywhere, but had a great day.

We got one of the last spots. By the time this picture was taken some more had opened up.

Racing back to be exact. Not racing against other boats, but racing against the weather. And sort of racing against other boats. Let me explain.

We knew there was going to be a storm blowing through this area around 2000 today. Given that, we wanted to be out of Moorea and firmly tied up at the Quay in Papeete well before dark. We started putting things away fairly early this morning so we could leave. Paddleboard deflated and rolled up, check. Dinghy motor put away and dinghy deflated and tied down on deck, check. Snorkling stuff picked up off the deck and put away, check. Boarding ladder put away, check and on down the list of stuff that needs to be squared away after sitting at anchor for five days.

Just as we’re ready to hoist along comes a new friend in their dinghy to say “hi”. Nice to chat but we’re working against a deadline at this point. But we chat a while and after half an hour announce that we really have to go. Now we’re getting a bit late. OK, anchor up and we’re out. Later than I would have hoped to leave, so now we’re starting to feel the headwind predicted and see the beginning of the three meter swell. Halfway across to Tahiti I can see the storm front. It’s very well defined with low cumulous clouds followed by a wall of stratus, suggesting there were be a gusty front and lightning. Now I really want to get into Tahiti soon and we’re racing the storm. We’re 4 miles out to the southeast, the storm is coming down from the northeast and is about 10 miles away but no doubt going faster than we are. Who is going to get there first?

Just to complicate things, I know that there’s going to be very little room at the Quay downtown and I can see another boat also heading into Papeete about the same distance away as we, but coming down the coastline (whereas we are coming across the channel). I want to get there first, so I push the throttle up a bit to give us a little more speed. If we can’t tie up at the quay, the next available spot is an anchorage several miles away from town. At least another hour or two to set up there if we miss out at the quay.

Without recounting every detail, here’s the outcome: we entered the pass about 200 yards in front of the other boat and maybe a couple miles ahead of the storm front. Once inside we kept the speed up toward the quay and I had Ann steer while readying Charisma with fenders, bowlines, sternlines and such for tying up. I knew we would only have one shot at a space and if that didn’t turn out, the other boat would grab any other one that might be available. As we turned into the cove where the quay is located I had the binoculars out and was scanning the available space. Not much, but I saw one likely looking spot and committed to going there. We squeezed in (with Ann doing a tremendous job handling the bowlines, which was a critical job given the wind (now increasing to 20 knot gusts) and the ebbing tide. We secured the bowlines, grabbed the stern mooring line and snugged it up and were stable within minutes. The boat behind us motored past looking for a spot, but it turns out we got the very last one. He was out of luck. Last we saw before dark, he was side-tied to the road against a cement dock. I think he’s going to stay there for the night since it’s too late to move. If the wind really kicks up, he’s going to spend a lot of time fending off to avoid boat damage.

Nearby there is also a graphic example of what happens when you “goof” out here. A mile down the way is a boat that made some kind of mistake a week or so ago and is firmly stuck on the reef. It’s not salvageable at this point having dragged across 100 yards of reef it’s sitting in two feet of water and people are stripping it. Sad to see. I don’t know what happened but likely that they either fell asleep at the helm or tried to come in at night and got confused with the lights. That’s why we’re so conservative. I always set approach waypoints at least 10 miles offshore and don’t go into anyplace at night where there’s a reef.

We lucked out on the spot on the quay. We also did well on the storm. We can see lightning in the distance and the rain started up at 2000 as advertised. I feel really good that we’re snugged in here and will sleep well tonight. I’ll even enjoy watching the lightning approach and listening to the rain on cabin top. It’s a soothing sound when you’re tied up and not worried about dragging anchor down on a lee shore.

We’ll be here exploring Tahiti for about 5 days or so. I want to find a whaling museum. If anyone can find out where there is one, please let me know.

Ann and Bob just enjoying Moorea

Jerry has hit it spot on- that what some of these days are about (or should be about) is just doing little things exceptionally well and “in the moment”.

Today, I did napping exceptionally well.

OK, prior to the napping we took the dinghy way out to the barrier reef and snorkeled for an hour, then came back to Charisma and scrubbed the waterline and the barnacles that have collected on the underwater metal parts like the rudder hinges and propeller strut. That took about an hour and a half of hard scrubbing in the water so, yeah, I did a really good nap.

After that nap, Ann and I each took a shower (on deck-she with the solar shower, me with our teapot) and then in preparation for having some friends over for cocktails–I took another nap. This one in the quarterberth. The previous one was just on deck, but the sun was getting too intense around 1500 to nap on deck. Ann made cookies. Exceptionally well. I know ’cause I got to lick the spoon.

So, peeling potatoes. No adventure, just enjoying the day.

This evening we had a delightful time hosting “Ladybug”-a couple from Canada in a Coast 34 (Chris and Rani) and Vicky from “Inspiration At Sea”, a Hans Christian 38. We swapped lies as they say, for 3-4 hours and they rowed home in the moonlight. Fortunately we had leftover stew which we heated up and just finished. I’m going to post this note and go up in the cockpit and enjoy the beautiful night-our last in Moorea.

We’re leaving tomorrow. There’s a storm of sorts coming in late tomorrow. Doesn’t seem to be packing a lot of wind, but it’s supposed to rain for a while. Depending on who you talk to anywhere from a few hours to three days. My take from last night’s grib files is about 12 hours from Sunday evening into Monday sometime. We’ll see. I just hope it waits until we’re snugged back in at the Quay (the floating dock downtown) in Papeete.

Today we went around the island. But it was in a car instead of a boat.

Our anchorage from up on the hill

Pineapple plantation

We bought a pretty pearl necklace at the craft fair~

Bob and Bruce at the Bali Hai

Here's fish marketing island style. The price in Polynesian Francs is 90 to the dollar.

One of the other boats here, “Inspiration At Sea” has a car that she rented for two more days and she offered to drive us and “Gato Go” around the island. We had heard there was going to be a festival on the other side and thought that sounded fun. We had pictures of hula dancing and other Polynesian events, but it turned out it was a bandstand with some nice musical groups, but not too much else. But a good time was had and it was fun to see the whole island from a different perspective than we’ve been having. We ended the day with a great pizza dinner at a little French pizza place. They made the pizzas right in front of us and we could watch as they put them in the wood fired oven. They cook pretty fast that way-about 3 minutes.

We started the day with some water sports. I inflated the stand-up paddleboard for Ann to paddle around the anchorage visiting and I jumped in a did some snorkeling. There’s a reef not 40 yards from us and I explored that as well as checked the anchor (it was so buried in the sand/coral I couldn’t see it. The chain just disappeared into the sand).

So, that was our day. Simple, relaxing and fun. Tomorrow will be boat washing. We’ll jump in and scrub the waterline which is fouled with slime. The bottom itself where there’s anti-fouling paint is in great shape, but the waterline needs scrubbing. The through hulls need cleaning too. Barnacles are threatening to close them up, so I’ll go underwater with a screwdriver to peel them off. Boat maintenance unfortunately cannot be delayed or you pay the price.

Sunday we’ll finally leave here and sail back to Papeete for a bit before continuing on our journey through French Polynesia. Our three month visa will be up come July 25th, so we’ll need to move on soon if we’re to see the islands of Huahine, Raiatea and Bora Bora. Then on to the Cook’s.

They started the hike around the other side of the mountain on the right.

The hikers take a break

Not a lot to report today. Ann went on a hike up into the mountains of Moorea with the folks from Gato Go, Buena Vista and Ladybug. They pretty much covered the same terrain we went over on our island tour in a 4×4, so you know it was a strenuous hike.

For my part, I have a hula dancing injury. The bottom of one of my toes has a split in the skin from hula dancing on asphalt. OK, lame excuse, but it’s the only one I have. I also needed to do a bunch of little boat projects-and one bigger one. The little ones included the door to the head. The mechanism only works when you turn the handle counterclockwise. I took it apart and found a couple of parts to be extremely worn. Not having new parts, I mixed up some MarineTex epoxy and built up/strengthened the worn part. Success. So far, it’s like new. We’ll see how long it lasts.

The other big job today was fixing the outboard. Yesterday on the way back from the stingray petting expedition, the prop started free-wheeling on high speed. It would drive the dinghy on low RPM, but as soon as I added some throttle, it would free wheel. I took it apart today and the shear pin is fine. However, when I put the shear pin in and turned the prop with pliers, the inner bushing spun. Worn out. So, I drilled three holes through the outside of the prop into the inner bushing and screwed some self-tapping screws. Finished too late to tell if that is the solution. I’ll test it tomorrow.

That’s about all for today. We’re staying her a bit longer now that at least half the boats here have cleared out.