They let you pet them. They are surprisingly soft to the touch

Yep, we are back out swimming with dangerous fish. At least dangerous in theory. Here in Moorea there’s a spot where the stingrays are quite tame and people go out on the reef and feed them. They are very friendly. Like cats really. You stand in the water (it’s about 5 feet deep) and dozens of large stingrays come swimming over and start nuzzling you from all directions. At first it feels strange. They are so soft. You can pet them and they seem to like it. They are about 4-5 feet across-much larger than I would have expected. We brought canned sardines to feed them. If they are hungry they will practically climb up your body, even if you stand up to get part way out of the water.

Feeding stingrays with sardines has one downside: the sharks smell the food and come over. We had a dozen black tip reef sharks come over and get in on the action. However, I’m not feeding the sharks by hand or nuzzling with them. Fortunately they are a bit shyer than the stingrays and kept their distance for the most part, although one swam within about 5 feet of Ann’s legs as she was feeding a stingray. Ann was too distracted to notice.

That was our morning entertainment. In the afternoon, there was a potluck on the beach. There are still about 40 boats here from the Rendezvous, although many are clearing out, but it’s a last chance to see a lot of friends all in one place. As you can imagine a lot of the discussions are about how fortunate we all are for having survived the windstorm a few nights ago. The stories keep coming out. And one particularly heroic sailor was given a special award today, made by some very clever cruisers. It was a “Super Pedro” cape. Pedro actually jumped into the water from one boat and swam to another to help an out of control boat get anchored safely. The boat in question was the very boat that miraculously missed us as it veered through the anchorage. Today we found out that it actually went between us and our neighboring boat prior to coming into contact with the two boats anchored behind us. We still have no idea how they managed to miss us, our anchor and our neighbor. But thank goodness for bold sailors like Pedro. Very courageous. I imagine tomorrow the number in the anchorage may be down by half. Our strategy is to let folks clear out ahead of us-they are all heading west, the same direction we’re heading-and in turn they will spread out making future anchorages more quiet and back to the 3 or 4 boats that we’ve become accustomed to. We’ll stay anchored here in Moorea another day or two then head back to Papeete for another week to provision, do some boat work and see more of the town and environ. It’s kind of a fun city and after this there are no more big cities until we reach New Zealand in November.

Note to Jerry: Don’t worry, we’ll be back in the wilderness soon enough. This little stop has been like a company picnic. Fun to see everyone, play some silly games and reconnect, however it’s nothing but an interlude. After we step off from here there are a few more commercial spots (Bora Bora comes to mind) that are supposed to be beautiful to see, but too easy to get to and therefore “found”. Then back to the adventure life of visiting little islands and atolls that are either deserted or have very small “thatched hut” kind of villages and snorkeling, kayaking and paddleboarding (at least for Ann who has mastered the tippy board that I cannot yet stay up on).

In the meantime Ann is going hiking tomorrow with a group of friends. I’m doing some boat projects, not the least of which is fixing the dinghy propeller. Today it started spinning freely at the higher RPMs. The engine spun up, but the prop just “slipped”. This means we can go about 2 knots max. It appears there is a rubber bushing inside that grips onto the shaft and it’s slipping. Yet another project where I’ll take something apart I’ve never had to deal with before and probably find I don’t have a part for it. Fortunately I’m sure there’s one in Papeete, where we’re going next. Note to future cruisers: Make sure you have a “shear pin” and the rubber bushing inside the prop that absorbs shock and transfers power from the transmission to the propeller. I’m told that when the bearing gets older they just wear out. I’ve never heard of that before, but the shear pin is intact, so the bushing theory sounds plausible. I’ll write up my findings in a future note.