Position: Off the island of Tahaa (16 degrees, 36 minutes south; 151 degrees 33 minutes west)

View from our "backyard" at Tahaa

Another sunset with Bora Bora in the background

Tonight is Ann’s turn to blog. I was thinking of this blog post prior to getting on Facebook today (yes, we still have internet access for a few more days – until we leave Bora Bora, and so I partake!) and seeing the devastating posts about the horror in the movie theater in Aurora, CO. My oldest brother and his kids live IN Aurora. Panic. It seemed like any try on Facebook to connect to my Colorado relatives was blocked – probably by the massive influx of attempted communication to that area. Thankfully when I did connect, via my sister in Southern California, I was informed that my family is fine. God bless them but special prayers to those that lost family. So why do I mention this? Because we are constantly being ribbed by other cruisers who are amazed that we put such an effort into posting daily blogs. And we wanted to let you all know that we do it not to brag about where we are or what we are doing, but because it keeps us connected to all of you. Yes, we are half a world away but we think of you constantly and want to share this with all of you. AND it helps us realize how fortunate we are to be here. Even days that seem “vanilla” have a special flavor to them and our blogging helps us appreciate it. So we do it because we love you! Now on to a lighter note – the silly side of cruising. The fun part of this trip is the people we are meeting. A very unique group of people with incredible senses of humor and endurance. I’d like to share the current “joke” going around right now. Anchored just off of us is a boat that has adopted a new name: Charisma Victoria. I mentioned them last night. As we approach our 90 day visa limit in French Polynesia we are forced to check out of the country. Sometimes boats are not totally ready to go, as in the case of Charisma Victoria. So our friends have adopted a new name to stay under the radar of the authorities. They even adopted new individual names: Mini-Ann and Mini-Bob. We’d like to say that we are honored by the use of our names. However what happens is we can’t make our check out date and need to go under cover? Our friends on Astarte have come up with our incognito name: Charisma Tinkerbell! I was thinking Charisma Never Never Land. Charisma Tinkerbell will be easier to say on the VHF. As it is we all giggle when we hear Charisma Victoria hailing us. Oh, and today’s update – we spent the day hoping that the wind would not increase too much and get Charisma hobby-horsing at anchor as we only have about 3 feet under our keel at this anchorage. So we stayed aboard. The early morning brought a pair of manta rays swimming past. Later in the afternoon was Michael from Astarte swimming past looking for the anchor that must have been attached to the chain that Bob found around the bommie we caught in our initial anchoring yesterday. Later I polished the stanchions and attempted to remove the green beard that grows at our waterline while Bob dove the anchor again. To his surprise it had dragged about 7 feet! But the good news was that it really buried itself this time – and straight in too! We also enjoyed some “book time” and played a game of cribbage. If I lose a third game in a row to Bob I may stop playing it altogether. Anyone for Chinese Checkers? Tomorrow promises to be a calmer day so a big snorkel trip is planned with Astarte and Charisma Victoria and then maybe a move to the Pearl Farm around the tip of the island. Of course, we will be thinking of you while we do this; think of us too!