17º 29.354s 149º 51.109w
Thu Aug 22 2019
Last
update I was whining about having to replace the icky pipe from the master
toilet to the holding tank. Well, you know what they say about cruising – it’s
fixing your boat in “exotic” places. . .
My
apologies to Kal, Rob and Jim, likely the only people who actually read this
rubbish when I find the energy type words into incomprehensible sentences.
Anyway,
lots has happened since then. We got the water tank leak fixed; Christian and
his jolly good fellows did a right professional job of that. They upcharged us
10% for an extra man day due to unforeseen complications, but Christian didn’t
add profit to the overrun day so I was OK with that.
Sebastian
from the canvas folks finally came through with our new rain flys for the
cockpit – albeit a bit late and I had to do the installation, but now I know
how to do that so it’s all good. We’ve test driven the new canvas in the rain
and it works as advertised, so now time to get a bit more canvas work done to
address the leaky areas we’ve yet to address. Smaller jobs, but difficult areas
to attack. We also got a bit of metal work done by a killer good welder dude,
Jean something who lives on his sailboat with his family, and shows up in his
dinghy with gas bottle, welder, and all the other bits and pieces to do a seriously
professional custom job.
All
in all we were in Marina Papeete for 5 days, and Marina Taina where the work
actually got done for 13 days. The upside was the ease to wander off to
restaurants and shopping in town in Papeete, then down at Marina Taina we were
able to walk a short distance to Carrefour, a French hypermarket, or in the
other direction to a Mobil station where we were able to have our empty propane
tank filled. Fun and adventures galore, and no dinghy ride required.
We
finally got outa there a few days ago and after a few days in the anchorage
outside Marina Taina we bolted for Moorea, the island about 10 miles from
Tahiti. Even prettier! However, before we departed we heard from Simon who was
passing through town for a night and needed a crash pad (in the parlance of
Eric Trigg, our Southwest Airlines Captain pal), so we enjoyed Simon’s company
for an evening then deposited him on the embankment near the airport so he
could catch a flight to some atoll where SV Halcyon awaited. During Simon’s
visit we were anchored next to SV Zingaro, a cool little catamaran. James is
the owner/captain of that custom cat – he’s a former US Navy submariner and
quite an interesting guy to spend time with. Naturally Isabel whipped up a
great meal for all of us – between the great food and our “taste test” bottle
of Tahitian rum we had a great evening.
Darned
if SV Shamal, a 2007 Seawind 1160 with Alec and Anne on board didn’t sail in
and anchor about 500 meters from us. We had to get together and compare notes,
enjoy a meal together, and admire the modifications each of us has done to our
boats. Those guys have been on the go from New Zealand for about 11 years –
they’ve had some amazing adventures and make us feel like we’ve got lots of
work to do!
Mission
accomplished, Isabel and I sailed JollyDogs over to Moorea few days ago and
anchored in Cook’s Bay. For some reason it’s named for Captain Cook who didn’t
actually sail in there; apparently he sailed in the next bay about 2 miles
distant. Anyway we went in there and anchored in around 30 feet if water, mud
and clay bottom with great holding. Good too, as it blew like stink for a day
and we didn’t even leave the boat.
A
bonus in Cook’s bay is a little takee outee called “Allo Pizza” and boy do they
do a good one. Last night was my night to cook, so pizza was the order of the
day. Easy peasy, a short dinghy ride to a park where I tied up to a palm tree,
then a 5-minute walk down the road to the pizza joint, the reverse to come home
with a piping hot wood fired pie. Isabel whipped up a great salad and we busted
out a bottle of red wine we had just bought. Turns out it “tastes better with
food”.
Anyway,
it was a great day and night, and today we moved over to the adjacent bay, but
anchored out at the mouth in beautiful clear blue water, all 10’ of it. Nice
holding in sand, a bunch of sailboats around, but also a bunch of jet skis and
power launches. A bit noisy for us, but we’ll just have to tough it out.
Somewhere around here is a bay where the sting rays like to be fed tinned
sardines, so perhaps tomorrow we’ll go contribute to the delinquency of a sting
ray.
We’ll
wander back towards Tahiti on Friday as there’s a soft weather window forecast,
then it’s time to shop some new kite boarding gear at “da spot”, just around
the headland from Point Venus! Then it’s back to business with Monday
dermatologist visits for the both of us. Time to check out the French medical
system, paying cash of course. Never is a big deal unless we’re back in the US,
where the medical fees are absolutely eye watering.
Might
just have to celebrate a good checkup (fingers crossed) with a cold IPA at Les
Trois Brasseurs in Papeete!
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