Iaonara

Having received the remainder of the sails on Friday night, Saturday morning was entirely devoted into installing the main, the lazy bag and jacks, setting again the reefing lines and sorting out stuff so that Papy Jovial would be ready to go. This took all morning and turned out to be hard work but was completed all right. We then went for a quick lunch followed by a 30 minutes nap and a shower.

I then took the "truck" to Papeete as I had promised Mat that I would be on Chennaker by 3:00 p.m. I was a bit late but so were they, so it turned out OK.

I gave him all the informations I had gathered to help him with his sails and other problems, but I told him that I felt that he ought to have his boat towed to Taina marina where plenty of help is available. But he said that it would be too expensive and the idea was temporarily dropped. We then went strolling into town, looking for a place to have dinner. Their idea was a restaurant called Voo Doo Lounge but we could not find it. In fact, it had already changed name and ha

d been converted into a kind of snack bar with food 24/7.

We went to the "Retro" bistro to discuss possible alternatives and I suggested the Royal Tahitian that Jean-Francois had told me was an excellent place.

We went there and this was probably the best evening I have had since I arrived in Tahiti. The place is magnificient by the sea side, th

ere were a lot of customers, most of them locals, the music 

was, at last, Tahitian with a live band and the food was super. I enjoyed that evening, which was the real celebration of Matt's birthday thoroughly.

Sunday morning, we were supposed to go to the Sofitel hotel for a typical polynesian lunch and with polynesian dances. Instead, I discussed with the marina ways to tow Chennaker back to Taina and Florient, the manager, agreed to do it for an excellent price. I called Matt, told him to cancel the Sofitel event, and drive himself to Taina so we could go and get his boat in Papeete, Which is what we did for the best part of Sunday.

Chennaker is now in Taina, and I feel a lot better about their chances to get the boat back in a safe condition allowing them to continue on to NZ.

As for us, the boat is more than ready, Claude will join us tomorrow morning, I will do the clearance out tomorrow morning, the provisionning tomorrow afternoon, have a barbecue with everbody we know here in Taina, organised by Matt, and be ready to go.

I am leaving Tahiti on a positive note.

The one thing I noticed about Tahiti is the everpresent kindness of people everywhere. Especially towards children who are everywhere. No bickering, no shouting, a lot of affection, hugging, touching and gentleness. It must be good to be a child here. Also in three weeks, I have not seen once people shouting at each other or loosing their temper. This creates overall a very friendly and pleasant atmosphere.