Back in the washer

All night, crazy weather. Strong winds, speed up to 8 knots and lots of
rolling. Early this morning, it became obvious that we were going to
fast with the risk of arriving at the entrance of Aviatu in the middle
of the night and inclement weather. So I dropped the main and rolled up
the genoa to reduce the speed to 4.5 knots, which should get us to
Aviatu around 7 in the morning.
Unfortunately, since then, the wind has dropped, the sky became
overcast, we have that long and heavy swell that sometimes causes us to
roll very heavily. I increased speed again to maintain the 4.5 knots,
but I must admit that I do not like the weather at all. It does not feel
established, rather in a standing by position before it decides either
to unleash some kind of hell or just keep going like that undecided. I
wish I had a crystal ball to see what will happen in the next 12 hours.
Considering that we slowed down to 4 knots at 8 this morning, the past
day figures are looking good. 148 miles over the ground, 445 total since
we left, closing on Rarotonga by 137 miles with 204 to go.
This morning I sent emails to Rarotonga to try and find out at which
point weather conditions start to make the entrance not safe. If there
is any risk in going in, we will just keep sailing on toward Neiafu.

Back to reality

The Pacific Ocean looking like a postcard, that was just for one day. We
are back to cloud cover, squalls, big swell and rolling. It started last
night just at cocktails time (Ricard, Kir, with Pate de foie on toasts)
and continued until after dinner (tuna steacks with rice pilaf). Then
the wind disappeared until 4 in the morning, with the sails flapping
noisily, the boat rolling and creeping along at snail pace (2 knots).
This morning showers and wind came back and we put up the new whisker
pole (4 feet shorter), reefed down to 3 reefs to help Mr Monitor, and
since then we are moving at more than 6 knots, although in the wrong
direction as the wind veered to the NE earlier than I expected.
However, we covered 142 miles over the ground for the day, closing on
Rarotonga by 131 miles with now 341 miles to go. We still expect to
arrive Monday morning, October 5th.

Sailing in paradise

We have been waiting for this for quite some time now. But finally, we
got it. Blue water, blue sky, a long gentle swell that does not even
rock the boat, a steady SE wind 10 to 20 knots pushing us where we want
to go.
We left the Taina marina at 7:15 on wednesday, went through the Taapuna
pass, set up the sails, set up the monitor (which by the way works now
almost better than new), and now all we have to do is enjoy the ride and
wait until we get to Rarotonga.
At noon, we had covered 155 miles on the ground since we left, had
closed on the destination by 144 miles with 472 miles to go.
Not much to report in such nice conditions. A radio contact at noon with
Triple Seven, also sailing to the Cooks but to another island and which
we will probably meet again as they are also going to Neiafu in Tonga.
We are expecting the wind to veer from ESE to ENE, and we set a course
that will keep us at the same wind angle almost to the end.
We should arrive in Rarotonga on the 5th in the morning if everything
stays as forecast.

Stand by

The last three days, we have had numerous showers, strong winds while a
front was passing through. We were ready to go but knowing that behind
the front the trade winds were coming back promising a very comfortable
crossing, I was not in a hurry to get wet.
The barbecue organized by Matt and Ulla ended up with pouring rain, but
we were almost done anyway. Next morning, not a very encouraging
weather, but anyway we were getting ready to go sometimes in the
afternoon. This is when we heard about the earthquake in the Samoas and
the risk of a Tsunami in Tahiti.
I then decided to wait for whatever the authorities would say. In the
end, although Tahiti went into red alert with administration and some
shops closing, the Tsunami turned out to be a 12 inches wave, obviously
with no damage at all.
So, at 4 p.m., we went to the fuel dock to fill up, I paid the marina
and we came back to our dock to spend a last quiet dinner and night and
go tomorrow morning at daybreak, direcly for Rarotonga.
I will remember the Taina marina as an excellent place. Florient and
Constance are very helpful, cordial, friendly and always ready to help.
Thanks to them, I was able to assist two boats having problems,
Chennaker and Triple Seven. As far as I am concerned, I only have
positive comments to make about this marina and I will recommend it to
anybody.

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.

The day before

After a wonderful Wednesday, Thursday and Friday (today) brought back
some degree of frustration.
To start with, I was still waiting to get my sails back up. Last night
after dark I got the sails and the cushions for the main cabin with
velcro sewn on them, but not the lazy Jacks and lazy bag, and not the
fittings to reinstall the main. I was promised that it would be done on
Friday. Today turned out to be rainy and windy day. I could work on the
velcro for the cushions and take care of a few minor jobs inside but
there is little hope to do anything outside. The good news is that all
the remaining bits and pieces showed up at 4:00 p.m. which means that we
will be able to put the sails back up tomorrw.
On the weather front however, it turns out that leaving on Saturday
would not be a good idea as we would probably have to motor quite a bit
or face variable and unstable weather. Based on the grib files and the
advice of Bob McDavitt, I have decided to leave only on Tuesday morning.
This gives us ample time to be more than ready.
The crew who was supposed to come with us and was supposed to come
aboard last night (Thursday) has disappeared from the radar screen. No
reply to my emails and his cell phone does not answer. I hope nothing
bad has happened to him.
Tonight there will be some drinking. Matthias and Ulla, aboard
Chennaker, finally made it to Papeete, after an adventurous journey from
the Marquesas via the Tuamotou. Broken finger, leaking water pump,
broken autopilot, etc . . . I am glad they finally made it to a place
where they can fix all that and be on their way to NZ, but before that
we are going to celebrate his 33rd birthday tonight.

eco tourism

Wonderful day last Wednesday. My first day as a real tourist in Tahiti.
I was picked up at the marina at 9 o'clock in the morning by a Land
Rover with three young couple aboard, one of them on their honeymoon,
and a young male driver/guide.
After a very short drive along the coast going east, we turned and
started moving south towards the centre of the island, which is the
crater of an old extinct volcano.
Words and photos cannot do justice to the magnificence of the scenery.
Very steep mountains with hundreds of waterfalls, very green and lush
vegetation, mostly trees and surprisingly no fruits. We started moving
up a valley in which flows the largest river on the island and from time
to time could stop in areas where it was possible to have a swim. Only
once did we see a sign of the past polynesian culture, a marae not far
from the coast. Other than that, no village, no dwelling of any kind, in
fact nobody. It felt like a green wonderful desert, but kind of irreal
after you just left a busy coast line with lots of people and cars.
The river is used to produce hydro-electricity, so we visited the
various dams which have been built up the river, and even went through a
short tunnel dug out so that maintenance vehicle going to the third dam
up the river could come from the other side of the island.
We had lunch along the way in a restaurant built in the mountains but
that does not have customers any more except for the few people like us
who take a safari tour. I am told that this restaurant, and an adjacent
defunct hotel, was very busy at the time of the french nuclear tests,
but has almost completely died since. The menu was chicken and french
fries, not quite a typical local food.
But all in all, a good day for me. After so much time at sea level, it
felt good to be up there in the mountains.