wednesday september 3^rd 2008 (huahine, society islands)

The bad weather is here. The 25-30 knots of wind has been pushing around 12-15 foot seas. From the back of our boat we can sit and watch them pummel the reef. The collisions result in suburban home sized explosions of foam. We aren’t in a big hurry to get out there and mix it up in those conditions so have decided to stay here and keep our feet dry in a rental car. Hertz of Huahine set us up with a bitchin’ Hyundai hatchback. We did the same thing that anyone who lives on a boat does when they have access to a set of wheels; we went grocery shopping. Most people do their grocery shopping according to price or taste. When you live on a boat you shop by weight because you have to walk your purchases home. Not today. We set off early and bought up all kinds of heavy stuff… cans of pop, beer, wine, frozen meat. Then we reveled in the glorious speed and comfort as our Hyundai hatchback whisked it all home for us. Are we lame or what?

After grocery runs and a sandwich we were back in the Hyundai. Freedom is a good mixed CD, the open road, and a 3 cylinder wind up toy.  

 

 

 

 

We rounded off our Huahine road trip by checking out a bunch of abandoned over-the-water bungalows. They were kind of like every other over-the-water bungalow that we’ve seen only these ones were… um, abandoned.

On a tip from the Hertz lady we learned that the gas station closes at 4:30 today. Since we had to fill the car up before returning it we were there by 4. It’s a good thing because they were already cashing out and rolled their eyes at me for having the nerve to show up and request gas a mere 30 minutes prior to their irregular special regular Wednesday closing time.

After dropping off the bitchin’ Hyundai we had dinner at the only place in town actually open at dinner time; The Local House roach coach. After that we walked the 10 kilometers back to our anchorage in the dark. Car after car roared past us for a couple of hours until we were within a few hundred meters of home. Then of course 3 cars stopped, literally one after the other each of them offering us a ride.

thursday september 4^th 2008 (raiatea, society islands)

I don’t think I mentioned this before but we broke a stay on the way to Huahine. It just sort of snapped off right at the mast and fell to the deck with an unassuming little “clunk”. Stays are the stainless steel cables that hold up your mast. There are 8 or 10 of them on the boat so we aren’t exactly sure how important this one is but we have chosen to operate under the assumption that anything playing a role in keeping our mast upright deserves special attention. Plus if it was under enough tension to break it must have been doing something important. It is this situation which has brought us here to Raiatea. They have a couple of boat yards and we are hoping one of them can get it replaced before the weekend. We would have been happy to sit the weather out in our snug little anchorage in Huahine but we need to be in Tonga by October 2^nd to meet some friends so decided that we could handle the rough conditions for a quick trip across to Raiatea. I’m always trying to figure out a way to estimate wave height.  My latest method goes like this; It is about 6 feet from the waterline to the top of the deck. I’m 6’4 so if I stand on the deck and the top of the waves are the same height as me then they must be about 12 feet. Most waves today were about that height but the big ones were well over my head so 14 or 15 feet from trough to crest would be a conservative guess. The wind was still blowing between 20-25 and occasionally gusting a little higher. Sometimes wind and waves would cooperate and lift us into a full surf for a few seconds. It was a neat sensation as you felt the boat accelerate and take off down the face of the wave. When we were surfing the boat speed would peak out at 13 knots but the rest of the time we were doing between 6 and 8. We didn’t have any mainsail up due to the broken stay, and our headsail was partially furled. We had the motor going as well because we wanted to arrive with plenty of daylight left to find a good anchorage. Outside of the Galapagos trip these were the worst conditions we’ve been in. It was a wild ride but other than worrying about the broken stay it wasn’t too bad until we got to the pass. Our guide calls this an “all weather pass suitable in any conditions”. I don’t think that whoever wrote that has ever been pushed through Teavapiti Pass by 25 knots of southeasterly wind into an ebbing tide. The conditions were not “suitable”. Suicidal maybe but definitely not suitable. The water rushing out of the pass had the combined effect of slowing our boat down to a crawl and tripping up those big waves which were now breaking all around us. The current made it feel like we were trying to move through molasses to get out of the way. It was a bit of an “oh shit” kind of moment because once you have committed yourself to one of these situations your options are pretty limited and you kind of just have to ride it out. So that’s what we did.  After the initial shock of the thing it really wasn’t that bad. Definitely a bit of a thrill ride but not life threatening. That’s my version anyway. Jaime might tell the story a little differently.

friday september 5^th 2008 (raiatea, society islands)

First thing this morning I optimistically buzzed into the boat yard with my broken stay. I held it up in front of the French lady at the counter and pointed to the broken bit doing my best to describe the dilemma. She smiled, walked over to a big pile of steering cables and invited me to pick one out. To our mutual relief a guy came along who spoke English and helped to bridge the communication gap. She flatly told me (through the interpreter) to go back to Tahiti and have it fixed.

Its probably a good thing I don’t speak French because at this point I would have asked her just what in the world that she thought that we would be doing wasting our time in her piss-assed little store if that was an option. Another employee took an interest in the escalating tension and came over to observe. The guy turned out to be really helpful and soon we were on the phone with Tahiti trying to track down the necessary parts. Later the original lady, we’ll call her “la bitch face”, was speaking perfect English so I have no idea what her stupid little charade was all about.

After 3 trips back and forth to the boat for part numbers, measurements and all the rest everything was good to go. The good news is that the wheels are in motion and our part is on the way. The bad news is that it’s coming from Tahiti and since it’s a Friday the earliest we can expect to see it will be Tuesday.

sunday september 7^th 2008 (raiatea, society islands)

 

Next stop Bora Bora. Needless to say we are looking forward to getting that stay installed and moving along. Hopefully the weather will cooperate. If it does we will make the short trip on Wednesday.

thursday september 11^th 2008 (raiatea, society islands)

Our stay arrived yesterday. It was a day late but that turned out to be a moot point, the weather is terrible. It has been raining on and off all day every day and the wind has been between 20 and 30 knots for 10 days now. We are going stir crazy. Sure we can get off the boat, but its tough getting motivated for a shore excursion when all that awaits you is a 20 minute salt water shower (the dinghy ride) followed by an afternoon ashore being rained on. If there was something worth getting wet for we would probably take our lumps and just go for it but this also happens to be an incredibly dull little island. This means that we’ve been spending more time on the boat then we are accustomed to and making matters worse is the fact that between the squalls we can actually see Bora Bora from here. According to the forecast we should finally get a break in the weather on Saturday. Our plan is to install the new stay tomorrow and re-tension the rig; the steel cables that hold up the mast have to be tightened to the manufacturers specifications. It’s a precise business so we have a special tension gauge that measures the actual tension in pounds for each diameter of wire. The trick is figuring out which cable is which so that you can reference the correct line on the chart of prescribed tensions. Each one has its own name and of course different tension ratings so it can get a little confusing. There are checks stays and back stays, a forestay, upper, mid and lower stays. Oh, and don’t forget the baby stay. In all I bet there’s nearly 500 feet of steel cable attached to our mast but if that’s what it takes to keep the thing upright them I’m all for it. Getting it wrong could mean a lot more work for us down the line so we will just try to get it right the first time.

saturday september 13^th 2008 (bora bora)

After a quick breakfast it was to the front deck for a good anchor heaving session. No better way to start the day. The depth here was only 45 feet though so I managed to accomplish the task without suffering any permanent physical damage. We motored our way clockwise around the island until we came to the fuel dock we had scouted out during one of our walks into town. It was a tight little space for a 50 foot dock. The reef off one side and the boats moored along the shore on the other didn’t leave us much room to maneuver. There were 18 knots of wind on our beam so all I could really do was make sure that we were lined up and then let the wind push us in sideways. I sweat it out a little during the final moments but it was without cause, our docking was as gentle as tearless baby shampoo. Jaime had the bow line secured so fast that the casual bystander might have actually have mistaken us for old pros. We filled up the boats appropriate repositories with water and diesel and in doing so set another new slapdash record; we paid nearly 9 dollars per gallon for the diesel and over 10 for the gas.

If the casual bystander was still around she would have been equally impressed with our dismount from the dock. Soon we were out of the bay and dodging canoe traffic –must have been a race because there were dozens- and closing on our planned egress point; Passe Paipai on the Southwest side of Tahaa.

We didn’t know it at the time but this would turn into our best day sailing since arriving in Fatu Hiva almost 2 months ago. Lately we have started dreading passages, probably because since we crossed the Pacific they have all been rough, wet and uncomfortable. Kind of like… never mind. We had wind and waves behind us. The swells were less than half the size than the ones on our trip to Raiatea. I climbed up on deck and had a hard time imagining waves that had been well over my head. We surely wouldn’t have made it this far without the blessing of selective memories.

A perfect afternoon. The kind that could coax poetry from a pugilist. The headsail gently tugged us along at 6 knots. Pretty soon I was lulled off to sleep by the gentle motion. Jaime had her ipod to keep her company and was quite happy soaking up sun while keeping us pointed towards Bora Bora’s Mount Otemanu which was now in full view and beckoning us onward.

A couple of days ago we met an Englishman named Geoff and his Dutch partner Merel. Geoff has been sailing around for the past 20 years. After feeding us from a tasty 5 foot Wahoo they had caught, he pointed out their favorite anchorage in Bora Bora for us. It was tucked between the outer reef and a little island called Toopua. The winds had moderated but still pushed along between 15 and 20 knots, not that we cared. Our anchorage was as protected as Geoff promised that it would be. We could hear the wind but the water around us was unaffected and flaunted it with a smooth glassy surface. The barbequed steaks that we dined on while celebrating another successful passage were from New Zealand so hinted at things to come. We refilled our glasses with cheap boxed red and talked about those things in the cockpit under a full moon.

sunday september 14^th 2008 (bora bora)

Back home I must have been asked about our plans a million times in the weeks leading up to our departure. I would give a well practiced rundown of the itinerary usually getting as far as the Society Islands before the first “huh, where?”  came in. I would reply, “You know Tahiti? Bora Bora?”  These names were always met with instant recognition. Why? Because Bora Bora has undoubtedly been one of the most hyped up destinations in the Pacific since James Cook declared it the ‘Pearl of the Pacific’ a couple of hundred years ago. The funny thing is that the island is actually only 5 miles long and less than 3 miles wide at its furthest points. The coastal road which circles the whole island is only 32 kilometers long. There are probably 100 islands on the pacific coast of B.C. 10 times the size of Bora Bora that I couldn’t name, and I grew up there. It’s kind of like meeting a big movie star and thinking to yourself “wow, he’s so much shorter in person”.

We woke up this morning excited to find out if Bora Bora could live up to its larger than life reputation. We got ourselves underway and slowly motored towards the southern tip of Toopua. To our right was a great expanse of perfect looking shallow turquoise water. It went all the way to the barrier reef separating our nice calm anchorage from the big bad Pacific swells. It was too much of a temptation for us. We had to get a closer look. No mono hull could follow where we went. The water was less than 6 feet deep and much less than that in many places. We only need a couple of feet of water to float our boat though, so 6 feet was more than enough. Pretty soon we were in the shallows and shortly after that we had visitors. A squadron of 4 big rays swooped underneath of us. We decided to drop our anchor, gather up our snorkel gear and take to the dink. We buzzed along and within 2 minutes we could see dozens of shadowy figures coasting along just above the sand through the clear shallow water. We bailed out of the dinghy into water that was just above my waist. Actually I bailed out, Jaime decided to stay put until she was satisfied that it was safe. I put on a mask and stuck my head under water. At first I was stoked to see that there were a couple of rays only a few feet from my face, then I turned around and saw about 20 more coming right at us. Eventually Jaime couldn’t resist and joined me in the crystal clear warm water as dozens of stingrays gracefully soared and sashayed around us. We were so caught up in their show that it took a good 10 minutes for us to notice the first shark. They had probably come over to see what all the fuss was about and had been circling around just outside the big swarm of rays. We started noticing more and more, they had probably been there all along, and at one point counted 6 sharks within 30 feet. You would be watching a ray swim between your legs, turn around and see a 5 foot black tip 8 feet behind you. It was an unforgettable experience that could only be topped by the sight of 5 boats overflowing with tourists dropping their anchors nearly on top of us. They came out of nowhere. The scene above water was far more terrifying than the sharks and stingrays below. One of the gaudy colored boats of mass tourism was captained by the kind of guy that Ghandi would want to punch in the face. He was a way-too-happy banana hammock wearing “Tahitian” (a French guy with long hair, a tan and a couple tattoos) giving 50 Japanese tourists their “authentic lagoon shark encounter”. He was so busy regurgitating his canned repertoire of stupid French jokes to the Japanese tourists that he nearly hit us. Then without even looking over the side he heaved a 30 pound Danforth anchor into 4 feet of water completely oblivious to any shark, ray or snorkeler in the vicinity. We couldn’t get out of there fast enough. We have no idea why they would all bomb in on top of us like that when there was miles of empty lagoon to choose from. It was like being the only vehicle in a 5000 car parking lot and having 5 bus loads of screaming 8 year olds screech up and start taking pictures of you. We were pretty happy to have had the whole thing to ourselves for a while though and the way back to the boat we consoled ourselves with the thought of all the money those party crashers had to fork over to yellow g-string wearing “Tahitians” to get their little show.

After lunch on the boat we continued on around the southern tip of Toopua and headed for Pavai Bay. We found free mooring balls there; Geoff had tipped us off on this little score as well. It was hard to believe that there was anything free in French Polynesia but here we are barbequing more New Zealand beef in the shadow of Mount Otemanu. You know, it would be a real shame not to climb that thing while we’re here.

monday september 15^th 2008 (bora bora)

We started our day with a grueling fitness regime, swimming to shore and back. Okay so we’re not at the peak of physical fitness but it feels great just being able to get in the water every day so we usually end up splashing around for at least an hour or two.

Bloody Mary’s not only provides these mooring balls free for anyone to use but they also have a fantastic dock to tie up to. It’s all lit up and even has little steps to make the climb out of your dinghy easier. There’s even a tap for us to take on water if we need it. For these reasons we vowed to give them our business tonight and for another reason it will give us something to look forward to after a long walk in the hot sun.

 

Jaime turned our hike into a walking tour of Bora Bora’s gift shops. Every one of them has about 15 varieties of vanilla scented oil, but not the vanilla scented oil that Jaime needed. I was beginning to worry that she would run out of appendages to sample the seemingly endless scents on when she finally found the fragrance of her dreams. I convinced her to keep checking for a better price which of course we never found. Jaime took great care to ensure that I was constantly reminded of what an evil creature I had become in her eyes. How could I have stood between her and vanilla inspired happiness? Little did she know that my convincing her to pass on the bottle was all a ploy. I picked up her a bottle of the chosen scent while she was in the bathroom and it was in my pocket while she berated me all afternoon.  

 

Viatape was dusty and filled with tourists on shore leave. Kind of a crappy town. I somehow expected Bora Bora’s main village to be revved up and sexy but it was nothing like that. It is a dusty one horse town without much going on so I grabbed a six pack from Chin Lee’s grocery and retreated to the slapdash where I drank beers in the sun, listened to music and generally irritated Jaime who was still trying to relax with her book.

Later on we got all gussied up for our big night out at Bloody Mary’s. After scanning the big boards filled with names of celebrities that have visited we took advantage of their “shoe check” to get rid of our flip-flops so that we could walk barefoot through the sand on our way to the bar. We ordered up a couple and were immediately asked to settle our bill. We said no thanks and explained that we were planning on holding down the coconut tree stumps we were sitting on for a while. That’s when we learned that Bloody Mary’s has an earlier bed time than bridge night at an old folks’ home. They were closing! The manager came by and told us that since they didn’t have a front door to close that we could actually stay as long as we liked. We appreciated the offer but somehow sitting there by ourselves at a bar with no tender even sucks the novelty out of sandy floors and tiki lights. There’s always tomorrow.

tuesday september 16^th 2008 (bora bora)

Jaime was about to splash off the back deck wearing a mask which made her eyeballs appear twice their normal size with her signature neon pink snorkel dangling from the strap. It was a funny shot so I said “hold that pose” and ran inside to grab the camera. After searching through all the usual places I shouted “where’s the camera?” out to the mask wearing pink snorkeled would-be swimmer who then came in and joined the search. I knew that this was a bad sign because Jaime knows where everything is and wouldn’t come in from outside to help me look for something unless she was really stumped. We also both knew without saying anything that the last time we saw the camera was on the Bloody Mary’s dock last night when I said “you take care of the camera and I’ll go get the dink”. The parameters of our search soon extended all the way to the dock, then to the bar itself. No happy ending this time. The Cannon had finally used up all of its nine lives or decided that life here on the Society’s beats being dragged around, dropped and forgotten by us all the time. So now we are onto our back-up camera, a free Sony digital we received from Telus (back when we lived on dry land) for buying one year of internet service. It drains the batteries after about 10 pictures and, generally speaking, is a real piece of crap so we’ll do our best with it but if you notice a decrease in picture quantity and quality blame Jaime. Just kidding.

We’ve found that besides being a great hangover cure (not that we needed one this morning) that it’s really hard to feel bad about almost anything after a good swim. On occasion we’ve even decided to postpone fights on the grounds that if we are still angry after a swim that we’ll keep fighting then. So by the time we got back to the boat I was already talking about new cameras. We’ve seen a few people with these great little Olympus waterproof digitals that would really suit our lifestyle so if there’s one positive thing it’s that we now have an excuse to shop around. The only problem is that to buy one here we would have to mortgage our boat so in the meantime we’re stuck with the old cereal box freebee.

 

Apparently we weren’t the only ones there who had decided to drink on a stomach only two chicken wings away from being completely empty. It was under these circumstances that we met the crew of three from a boat called God Spede. Jeff the Chef, his wife Angie and boat owner Fred saved the night. Much to the horror of the impeccably dressed snobbish French crowd around us, these New Jersey natives were roaring through daiquiri’s and had us laughing beer through our noses most of the night. Of course no good night can end without someone falling out of their dinghy, and I’m happy to report that this time it wasn’t me.

wednesday september 17^th 2008 (bora bora)

I’ve lost Jaime to Ayn Rand and John Galt. She opened Atlas Shrugged a couple of days ago and I haven’t seen her since. Okay, I see her but she isn’t speaking or moving. There are momentary pauses for food and bathroom breaks but it’s kind of like hanging around waiting for someone to come out of a coma. She’s on page 346 of 1060 so it looks like I’m on my own for a while.

We somehow came up with this idea that we would defy all charts and sound warnings and attempt to put our shallow draft to full advantage by rounding the southern tip of the island. The Gemini might have made it but our stomachs couldn’t. We were in 3 feet of water and approaching the trickiest section when we chickened out and dropped the hook to check it out by dinghy first. Once we got to the narrow channel I jumped over the side and was in water well below my waist which put an end to our overly ambitious plan.

 

friday september 19^th 2008 (bora bora)

We set off clockwise around the island today. Around the northern tip and past the airport we found a spot to leave the big boat and dinghy to our destination; The Lagoonarium. We weren’t too sure if this was the name of a dive site, a snorkel site or an aquarium but it sounded worth checking out. We tied the dink up to a tree and started wandering towards the spot until we were accosted by yet another crazy French guy. He started going on about how this was a private island. He told us about a time that he was in New York and some big guy came up and he had the same thing happen to him and this is no different.

“You mean they have a Lagoonarium in New York?” I asked.

We never found out about that but it turns out that this Lagoonarium place is actually a puddle 3 feet deep with a crappy looking fence around it. They trap a few rays in there and then shuttle in tourists from the resorts charging 35 dollars a head to splash around for a couple of hours. What a joke. To justify this the guy started explaining that all the development has caused the sharks and rays to disappear and this is the only place that you can see them. We think the sermon was for the benefit of the boatload of new arrivals that might have been wondering why they had just paid 35 dollars to splash around in a puddle. We didn’t have the heart to tell them that 5 minutes away you can swim with more rays and sharks than you can count in the most beautiful and natural setting imaginable… for free.

Needless to say we left. What a different place Bora Bora would be if we didn’t have the boat to get around. For those people this crappy Lagoonarium was the big excursion for the day. Even a simple 5 minute dinghy ride around the corner isn’t an option though, so they are stuck with this nonsense-spewing jackass and his 35 dollar puddle. I wonder how many people go home and tell their friends, “Bora Bora was really nice but because of all the development the only place you can see rays and sharks are in a little puddle this guy penned in”.

sunday september 21^st 2008 (bora bora)

We’ve been on the eastern side of the island for the past couple of days anchored just inside of Point Tupitipiti. It is as private and picturesque of a place that we’ve ever been but we’ve been tipped off on a dive site just outside the pass that we are itching to check out. We pulled out of yet another sub 5 foot anchorage and headed for the pass. We timed our arrival to be between the dive companies’ morning and afternoon dives and it worked perfectly. We were outside the pass and taking a mooring ball at noon and had the whole place to ourselves. The water was gin clear even by the high standards of the South Pacific and we were soon swimming around counting black tip sharks. Jaime was a little easier to coax into the water this time because at 30 feet we had a little more separation from the sharks than the 3 feet we had during our last shark encounter. We were just hanging off the mooring line checking things out when Jaime started squeezing my arm, I turned to see her pointing franticly behind the boat. An 8 foot lemon shark was slowly cruising onto the scene. This is by far the biggest shark either of us has seen and she was beautiful. I say she only because the shark was so big around that it looked pregnant. Within a few minutes a couple more came sliding into view. Our jaws dropped and it was all we could do to keep the snorkels in our mouths. These sharks made the black tips that we were previously admiring look like sardines. They seemed happy to just pass in and out of view as they circled around underneath of our boat. I spent about an hour in the water and they were there the whole time. Of course there were all kinds of other fish swirling around but we couldn’t take our eyes of the three big sharks. It was a total thrill to have these giants glide along 30 feet directly below. They were almost hypnotically graceful but moved with a cool efficiency that left a chill.

Of course we were both pretty excited as we toweled off on deck. Jaime was facing forwards and I was facing her looking back towards the ocean. We were gushing on about the amazing shark encounter and didn’t think it could get any better when out of the corner of my eye I saw a massive explosion of foam shoot spray 30 feet into the air. Jaime saw my eyes widen and mouth drop. She turned to look over her shoulder and saw the remains of big crashing waves like someone had just dropped a house into the water from a thousand feet up. Neither of us could explain. We were staring at the spot while trying to come up with theory’s when a humpback whale erupted from the deep. With incomprehensible power it pushed its way out of the water all the way back to it’s pectoral fins before crashing back down in the kind of slow motion that only a truly massive object can create and detonating a seawater bombshell at least twice the size of our boat. Before we could even comment another city bus sized whale did the same thing, and then another. They were apparently tired of the ocean and were trying to take flight. We couldn’t believe what we were seeing. We watched a half dozen whales breach like this before they finally settled down and just started skimming along the surface with the occasional spout to mark their progress. Pretty soon they were out of sight. In stunned silence we slipped off the mooring ball and made our way back into the pass.

I wonder if we should compare notes with the people who visited the Lagoonarium?

tuesday september 23^rd 2008 (bora bora)

We’ve decided to take a mooring ball at the Bora Bora yacht club. It’s a bit pricey but the place has been here forever and is a good spot to start getting to work on our departure chores. The prices aren’t unreasonable and the couple that just bought the place are very welcoming and friendly. They have a barbeque area anyone can use, Hollywood showers, laundry, a great patio and everyone keeps raving about the food at the restaurant so we’ll have to try that out too.

Tonight a few boats in the anchorage have organized a barbeque though. These things can be a little painful but since we know most of the people going to this one we’ll pack up our hot dogs and have a good time.

wednesday september 24^th 2008 (bora bora)

Its always amazing how much there is to do before we leave and we always underestimate how long it will take. “Throwing on a load of laundry and picking up a couple things from the store” has turned into:

4 loads of laundry which have stretched overnight and into the next day. Two trips to town in the dinghy for groceries, the first to pick up a few things and the second to pick up a couple of more that we forgot. I changed the oil and filter, cleaned the raw water intake filter and topped off the coolant. The drive leg has been greased and, along with the transmission, has had it’s lubricant topped off. I changed the fuel filter and tightened the alternator belt. We filled up all the water tanks then I dissembled the wheel mount for the autopilot, tightened the belt and flushed out the bearings with fresh water. Jaime rebuilt the inside of the cabin and transformed it from the relaxed living-in-a-lagoon condition to full battle passage readiness. That’s a day and a half summed up in a paragraph.

This pre-departure ritual actually serves to get us in the leaving frame of mind though. Once we have been through all of that we have usually come to terms with leaving a place like Bora Bora and are ready for the next thing. In this case the next thing is an almost-atoll called Aitutaki. Aitutaki is a part of the Cook Island chain. It’s situated about 150 miles North of Raratonga and 482 miles to our southwest. The winds are light right now so we are preparing for a 5 day passage. If we’re lucky the wind will fill in and we’ll make it in 4, but even so it will still be our longest since the Pacific crossing. The place has a narrow, shallow, tricky pass and is the first we’ve seen to advertise a towing service for the boats that run aground on the way in. Call them on your VHF and for the price of 5 Bora Bora chicken wings they will come and tow you into the harbor. That about sums up all the information we have on our next stop.

thursday september 25^th 2008 (bora bora)

Well dear friends and family who are gainfully employed with expendable income, you have missed your opportunity to come swooping into Bora Bora, rent a nice over-the-water bungalow and have us stay over to use your shower and raid your mini bar. We are very disappointed in you all.

Our last load of laundry is put away. Our bill is paid in full. All we have to do now is update the website and tension the rig. I explained this a while back and we’ve done a good enough job to keep the mast upright while we probe around the lagoon, but not for a 500 mile ocean passage. We’ll have to get that sorted out before we go anywhere. So we’ll get those things done and tonight we’ll take one of the free moorings at Bloody Mary’s.

 

Otherwise all that’s left to do now is sit back, wait for tomorrow and watch the charter boats crash into each other. We probably shouldn’t enjoy it so much but there is something insanely amusing about watching a French dentist with a pony tail on the deck of a 38 foot catamaran simultaneously curse at his wife and take a call on his cell phone as they run over a mooring ball for the seventh time in a row. We think he was actually on the phone with the charter office asking for instructions on how to pick up the mooring ball.