Month: February 2021

Sunday February 28, R & R on the boat. Dan has been reading the book “Robin”, a biography about Robin Williams. I brought along two craft projects that were started several years ago. The first project was counted cross stitch. I’m not finished with it but I can’t do any more as I need more of a few specific thread colors. The second is one Danielle and I started maybe 25 years ago? It’s an eye spy mini quilt made up of juvenile novelty fabrics cut in hexagons and solid colored triangles, English Paper Piecing, all sewn together by hand. I’m on row 6 of 15.

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Monday March 1, we took the boat out for a short sail to fill up the gas tank. The gas dock is at another marina. For dinner we walked to JoJo’s pizza located the other side of the park. Dan played a game of foseball with our waiter, close game but Dan won.

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Tuesday March 2, we hung out at the ferry station, good WiFi, had lunch, picked up a schedule. We’re thinking of taking a day trip by ferry, over to Moorea and possibly take a guided tour of the island.

Later we had sundowners at the outdoor bar next to the marina with Kris and David from s/v Taipan. Their boat is also here in the marina. We are both looking to sail to Fiji in the near future. They will be returning home to Australia completing their circumnavigation that began in 2004.

The world just got a little bit smaller, as Kris and David know our buddies on Saltair3! They were all friends in the Bahamas.

Chocolate day #12.

Wednesday March 3, boat projects in the morning, thunderstorms rolled through in the afternoon. Dan read, I sewed.

Thursday March 4, spent time at the Ferry terminal on WiFi, doing more research.

There were several significant earthquakes at the Kermadec Islands Region, northern New Zealand today, one as high as 8.1. This prompted tsunami warnings across many South Pacific Islands. Here in Papeete, officials said 60cm to 1.5 meter (2-5 ft) waves were possible or higher high tide levels. Some areas were evacuated. Nothing significant was noticed by us, we did follow all the updated reports. Tsunami sirens here were not sounded.

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For dinner I made a cold pasta salad with shrimp, onion, green pepper, roasted red peppers, chick peas in a white wine lemon juice dressing. topped with shredded Parmesan cheese.

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Friday March 5, it’s a cloudy day with little wind, so we turned-on the engine to charge the boat’s batteries. Yet, the engine was not charging the batteries! After an investigation of checking connections and wire continuity, we found a disconnected wire at the oil pressure sensor that provides an indication the motor is running… which “switches on” the voltage regulator. Problem solved saved $100’s of dollars!

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Today is a public holiday in French Polynesia. It’s Missionary Day. Schools are closed as well as most businesses.

Saturday March 6, boat project day, it’s never ending. Today Dan added waterproofing to the Bimini. I read through Dan’s ASA text books. He’s an ASA sailing instructor. We went through all the review questions guess I know how sail! I learned a new valuable knot, the Rolling Hitch.

Chocolate Day #13.

Monday February 22, 3B’s is a local restaurant micro brewery with outdoor seating. On Mondays they have 1/2 price beer. We went there for dinner, it was a bit crowded for me be we were sitting on the outside edge.

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Our windless broke when we were in the Tuamotu Islands. It’s a motorized device to lower and raise the anchor. We are on hold here waiting for the part to be delivered. It was ordered from the UK and is currently in Los Angeles, expected delivery early March, maybe.

Tuesday February 23, on Sunday at the market, Jaye purchased some Rambutans. She gave us a few to try. They are a tropical fruit, very sweet and sugary tasting. Cut open the the furry red outside to reveal the slippery white gelatin like fruit inside. There is also a pit within the white. Dan ate the pit too, he said it has the texture of coconut.

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For dinner we had pizza with Cindy and Mark on their boat, ah air conditioning!

Wednesday February 24, spent a fair amount of time on WiFi at the Miri Miri Tea House, with snacks of course. Researching our next destinations. Sundowners with Brigitte and Guillaume on our boat. Also a delayed chocolate day # 11.

Thursday February 25, Brigitte took me to this fabulous Chinese owned craft store near the market. we both purchased some polyester strings and I got a few black pearls, had them drilled while we waited.

For dinner I made Wild Rice, Cabbage and Chickpea Pilaf, think this a new favorite of ours. Also added some sun dried tomatoes.

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Friday February 26, Did I mention it’s hot here? When we were in Panama, we used an old Thistle Mainsail and Jib as a sunshade for the boat. We brought them out today to do the same thing except with a few modifications. We removed the bolt rope from the main and the cable from the jib, sewed those two straight edges ends together. The other sides were left alone, it works. For the bow, we have have a blue canvas salvaged dinghy cover from Hawaii, thanks to Mark and Beth.

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Our new friends Brigitte and Guillaume departed today, they are heading back to the Tuamotu Islands. He has a job prospect as the dive manager at a resort.

Saturday February 27, just another day in paradise.

Monday February 15, final provisioning day with the car, produce and perishables. Dan did errands with car in the morning and I baked a loaf of bread.

Sometimes in the evening we’ll watch a movie. We brought several CD’s with us. Movies weren’t high on our priority list when we set off on this journey. What we should have done, is loaded them all on an external hard drive for space savings. Not really sure where some of these movies came from, our kids I suspect. Anyway a few really bad ones, in our opinions, Just Friends and American Psycho, they may just get left behind somewhere.

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Tuesday February 16, The rental car was returned today. We were able to pick up our refilled propane tank before dropping off the car. This tank is now filled with butane, they said it burns hotter than propane, another challenge. We also dropped off laundry at a cleaning service, no self serve coin operated machines here.

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Had sundowners with Cindy and Mark on s/v Cream Puff, they are several boats down on our dock. She is from Texas he’s from the UK.

Wednesday February 17, picked up our laundry this morning. Also shopped for swim trunks for Dan. We added a one week extension at the marina.

Thursday February 18, boat projects day. Walked to Tahiti Tourism for WiFi, it still works outside their building after hours. It’s the best WiFi nearby. Dinner at the food trucks.

Friday February 19, a lovely rainy day! I was able to purchase a new SIM card today for internet, amazing how fast 10G of data goes. Later we video chatted with Beth and the boys, Luke, Mecca and the girls as well as with friends John and Joy.

Had sundowners with s/v Winsome, Jaye and Irwin. Jaye is a net controller on the the French Poly Net, on single sideband hight frequency radio. That’s how we met them. The Poly Net is a way for cruisers regularly to communicate for safety and social purposes. The broadcasts are twice a day. They were anchored by the airport here in Tahiti but came into the marina for a few days. Originally from the US, they had lived in several states, but have lived in Tahiti for over 5 years. Irwin used to sail small boats including Thistles!

Saturday February 20, rainy day! video chatted in the morning with Danielle and Mike, also Ben, Rachael and Cora, did boat projects rest of the day.

Sunday February 21, We went with Jaye to the Sunday morning outdoors farmers market. The best market we’ve seen. Produce is bundled in little basket, typically 1 for 300 or 2 for 500 CFP ($3 and $5 USD), or 1 for 200, 3 for 500 CFP. We shared several purchases of 2. Many vendors toss in a additional item, like we bought 2 bunches of bananas and an avocado was added to the bag. The produce tables were on several streets surrounding the Market, as well as vendors inside. Fish and meats are inside, we purchased a swordfish steak.

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In afternoon we put the Sailrite on the deck so I could repair a tear in the sacrificial sunbrella on the Genoa. Dan decided to lower other halyards to check for chafing. The code sail had several bad spots, it was shortened by 4 feet.

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Chocolate day #10. Grilled swordfish for dinner, with grilled zucchini.

Saturday February 13, with a rented car, were touring the island. Today we will explore the Eastern shore.

In 1769, James Cook was the first to explore the island on foot. Over the next 5 years other explorers had also walked the land. In 1818 building of a shipping port began. This area is the bay where today the city of Papeete, the capital of French Polynesia is. Tahiti was very isolated to maritime shipping routes until after the open of the Panama Canal when regular shipping lines began.

The first stop on our self guided tour was the James Norman Hall Museum. His most famous book was Mutiny on the Bounty, which he co-wrote with Charles Nordhoff, both Americans.

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One of Captain Cooks exploration voyages in the South Pacific island was to observe the passage of Venus in front of the sun. The goal was to calculate the distance of the Earth from the Sun. He settled near a northern peninsula they now called Venus Point at what is now Matavai Bay.

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Further south, the church of Tautira, completed in 1865, is dedicated to Our Lady of Peace. Tautira, for the Catholic mission. This is where the first Spanish Franciscan missionaries settled in 1774.

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Sunday February 14 ❤️, day two of our adventure. Traveling down the Western shore there were many historic places or structures that are no longer there.

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Where the road ends on the southern coast, in Teahupoo at the Havae Pass, has become world known area for championship surfing. The barrier reef lies very shallow and with a slowed distant drop off of the reef, this produces tunnels of waves. The water was quite calm on this day.

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Chocolate day #9, again we missed that last scheduled one! Guess being Valentines Day it was meant to be❤️

Wednesday February 10, we arrived around noon. The morning was spent sailing through a horrible squall with lots of thunder and lightning and a downpour of rain.

After registering with the marina, we went to a local sandwich shop, then ate lunch by the water. Later headed off to the Tahiti Tourism Office, picked up a couple of maps and hung around a bit on their free WiFi.

Stopped by the Market but it was closed at 4pm.

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Thursday February 11, Got caught up with social medial, added photos to Facebook and Instagram as well as published 2 blog post. Later we had lunch at a restaurant on the outdoor deck, by the water. Still arrived at the market too late. Walked around a lot, had drinks and appetizers at an outdoor bar on the waterfront.

When he was here in 1968, Bernard Moitessier mentioned in his book, “The Long Way” that he was disappointed with the construction of the new road along the warf 50+ years later it looks great, and we believe he’d be happy with what they’ve done with the place.

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Friday February 12, on our daily walk, we finally made it to the market when it was open! Half of the area is produce and fish, the other is more miscellaneous vendors. We did buy some vanilla, and vanilla beans. Afterwards we had lunch, then stopped at the Tahiti Pearl Market.

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Early afternoon we picked up a rental car we reserved the day before. Did some non-perishable provisioning. First to the Polynesian Trading Company, they sell bulk items from Costco. Then to a really nice grocery store, Carrefour, it’s part department store, part food store, located in a mall.

Monday February 8, Slack tide around noon, to go through the pass. We’re leaving the Tuamotu Islands heading for the Society Islands.

It was a pleasant afternoon sail. After the sunset, Oh my the stars, the Milky Way, the Southern Cross, the lightning! By midnight it was like the 4th of July. 360 degrees of flash. Come 4am, we sailed through a very active, short lived, storm squall, with a downpour of rain, thunder and lightning with 30knots of wind.

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Tuesday February 9, Happy Birthday Dylan! The air is much cooler today, the clouds are thunderous, gray with occasional lightning. The main and Genoa are reefed, staysail is full, 20-28 knots true wind, speed over ground 6-8knots. By evening the wind had dropped to 8knots, still have some gray skies all around.

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Chocolate day# 8, (actually it was supposed to be yesterday) for dinner we had wild rice, cabbage and Chickpea pilaf.

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Wednesday February 3, went ashore this morning, stopped at Yacht Services. Gave them some laundry to wash for us and finally was able to purchase a SIM card for internet! Then we had lunch at a resort the water.

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Thursday February 4, rented bikes from Yacht Services, rode at least 18 miles. Stopped for lunch at an outdoors restaurant. We rode to the airport then an additional 10k.

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Friday February 5, this morning we moved Trance 6 miles south and connected to another mooring ball there.

February 2, was chocolate day #6, today is Chocolate day #7.

Saturday February 6, we sailed to south entrance of Fakarava, we’ll stay here a few days. There are two resorts here, one is closed, the other one has no TV to watch the football game.

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Sunday February 7, Super Bowl Sunday. Mid morning we took the dinghy to pass, the current was slack and about to start flowing into the lagoon. The snorkeling and diving here at the southern pass, is supposedly the best, world class. We drove through, almost to the end, jumped in the water with snorkel gear on, holding onto the dinghy with ropes, then we floated in with the current (dinghy too). So cool! We did this a few times.

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This video below was taken from Trance. A school of mixed fish swam by, Dan was feeding then Pepperidge Farms goldfish.

Had sundowners on the boat next to us, s/v Kathryn del Fuego. Russell and Kate, their nanny Chloe, they have 2 boys Hugo and Felix from the UK.

Thursday January 28, On our way ashore mid morning, we stopped by s/v Seneto and s/v Joy to say goodbye, as well as s/v Lenora but they were not there. Those three are leaving in day or so, we may meet up again. Also took our trash and recycling to the dumpsters. The restaurants at the dock were not open yet, so walked to the little grocery store as Dan wanted sponges to use for applying teak sealer. Josephine’s is down the road next to the store so went there. Larissa and Christoph (s/v Lenora, were there so we had lunch with them on deck by the water. Glad we ran into them before leaving.

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After lunch we video chatted with the kids, that was great!

Departed Rangiroa around 4:30pm, slack tide. Destination is the atoll Apataki.

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Friday, January 29, Happy Birthday Ben! Arrived in Apataki around 11:30am. We are anchored on the far side near the boat yard. There is one other boat here s/v Let it Be from Quebec, Canada, Sylvain and Suzanne. We stopped at their boat to say hello upon returning from a short shore trip.

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Saturday January 30, It was discovered when we pulled up anchor at Rangiroa, our Windless was failing. A Windless is motorized winch that deploys the anchor up and down. Dan needed to assist it using a winch handle and when we dropped anchor in Apataki. Today he worked on trying to remove the motor but looks like it’s epoxied to the fiberglass. Project for another day.

Chocolate day #5!

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Oh my, the Stars! The Milky Way and the Southern Cross! Stargazed on the bow till the moon rose at 8:30pm

Sunday January 31, Happy Birthday Luke! *Sourdough Notes* Baked a Belle loaf this morning as well as chocolate chip cookies.

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Departed our anchorage at 12 noon, to catch the outgoing tide at the pass. Heading for Toau. It is an atoll but there’s a false pass on the north shore we going to. The false pass is around 35ft deep until you get to range markers, then it’s very shallow coral reef. There are 7 mooring buoys here.

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Monday, February 1, Happy Birthday Dan! Went ashore and met Valentine and Gaston who live here, often prepare dinner for the cruisers who visit. You can read about them in several South Pacific cruising guides.

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Late afternoon we shared a bottle of wine with them as well as Martial who is on another boat here, celebrating Dan’s birthday.

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Martial has been here for almost 2 weeks. He’s been helping Gaston build his boat.

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Tuesday February 2, Ground Hog Day, he saw his shadow, 6 more weeks of winter!

Departed Toau at 7am, in hopes to catch slack tide in Fakarava around 2pm. Arrived right on schedule, connected to mooring buoy, engine off, relax time!

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