Life on a sailboat

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.