July 29, Moorea

This is what you would call paradise. We are back on Moorea at a beautiful anchorage with a sandy beach, palm trees, great snorkeling, a quiet paved road and mountains rising up right behind it. We arrived Tuesday afternoon and celebrated our first move west (the right direction) and the resumption of life with refrigeration (which we haven’t had since leaving Seattle). Hooray!
We spent a day touring the island with our friends Beth and Dave, here on their honeymoon. We took them out for a day sail on the ocean. Yesterday we frolicked with a fleet of tame stingrays. When you feed them they come running, push their snouts against your body, and insistently ask for more. We then had an idyllic leisurely lunch at a restaurant on a little island on the reef. And we have been enjoying all of this with delightful fellow cruisers, mostly from the west coast of the US.
We are happy to be out of metropolitan Papeete. The anchorage there was definitely urban – big marine thoroughfares, people coming and going in their dinghies to shop, go to school (families lived there and ferried the kids into school every morning) and do business, boats packed cheek by jowl. Not a lot of friendliness.
As for six weeks without refrigeration in 90 degrees heat day in day out, we were saving energy to nurse along the house battery bank, which is down two batteries of a size we can’t replace here. We will be fine being careful, running the engine and the wind generator more than usual to recharge. In any event we survived without ice, ice cream, cold beer or pop. We learned to appreciate canned goods of every kind. Every canned French pate you can imagine, we tried..goose liver, pork liver, duck, mushroom, canned mackerel, sardines, spam. We polished off cans of green beans and peas that had been sitting around on the boat gathering dust since 2004. We tried the exotic sounding cassoulet (which turned out to be franks and beans). In town we managed by shopping every day (at times charming but mostly very inconvenient) buying the smallest portions available and eating everything until it was gone. (We got really tired of black olives which only came in a big can.) It was kind of like a big science experiment. What cheese survives the best? Reggiano parmesan, hands down. How long can an open jar of pickles go without refrigeration? (Don’t know yet and we will toss it before we find out). We plan to return to the Leeward side of the Society Islands this week for some island hopping. Then off to Tonga via the Cook Islands in mid-August.

July 19, Papeete

Still in Papeete, still working on a myriad of minor boat repairs and improvements. The wind is gone so we are not missing much out on the sea. The Heiva festival is almost over. We have seen dance shows with casts of close to 200 hip swaying women, tattooed men of war, costume changes, orchestras and singers depicting creation myths, pop bands singing American covers (Rollin on the River and Blue Suede Shoes being particular crowd favorites), quilting, basketry and elaborate shell jewelry contests, stone lifters, javelin throwers, fruit carrying races, and military pomp and circumstance for Bastille Day.
July is a big month around here. This is –supposedly, I hope I am not here long enough to find out – the coolest month of the year here. A good time for the athletes who have sweated it out all year to show their stuff. My personal favorite has been the outrigger canoe races.
Canoe, va’a in Tahitian, is really big here. When I first arrived I was thrilled at all the small boats but I did not imagine in my wildest dreams how many there were. (I suppose that living at anchor out in the lagoon it is only natural that this would be what was all around me. Better than cars and vehicle noise!) Boats are stored everywhere along the shore and across the street from the beach. Inside, outside, lots of them. Cars are sold with “racks va’a” (canoe racks) just like ski racks in the US. There are singles, triples, sixes, twelves (2 sixes rigged together), and for special occasions, sixteens. Novices learn in 12-kid barges with life vests. In the morning, at lunchtime, near sundown, the boats move onto the water for a spin. Some look to be recreational, some competitive, some single sex, some mixed boats. (This is in the big city, apparently in the old days canoes were tabu for women). The bow oarsman steers and directs the other oarsmen with what sounds like singing or chanting.
The races ranged in distance from 6 km to the big marathon around Moorea of 84 km (roughly 50 miles). The winners of the senior women’s marathon (I didn’t get the distance) completed in one hour and 46 minutes and that team, an elite group that competes internationally, was way ahead of the other 18 boats. The Moorea race is men only, and there were about 50 boats competing. This year the seas were calm and the winners, Shell Va’a (sponsored by Shell Oil), broke a record by completing the course in just under 6 hours. Small boats lined the passage between Moorea and Tahiti to watch the finish. Having sailed the ten miles between islands on a windy day with high seas really gives one an appreciation for the courage and tenacity of these athletes and their Polynesian ancestors who colonized the South Pacific in these small craft.
Tomorrow night we see the winners of the song and dance contests. Should be memorable.

July 12, Papeete

July 12, Papeete
We left Raiatea on June 28. This was a swift change of plans to take advantage of favorable winds at the end of a storm system that had dumped huge quantities of rain the previous several days. Turns out the system had about another week to run its course with relatively strong winds, rain, and at times, endless rainbows. Our short easy overnight passage to the island of Tahiti turned out to be demanding and uncomfortable and we cut it short at Moorea when we realized the anchorage at Tahiti would be untenable in these conditions. That meant we had the picture postcard bays of Moorea virtually to ourselves for 5 days. (The sailors were hunkered down elsewhere and the honeymooners were honeymooning.) We were able to take a great hike into the mountains and go snorkeling out by the reef during a couple of weather windows. Moorea is lovely.
Thinking the weather system was over we pulled anchor for the 10 mile trip to Papeete. Outside the reef was something else again, pretty much the same conditions we bailed on the previous week (heading into 30 knots of wind, for the sailors out there). Not insane but not pleasant. This is not the South Pacific sailing of my dreams but it should improve dramatically once we start heading in the right direction, which is west, more or less.
We have been in Papeete for a week now, anchored along with 100 other international boats and a very full marina. There are a lot of facilities right here, including, allegedly, wireless internet service (at $5 per hour), an internet café which is where you go when you get totally frustrated with the wireless (a relative bargain at $10 per hour because it is reliable), a huge megastore down the street, a McDonalds (just over $20 for the advertised special, a full meal deal for 2 ).
We are keeping very occupied working on the boat, shopping for the boat, shopping for dinner, engaging with the internet. What would take 45 minutes at home ( a quick trip to Home Depot for example) takes more like 4.5 hours here. Which supplier will have what we need? Where is it? How to get there? How to communicate in French what specific piece of hardware you need? Not here? Where do I get it? Woops, I forgot to take that measurement. Back on the bus, back to the marina, back to the dinghy, back to the boat. Back to the supplier. Woops, closed for lunch…For the most part one weathers it in good humor because that is what a life in port is for voyagers like us. It is also an educational way to engage in the culture, master the metric system, and jumpstart my rusty French.