Moorea

Papeete, the main city in Tahiti is an interesting city. We take a 20 min bus ride in to town to explore and visit the local market, and visit the marine stores of course. I got a tattoo on my leg calf to celebrate sailing over equator and to Tahiti.
We were having lunch on a park bench when a very large polynesian man sat on the other end of the bench and the back of the bench started to collapse tipping us back. His family started laughing and he started laughing and then we were all laughing, no harm done.
We also took long walks up into the hills to see how the rich lived. The poor seemed to often live in shacks on the waterfront. ( In the old days s..t runs downhill was why the rich lived up high.)
The last day there got very windy making for a restless night and wet dingy rides. After almost 2 weeks here It was time to leave. We joined the sail over to Moorea with the 'puddle jump' sailing rendezvous. But we left 1.5 hours earlier as we knew it was a small anchorage at Moorea. The fast Catarmarins caught up to us as we entered the pass. It was blowing 30+ knots all the way across. We anchored behind the reef in a 20 boat anchorage that soon held 50 boats as they all came in and anchored way to close.
The next day they had a tradional polynesian lunch and some games for everyone. We entered the outrigger canoe races. Each canoe had 2 polynesian paddlers and four of us sailors. Six races of 4 canoes each was done. We won our heat and every heat had one canoe tip over. ( the trick is to keep your weight towards the outrigger) We also did the banana carrying race and I got in front because the 2 guys in front of me slipped and fell so I won my heat, but was still way behind the times of the young guys in the other heats.
After 2 days here we moved to the head of Opunohu bay partly to get away from all the boats. We had one large catamaran resting against us when the wind died and he had to move as we were there first. There was lots of this happening.
These are super anchorages with hight rock peaks all around and these are considered some of the most beatuiful anchorages in the world. We did a cycle trip down the island a bit and then moved the boat over to cooks bay for a change and in a day or two will head over to Huahine island about 90 miles away. Cooks bay is a lot more commercilized than the quite bay we were in. While typing this we are listening to a amplified music festival coming of the beach with lots of nice music and even some Elvis thrown in.

Off to Moorea

Wiil have to keep this short for now, the internet service here is awful. I cant even phone home on a land line with a phone card to the Yukon. We have asked people and they say we are doing it right, but cant get a call through.
We had a good stay in Tahiti, lots of walks into the hills. The last day we had 30 to 35 knots of South wind in anchorage. So wet dinghy rides. Yesterday we joined the Puddle Jumps sailing rally over to the island of Moorea about 14 miles away. It was a super sail across in 35 knots of wind and now anchored here for a few days.

Tahiti

The 170 mile crossing to Tahiti was fast with strong winds just forward of the beam. But starting after midnight squalls came through every half hour all night and into the next day. The wind would increase to about 30 knots and heavy rain would comed down. I did not get any sleep that night with constantly adjusting the head sail for the wind. I could have just left a bit of sail up but we were in a hurry to get to Tahiti before dark that day or it would be another night at sea, so I had to keep our speed up by keeping at the sails as the wind went up and down.
The last 10 miles the wind increased to a steady 30 to 35 knots, near gale force. We anchored near Venus point the first 2 nights in front of the Tahiti yacht club until we got our bearings and checked into customs through our agent.
We bused into Papeete the first day another cruising couple invited us over to the table for a beer at the pub beside the customs office. So we chated with them will our agent checked us and them in. There engine had quit 800 miles from mexico so they bypassed the tuamotus and most of Marqueses and sailed to Papeetes harbor entrance and called for a tow in and to there surprise a big tug boat came out and towed them in and they were presented with a $900 dollar tow bill becasue it was Sunday at double time.
We checked out the dock situation at waterfront and decided to move over to the boat anchorage just past the airport. We moved here after 2 days and were amazed at how many boats there were anchored out. probably over 500 boats. Many of them French boats on moorings. This is a good spot as you are protected from open ocean by a coral reef and the marina is 5 minutes away with a dinghy dock and water and garbage disposal and can bus into town. We have a few small boat chores to do, and the usual provisioning and water and fuel for boat. Touch up a few rust spots on boat. But everything is running pretty good now.
Tahiti was the first goal of our Sailing voyage, so it is great to be here. Its a busy interesting place, lots to see and do and fianllly some great stores to get food at though still expensive.
We will stay here for another week or so and then head for the beatuiful island of Moorea.

Sailing the Tuamotus

The sailing passage to the Tuamotus was slower than what we had come use to. The first day and half was great winds. The wind then went light with us sailing at 1.5 to 4 knots most of it and some motoring. It was a new moon also so the nights were dark. The passage took 5 days instead of the expected 4. We could have done 4 days if we motored alot, but prefered to sail.

As we arrived at Manihi our first stop, a huge rain squall came through and winds jumping to 25 knots. We then forced our way through the pass into Manihi's lagoon. It took us awhile to get slack current at passes right. Our pacific tide book was all wrong, eventually we found that slack was 3 hrs after slack tide at Makatea on our Navionics chip in the chartplotter.
We stopped at 3 Islands in the Tuamotus, Manihi, Rangoria and Tikehau and spent 3 or 4 days at each. They each had there own character. Manihi was special with a small quiet village with a small store one side of the pass and a $300 to $600 dollar a night resort on other but down a mile or so. Canoes would visit our boat occasionally trying to sell black pearls for 5 to 10 dollars and the stores they would be 80 to 250 dollars. We took a couple of the local kids for a short dinghy ride as they were following us around and wanted a ride. Later walking down the sea wall we saw a moray eel against the wall and a 7 foot shark in the lagoon by the dinghy. Lots of other colorful fish could be seen as well from the sea wall. A fisherman gave Dorothy some fish for dinner all cleaned and filleted ready to cook. She said the grouper was really good eating.
When it was time to leave we could not get our anchor up so we called Francesco over on radio. He is a local who helps cruisers with everything including bringing bread out to us boats. He free dove down 62 feet to our anchor chain and it took 2 hours with a break in between to get our chain unwrapped from the coral. Then he was not going to charge us anything. But we gave him a mickey of rum which he liked and some cash. We talked to a boat the next day who had him untangle there chain to as they also were stuck, almost every boat had problems with the coral.
Rangoria was a busier place being the biggest of the atolls. But still a great place to visit. We took a snorkeling tour of the huge lagoon with the crew of Demelza. We snorkeled with manta rays in the pass there and also visited a pearl farm that showed us how they grew pearls.
The last atoll we visited Tikehau was the quietest place and we took another tour with the crew of Demelza and also with Mary Powells crew. Did snorkeling and visited a super bird island where you could walk among nesting birds that just ignored you. Also visited 'Eden' on a motu in the lagoon that is proving you can grow all sorts of vegetables and fruits in the coral based soil there and it is a religious community, a neat spot. Finally it is time to head to Tahiti 170 miles away.