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.