Saturday night we headed into town and were tempted by the sounds coming from 3 Brasseurs – there was a live band on so we found a table and settled down to watch their performance. They were really good….singing a range of songs from local Tahitian through to reggae and hard rock. Excellent! The guy in the front of the photo, apparently, is a groupie that follows the band around and dances all night. Bill had been to see the Heiva show and joined us later for a beer. Was another fun night in Papeete.
Sunday we had a quiet day on board cleaning and tidying and didn’t venture out at all apart from to the marina lounge to catch up on emails etc. Oh yes…and remember the heavily-armed gendarmes who were looking for GoldenAge in Hiva Oa?? Well, looks like the law caught up with them – the word on the street is that it is up for sale as it has been confiscated by the authorities!!!
Monday morning and we hit the shops again. First stop was the internet café where we managed to get our printing and copying done – hugely expensive – but we are set all the way to New Zealand now with just a few boxes to fill in by hand when they are known. Relieved that is out of the way. Oh yes and I bought some pearls!!!!! Sadly couldn’t afford these amazing designs. But Christmas is coming…..
Back on board Richard finished his anchor locker project – it looked really good. In the afternoon we spent some time doing some navigation and weather studying in preparation for our future passages. We’ve identified islands we fancy visiting including a couple of uninhabited reef atolls on the way. Everything is weather dependent especially as we will be crossing the ‘Dangerous Middle’ which is subject to the vagaries of the South Pacific Convergence Zone which is a moving area full of high winds and thunderstorms. The knack is to identify where it is….so we’ve been boning up on that as we get ready to start moving on again.
In the evening we went out with Bill for dinner at the 3 Brasseurs – great food – and huge pitchers of beers. We had a fun time but managed to get Bill a bit tipsy and had to walk him back to his boat later. Oops LOL!
Tuesday we had a quiet day on board after the partying of the last few days and did a few boat jobs before having a movie night. Appropriately, considering where we are, we watched Walt Disney’s Moana. It is a great animated film about the people of this region with recognisable dancing, hand movements and traditional songs. The giant magic fish hook even appeared in one of the dances we saw at the Heiva….so well done Disney for authenticity.
Wednesday morning I did laundry and we went shopping for the final time. Later on Richard went up the mast to install a new block for our safety line which we will also use to lift dink onto the bow and to check our rigging.
All being well we then headed into town for a final bit of sightseeing. We enjoyed the street art….
We also visited the Catholic Cathedral where the flowers were stunning….
Oh yes…did I tell you about the large numbers of homeless people sleeping rough in Papeete? I think this local guy is just sleeping off his excesses though LOL.
Later on we headed over to the Bora Bora Lounge for a mini Island Packet rendezvous with Linus and Janet with their daughter Sophie, Bill and ourselves. Later on we headed over to the Roulettes where we enjoyed our final Chinese meal and said our farewells to Bill.
Thursday morning we got up early and used the last of our credit on the dock to give Morphie a wash down. At 10 am we slipped away from our slip towards Moorea having got clearance to exit through the Papeete Pass.
We said our sad farewells to Tahiti and, once we had cleared the pass and were out in open water, we did a seatrial calibration of our autopilot. So if you were wondered why our track was a little weird that’s why LOL.
Was a little swelly out there…..here was another boat (coincidentally an Australian-registered Island Packet) coming towards us….watch him disappear…..
We admired the coastline of Moorea before heading through the reef into the bay.
Cook’s Bay – named after Captain Cook who arrived here in his square rigger in 1777 – is absolutely spectacular!
We motored around a bit looking for shallower water and eventually dropped our hook in 60 foot of water in the middle of the bay opposite the Bali Hai Hotel. Richard’s project worked perfectly so thankfully no worries about the anchor chain hitting the windlass motor in future. Good job! We had a quiet afternoon and evening on board just enjoying the solitude and the peace and quiet after the noise of Papeete.
Friday morning we got dink off the bow, cleaned and pumped him up, got the outboard off the rail and reinstated it. Everything worked as it should thankfully. We headed across to the hotel – checked out the restaurant and the pool – and then wandered the street.
We found a Chinese supermarket but were too late to get fresh bread this being a holiday – Bastille Day. We enjoyed the view of the bay from the road and, having found a tour company, booked a 4WD tour into the mountains for tomorrow.
We then returned to Morphie for a quiet afternoon on board. We are very happy that, for the first time in a long while, we actually have free internet from the hotel as we are close enough to pick up the signal. It is very slow and spotty but definitely an improvement LOL.
Morphie is happy here in this beautiful place…check out these photos of her at anchor.
We are planning an early night tonight in preparation for our day out tomorrow. While I’m sitting in the cockpit typing this I can hear singing from shore where a choir are clearly practising for their slot in the Heiva competition. What a lovely distraction!
Bye for now
Jan