May 2000 Monday May 1st- Tuesday May 2nd, 2000 DAY TWENTY at 10pm Latitude = 7 degrees, 40 minutes South Longitude = 138 degrees, 28 minutes. Total Miles traveled today = 105 nautical miles We are going to send half of this day because we are not sure how the radio mail will work once we are on the island. We are pretty sure that we will arrive sometime in the early afternoon on May 2, 2000. If you don’t hear from us for a few days we are resting and giving the boat some TLC.  We all have sleep depravation along with physical and mental fatigue. This has been a very hard trip that you can’t imagine ever being prepared for. We spent today in extraordinary heat, little wind and ocean temperatures of 89.7 degrees. Everybody was sweltering. I spent most of the morning sewing a leather patch on the spinnaker halyard where it was wearing down, once I was done with that we put the spinnaker up and tried to find some wind. It was a battle most of the day. We need to make some westing to follow our rum line to the Marquises. Finally around 6 we were able to make some westing, take down the spinnaker and put up the genoa and stays’l.  At sunset we heard Patrick yell “ dolphins”, sure enough there were 50 plus dolphins playing and jumping in front of the boat. They stayed with us for a good half-hour. Patrick and I sat on the front of the bow watching them swim and jump in our waves. There was even a dolphin with a baby next to her that would jump and swim by her side never missing a beat.  All this as the sun was setting casting a golden glow on the ocean. I guess we are near paradise and the dolphins have come to welcome us and show us the way. Tuesday May 2nd, 2000 DAY TWENTYONE to TWENTYONE AND HALF Latitude = 8 degrees, 54 minutes South Longitude = 140 degrees, 05 minutes. Total Miles traveled today = 73.7 nautical miles LAND HO! At last we see our first glimpse of land at 9:15 am, the island of UA HUKA of the Marquises chain. It’s not the island we will be stopping at, but it was good to see land.  Several hours later we spot our destination, the island of NUKU HIVA; it seemed like it took us forever to get there. As we sailed by the island looking for our bay we couldn’t believe how beautiful and green the island is. The island is made up volcanics and the bay we are heading towards is and eroded caldera. This is where the top of volcano was until it collapsed, leaving behind this beautiful bay for us to anchor in. The island has a steep, black cliffed–edged coastline indented by many valleys and bays.  We decided that since we were so close that we would change our clocks to French Polynesian time, which is 2 and one half-hours behind our current California time, we had been sailing under. At around 3:00pm we rounded the corner to enter the Bay of Taiohae.  We entered here because this is the administrative capital and the largest town in the Marquises. It is also the only place on the island that you can check into the country with the French Gendarmerie. As we came into the harbor, we were looking hard for our friend Ed. We immediately spotted his red boat and motored over to tell him of our arrival. He and his crew were standing outside waiting for us. All wanting to know how many days did it take each other to get here? It took them 23 days and us 21 days. Because of our delayed start at the beginning of the trip, we had lost contact with Ed and figured we were 3 to 4 days behind him, but he had only arrived one day before us.  We dropped anchor a few hundred feet from him and then Patrick and Markus jumped in the water and swam over to greet them, while David and I prepared the boat for check in with the French authorities. David got together all the paperwork while I unloaded the dinghy and prepared to launch it for him to go ashore. Once he left, I went in for a quick swim too. Later we found out that hammerhead sharks hang out in this harbor, but they have never had a shark attack and locals are out swimming all the time. But it still took a little of the zest out of my swimming for exercise once we got here.  It wasn’t long when David returned unchecked in. He said the Gendarmerie was close to closing up for the day and really didn’t want to deal with us, to come back tomorrow.  So we set to work putting the boat back together. Patrick found a ride into shore so he could go explore, drink and touch the ground. Markus went to sleep and David and I drug everything out of the lazerette to get the stern anchor out and put together. We then dropped a stern anchor so the boat wouldn’t roll so much in the swell all night. Then we dinghied over to see our friend Ed.  It was a long day and we are glad to be here safe and sound.  Looking forward to tomorrow when I get my chance to get off this terra softa and get on some terra firma! Since David, Dewey and I left Seattle in the sailing vessel Francis on August 25th, 1999 we have traveled a total of 4, 554.2 nautical miles, crossed 57 degrees 17 minutes of latitude and 19 degrees 49 minutes of longitude! I bet I'm the only girl from Iowa who’s done that! Now there’s a story for the Des Moines Register! Dewey has lost about 5 pounds of hair which is floating all over the place! But he is so happy to be lying on top of the dodger again with a warm tropical breeze blowing through his now thin hair. Wednesday May 3rd – Saturday May 6th, 2000 Latitude = 8 degrees, 54 minutes South Longitude = 140 degrees, 05 minutes. NUKU HIVA- Bay of Taiohae After a good night rest David and I went into town to check the boat and passengers in with the gendarmerie (the French authorities).  This process took almost all morning and then we still had to go to the bank and post our bonds (which were 900 dollars per person) then it was back to the Gendarmerie with receipt and the final stamp in the old passport.  This whole process took almost all day. Patrick and Markus found a cheap hotel to stay in and wanted to get good nights rest on land and a good meal at a fine restaurant. David and I went back to the boat and started in on cleaning up and repair. The next few days were spent sight seeing around the island, working on the boat, getting some much needed laundry done and resting.  We’ve been meeting lots of other cruisers from all over the world and have been enjoying all the stories of everyone’s passages. We’ve met two boats from Port Townsend, Washington, one from Victoria BC and one family of 5 from Ventura, California. Most of these boaters left for their crossings from Mexico and all seemed to know each other by now.  The local people hear are French Polynesian and all have the beautiful dark skin and long dark hair. Most of the men’s and a few of the women’s bodies are covered with traditional tribal tattoos. We did find the local tattoo artist in town and it looks like Patrick will be sporting a new tattoo when he gets home. I thought about it, but David didn’t want me to risk infection way out in the ocean so maybe in Tahiti.  The local food in town was fairly tasty after weeks of boat food. One day for lunch we ate at the only snack shack, David truly had a cheeseburger in paradise and I tried the local fish dish. Of course I had no idea what I was eating since it was all in French.  The next day we actually found a hotel and a very nice local gal named Colette that was the bartendress, she chatted with us for half-hour about the local goings on and then served us a handmade pizza baked in a brick oven outside, with a local Tahitian beer. It was very delicious. Thursday night David and I met up with our friend Ed and his crew and went to the only resort restaurant in town to have a celebration drink of our marvelous accomplishment.  The resort sits high up on the black volcanic cliffs, and is quit a site compared to the rest of the village. We ordered up our drinks and sat in a swimming pool that went right up to the edge of the cliff. What a spectacular view of the bay with all the sailboats anchored below with the towering green volcanic mountains in the background at sunset. It was a very pleasant evening, enjoyed by all. On Friday we decided to have a party on our boat and invite over Ed and his crew of Locky and Tim. It was cynco de Mayo and David’s birthday so we had a lot to celebrate. Patrick and Markus had an engagement else where so they chose not to join us.  The evening started out with marguerites to celebrate cynco de Mayo, then we handed out shellback degrees and congratulated ourselves on the great accomplishment from King Neptune.  Then it was time for the feast of turkey, stuffing, Champaign and birthday cake. A good time was had by all. By Saturday we were all sick of this rolly anchorage, a huge swell is always coming in causing the boat to continually roll back and forth. Ed and his crew have decided to leave and we would like to as well.  By 1:00 PM Ed has left, but we are feeling a little too rushed and will wait till Sunday. We spent the day chatting with other boaters, taking one last walk around town, and preparing the boat for departure.  There is a guy anchored close to us who came across the ocean by himself! Hard to imagine. We call him singlehand Bob. He is from San Diego and recognized me from being in DownWind Marine. Bob would like to leave with us on Sunday morning but has no charts or information on the Tuamotu Archipel, which we will be sailing through to get to Tahiti. This is a very dangerous area to sail though with or without charts, for the islands are very low lying coral reef atolls and are extremely hard to see and could tear your boat to pieces if you hit one. So I came out of retirement and Eclipse Raster Works was back in business in the South Pacific. I scanned and printed out all the charts and information that Bob would need to get him through the area safely. I delivered the package of maps to him in a big plastic bag and wished him good luck. Hopefully we will see him there. Sunday May 7th – Wednesday May 10th, 2000 Latitude = 14 degrees, 27 minutes South Longitude = 146 degrees, 02 minutes West Miles Traveled = 391.9 nautical miles MANIHI coral reef atoll in the TUAMOTU ARCHIPPEL David and I awoke to singlehand Bob calling our names as he motored out of the bay. We got up and began our departure. Markus and Patrick have decided that they are more landlubbers then sailors and are going to fly to Tahiti, so David, Dewey and I left the harbor at 8:00 am under full sail. It was once again a bumpy ride, but the winds were strong and we were moving right along at 7.5 knots.  We decided that we would take 3 hours watches and try to sleep as much as we could when we were off our watch. This system seemed to work great and we were getting better rest than we had all the way over.  Our friend Ed was heading for Rangiroa, the 2nd largest coral reef atoll in the world, so we are hoping to catch up with him there. It is very important to time the arrival into the coral atolls for daylight, because of the danger of entering into them through the passes. After two days out, fighting squalls and high winds it became very apparent that we would not arrive in day light, we were going too fast and had the main double reefed and just the storm stays’l up. We thought about maybe putting in the drogue to slow us down, but that seemed pretty extreme. The other option would be to tack back and forth through the night until daylight and then sail in. The other more reasonable option was to change course just a little and head to the coral atoll of MANIHI. It looked like with our current speed we would arrive around 10:30 am.  We had calculated based on the moon that the high tide would be around 10:oo am so that would work well with our arrival. That night we got on the single side band radio and listened to the net of the other boaters, we heard where they were all located and then I joined in to let them know where we were. One of the other boats had a computer program that calculated high tides and he told us that high tide for MANIHI was at 10:35 am, so we felt pretty good about our calculation and the timing of our arrival. Looks like we loose contact with our fiend Ed again for a few days.  But we would like to find a nice quit anchorage where there is no swell to relax and snorkel. By 8:00 am on May 10th, 2000 we have spotted our first coral reef atoll. It is one of the most beautiful things I’ve seen. The beaches were white and covered with thick green lush palm trees.  The atoll is like a large circle of coral with a big lagoon on the inside. There is usually only one or two passes to get in or out of the atoll and they are typically very calm once inside the coral barrier.  We spent the next two hours sailing along the coast of Manihi looking for the entrance on the southwest side. We finally spied the entrance, took down the sails and motored towards the pass. At 10:45 we entered the pass of our first coral reef. It was very exhilarating. I was standing on the bow of the boat directing David around the coral heads. The water was so clear and blue that you could see the bottom and where the dangerous corals were to be avoided. By 11:30 am we had anchored on the lee side of a beautiful motu. By 12:00 we were snorkeling in beautiful clear water surrounded by beautiful tropical fish. We saw lots of butterfly fish, trumpet fish and parrot fish. What a glorious site after all the hard work to get here. We snorkeled over to shore and David asked me what I thought. I said, “we’ve found Gilligans Island. “ The rest of the day was spent relaxing in our new beautiful calm spot surrounded by turquoise blue and emerald green waters and swaying palm trees. Now this is paradise. Thursday May 11th –   Tuesday May 16th, 2000 Latitude = 14 degrees, 27 minutes South Longitude = 146 degrees, 02 minutes West MANIHI coral reef atoll in the TUAMOTU ARCHIPPEL We are still enjoying our little respite here in the atoll of Manihi. It’s just so nice to not be moving that we are taking a well-deserved rest. Of course there has been lots of little boat chores to attend to daily. We have to make our own water now, so that has been going on, plus running the generator or engine to keep the batteries going. When you are totally self-sufficient like we are, you really learn to conserve everything. You quickly learn the impacts of all your actions. We don’t have any lights on, and read by kerosene lantern or candlelight at night. We have to save our energy to run the refrigerator, water maker and single side band radio for our nightly chats with the other boats in the area. We have to be careful how much garbage we produce because there is no where to dump it in these little atolls, so we have to wait until we are in deep ocean to sink it. We don’t want too much stinking garbage piling up on the boat. David has been busy fixing little things here and there, but mostly just relaxing, reading, exploring and snorkeling. By now two other Canadian boats have arrived in this little atoll. The boat “Shiriri” is a family we met in the Marquises with a gal named Anne that I’ve been hanging around with.  The other boat is a family of 4 from Canada on a boat called “Flyer”; they have two little girls about ages 8 and 10.  These two girls have never attended public school, their parents have always home schooled them and are doing a fine job, because they know more about fish and stars then I ever hope to.  We spent the first couple of days sleeping with a few snorkeling adventures. We have seen many beautiful tropical fish. If any of you are a tropical fish buffs, following is a list of the fish I think I’ve seen; Parrot fish, Moorish idol, Convict Tangs (so called because of their jail like stripes on their bodies), Wrasse, Moore eel, Long Nose Butterfly fish, Puffer fish and my favorite the Reef Triggerfish (nicked named the Picasso Trigger Fish because of its beautiful abstract colorings).  Most of the fish I have never seen before and I don’t have a tropical fish book. Can you believe it! Lots of the fish are beautiful florescent colors of blue, purple and yellows, I have also seen a few clams with fluorescent blue lips filter feeding, they are really quit a spectacle.  A few days ago I went snorkeling with the Flyer family and Anne, we were having a great time until two very weird looking fish started chasing me. They looked like mini sharks with flat heads with ridges on top. It was kind of cute at first, but they wouldn’t quit following me, it started to freak me out. No matter how fast I’d try to swim away they’d be right there in my flippers. As I got near the “Flyer” family one of the fish attached itself to the bottom of the dad’s fin and tried to suck on it. Then that really freaked me out. I didn’t want one of those fish sucking on my body, they still preferred to follow me so after about 40 minutes of this I had enough and swam back to the safety of my boat. The next day of course the “Flyer” girls had already figured out what the fish was, it was a Remora fish that attaches itself to a shark and is know as a cleaner fish. They eat what ever the shark doesn’t manage to get in its mouth. So maybe I was swimming like a shark and they wanted to attach to me! Saturday night the local folk from the black pearl farm came out in their little speedboat to trade for pearls. Of course all they wanted was alcohol, but we didn’t have any to trade. When we told them we didn’t have any they gave David and I each a beautiful calm shell with mother of pearl lining. My friend Anne was over visiting and could speak French so she could talk with them a little better. After they realized we had nothing to trade they gave Anne and I each a black pearl as presents and then said do you have present for me? So we did manage to scrape up a couple of beers for “presents” for them. What a riot. They aren’t the quality pearls that you’d find in the jewelry shops, but these will have a lot more lasting memory! They made the rounds to all the other boats. “Flyer” made instant friends with them when they traded pearls for Bob Marley tapes. Apparently these folks here love Bob Marley! Or any reggae for that matter. They were back on Flyer's boat the next night with their instruments and rum to party to Bob Marley. The trio serenaded everyone in the anchorage. Saturday we got on the single side band radio for our nightly 7:00 PM chat with the other boaters in other atolls to hear what was going on. In the atoll next to us (Ahe) there was a big party going on a Swiss boat and low and behold our friend ED was there! What a shock to hear his voice considering he was heading to Rangiroa. We should have known where there's a party there’s ED! Well, he had the same bad timing as us and decided to rest up a few days in Ahe, so at least we finally made contact with him. Monday David and I and the Shiriri boat decide to put the outboard motors on the dinghy and head into the local town by the pass. It was too far to row over. When we got there we found that there wasn’t a whole lot going on, we spent a couple of hours walking around looking at houses and other buildings. Did find one grocery store and the post office. Other than that there wasn’t a whole lot there. We treated ourselves to some ice cream and then were on our way back to our boats. We topped the day off with some snorkeling at a new coral reef. David found an octopus cave; it had all kinds of shell debris outside of it. He dove down and found two beautiful shells one for me and one for Anne.  Later that night we saw a huge sea turtle swim by our boat and Shiriri reported seeing huge 12 foot bat ray in the moonlight by their boat.  Sea life park here in the little atoll of Manihi. Tuesday May 16th, 2000 Latitude = 14 degrees, 27 minutes South Longitude = 146 degrees, 02 minutes West MANIHI coral reef atoll in the TUAMOTU ARCHIPPEL Today was a low activity day. The wind totally switched direction on us turning our boat with the stern end sitting about 1 foot away from the coral. This needless to say made David very nervous, if the wind picked up and our anchor drug it would put us on the coral, so we prepared the boat for departure and got the engine running incase we needed to make a quick getaway. We had about 150 feet scope on our anchor so we brought in about 50 feet. It was a little bit of a struggle since the rope part was tangled around a coral head, but we got it loose and are a safe distance away from the coral.  David sat outside for the next few hours on anchor watch.  Later in the afternoon the wind switched back and we are all feeling better now. David decided he wanted to go snorkeling over by the shore, I didn’t feel like going today so I just watched him from the boat.  After about ten minutes I noticed a big shark fin swimming near him, so I yelled to him that there was a shark. He said he saw it and that it was a black tip shark that was about 6 feet long. It scared me, but not him. He kept exploring, but just little closer to shore. He eventually made it back to the boat safely.  I spent the day painting, writing and reading. I have also been taking a lot of pictures with the digital camera so I’ve been having fun fixing those pictures up. Later on tonight we hear on the single side band radio that one of the girls from Flyer let one of those weird Remora fish suck on her body leaving behind a hickey! Pretty brave little girl to let one of things suck on her. It gave me the heebeegeebees just thinking about it.  Well by 5:00 there is not a breath of wind. The inside of this atoll is like a big still lake. The sun begins to set at around 5:30 so I went out to watch the sun set. It seems like each day they get more beautiful. This time as the sun was setting the full moon was rising on the other side of the atoll, so I had two things to watch. This particular sunset was so red and orange that the reflection on the still water made the water look like it was on fire! It also made for some beautiful pink clouds around the full moon. What a glorious way to end the day. Wednesday May 17th, 2000 Latitude = 14 degrees, 27 minutes South Longitude = 146 degrees, 02 minutes West MANIHI coral reef atoll in the TUAMOTU ARCHIPPEL Today we hope to leave the little atoll of Manihi. We have been here one week now and feel like it is time to move on to big city of Papeete, Tahiti.  Our friend Ed went to Rangaroa yesterday and we talked to him on the radio this morning. His entrance went fine but there is not much for snorkeling there, so we think we will bypass the atoll of Rangaroa and head straight to Tahiti. It is suppose to be about a two and a half-day sail, if the wind gods are with us. Apparently these atolls will be the last we see of little islands like this. All the other islands have big mountains on them. Which proves Darwin’s theory of how these atolls were formed in the first place. The atolls of the Tuamotu Archippel were formed thousands of years ago when there was a chain of volcanic mountain islands like the ones in Hawaii. As time went on coral began to build up around the volcanic mountain forming a fringe or barrier reef around the mountain. Then after more time, probably thousands of years, the volcanic island subsided into the depths of the ocean and all that was left was the ring of coral islets (called Motus) around the island forming what is now the coral atoll we are anchored in.  The Motus are covered with lush green vegetation of coconut palms and shrubs. The water inside the atoll is know as a lagoon and is a beautiful jade green in color. The society islands of which Tahiti is member are all volcanic islands with fringe and barrier coral reefs around them. Although the volcanoes are now inactive it will be thousands of years before they become the quaint little atolls of the Tuamotus.  There are 76 atolls that make up the chain of islands in the Tuamotus; the Polynesian people inhabit only 46 of the atolls with an estimated population of around 6700.  Space, available food and water limit population on these islands. As we walked through town you could see the water catchment system that most houses had rigged up to their tin roofs. FRESH water is a precious resource out here in the middle of the ocean. As we spent more time snorkeling in the atoll and listening to the boaters in other atolls it became very apparent that a lot of the coral in these atolls is dying and the beautiful coral polyps are gone. We did see a few beautiful yellow and purple polyps from time to time, but not many. One fellow cruiser, who cruised through here 20 years ago, can not believe the difference. He is very sad to see how the coral is dying and thus the fish populations are not as healthy either. Once the coral goes, just like any ecosystem, so does everything else. We have heard and read many explanations for the dying coral. One is that the demand for black pearls has increased the pearl farms ten fold and thus putting a strain on the existing ecosystem. Another is due to increased population, which brings along all of its pollution problems and coral killing abilities. The last and most scary is the rise in water temperature in the south pacific due to the Green House Effect. As the water temperature increases it destroys the delicate balance needed for the coral to exist.  Also the rise in air and ocean temperature causes the polar ice to melt, causing the level of the ocean to rise. When the little island you live on is only one meter above sea level this is an area of great concern! Scientist have predicted that by the year 2030 at the current rate the sea level will have risen by 1 meter, which will mean many of these beautiful atolls will disappear below the ocean along with the people and their culture. Now there is something to think about next time you jump in your car to drive two blocks to the store!  The only thing that seems to flourish in these atolls is the sea cucumber population! There are hundreds of them everywhere in all kinds of varying sizes. I’m going to have to find out more about these creatures. I wonder if they are the pests of the sea or if they are good for anything. Like David says, if they could be used for anything there certainly wouldn’t be so many. Good point I guess. Well I’ll get off my soapbox now and continue on. About 2:00 PM it looked like there would be enough wind to leave this little atoll so David and I struggled getting the anchor up from the coral bottom.  Once we were free we weave our way out through coral heads and oyster pearl buoys floating in the water. Once we made it to the pass it was obvious that our tide chart was wrong. The current was coming in about 6 knots against us, but we decided to go for it anyway and just put the motor on full bore and managed to make it through going about 1 and half knots. Luckily it is a very short pass. Once out into the open ocean again we got the sails up and are sailing towards Tahiti at about 6 knots. Since there has been no wind for several days the sea swell was nonexistent and it made for a nice smooth sail into the night under the full moon. Thursday May 18th, 2000 Latitude = 16 degrees, 24 minutes South Longitude = 148 degrees, 11 minutes West 163 nautical miles traveled Sailing towards Tahiti This day starts sailing under full sail under the full moon couldn’t ask for anything better. We are making great time, faster then we anticipated. Around 1:30 am I looked on the horizon and thought I was seeing a mirage. I saw what looked like an island. The full moon was reflecting off the white coral beaches making a horizontal white line across the dark ocean and I could barely make out the outline of clumps of palm trees. Not sure of what I was really seeing, I quickly turned on the radar and sure enough we were passing by the atoll of Arutua, which was an island just to the west of Rangiroa. We are now going through the 20-mile wide pass through the two islands. I was little surprised because based on our initial calculations we would be passing through here at sunrise, but the wind was fairly strong and pushed us to our destination a little faster than planed. Its ok, with the full moon it was easy to see the islands and hopefully this will mean we get to Tahiti faster. My watch now being over David took over, when I awoke he was not happy, the wind had totally died and we were barely making 2 knots of headway. We finally put up the spinnaker and were crawling along at about 3 knots for most of the day. All that great time we had made the night before was lost and now it was looking like we would not be able to make it to Tahiti the next morning like planed and probably not before dark. David ran the engine a few times to see if he couldn’t get us to some wind. Our fuel situation is low, since they wouldn’t sell us any in the Marquesas and there was none available in the Tuamotos, so we couldn’t motor along very long, we need to save some for the entrance to Tahiti. So we tried to relax and have a nice dinner and enjoy a spectacular sunset. As usual, as the sun set, the full moon began to rise. This was a moonrise like I had never seen before. As it first came up on the horizon it was a brilliant red-orange, almost like the sun rising. It came up through many layers of clouds, each time it passed though of layer of clouds it changed colors from a orange to yellow orange to a beautiful buttery yellow, then as it passed through the last layer of clouds it joined the stars in its pure white form. What a site! That night on the radio chat everyone was commenting on how beautiful it was.  We are still sailing with the spinnaker up, something we’ve never done at night before, but we were afraid if we took it down that we would quit moving. It was nice to see the full moon shinning on our beautiful Polynesian Turtle inlay. At around 9:00pm David I sat down and calculated our speed and times of arrivals, it certainly looked like the wind was not going to pick up and we would not make Tahiti by night fall the next day. The only option was to slow down even more and spend another night at sea and go in early Saturday morning. Not something we wanted to do, but a night arrival into a coral reef is not a good idea, no matter how well lit it is.  At 11:00 PM we decided to take down all the sails and just sit for a few hours to slow us down from our big 2 knots speed. This was a hard thing to do, but seemed like the only logical thing to do. The ocean was so still and calm it was like being at anchor inside Manihi atoll, were we in the doldrums again? David went below to sleep and I finished off this day sitting watch in the middle of the ocean not moving.  Friday May 19th, 2000 Latitude = 17 degrees, 17 minutes South Longitude = 149 degrees, 10 minutes West 63 nautical miles traveled! UG! Sailing towards Tahiti This day starts with me still sitting watch under a full moon not moving! Hard to believe, I looked at the GPS several times and we had hardly even drifted in the last hour, by 3:00 am we hadn’t moved at all, it was just like we had an anchor in.  At 3:45 am David decided to at least put the Genoa back up, this got us moving again at around 4 knots, looks like a little wind is back.  I went down to rest and David stayed up on watch, when I woke we were traveling along nicely at around 4-5 knots, too bad we didn’t have this wind yesterday, we’d be in Tahiti today. Around 9:00am I see another sailboat off our starboard side. I quickly called on the vhf radio and find out that it is indeed single hand bob! (The guy I had made all the charts for) glad to see he made it through the Tuamotos ok. He had stopped at several of the atolls and now is also on his way to Tahiti, so I suppose we will be seeing him all day.  Today is a day of testing our patience. Now it appears we are going too fast and will still arrive in Tahiti in the dark. So now we have to try to really slow down. We had the main flaked all day and put up the sun awning to help keep us cool. We rolled in the Genoa to just a little flag and have the stays’l up to help us with steerage. We are still steaming right along at 5 knots! If we hadn’t stopped last night, we might have made it to Tahiti in this wind today, but one can never predict what Mother Nature will decide to do. Beside who knew how long this wind would last? So we decided to take it easy today, we took sun showers, my first total freshwater shower in over a week! We took turns sleeping and reading and David even made a pie! I got out my bird books and began to figure what the local birds are that I’ve been seeing. The most sticking is the White-Tailed Tropicbird. It is a beautiful little white bird with a long thin streamer tail. The tail seems to be longer than the birds’ wingspan.  Also have observed the Brown Booby Bird. This bird has a brown body, white chest and bright yellow feet and beak. They are not quit as striking as their red and blue footed cousins. The Frigatebird has also been observed. It flies in around the boat when we are at anchorage diving for the nearby fish.  I saw beautiful white and gray egrets in the Tuamotos, but couldn’t find them in my bird books. Around 2:30pm I think I see an island. There were a lot of clouds on the horizon, so I couldn’t tell for sure. Was I seeing another mirage? So I called David, he took a look and said, you’ve found Tahiti. Now I now how Captain Cook felt when he saw it. It was truly exhilarating. What a beautiful site. Even though it is still 59 miles away it was sticking way up into the clouds. Remember that Tahiti is a volcanic island made up of two inactive volcanoes.  We immediately called single hand Bob to alert him to the beautiful site. We are truly excited to almost be there. It’s going to be a long sleepless night waiting for sunrise to enter Tahiti and all that awaits us there. Saturday May 20th, 2000 Latitude = 17 degrees, 34 minutes 58 seconds South Longitude = 149 degrees, 37 minutes West 24 nautical miles traveled! UG! Landed in Tahiti This day starts with me on watch at midnight. I had been on watch for 3 hours in extremely sloppy seas and I was extremely tired and seasick since I hadn’t slept much during the day or previous night. I didn’t want to wake David up because I knew he wouldn’t go back to sleep until we landed in Tahiti. But still, I was so tired and sick I awoke him anyway.  We could see all the bright lights of the big city on Tahiti; it was agonizing to be so close, yet so far away. I went below to take some seasick medication and try to get some rest. David stayed above monitoring our slow progress towards shore. After several hours of listening to the genoa being furled in and out I went up to see what was going on. Apparently the wind around the island was variable causing us to approach the land too fast, so when we would get slowed down then the wind would die and the sail would come out again.  So realizing I wasn’t going to get any sleep I decide to stay on deck with David and monitor the situation and wait and watch for sunrise. We soon spotted the lighthouse off of Point Venus. This is the spot where Captain Cook and Captain Bligh landed. This is also the point where Captain Cook set up an observatory and spent three weeks observing the planet Venus. I guess that’s how that point got its name.  Just as we neared the point at about 5:30 am the lighthouse went off! It was still fairly dark out, so we surprised that it went off, so I went down and turned on the radar and plotted our course on the chart with the GPS. We were doing fine. Around 6:15 the sun began to show itself and the island became unshrouded from darkness. It was a glorious site to see the huge lush green volcanic mountains rising out of the sea. The neighboring island of Moorea was also a beautiful site. We took down the sails and motored our way through the channel between the two islands and at 7:17 am we crossed through the two buoys marking the entrance into Papeete. We called the harbor patrol to ask for clearance to go by the airport, once that was granted we motored our way through the coral channel to the Lotus Marina where we could get fuel and water. What do you think was one of the first things I saw? A McDonalds with a big statue of Ronald himself. I guess we are in a big city now. If I see a Starbucks I will really be disappointed. Well what a relief to have fuel and water replenished. We inquired about getting a spot at the marina, but no space at the inn for us. So back to the anchorage in front of the Maeva Beach Hotel. Ah, but wouldn’t you know it, our engine wouldn’t start! What now, I thought we both were going to have a break down. After a long tiring passage and now this! David set to work checking all the wiring and connections. I got all the books we had. We tried a little trick in the Nigel Calder book we had purchased just before leaving and sure enough, it got us going again! (Thanks Pam and Sid for telling us about that book. I guess it has paid for itself now!) We found a nice anchorage in front of the hotel and then I collapsed in bed for a few hours. David took a short nap and then cleaned things up a bit. We got the dinghy back in the water and went ashore to explore.  It was really something that we found a back road behind the fancy resort to walk to the store on. This showed how the real Tahitian people lived in tin shacks with fancy cars sitting out front. We were surprised too see garbage piled up everywhere and the actual burning and dumping of rubbish into the streams that lead out into the bay! Guess I wont be doing any snorkeling right here. I guess pollution is a problem even in paradise. We finally found the large shopping area with the grocery store. We were so tired and hungry that we were easily side tracked by a local restaurant where we had a Tahitian beer, pizza and cheeseburger. Then it was off to the grocery store. It was a very large and modern store, with everything you could imagine, very similar to a Fred Myers. We immediately found the vegetable section. I don’t think I’ve ever been so happy to see a carrot in my life! We loaded up on some fresh salad makings for dinner tonight and then back to the boat for some R & R.  After the nightly radio chat we were both so exhausted that we went to bed at 7:30 and fell asleep to the sounds of the Tahitian drums going on at the nearby hotel. Sunday May 21st, 2000 Latitude = 17 degrees, 34 minutes 58 seconds South Longitude = 149 degrees, 37 minutes West FRENCH POLYNESIA-THE SOCIETY ISLANDS- TAHITI We both feel a lot better with some sleep. We had a nice hot breakfast and then looked around the boat a bit and then David and Dewey went back to sleep. I stayed up to catch up on the journal and digital photography.  Around noon David got up and began all his little projects for the day. One of the projects was giving Dewey a bath! Boy he didn’t like that. Poor little guy has been though so much, he just looked at us like what are you doing to me now! But he was soon out basking in the sun. A funny little French man came over to our boat and asked if we spoke French. When we said we didn’t, he handed us a sheet of paper. It read some thing like this; there is now an association on this harbor that is trying to kick all boats out of this harbor. Mostly the fancy hotel doesn’t want us grungy yachties out in front of their beach. By the time I was done reading, I felt like the unwanted Winnabago of the sea. How disappointing to finally get to one of our dream places only to find out we were unwelcome. The flyer had a bunch of rules on it about how we were not allowed on hotel property and if we were found there we would be prosecuted! Wow. Isn’t that nice? Well we took it all to heart and then went back to our chores. David went to work on fixing the pump in our shower so we could have a bath too. So he was cleaned up pretty soon. Soon after he was out getting the outboard on the dinghy and was zooming around the anchorage visiting other boats. He met some other people from Seattle on a boat called  “Iron Butterfly”; they have been sailing the south pacific for 3 years. They are now headed to Hawaii and then back to Seattle. They have a 4-bedroom house they have been renting just north of the university while they were gone, for get this…. 1000 –per month. I said you guys have been gone too long! That’s one lucky person in that house. Around 3:00 pm I heard our new Canadian friends on the boat Shiriri asking for clearance to go by the airport, so I guess they were finally here. They are on an all wooden schooner with no modern convinces. They don’t even have any winches! It’s a lot of work to sail that boat and they are lucky to get it going 5 to 6 knots, so they are usually the last to arrive. Soon after they were anchored Anne dingied over to tell us about their trip. I greeted her with a glass of French wine, which was welcomed after a long hard trip. After our nightly radio chat David and I went to bed and listened to the short-wave radio to see what we could find out about a rumored coup in Fiji. Didn’t really find out too much, except that there are hostages involved. I hope that is settled before we get there. Monday May 22nd, 2000 Latitude = 17 degrees, 34 minutes 58 seconds South Longitude = 149 degrees, 37 minutes West FRENCH POLYNESIA-THE SOCIETY ISLANDS- TAHITI Well for those of you who think I’m kicked back in the cockpit in the morning drinking coffee and gin and tonics for sundowners at sunset….. GUESS AGAIN! So far this has been a very grueling and hard trip. Granted there have been great moments of joy and beautiful sites and people to see, but this sailing thing no relaxing vacation. The day started doing a little laundry in the sink and hanging it out to dry. It was a beautiful sunny day and we figured it would dry pretty quickly.  We had the sun awning up to keep the boat cool while we went to meet Shiriri at the dinghy dock to walk up the road where we catch the “La Truck” into the town of Papeete.  Even though we had checked into French Polynesia in the Marquises, we still had to go to immigration, customs and harbor master here in Papeete.  It took us about an hour of walking around before we found it and then another couple of hours filling out all the paper work in those 3 places. By now its noon and we are all hungry. We found a great market where they sell everything! Food, shells, baskets, fruits, vegetables, material and souvenirs. What a place. Today we only get food. We took our find down to the quay where boats can stern tie up to the sidewalk though town, this area was jammed packed with sail boats. We finished our lunch and then hopped back on the “La Truck” (the Tahitian version of a bus.) The ride cost about 1 dollar each way, so very comparable to Seattle.  David and I got off at the airport to pick up our mail at the DHL office, and then it was back to the road to flag down another “la truck”. Can you believe I got David to ride a bus! This time we rode to the great big grocery store to get more supplies. Once we were inside we heard it begin to rain, and then pour, and then lighting and wind. We cut our grocery-shopping short and ran back to the dinghy in pouring rain and ferocious winds! Palm tree branches were flying all around us and the roofs were flying off the tin shacks that were near the hotel. Everyone was out trying to pound their houses back together. The whole time we are running and sliding around in the mud and I ‘m thinking are we in a hurricane? David was thinking, oh my god, our boat! Our boat! And poor Dewey! We could see huge bolts of lighting coming down into the bay where we were anchored. I was afraid to look out into the bay for fear of what we might see. It turned out all we could see was a scene out of a bad movie! The rain was coming down so hard we could barely see any boats out in the bay, we looked hard for Francis but she wasn’t where we had left her, and there were no boats with an aqua green sun awning. Panic zipped through my body as I frantically tried to see our boat. I saw a boat that we used to be anchored next too, but Shiriri was now there! I looked over to the other side of the bay. There was Francis, Sun awning gone! We finally made our way to the dingy dock (through hotel property). David frantically began to get the dinghy ready to go while I tried to stand on the dock. I got blown over once and through myself on David’s folio with all our paperwork in it as it began to blow across the dock.  We through our bags of groceries into the dinghy and jumped into the water and waded out away from the dinghy dock. The wind was blowing so hard we were afraid it would slam us back into the dock. Once in the dinghy we began to make our way towards Francis. The waves were so high that they were washing up over David and I and into the dinghy. The dinghy is now full of water and all of our groceries are now floating in and out of the dinghy. I was only worried about our folio with the paperwork in it. I clutched it with everything I had and David finally made our way back out to Francis. Getting out of the dinghy and on the boat was nightmare. The boat was bobby up and down and the dinghy was bobbing up and down. I finally grabbed a stair and went for it. I got us tied on and then David handed me the few groceries we had left. We lost almost everything, but we saved the paperwork, passports and carrots.  We immediately went to work getting out the Bruce anchor from the lazzerette and we got it hooked up off the bow, David went and got the dinghy and came along side of Francis while I lowered the anchor into the dinghy. This was hard to do in pouring rain, strong winds and big waves. David towed the anchor out in front of the boat while I let out the line. Finally he drops the anchor and makes his way back to the boat. We had done all we could do at this point and so started accessing the situation. It looked like all the boats in the anchorage had drug their anchors all toward shore and us.  If our anchor hadn’t drug, we would have been crashed into for sure. Shiriri looked like they had drug several hundred feet. All the boats that were spread out in the anchorage this morning were now all clumped together towards shore. Not a good thing! My sun awning was still attached by one hook, so I was able to salvage it, but it is going to need a lot of repair. All the laundry we had hanging out was of course gone! Guess we will be shopping for a few new clothes here.  David saw the Shiriri people trying to row back to their boat so he hopped back in the dinghy to see if he could assist them. He made it to their boat before they did and began to get a second anchor ready for them. They didn’t have a motor on their dinghy so he took their anchor out and dropped it for them. There were a lot of boats where the owners we not at home, those were the ones we had to worry about slamming into us. Those of us that were here stayed out in the pouring rain and slamming winds to monitor the situation and baby-sit the anchors. The guy next to us had his snorkeling goggles and foul weather gear on. What a site he was. This storm lasted about three hours. Wow! Once the storm settled down a rainbow came up over the mountain. I didn’t know whether to welcome it or curse it! Well the waves settled down enough to try to move our boat. We were way too close to shore and way too close to other boats to be comfortable. David went back out in the dinghy to retrieve the Bruce anchor and we used the winless to bring up the other. Then we motored around to find a new spot, which was a little hard, it didn’t appear that anyone else was interested in moving, so we found a spot fairly close to Shiriri. Now things have settle down a bit and Anne and her father went over to check Wiley Coyote’s boat and anchor as well as Scaldas.  They were both boats we had been traveling with and they were now piled up next to us too. We knew that they were still in town checking in.  Once inside David and I began to assess the damage. We had a few hatches open for ventilation, once the sun awning was gone, rain poured in, leaving behind two very wet settees. But that appears to be the only damage.  We lost our groceries and our clothes, but figure the boat is safe, Dewey is safe and we are safe and that is a lot to be thankful for.  We began to sort things out. Boy did we have a lot to chat about on the radio tonight. Sounds like those boats still in the Tuamotos had some bad weather today too, but nothing compared to ours. One guy who is now anchored very close to us said he clocked the wind at 48 knots! That’s pretty good! While we were chatting on the radio, Scaldus and Wiley Coyote came by in their dinghy wondering what had happened. Of course their boats were not where they left them. They said they made a stop at the near by Lotus Marina and were told that there were 80 knot winds going through here! Wow… it sure felt like 80 knots. They were in Papeete and it was raining, but no wind. How can that be? So they naturally weren’t concerned about getting back to their boats. Well it appears that everyone is fine, no boats were lost and it is now the calm little anchorage we left this morning. Now maybe I’ll have that gin and tonic! Tuesday May 23rd, 2000 Latitude = 17 degrees, 34 minutes 58 seconds South Longitude = 149 degrees, 37 minutes West FRENCH POLYNESIA-THE SOCIETY ISLANDS- TAHITI We actually did sleep pretty well last night after all the excitement. I got up a couple of times just to make sure things were ok. I was still pretty shaken up by the events of the day. Today the anchorage is calm and sunny again. A few people are moving their boats but everybody seems to be happy with where they landed yesterday. We went to shore to take showers from a spigot. Anne and her father were there filling their water jugs. Anne has some friends on a charter mega yacht over in the marina and she visited them last night. They said even their big yacht tied up in the marina healed over and slammed into the boat next to them.  They said they clocked the winds at 60 knots. So who knows somewhere between 48 and 80 knots, no matter how you look at it, that’s a lot of wind.  Apparently the weather forecasters had no idea it was coming (what a surprise) it was like a big 3 hour mega squall! Today life is back to normal. David is fixing the toilet and I’m finishing the rest of the laundry in the sink and then hanging it out to dry again. This time I’m not leaving it. We went over to visit the other boat from Seattle (Iron Butterfly) and then it was time to go ashore and try our luck getting groceries again. This time we had better luck getting our things back to the boat.  As we dingy around the anchorage it was unbelievable how much garbage was floating around today (mostly plastic things). I guess that big storm yesterday washed the ditches and streams clean of their rubbish! ICK! We watched the sun set over Moorea from the cockpit as the many Tahitian canoe paddlers went by. There is a big Tahitian celebration on July 14 called Bastille Day. The celebration last several weeks, but they have all kinds of canoes races and dance contest so I suspect that these canoe paddlers are in training for the up coming competition. Wednesday May 24th, 2000 Latitude = 17 degrees, 34 minutes 58 seconds South Longitude = 149 degrees, 37 minutes West FRENCH POLYNESIA-THE SOCIETY ISLANDS- TAHITI Today was filled with the joys of being of boat owner. We are still having problems with our head (toilet) so David spent the whole morning tearing it completely apart from the beginning to the very last hose. What an awful job that was, and stinky! While David was working on that, I began to work on the mess that our crew left behind in the v-birth.  What fun we were having now.  About noon we had all we could take of this disgusting work and decided to go for snorkel over in front of the nice Beach Comber Hotel. It looked like they had some actual living coral over there. We saw even more tropical fish we had never seen before. And all kinds of corals, some looked like brain coral but were blue, green and yellow. There was a lot of spiny starfish there though, which is what kills the coral so who know how long there will be beautiful coral there. After a short rest it was time to go over to Iron Butterfly’s Boat. They had invited the Shirir boat and us over for Sundowners at 4:00 pm. It was a nice why to end the day in the good company of some fellow Seattle folk and a beautiful sunset over Moorea. Thursday May 25th, 2000 Latitude = 17 degrees, 34 minutes 58 seconds South Longitude = 149 degrees, 37 minutes West FRENCH POLYNESIA-THE SOCIETY ISLANDS- TAHITI Anne stopped by this morning to read her email. She went to an Internet café and downloaded all her email on to disk that she wanted print out on our printer. After she left David and I set back to work cleaning the v-birth. We took all the cushions out and they were soaking wet on the bottom.  Patrick hadn’t quit got the hatch closed one day and green water poured in, apparently it never quit dried out.  So we took the covers off and David took them along with some blankets over to the spigot to do some laundry and wash out all the salt water.  I stayed behind and washed down all the woodwork that was salt coated and then oiled it. We got everything cleaned up and dried out. Nice to have that back in order. This afternoon we dingied over to the nearby Beach Comber H0tel to walk through and have a nice lunch.  It was a beautiful hotel, with little beach huts that extend out into the ocean on stilts.  We went to the restaurant by the swimming pool and had our first nice outing in a nice restaurant. We had a terrific lunch and then went for a long walk through the hotel grounds. Then it was back to the boat for some R and R. Friday May 26th, 2000 Latitude = 17 degrees, 34 minutes 58 seconds South Longitude = 149 degrees, 37 minutes West FRENCH POLYNESIA-THE SOCIETY ISLANDS- TAHITI Up and early today to head into the town via the "la truck" We had to finish our paperwork for the visa application. So off to the immigration office again. When we got there a woman was hanging around saying she was the translator, I talked to her for a while and asked her about the storm the other day.  She said the local news people said it was clocked at 120 kilometers! She was driving and was blown off the road! After we finished up our visa applications David and I were back on to exploring the town of Papeete. We found an Internet café where we were finally able to check our other email account. We had 56 new messages of which 50 were email junk mail! So that went by pretty fast. I tired to send some pictures out, but the French have a very different keyboard and none of the letters were where they were suppose to be. So that was an interesting experience. If you got email from me and it looks funny, that’s what happened. We found a nice little brewpub where they brew the beer on the spot, so of course being from Seattle we had to try the local French microbrew. Not bad.  There are many fabric stores in town with all kinds of beautiful floral prints in beautiful bright colors; we found one we liked to make new pillowcases for our stateroom. Now I will have something to work on for the next few days. We walked around gorging ourselves on food we hadn’t seen in a long time; we had great ice cream and then stopped to share a hamburger and fries. I even tried drinking coconut milk right out of the coconut. David made fun of me saying that nothing says tourist like walking around with a coconut with a straw sticking out of it. Oh well I had to try it and it was pretty good and cold and wet, which was the main thing.  What a feast we had.  After all this feasting David wasn’t feeling to well so we headed back to the boat.  There has been a bug going around amongst the cruisers I guess it’s our turn now, for I’m not feeling great either. So we took it easy the rest of the day until 6:00 PM when single hand Bob came by for a visit for a few hours. Then it was off to bed listening to the beating of Tahitian drums from the show at the local hotel on shore. Saturday May 27th - Tuesday May 30th, 2000 Latitude = 17 degrees, 34 minutes 58 seconds South Longitude = 149 degrees, 37 minutes West FRENCH POLYNESIA-THE SOCIETY ISLANDS- TAHITI Not much to report for the last few days. David and I have been pretty sick. We seemed to have caught whatever it is that is going around. The Iron Butterfly people had it first, so I guess that’s where we picked it up. Some kind of respiratory infection, so we started in on the antibiotics right away.  David worked on a few electrical projects, while  I worked on my pillows. That new Tahitian print really sparked up the stateroom.  David has been reading a lot and I’ve been sleeping a lot. Our friend Ed finally showed up on Saturday and anchored close to us, then on Sunday he pulled up anchor and said he had found a spot in town at the quay. So he’s going to stay in Papeete a few days and then maybe come to Meave Beach. He said he wanted to be close to the food, laundry and action. Saturday through Monday we have had strong winds blowing through the anchorage making everyone a little nervous about leaving their boats unattended. Today Mr. Shiriri came by to look over some of our charts. Everyone is concerned about the possible civil war in Fiji and making alternative plans, so he wanted to look over some other charts for the south pacific.  It wasn’t long after he left we heard a knock on the haul and he was back. He said one of the French boats had come over to tell him that another 60-knot storm was on the way. Well, at least this time we are on the boat and we have two anchors out. We got anything that could possibly blow away put inside and then just waited! It seemed like several times the winds got to be around 30 knots and the skies were black, with a shower here and there, but so far, nothing as bad as last week. This weather sure doesn’t make us feel very comfortable leaving the boat. We know we wont drag now, but there are many boats anchored near us who weren’t here for the storm last week and aren’t ready for such blow. Those are the ones that make us nervous about leaving. It sure would be nice to leave the boat and explore the island one of these days. Well have to wait until this weird weather system is out of the area.  Tonight as we sat outside watching the weather, there was huge lighting over on the island of Moorea. Glad we didn’t go there yet. Our pal singlehand Bob and Wile Coyote left for Moorea two days ago. Hope they found a safe spot to be.