Tahiti Aug 21 - Aug 26

We departed Rangiroa on the 18th in the early light for a day sail over to Tikehau. The weather was perfect as was the wind. Unfortunately, the wind continued to pick up after our arrival and the anchorage in tikehau was less than ideal...in fact it was downright bumpy. We had planned on going for a scuba dive in their pass which was supposed to be quite nice, but when we went ashore on the 19th to sign up for a dive we found that the small resort where they were supposed to be seemed to be pretty much empty. We met the lady who ran the place on the beach, and she was quite nice and explained to us that their dive boat had broken down and now the only dive guys on Tikehau were at the big Pearl luxury resort hotel, which was quite a ways away. On our way back to town the small resort's dog followed us the entire way (about 10 mins), even after the resort owner came and tried to get him in her car. She explained that he thought we were her guests and so was escorting us. Everyone in town seemed to know the dog and all the kids seemed pretty excited to see him. I wanted to ask her why she seemed to have no other guests for him to escort, but couldn't figure out how to ask that politely. We also encountered two broken pay phones on Tikehau. One right near the dock and one right out in front of the post office. This seemed pretty strange given that EVERY Post Office in French Polynesia has at least one pay phone outside it, and every single other one had been in working order. We wandered into the store, killing time until 5PM when we could pick up the baguettes Fred and Aimee had reserved for us that morning, and the lady in the store said the closest working pay phone was at the airport - out past the seemingly deserted resort we had been to earlier. All this seemed a bit contrary to an entry in a guide book that said Tikehau was prospering in recent years because of it's desirable location on the route between Rangiroa and Tahiti. After we got back to the boat and found the anchorage still quite rough we decided to leave the next day for the big city in Tahiti.

Tahiti Aug 21 - Aug 26
On august 20th we departed Tikehau bound for marina taina just outside the capital of French Polynesia and the closest thing we will see to a city until our arrival in New Zealand. Our stay in Tahiti was fairly brief but productive. We sailed overnight and arrived in Tahiti midday on the 21st. For the first time since leaving San Francisco we were able to find an actual grocery store (all of the other islands have smaller Vermont country store type places called magasins). Here in Pape'ete there was a Walmart style store and it was initially a bit daunting, to be honest. We can see now why immigrants from other countries are sometimes overwhelmed in US supermarkets, but we quickly adjusted and proceeded to pack the boat full of all of life's necessities - food, beer & wine.

Another treat in Pape'ete was the market. This is where locals gather to buy and sell fresh produce, eggs, fish, meat and local handiwork. We took the opportunity to fill our vegetable hammocks which were quite empty after our stay in the Tuamotos where, since they don't have much land, they don't grow much stuff. We also got some delicious cooked pork from one of the Chinese vendors (Celestial's for any of you Deadwood fans out there) and took the opportunity to sample one of the dozens of varieties of strange, local fish that were on display. These were the kind we see in the lagoons, and will hopefully be catching or spearing later on, but we haven't ventured there yet for fear of fish poisoining which has been present in many of the lagoons we've been in so far. We did try to memorize all the fish at the market so that we'll know what to try to get in the future.

As there were a few things on our repairs list that we wanted to take care of in Pape'ete we chose to take a slip at the marina...something we also had not done since San Francisco. We had read that the country of French Polynesia has been marketing to the megayacht crowd these days and were not dissapointed as far as classy boat company goes. There were two giant, beautiful sailboats (both well over 100ft) as well as a huge motor yacht. This was also our first look at the european style marina which employs a totally different docking style to what we are accustomed to, but our anxieties about dealing with this new style were short lived as the marina told us we would be tying up the way we are used to - apparently all guests do, only the permanent boats do the "med" style anchoring, which was good news since we weren't sure how we were going to get on or off the boat if we docked the other way. The marina bathrooms also left a bit to be desired. I had been looking forward to a long, long, long hot shower (something we just don't ge many of on the boat), but the marina showers, which were tyled and styled nicely, had only one button to push and it produced cold water only AND if you went in the evening you got to share the bathroom with giant roaches - YUCK. Needless to say we all showered only in the daylight hours after that grim discovery.

By the second day in Pape'ete we had completely fixed a problem with our refrigerator; had our propane tanks refilled; and were well on our way to solving our rigging problems and our self steering problem thanks to a few of the locals Michelle, Mike and Patrick who were extremely knowledgeable and actually showed up when they said they would prepared to work on the projects they were helping with. How refreshing! And what a load off our minds that they not only tuned up our rigging but were able to explain why it broke in the first place and help us fix the cause of the problem. Hooray!

We also managed to squeeze in a bit of fun amongst all the work in Pape'ete. We had our best restaurant meal of the trip so far in a wonderful French place called L'o a la Bouche. Delish. We had Chinese food another night, which was also a big treat. There was also a bar at the end of the dock with a happy hour each evening where all the cruisers tended to gather. It was fun to go there and we made some new friends. We went out on the town Friday night with a gang of folks and had some pizza. After the pizza we listened to a local band and did a bit of dancing on a teensy tiny dance floor. Then we moved on to a "club" which was surprisingly like a "club" in the US - the lights were low, the music was loud and there was a big big dance floor. We didn't stay there long, but we came to regret that the next day when we heard what went on in our absence. The next day, one of our new friends, Paul, asked us if we had seen another new friend, Sam. These guys are young gents who are crewing on sailboats with people they didn't know before crossing the ocean with them (a fairly common practice). Paul said he and Sam had brought two sisters home with them from the club, but in the morning Paul found Sam's girl sleeping on the dock, and invited her in for breakfast, but he was curious as to what happened since last he'd seen them, Sam and his gal had been getting along quite well. After escorting the girls to a taxi, Paul found his answer when he saw Sam walking up the dock with his head hanging low. Apparently the word "sister" was used loosely, because the beautiful young gal Sam took home, was equipped with a man's plumbing! Oh, how we wish we hadn't gone home before the guys met the "girls"! ("Sam's" name has been changed to protect the no longer innocent).

PS - We've finally been able to add some pictures, and we've put some on the older blog posts also, so if you're interested you can check those out for more pics.