In Tahiti!!

Monday 21st April

I'ts Monday morning here and my back feels tons better after a couple of glasses of wine last night and a really good sleep, but Val's neck is sore after her nights sleep!

We left Rangiroa through the other pass (to the NW of the one we came in). Even though it was 1/2 tide there was no real current and no rough water and set off to do the 200 miles to Tahiti. 200 miles now seems to be a short trip to the shops! How different to Dublin. We motor sailed through the night and into the morning. We then had a rain downpour and the wind got up to about 25 knots, so we reefed the Main and put several rolls in the genoa and kept going. I saw 9.3 SOG at one stage. As the boat speed log was obviously reading too fast I reset it to the GPS speed, ie the Speed Over Ground reading. We tramped along and arrived here in Papeete after a 26 hour passage, an average of 7.7 knots, very satisfactory.

On arrival at the port entrance I radiod into the control. You have to do this as you pass under the flight path into the airport, and we saw a lot of planes flying in and out. We got the OK to proceed and went down the lagoon for several miles to this Taina Marina. The channel is well marked but it is still strange to see people standing in the water a few metres from the boat. We are on an alongside berth which is nice as we can just step on and off the boat and not have to rig a walkway from the stern to shore.

We have been told that the McDonalds here is the best anywhere - complete with its own beach! The recommendation is a lunch there one day, just to experiance it. They even do chicken wings apparently. I wonder if they are really chicken.

I have the entry form for the Tahiti Pearl Regatta and I'll fill it in today and send it off to the organisers. One of the questions is about the boat's handicap, so I think all the WARC boats are just putting cruising boat as the handicap.

Apparently here it rains at lunch time, very heavilly and virtually every day.

Val is doing a big laundry run today and we'll all start the big washdown and scrubbing of the boat today, followed by cleaning all the steel, getting rid of the rust stains that always appear.

We were looking at Moorea on the way in, its only 8 miles from here. A very craggy but beautiful looking island. We might spend a couple of nights there in a hotel as a break from the boat. Luxuriate in air conditioning all day!

Everyone is well on board and we are all looking forward to 10 days here on these 2 islands. Perhaps we will hire a car and explore Tahiti that way as it is a big island. I have been told that hiring one on Moorea to drive around the island takes only 8 hours maximum. It is a much smaller island, with a marina that is 1/2 the price of here.

After we leave Tahiti we go to Raiatea for the start of the regatta, then to Tahaa and finish up in BoraBora. From there we sail to Suworrow in the Cook Islands and then on to Tonga, Fiji, Vanuatu and then the big island Australia. That is getting closer at a rapid rate!