Moorea, Society Islands

30. Jun. 2015
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French Polynesia
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2 Comments

Author: Pete

Location: Moorea, Society Islands

Date: June 25, 2015

We decided to make the most of our down-time waiting for the autohelm part to come in by sailing to Moorea, three hours from Papeete. We had spent a few days ordering our autohelm part, salvaging data off a dying hard drive, and working on a dinghy cover. The sun does wicked things to the material over the years, so often canvas covers are put on to extend the lifespan of the noble work horse of Joe Schmoe Cruiser. Gringos call the covers ‘chaps’, but I like the Spanish equivalent, ‘pijamas.’ I love the idea that the dinghies tied up at the dock in their pajamas are really attending some sort of nautical sleepover with terrycloth robes, slippers, and night caps.

It was a lot of work; we made a pattern out of clear plastic in Galapagos and worked on the real thing on the mooring at Marina Taina. It’s tough to work on a project like that on a rolling boat with limited space to maneuver meters of fabric. At least that’s going to be my excuse if anyone calls me out on a few spots of rough tailoring. Most of the time we worked with the dinghy suspended from the davits and occasionally I had to get in it to work. I only once fell out of the tippy dinghy into the harbor. Miranda thought that was great.

Several of the days were pretty windy and rough when we were on a mooring ball in Taina. We had gusts to thirty knots and once breaking waves in the mooring field. One afternoon as we were working on the dinghy cover, a big catamaran broke free from its mooring and went zipping sideways downwind through a dozen moored boats. No one saw it until it was right next to us. I put the dinghy in the water and went tearing after it, without thinking about what I was going to do in my poorly idling, nine horsepower dinghy once I caught the 30 ton catamaran in 20 knots of wind. Miranda was smarter than me, as usual, and called the marina. They dispatched a launch and with the assistance of another dinghy we wrestled the boat to another mooring ball and tied it up. Miraculously, the vagabond boat didn’t ding a single other vessel out of the dozen it zipped by in the mooring field.

Then it was happily time to piss off to Moorea for a few days while we awaited the autohelm part. We motorsailed the fifteen miles across because the wind was on our bow. Of course it was the first day it had blown from that direction in a week. It was light and the going was easy. We passed Cook’s Bay, named after the popular Captain Cook who explored the area, and turned in at Opunohu Bay a few miles west. The two bays cut deep into the island of Moorea, making it look like a heart with two divots in it.

Had to hand steer the three hours over, which seems pretty easy, but is a chore when you’re used to someone else driving for thousands of miles. Motored easily through the pass with the backwards French buoy marking. The pointed teeth of Moorea’s peaks made for fantastic scenery.

Oop. That’s fanny-tastic scenery! We anchored just inside the protection of the coral reef in ten feet of water.

We put the dinghy down with gusto and took off to go snorkel. It had been three weeks since we’d been in the water. Well, except for the time I fell off the boat working on the dinghy cover. Three weeks?! We LIVE on a boat for crying out loud. How does that happen?! It was good to be back down undah. A couple chill sea turtles paddled by near the drop off and we saw some of our old friends from other boats out there too.

Came back to the boat in a nice flat anchorage and slept like babies.

The next morning we met up with friends who knew the low down of the island. Paul and Andy from Talulah Ruby showed us the secret snorkeling spots. The first spot hid seven sunken carved tikis. Legend has it that the first missionaries made the craftsman throw them in the lagoon when they came. Snorkelers keep them free of marine growth so they are in great shape. A little spooky to see under water!

Our next delight of the day was Stingray City, a sandbar in the lagoon where the stingrays (and reef sharks) congregate in the shallows. We anchored our dinghy in chest-deep water and the rays came out to play. They swam in and around us, looking for handouts. Apparently some dive operators feed them, so they were very cordial with us. They nose around you and are happy to be petted. Their skin is velvety, an unparalleled combination of smooth, slippery, and soft without feeling slimy. It’s a cool enough sensation and interaction to dissolve your speech into unintelligible, involuntary chortling. From all across the sandbar the sound of our group of friends giggling like school girls though their snorkels rang out. It’s a precious thing to hear a posh, collected fifty-year-old British man tee-heeing giddily at the thrill of a natural petting zoo.

We ended up going back the next day armed with tuna. The rays were really excited to see us then! Reminds me of a great Mitch Hedberg quote: “I find that a duck’s opinion of me is heavily influence by whether or not I have any bread.” That guy was a genius. We brought our gringo friends Rick and Lara from SeaKey, and Dutch friends Pete and Liz from Suluk.

The 28th we sailed back to Papeete with the hopes of picking up our much awaited part!

Return to Papeete

21. Jun. 2015
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French Polynesia
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1 Comment

Author: Pete

Location: Papeete, Tahiti

Date: June 20, 2015

A few days ago we pulled into the beautiful protected harbor of… wait, what? Papeete? I thought we were out of here! Bah!

Clearing out of the country took several days of running around to immigration and customs office, one at this end of Papeete, one at the other, all by bus and in French (which I’m getting REALLY good at faking!) I jumped flaming bureaucratic hoops like a dressed-up, sweaty corgi in a circus act. It’s all part of the fun, or at least that’s what I keep telling myself.

Papeete-8

To leave one must give notice three days in advance then get physical clearance papers from immigration on the day you’re to leave port. They’re so anal that they indicate the HOUR of your departure. We fueled and watered the boat at the Marina Taina and then headed out into the gray of the sea.

The sharp teeth of Moorea’s peaks loomed ten miles away in the distance. Scattered rain bands swept the horizon and the wind kicked to twenty knots. No problem, we’ll just rig Tayrona to sail herself around the point, then hide out inside and keep watch in the comfort of the salon, right? Wrong! We turned on the autopilot and it promptly shrieked the beeping death warning and flashed an ominous “AUTORELEASE” message. We tried it again. “AUTORELEASE” and more death beeping. I dove into the depths of the port engine compartment where the autopilot’s hydraulic ram is housed and fiddled with the rudder position sensor. It gives rudder position feedback to the autopilot brain so the system can be proprioceptive and correct rudder angle accordingly. Long story short, it was shot, but we didn’t know it yet. We turned off the “AUTORELEASE” function deep in the configuration settings and the autopilot turned to “AUTO” and stopped the incessant beeping! Hooray! We did a happy dance on deck, at least for a moment until the autopilot swung the boat hard to port, then hard to starboard searching for the right rudder angle but without any feedback. We put the kibosh on the autopilot and our happy dance and steered by hand while we tried to figure out what was going on.

We weighed the option of sailing for the next two months to Fiji by hand and decided we should probably fix the problem while we have civilization to help. I begrudgingly put the wheel hard over to bring us back to port. We picked up a mooring ball at the Marina Taina and sat there miffed for a while.

Now we were illegally in the country! Our passports were stamped out and everything! We found Tehani from the Tahiti Crew, who helped with formalities to get into French Polynesia, and she pulled some stings and got us back in the good graces of the law. We once again fly the French Polynesian flag.

In the next days we hunted down a friend of ours on a different boat in town. Paul on S/V Georgia is a sailing guru and we figured he’d be able to help. I described the symptoms to him and he concurred with my diagnosis of a rudder position sensor failure. He happened to have the same system and over the next couple days we pulled off his sensor, and installed in on my boat. The autopilot worked like a charm when we tested it out on sea trial. I was temped to take off right then and there but he’s a better sailor than me and would surely catch us.

Papeete-1

They’re surprisingly inexpensive Raymarine parts! $250 is a steal for most autopilot failures. I’ll take it! Oops, no Raymarine dealers in French Polynesia though. Matter of fact, the closest place that has this part is New Caledonia, some 2500 miles away near Australia! We can order it from the US but it takes ten days and $400 in shipping and customs. Owwie.

We recalled a twelve-minute discussion on the docks a week earlier with an American cruiser who was heading to California to take care of some business and would be back in Tahiti in short order. In passing she casually offered to bring anything back if we needed parts. It’s one of those nonchalant proposals sailors put out there when they know that no one is going to be boorish enough to take them up on it. But hell, I’ll be boorish for $400 and no customs crap to deal with! We shot her an email and got the okay to order parts! Huzzah!

So that’s where we are now. Sitting in Tahiti awaiting a part to come in on the 29th with a good Samaritan sailor. It’s a pretty awful place to be stranded. The green peaks, blue lagoon, fresh papaya, and Miss Tahiti festivities are dreadful. Hard time aboard Tayrona.

Papeete, Tahiti

14. Jun. 2015
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French Polynesia
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2 Comments

Author: Pete

Location: Papeete, Tahiti

Date: June 5 – 13

Alright! Back to work! I guess that’s how it’s felt in the last week in Papeete. We got set up in the new marina in town which is half price until the end of June. They’re still working on things so the marina isn’t a well oiled machine yet, but hey, neither am I. It’s a treat to be at a dock, to be able to run out and pick up something you forgot, to walk to dinner without being sprayed with sea water in the dinghy, hose salty kite and dive gear down without being a water Nazi, and also to take a real shower. I haven’t taken a real shower since Panama. That’s not to say that I haven’t taken a shower, or even a hot shower. The boat provides hot showers when the engines have been running. I’m talking about real, hot, soapy, soaker showers. 3000 miles long past.

Our first night in we went out to eat at the plaza that features all the Chinese food trucks in town. The place was teeming with people and steaming with food blazing over mobile propane grills. The food was great, and most importantly, not cooked by us! We also stumbled upon a great Polynesian dance performance. I was ready to get my coconuts and grass skirt going.

The town of of Papeete gets a bad rap from the cruising community. If one expects a pristine settlement on a tropical island, one shouldn’t expect to find random Harken jib car parts there. We were pleasantly surprised by Papeete. There’s a beautiful park and promenade along the waterfront, nice restaurants, and more chandleries than you can shake a spinnaker pole at.

The styles of the tattoos have been changing little by little as we head west through French Polynesia. In the Marquesas the tattoos were generally animals, sharks, dolphins, and rays. The Tuamotus had more geometric designs, angular and repeating. Here in the Society Islands we’ve seen more flowing ‘tribal’ designs with more Asian looking influence. Pretty neat.

Liza and Felix spent a day planning and packing before they headed to the other side of Tahiti to catch the big waves coming in there. It was an emotional send off; we were happy for all the help they’ve been aboard in good weather and bad, happy for all the incredible experiences we’ve been able to share together, but sad to see them go. C’est la vie.

No time to get glassy-eyed, Susan, time to get busy! We have a TO DO list about a mile long, nothing critical, but it’s like bailing water, if you don’t keep up, your boat is going down. For all the running around town we busted out the baby blue, sparkly fold-up bike that was stashed in the starboard crash box back in Fort Lauderdale. She was still in impeccable shape with not a spot of rust! We bolted her together and found some pegs in the local hardware store. I pedal, feet a blur in tiny circles, and Miranda stands on the back, holding on, skirt flapping in the wind. It’s comical. If I didn’t have a cute girl holding onto me, I’d feel like a big knob and get beat up by way more muscley Polynesian men.

On the list, propane! Dragged seven, ten-pound propane tanks to the gas filling station some miles north of town on the blue bike. Then it was onto replacing failing exhaust hose and dinghy fuel line connections, running to the Port Captain and Customs Offices for clearance paperwork, and general cleaning and work on the boat. Miranda also got her hair cut by ‘professionals’ in a ‘salon’ because she doesn’t trust me with the ‘trimmers’ to give her a ‘fashionable haircut’ on the ‘transom’. Geeze, some people have no adventurous spirit at all.

We also destroyed the blog by updating the WordPress software and it took a good couple hours of freaking out in an internet cafe, but Miranda figured it out. For you gurus, we couldn’t login to our admin site because we got the White Screen of Death (technical term, promise!) from our outdated theme’s incompatibility with the new version of WordPress. So she updated the WordPres theme by overwriting the current version via an FTP client called Filezilla. Merg? It’s sort of like getting your Michigan driver’s licence renewed when you’re not allowed back in the country because you have too many DUIs. Tough going. It’s amazing what you learn out here, even when you don’t want to.

We loaded up with new provisions, fresh produce at the market, a good deal of booze, watered up, and filled the boat with diesel, before heading out of Papeete! On to new horizons!