Lots of our mates checked out of Tahiti last week so they could continue westward without going back again after the Rendezvous. Well, we thought our replacement sail was being shipped to Papeete so we did not check out of the country previously and knew we'd have to return. I also ordered a new camera and had my mom ship it from California about two weeks ago. We did have a nice sail back and immediately got the news from our sailmaker in the states that the sail was done and ready to ship. Unfortunately, he was only willing to pay $200 for shipping and just found out that shipping the sail here would cost at least $1,000! Outrageous, I know. After talking it over, Don and I decided that we did not want to put out another $800 to get the sail to Papeete and we did not want to wait the additional how many weeks for it to get here, and then for the cost only to increase once the French Customs officials got their hands on it. We decided to change our sail plans instead. So on the way to Tonga we'll sail a bit further north to American Samoa and get the sail shipped there. American Samoa, as it's name implies, is an American protectorate (or something like that) and it uses the US Postal Service. We think shipment will be about $200 and they will hold it for us until we get there. Some day this problem will go away...I hope!