Arthur
08/01/2012, 17 29.209'S:149 52.713'W, Moorea

We've moved. We traveled about 20 miles today to Moorea, which is about 8 miles as the crow flies from Tahiti. This is a very beautiful island, and it is nice to get away from the commercial center that is Papeete. Tomorrow we will play with stingrays and perhaps dive one of the passes into the lagoon.

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Arthur
07/30/2012, 17 35.085'S:149 37.275'W, Tahiti

Not much new.... We've been in Tahiti for a couple of weeks. We've been diving with Alex and Dan on Ruby Soho, and hanging out with Water Musick, Clementine, and Tranquility. Today we plan to go dive a world war II bomber and a 200 foot ship of some sort. We've also been snorkeling and played a bit with the trainer kitesurfing kite yesterday on a sand bar where a bunch of locals spend their weekends relaxing. We've also done a few boat projects. It'll be time to move on to Moorea soon to feed the stingrays.

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Arthur
07/17/2012, 17 35.085'S:149 37.275'W, Tahiti

hmmm what to do today. Took the windlass apart yesterday. Maybe I'll put it back together....but I'll have to track down some 0 guage wire before I do that... Maybe I should put in a new bulb in our steaming light. I could replace a water maker feed pump. I could investgate an oil leak on the port motor. I could investigate a leak in our fuel injection system on the starboard motor. I could also replace some float switches with new ones. I could jury rig a positive pressure oil reservoir for our sail drives. And I could even track down the local bipolar rigger and see if he's down with going up our mast, or would it be, up for going up our mast? Hard to say since he's bipolar.

I suppose I could also read my book, sip something cold to drink, and then take a swim in the crystal clear water.

Very hard to decide.

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Arthur
07/16/2012, 17 35.085'S:149 37.275'W, Tahiti

We've had a busy last few days. Papeete and Tahiti generally is a bustling place. You can get most anything here, so we are more or less back in the first world for the time being. It is a pretty expensive place. Most things compare well with New York, but some things are wierdly expensive. A short 5 minute cab ride is about 20 to 30 dollars. A bag of oranges is $20. Chocolate bars for 5 to 6 buck. A bag of chips is 5 or 6 bucks too.

Yesterday we watched some inter island competitions like throwing spears are a coconut, lifting heavy rocks (up to about 360lbs), and a team event where they raced to remove the all the meat from several bags of whole coconuts. The island of Maupiti won. In the evening we went into town to a traditional chant and dance festival (also part of an inter island annual competition). Pretty amazing. Especially the hips :).

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Arthur
07/11/2012, 17 35.085'S:149 37.275'W, Tahiti

We've arrived in Tahiti, and are catching up on some rest. Then we'll head out to dinner tonight. We are on a Mooring off of Marina Taina. Lovely approach to the island. Beautiful tall green mountain peaks, plus the wonderful colors of a surrounding lagoon and reef. The Marquesas were mountains with no reef. The Tuamotus were all reef and no mountains. The Society Islands (tahiti, moorea, bora bora, huahine etc...) are both-- tall mountains surrounded by a lagoon and an outer fringing coral reef.

We are going to settle in here for a couple of weeks. Tahiti, and main town Papeete, which is also the capital of french polynesia, are very touristy, with cruise ships and resorts etc. But it will be nice to be able to eat out, and do a bit of shopping. We haven't been in a place with much in the way of services since April in Panama!!

We'll do some repairs, and some shopping, and relax a bit.

There are some dance competitions going on, and the annual fete national de independence is this weekend. Plus there are lots of other boats here that we know so it should be a lot of fun.

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Arthur
07/11/2012, 17 22.384'S:149 10.138'W, en route to Tahiti

Its about 4:30 am tahiti time, and I'm cold! I have on a fleece and my windbreaker. I have no idea what the temperature is, but it must be down in the 70's. Thank god its only an hour and a half to sun up.

We've been flying along in the mid 8's all night and will be arriving in Tahiti sooner than expected. Venus Point is only 19 miles away already.

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Arthur
07/10/2012, 16 57.892'S:147 13.396'W, en route to Tahiti

All is well. Position is as of 22:30 zulu. COG 243 mag. SOG 5.7 kts.

Not much happening. Watched Mrs. Brown's Boys last night. Very funny series.

We are in VHF contact with Picara and Baracca while en route.

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Arthur
07/10/2012, 16 42.207'S:146 05.391'W, WSW of the Fakarava S. Pass

We have grudgingly left Fakarava. We will miss the snorkeling and kite flying. And the sharks, yes, the sharks. Three of them circled the boat this morning while I was scrubbing the bottom. I think they just wanted to say so long.

We left about 1pm today at low slack tide. We are now heading COG 245 mga. At just under 5 kts. We expect to arrive in Papeete, Tahiti on Wednesday.

Right now I'm stuffed to me gills with tuna--and so is the freezer. We caught a 30 pounder at about 4:20 pm. Yummy. Skipjack again, though we keep hoping for a yellow fin. But the skipjack tuna are still pretty darn good.

Comments [1]

Arthur
07/08/2012, 16 31.226'S:145 28.386'W, Fakarava, Tuamotus, French Polynesia

We've moved about half a mile to the west side of the pass at the south end of Fakarava. The snorkeling and diving is the best I've seen. All the coral is alive. The area is full of fish plus some large manta rays and spotted eagle rays. There are also, of course, plenty of sharks. There seems to always be at least one black tip reef shark in view when we are snorkeling, or even just sitting on the boat. We were flying our kite surfing trainer kite yesterday off the back of the boat, and right under the stern there were 3 or 4 sharks constantly in view. We also tried the kite while in the kayak which was a lot of fun.

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Arthur
07/04/2012, 16 30.334'S:145 27.307'W, Fakarava, Tuamotus, French Polynesia

We moved 30 miles to the southern end of Fakarava. ....just thought we'd let you nosy people know....

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