08/07/2011, Bora Bora Yacht Club
Well, we are getting closer to the next leg of our voyage. We filled up our water tanks a few days ago and yesterday, we headed to the local Total station for diesel and gasoline. We had filled our tanks when we were in Papeete and having run the engine some since we left, we wanted to make sure we had as much as we could as diesel fuel(tax free) runs $4.92 per gallon here while it is much more the farther west we go. I let the yacht club know we were heading over to the station(didn't want them thinking we had skipped out) and tied up to a mooring buoy at another yacht club that is still offering their mooring for free. We would have stayed there(being free) but it is a much more exposed anchorage with the boats rolling and rocking as the winds blow through it. We got a radio call from Soggy Paws(another cruiser) that some of the buoys actually belonged to local dive boats. Figuring we would only be there for an hour or so we figured we would be alright. Fraid not. We saw a woman ashore frantically waving her hands telling us to get off the mooring. We dropped the line and grabbed hold of another buoy in the yacht club. This one was fine. I climbed into Puff and headed ashore with the paperwork we needed for the station--copies of our paperwork where we came into the country, copies of our paperwork for when we leave the country, a copy of our clearance exit papers, copies of Zephyrs documentation and a copy of our tax free permit that allows us to get duty free fuel. It's a cash only business with duty free fuel so while I had about 11,000 francs, I knew I didn't have enough to cover what we were buying. I gave the office 10,000 and started filling the two jerry jugs that we use to ferry fuel. We could have tied up to the dock but the wind was against us and would have kept pushing Zephyr against the concrete dock over and over as the wind was gusting quite well at this time. It would have made leaving the dock nearly impossible.
I got the first two jugs filled and headed back to Zephyr. We then pump the fuel out of the jugs and into the through deck fittings that lead to the tanks. Doing all this takes some time. Back to the fuel dock for more fuel, this time with a jug for gasoline. With those filled, I'd planned on walking down the road to the local bank and getting some more money. The clerk at the station told me that they closed in 15 minutes for lunch and wouldn't open again till 1400(nice lunch "hour"). OPPS!!! I didn't have enough funds to pay for the fuel that was already pumped. I thought about running to the bank but there was no way I would have made it there and back. I ran to Puff and hustled back to Zephyr. I had Tracy grab some of our emergency US dollars we keep on board and I rushed back to the station. I made it just in time to pay for my gas and diesel and headed back to Zephyr. Being much closer to town, we decided to take Puff to the town docks and have lunch and pick up some groceries while we were there. Strangely, the roach coach(known here as a Roulottes) that we have eaten at a good bit wasn't where it normally was. The other cheap "Snack" that was outside the grocery store was also closed. While we were in town, I hit the local banks ATM and now had plenty of money for more fuel. We grabbed some drinks at the grocery store and headed back to Zephyr. While we were having lunch, we heard several boats talking on the VHF radio about heading to the yacht club to get a buoy. Since we didn't want to loose our mooring, we dropped off the buoy we were attached to and headed back to the Bora Bora Yacht Club to get our mooring ball back. No problem with that as we found that no one had come in while we were gone. I jumped into Puff and with our two diesel jerry jugs in hand headed back to the station. Now a lot farther away than it had been. With only myself in the Puff, I could get her up and planing so I made quick time of the journey. Since I had left a short time before, the attendant didn't make me get another set of documents(yea!!) and allowed me to get these two jugs filled but she wanted to be sure that I wasn't coming back for more. Nope, we were done. Thirty gallons did a good job of getting our tanks where we wanted them to be. With full jugs in Puff, I started up Dragon(our 7.5hp outboard) and headed back toward Zephyr. Now normally with so much weight on board, I can't get her up and planing but I guess I had the distribution of the weight right as I get her up planing just fine. Now not as fast as when the jugs were empty but I still made good time getting back. Tracy was already to pump the diesel into the tanks when I got back.
Shortly after I got back we got a visit from Henrik off Dana(our Danish friends) and we tried to move some of our movies over to his hard drive so they could watch them as they cruise the waters. No matter what we tried, we couldn't get they to move. Either my hard drive was locked or his was but we could never get them to transfer. Lene and Henrik had caught up with us here at the yacht club a couple of days ago and we has spent the last two night socializing with them either in their cockpit or in ours. A wonderful couple full of knowledge and eager to share their experiences with us. Having only been out here for just over three years, we are definitely on the newbie side of the cruising community out here. Many have been out here for 15 years or longer. Some have already go around the world and this will be their second or third time. Last night, we had Jake and Jackie over from Hokule'a, one of our sister boats here at the anchorage. Bill off Solstace couldn't make it unfortunately. Jake and Jackie had had company for the last ten days or so. They had just come back from putting them on the ferry to the airport. We'd met them when we were on Moorea about a month ago. We spent several hours in our cockpit getting caught up on what each of us has been doing and where we have been and are going. It was another fun evening.
Yesterday afternoon, a sailboat(about 100 feet long!) came into the anchorage and dropped their anchor about 200 yards to the northwest of Zephyr, letting out a good 300 feet of chain as they were in water a good 90 feet deep. A beautiful boat. As we sat in the cockpit last night with Jake and Jackie, we saw a sailboat come through the pass about 2000. They appeared to be coming towards the yacht club anchorage. Since it was pitch black, they launched their dingy and two people motored in checking out where buoys were in the anchorage. Now there are a good many available if you know where to look. As luck would have it they came across one close to the 100 footer. They motored back to the "mother ship" and tried to direct it toward the buoy. Well, that didn't work so the two of them piled back into the dingy and returned to the buoy with a blue flashlight in hand to show the boat the way to the buoy. Jack and Jackie had already left by this time so I sat deck with my own flashlight trying to help them come in. As luck would have it, it started to rain shortly after the dingy got to the buoy. I'm sure they were drenched by the time their boat got to them. Once attached to the buoy, they were set. Unfortunately, this put them VERY close to the 100 foot beautiful sailboat. Not a good place to be with the new boat on a mooring that has limited swing room and the 100 footer on the end of a 300 foot leash that would allow them to swing nicely at anchor. When I went on deck this morning, I found that the 100 footer had moved during the night to a different place and re-dropped their anchor. They were now a big distance away from the new boat. I guess being on a moorage buoy trumps being on an anchor. I would not have been happy having to move so late at night. Oh well, that's the cruising life for you. Most times, the rule of the road out here is the last one in can be asked to move if another boat feels you are too close and they are uncomfortable with it. Not so with anchor versus mooring buoy.
Today, we were supposed to go the the local Gendarmarie to get all our exit paperwork stamped and processed as we plan on heading out on Tuesday. We were due at the office at 0900 for processing. When we got up this morning, it was blowing something fierce across the island but we needed to get to town in Puff so we planned on getting wet during the trip. We wore waterproof coats to try and keep us dry and we stayed somewhat dry for most of the trip. When we got to town we were only partially soaked. The wind shifted as we headed around the island so the while we were going down wind for the first part of the trip, we were suddenly going into the wind for the last half of it with water splashing into Puff with every wave. Oh well, we were not going to melt. We got in a bit early so we waited at the dock as people off the Paul Gauguin cruise ship were coming ashore. Boy were they pale!!!! Sunlight reflected off the creaminess of their legs! It was blinding!!!
At 0900, we showed up at the Gendarmarie with all the papers we needed and after looking at them and stamping some of them, they asked us when we were leaving. Tuesday I said. Oh Oh, we were a day early. You can only check out one day before you leave. Now we get to go back again tomorrow. No big deal. It's their rules and we always try and obey them. It's their country after all.
Today, Tracy is putting together the meals we will need when we are on passage. Everything will be cooked and in bags or containers either in the frig or in the freezer ready to be put in the oven or plunged into water for a quick reheat. It's much easier than trying to cook if the passage ends up being rough. The last thing you want to do is be down below trying to cook in rough seas. We expect it to take a good 6 days so we will be already when we drop the lines to the mooring buoy on Tuesday(weather permitting). Our next stop is Suwarrow Atoll.
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08/04/2011, Bora Bora Yacht Club
Yesterday was job and haul day. We started by trying to replace one of our circuit breakers on our electric panel. The switch that controls the lights in the engine room started tripping and disconnecting the circuit when it was first turned on. After a couple of flicks of the switch, it would stay on. I pulled out one of our replacement breakers(can't carry too many spare parts) and unscrewed the breaker in the panel and unscrewed the wires(of course, I had already turned off all the power to the panel). It wouldn't come out. It appears to be wedged under one of the connector strips. Getting frustrated easily, I reconnected the wires and screwed it back into the panel. When I turned the power back on, the switch appears to be working fine. Who knows? Loose wire maybe? At least it is working fine now and I still have a replacement in case it gets bad again.
Once that was done, we loaded our water jugs(4--2.5 gallon jugs) into the dingy and headed to the dock at the yacht club to start refilling our tanks. We have a water maker that we turn on every time we fire up our generator but it can't seem to keep up with our usage. It supposedly makes 8 gallon per hour so in an average generator run, we make about 24 gallons. With that much production(we run the generator just about every day) we should be able to keep up with usage. We're going to put the production tube in one of our jerry cans and see how much we are actually making the next time we fire her up. We took our filtration system ashore(GE charcoal filters as well as a paper filter) that we can connect to the hose from the faucet to make sure all the water we bring aboard is as clean as it can possibly be. We have friends that took on water at Anaho Bay in Nuka Hiva from a faucet ashore and it ended up fouling their tanks. They had to pump all their water out and get in a clean their tanks. We've always done it this way, especially since we left the US. It slows down the flow, but all the water you get is as good as it can be. The yacht club has their own desalination plant so I checked it with our salinity meter(for our water maker) and it came in more pure than the water we make aboard. Hauling 10 gallons each trip, I finally hauled 80 gallons back to Zephyr. Tracy stayed ashore with our filtration system. The hose from the yacht club allowed us to fill our jugs right in Puff so there was no hauling involved. We started about 1100 and finished about 1430. The club charges 500 francs($6.25) for 100 liters or about 26 gallons so it cost us 1,500 francs($18.75) for what we took aboard. We burn far more gas in the generator to make that much water. With the tanks just about full, we will have plenty for our next voyage. We hold 265 gallons so we should not run short.
A while later, we headed back ashore for showers and only had to wait for two people ahead of us before we got in. On our way back to Zephyr(about 1830) we saw a sailboat coming into the yacht club mooring field looking for a buoy to hook onto. With it being pitch black, even with flashlights, they were not having much luck. There were only a few balls left to hook on to. We dropped our shower equipment off at Zephyr, grabbed a flashlight of our own and took off to help them out as we knew where the available mooring balls were. We zipped over to them and told them to follow us in. Tracy spotted one of the buoys and we lead them right to it. We even handed them the mooring line. Their boat(Champagne) was safely hooked for the night. We headed back to Zephyr and had a nice late dinner and settled in for another movie night on the computer.
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08/03/2011, Bora Bora Yacht Club
Here's a picture from the yacht club looking at the mountain.
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08/03/2011, Bora Bora Yacht Club
We've moved now that the wind has let up!! We upped the anchor(boy was it dug in!) just after 0900 and took off backtracking our in coming course back toward the west side of Bora Bora. We took it slow to make sure we stayed where we were supposed to be on the track. Since we had come in safely, going back the same way would make sure we got out through the reefs and shallows safely and it did. We followed our course carefully and got to the Bora Bora Yacht Club at just about 1100.
Since we still have abut a week left here, and we need a few supplies, we decided to stop at the yacht club and pick up a mooring buoy. There is another front coming in and we want to make sure we are in a safe place when it arrives in a few days. Weather trends here tend to be one week of good followed by one week of garbage with big winds and rain. Right now, it's nice and sunny with a gentle breeze blowing through the buoys. As we approached the small cove, we called Hokulea, one of our sister ships here at the yacht club(Solstice is here also). Jake looked around the mooring field and told us to come in as there was at least one buoy available. As we entered the buoy field, a boat was just disconnecting from their buoy so we waited a few minutes till they were safely away and grabbed it as is in a safe location. Many of the buoys are quite close to each other and we don't want to bump another boat. As it is, we are quite close to a large charter catamaran. We grabbed the line on the buoy and after adding a second line(just to be safe) we were set. We had heard that there was excellent internet service here and that has proved to be correct so that is an added bonus.
We launched Puff with Dragon and headed ashore to get signed in, learn about what was around the club and get rid of trash. While at sea, we can get rid of some of our trash over board but in a lagoon where we are now, nothing goes over board. Plastic is NEVER dropped over board. It is always taken to the next stop in the voyage. Once signed in at the office(actually at the bar as they have no office) we dropped off our trash and headed into town. We'd thought that the club was closer to town but it's actually quite a ways out so we had a good walk to get to the stores and find a place for lunch. We'd been clued into where we could get a good cheap lunch along the road. It's at one of what we refer to in the US as a "roach couch". These are spread all over every island we have visited and each has a different take of what they offer. All the food that we have had there has been quite good(most times). Some better than others as it is everywhere. We found the suggested "coach" and I had chicken with french fires on French bread. The fries are not on the side, they are in the sandwich. Tracy had a sandwich of Chicken Chow Mien on French bread. Something we have never seen at any other "restaurant". She tried some of my sandwich and said she liked hers better. She didn't get fries on her sandwich though.
We hiked through town looking at what the town has and found the local Tourist Information Center and picked up some maps to get a better lay of the island. Walking back to Zephyr, we stopped at the two grocery stores(we'd passed them on the walk in to town) to get a few items and some drinks. We loaded up our back packs as well as the bags we carry for supplies and headed back. As we did, we cam upon two men having a fight outside a black pearl store along the road. Not sure what that was all about but one looked like the owner of the store and the other didn't. They slapped and punched each other other quite well before a bunch of people stepped in to stop it. As we headed back, we came across some old friends of ours--Lene and Henrik off Dana. We'd met the in Mark's Bay in Nanaimo, British Columbia several years ago and have bumped into each other off and on but hadn't seen them in over a year. They hail from Denmark and have been out cruising(even went around Cape Horn) for years. A fascinating couple(even built their own boat) that can "talk the talk" since they have "walked the walk". A treasure trove of knowledge and a great couple. We'd been in contact with them via email for a while(they had been at Raiatea)but didn't expect them to be at Bora Bora for another week. As we walked back, I passed them right by(not recognizing them) saying "hello". Tracy recognized them immediately. They had just come into the yacht club and they had also set off to explore the island. We stood along the road and chatted and got caught up a bit. As we will both be here for a few more days, I'm sure we will get together again to get better caught up.
We arrived back at the yacht club and headed back to Zephyr to get out shower supplies and headed back in to get cleaned up since the club has hot water showers. While there are signs on the doors that mark one as womens and one as mens, the mens was not an actual shower. Instead it was lined with supplies and equipment. So with only one shower(and it was occupied) we walked out to the dock and came across Avril and Graham from Dream Away(we'd met them on Tahaa) as well as Jake(off Hokulea) and Bill from Solstice. We got caught up on what everyone has been doing before heading back to the showers. Nice a clean, we stopped in at the club and had a beer($6.25 per beer) before returning to Zephyr for the night.
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08/01/2011, Motu Piti Aau, Bora Bora
Here's a shot from the stern of our boat as the clouds dropped on the island of BOra Bora. There were many times that the island was lost to the clouds behind us.
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08/01/2011, Motu Piti Aau, Bora Bora
Yesterday, the winds and rain continued. The winds never really let up. They were constant while the rains came about every 90 minutes with either big showers or light sprinkles. We could see the clouds building far on the easter horizon. A few catamarans(charters) joined us in the anchorage and a few left. One non charter catamaran left as well. Some time after sundown, another non charter catamaran dropped their anchor farther behind us. This is not a place I would want to sail around or even motor around after dark. I'm not sure where they came from but they have more guts than I do.
With the winds and the rains still keeping us aboard and the loaf of bread I had made a couple of days ago running out, I pulled out the flour and made another loaf since there was nothing much else to do other than read a book. With that being said, I just finished First Blood by David Morrell. I've read others of his books and found them quite good. I've heard of First Blood as the book behind the movie Rambo but I've never seen the film either. Well, the book starts out with a preface called "Rambo and Me". A narrative on how he came up with the story and the characters. This was his first book. The bad thing about the preface is that he tells you the end of the book!!! I knew what was going to happen to everyone before I even got to the first chapter! What's with that? I won't spoil it for those of you that have never read the book but may have seen the movie but the two bear little resemblance to each other other than there is a character called Rambo and Sherif Teasle. That's about it. What a drag knowing the ending of a book before you even start it. So if you buy or come across the book published by Grand Central Publishing in 2000 and see the section called "Rambo and Me", DON"T read it. It spoils the book.
With the wind blowing, we haven't had to run the generator much other than the occasional times we needed to run something that requires AC power. Out DuoGen did a fair job keeping us with lots of volts for our usage. The winds have dropped off a bit this morning so I fired up the water maker as we have used a good bit since we dropped anchor and I'll be firing up the generator once the voltage drops to where we need more power. While it is running(along with the water maker) I figure Tracy and I will put Puff back in the water and head around the south end of Motu Piti Aau and do some more snorkeling. This will be the first time in days that it's not blowing and the waters are calmer making a dingy trip somewhere much more enjoyable and less bumpy. Two of the boats(English speaking) that have been in here with us have already taken off now that the wind had died for a while. Getting around the shallows on the north side requires somewhat calmer water to allow you to see the coral below you. I figure we will head for the west side of the island tomorrow to resupply and see the sights of Bora Bora.
We'll let you know how the snorkeling goes.
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