We took the dingy out to the Tahiti Yacht Club this afternoon. It is nice to go fast with the new dinghy but you have to be sure you know the channel before you do. The harbor is pretty safe but as soon as you cross under the bridge at the north end of the main port it gets more interesting. The channels behind the reef are marked with red on the island side and green on the ocean side and in general are pretty clear. However the farther you are from primary traffic the few marks there are.

It can also get interesting when there is a channel behind the reef and another close to shore with connectors between. Which side is red on again? You can take a dinghy channel along the shoreline all the way to the yacht club but if you come in with a big boat you need to go outside from the main port, come back in through the pass near the yacht club and then head left (northeast) behind the reef, then right toward shore, then right again toward the yacht club. The large reef in the middle of the lagoon makes this requirement.

The yacht club is a funky little place mainly serving local power boats. That said they have an active sailing club from the looks of it and cruising yachts are found here and there on the moorings (about $10 a day) and sometimes on the dock. It would be a nice get away. There's a bar and grill and a little snack shop with the obligatory Croque Monsieur (Grilled ham and cheese), croissants, ice cream and the other beloved necessities of a French snack.

A short walk down the way from the yacht club is a huge Care Four market. This thing is huge by American standards. It even has small stores inside of it for electronics, banking, hair cuts and the like. Pricey but you could get anything you want there. They even had some stuff for the boat!

Back at the yacht club we found the fuel dock offered diesel and unleaded gas. It would be a tight squeeze for our boat and other than a few metal rings on the side of the hybrid wood/concrete structure there are no cleats or bollards for fast attachment. In a flat calm this would be a great place to fuel. If conditions were difficult I think I would order another Hinano and enjoy the lagoon one more day.

We saw our friends James and Amelia on Rahula tied to a mooring. The were tuning things up and getting ready to head down island. They had stopped by to visit with us on the Quai a couple days ago but the last time I had seen Rahula was when I crewed for James and Amelia on their Panama canal transit. They had made for the Gambier instead of the Marquesas and reported a wonderful time.

We fueled up the dink at the yacht club. We ran our first break in tank at 20 to 1 as per the instructions. Tank two was at 40 to 1. We mixed this tank at 60 to 1. One more tank at 80 to 1 and we'll be fully broken in and ready to run at the much cleaner 100 to 1 which will be very nice (not to mention saving a lot of money on two stroke oil).

We headed back to the big boat just before the sun set and set about prepping the boat for a Monday departure down island.