It was another rather windy day. Our position in the northeastern area of the bay was keeping us from being able to connect reliably to Iorana Net, even with the antenna. There is a small caf� north of Bloody Mary's called Kaina Hut that we had walked by the other day which advertises free internet. We decided to take a lunch trip and get our very behind blog updated.

We took the dinghy over to shore directly across from Kaina Hut and tied to a palm tree at the water's edge. It was high tide and this made the approach fairly eventless. After navigating the shallow river in Huahine with our new dinghy I have come to have great confidence in its ability to handle shallow waters. Our old Walker Bay was great in skinny stuff too but I think the AB is even better. The Walker Bay had a keel and as you loaded it down it gained draft faster than the AB, which has 18" tubes. The AB also has a flat bottom from the mid point aft and the bow is Veed but curves up keeping the draft thin.

A big issue with squeaking through shallows is of course the prop location. The good and bad of this dinghy is that the prop does not completely extend below the hull. Yamaha suggests that the prop be completely below the lowest section of the hull to avoid cavitation. AB specifies a normal shaft outboard for this boat yet the normal shaft Yamaha leaves the prop about 15% shadowed by the hull. This does cause some cavitation when trying to get up onto a plane. On the other hand it makes the prop very hard to bottom out. If you tilt the engine up you can still trawl along with the entire prop protected by the hull. I would be surprised if the boat draws 6" with Hideko and I aboard and the engine tilted up.

Kaina Hut is a lovely little place. It is like a small Bloody Mary's from an ambiance stand point, though it is brighter and perhaps a little more refined. Unlike Bloody Mary's you order from a menu here and the menu is more balanced rather than fish weighted. It is equally as expensive however and lunch for two with a cocktail and desert can easily run well over $100 US with the current exchange rates.

We had a wonderful lunch and fantastic deserts at the Hut. One of the owners was there and the service was very good. We couldn't get on the net at first but after rebooting the hub we had no problem and the Internet access afterwards was the fastest I've had since the US. We spent so much time online that we had to race with the laptop battery to get the blog updated.

Like every place we've found on Bora Bora except for the large hotel bars (some of these serve a more or less room service menu between meals) Kaina Hut is only open for lunch and dinner in specific time windows. The bar is open in between but if you want to get food at odd hours the little Caf� at the north end of Viatape is the only spot I know of.

The tide was out when we returned to the dink and it was looking really thin on the way back. The location we had tied up is a little grassy park like spot used as a look out and complete with a picnic table. The key is to make it out to where the local boats are stowed up on their lifts, from there on you're in deep water. We motored most of the way out with the engine tilted up and then ground to a stop. The wind was so strong that with no keel and a tilted up motor we had to crab along and there wasn't always room to go through the rocks sideways. So we broke out the paddles.

Hideko and I have not developed a team operation when it comes to paddling just yet. It is actually more like the keystone cops. Fortunately we didn't have far to go before I could get the prop back in the water. We passed by a local guy on one of the boat platforms rigging hooks with bait. He seemed well entertained by our antics. As soon as we passed him we dropped the motor and acted as if everything had gone to plan as we made our way back to the big boat.