We've been busy, but have socialized a few times, too. For our last days here, it's a good mix.

Saturday, the main task was to find, label, and prepare all of the wiring in the mast in preparation for removing the mast later. When the mast is lifted from the hull, the wiring goes with it, so when the boat was rigged, the wiring that led to mast equipment was constructed to be disconnected. We had the mast pulled back in 2011 while we were refitting in Alameda, CA. I had forgotten that we had done a good job of identifying the wiring that we needed. For example, we have a bow/spreader light: one fixture with two lights, one focusing downward to the foredeck, one focusing forward to be seen by other vessels. When we rewired it in 2011,we used 10/3 cable. That's a single sheath of cable with three wires in it. Two are for carrying current to the light, one for a common ground. Finding that triplex was a good reminder and made it easy to get it pulled to the base of the mast. The other wire is for the anchor light, and it's a duplex wire: two wires within an outer case.

The radar cable was a bit more complicated since it leads from the radome to the helm in the cockpit and is much more delicate. Finally, we have a VHF coax. We got the job done.

We got the last section of the boat cover erected and attached. We've both begun to strip batteries from our various mobile devices. Conni has cleaned, AGAIN, everything in the cabin. I got the Honda generator prepped for the layover, draining gas, changing oil, re-gapping the spark plug, and squirting Corrosion Block into the cylinder.

Sunday, we also re-caulked three chain plates on port side. Keeping water out of the boat is an ongoing task.

Saturday night, we had dinner with some Australian friends who bought a Passport at our instigation. It had been for sale for a bit, and they asked me to go aboard to check her. I snapped photos and gave a good report, and they bought the boat! They are interesting people, both from South Africa. Riaana, the woman, said such interesting things! She said, "Elephants are the most silent animals. They can walk past you and you'll never hear them." What a personal tale that is. She and Reinhardt have become good friends.

Sunday night, we had dinner with our German friends on Vera. We met them in the rain where we had planned to meet, and they found us. Michael and Britta are great folks and we both hope to keep in touch with them. With both couples, actually.

Monday night, we had "Sundowner" about Turtle Blues, a Passport 42 owned by Reinhardt and Riaana. They are very interesting people and, from our point of view, have lived a very exotic and interesting life. Americans can be fairly boring since most of us are born and live our lives in the same place. Not these two!

Our flight to Papeete departs today, Tuesday, at 1600 local time, so we have come to the end of this season. It's hard to imagine. We'll fly to Seattle, then own the coast to Oakland to see Conni's dad for a few days, the continue on to Anchorage.

Tuesday, we had our meeting with Hinamoe and Dominique concerning replacing our rigging and replacing the mast step. Hinamoe is his understudy it seems, and she's bright and conscientious, and when Dominique is away from the yard, she's the go-to person. We wanted her in the loop.

Conni gets along better with both people, so she did the talking. She explainedt what we need to do and Dominique said that for his yard, ours was an easy task. We were much relieved. Here's the plan. We will depart on schedule next week. We'll be in touch and arrange for our rigger of choice, Fred, to ensure that our rigging type is available in Papeete. Before we depart next week, I'll prepare the mast for the pull by disconnecting and labeling all electrical and instrument wires: our anchor light, radar, steaming/deck light, and VHF radio. With that done, all they'll have to do is remove the mast boot (the plastic cone-shaped piece that spans the gap between the boat and the mast) and disconnect the rigging. At some point in January or February of next year, Dominique will arrange to have the crane truck come to the yard and pull the mast.

When the mast is out, they'll begin the removal of the mast step and begin fabrication of the new unit. He plans to use a very hard wood and soak it thinned epoxy. I didn't catch the name of the wood he wants to use, but it's the same stuff that he used on the exterior staircase to the Carenage office suite. People shuffle up those steps all day, every day and the wood is in the weather, whatever it is. He says it doesn't rot.

When they notify us that the pull is done, and Fred-the-rigger says that the rigging is on the way, we'll fly down to FP and watch over the process. We hope that they will have completed fabricating the new mast step and we'll be ready to replace the mast with the new rigging already in place.

Will it go that smoothly? Probably not. In addition, we just don't want to think about the cost, but what can we do?

We both feel that the path forward is clear to us, Dominique and Hinamoe, and our rigger and we know that it'll be up to us to organize and push the various players to keep on track, but it's not a complex process, just expensive.

We also visited Madame Faux (as we call her), our sailmaker, and she had all of our stuff ready: new binnacle cover (our new instruments protrude), new windlass cover (wind removed our old one), repair on our "Lazy Bag" main cover, and repair on a few winch covers. She does superb work. We've been regular customers for a decade, so have become friends.

I worked on preparing for storage our Mercury outboard. It's a several hour process. Fortunately, I found a wheelbarrow to haul the motor, tools, and other supplies to a work area. Flushing the engine with fresh water, replacing foot lube, greasing all Zerc fittings, and several tasks make it a long process. We've worked hard and we're ahead of schedule.

Conni has been working like a fiend on her list of chores. She's got the deck in shape, the stainless steel cleaned, the windows cleaned, and much more. I do larger projects, such as the engine and such, while she does ten-times my work on myriad small chores.

Wednesday, we finally had the stars align and we were able to gather a long water hose, get our little radios to work, and we were able to flush the engine with fresh water. With that done, we could begin to do the little important tasks that would prohibit running the engine. Today, I removed the raw water impeller on the engine. It's a process and I'll buy an impeller puller someday. I also felt it time to replace the secondary fuel filter on the engine, something that I've never done. After several minutes of struggle, I decided that I needed a "belt wrench" since the problem was access for the large wrench that I use for the oil filter. I asked Conni for some advice, and she replied that I might try a hose clamp. Hose clamp? Yes! Using her idea, I slipped a hose clamp onto the filter, tightened it, and used a cold chisel and hammer to loosen the filter by banging on the hose clamp screw fitting. Worked like a charm! I doubt that I would have thought of it and have never heard of the idea before, but Conni came up with it in seconds. Smart cookie! Still, I'll buy and bring a belt wrench next year.

I spent the last few hours replacing the Racor filter and working on the electrical system. We still have no power to the boat and we need it.

Thursday, it rained most of the morning, rained hard. It's difficult to muster the enthusiasm to swim to the boat and start to work, so we stayed in the room and read. It finally broke enough to make it by 1000. My main task was power, and that's what I focused on.

Electricity...There are two ways to send electrical energy through wires: high voltage/low current or high current/low voltage. Although the US has chosen the second way, high current and low voltage, the rest of the world chose the second way. Our boat is wired for the US system, but we're in a "second way" country. How do we get power to the boat?

Electrical current travels through wires, right? Big wires have less resistance and American boats have big wires for our greater current. If we use only the wiring in our boat, and devices that can handle the higher voltage, it shouldn't matter that the voltage is higher, since that means the current will be smaller. That's been the way for us for the entire decade that we've been in the South Pacific. For whatever reason, we have had trouble this trip with a new wiring system at the Carenage. I've been unable to deduce the problem, and it's not from lack of trying. So today, I bypassed the entire issue. Today, we bought a European-style marine male plug and spliced it to a 4-meter piece of Euro wire that we also bought. The other end of the wire I connected directly to the charger AC input. That allowed us to completely bypass our on-board wiring system: their power supply to our charger, directly. I don't know why the problem occurred, but we've got a working charging system after days of effort. I was able to re-purpose a through-the-deck hole and fed the wire through that. It's not pretty, but we have power and can always get power to our charger.

Conni re-cleaned all of the stainless steel on deck, and re-cleaned all of the plastic stuff in our dodger windows. We got the forward section of the cover in place.

Friday, today, we worked on various projects. Most importantly, the charger was on when we arrived, so the system seems to work. Thank you!

Conni got up the mast, finally. It was overcast this morning and a bit windy, but she's a pro and went anyway. As I was grinding her up to the very masthead, our rigger, Fred, appeared! Between talking to Fred about our re-rigging project and listening to Conni on our walkie talkies, I was not a good conversationalist. Conni completed her work and I lowered her to deck and we all discussed what he was going to do and what we needed to do. It was a good conversation. Of course, we'll be using metric rigging, but that's reasonable. Fred said that the proper rigging will be a bit larger than ours. but that's fine.

I also began work on the fuel filler leak. We've had some water damage to the aft cabin sole, and the water seemed to be coming down the fuel filler hose, so the caulking around the filler on deck was the obvious suspect. Whomever put the system in place used vacuum-rate hose, so it had wire in it: very difficult to work with. They also used a caulk to seal the hose, so it would have been a destructive removal. I discussed things Conni and we chose to make the attempt, but only on the filler port on deck. Still, I realized that it was total commitment to the task, since any caulk seal would be destroyed.

So, I began work. I was able to pry up the filler after an hour of loosening caulk, and was able to lever out the filler neck enough to work with. After doing what cleaning I could, I washed everything with acetone, and applied the Sikaflex 221UV. Now, not to make this sound too easy, it began to rain! Conni recommended that I apply tape to the area, since the Carenange office had only white caulk, so I carefully taped around the filler, applied the caulk and tightened it down to the deck. What caulk squeezed everywhere, of course, but that means a complete coating and even the screw holes had caulk protrude before I seated the screws. Time (and rain) will tell if it worked but it looked promising.

At 3:30, we decided to break for the Friday afternoon: hey, cocktail night!

We're both wearing down, I think. I'm tired from pulling Conni 75-feet in the air, but additionally, we're both tired of the daily effort in the heat. We've got 4 days remaining and much of our work is behind us, so perhaps we can complete things and take a rest day. I hope!

Tuesday, we had our meeting with Hinamoe and Dominique concerning replacing our rigging and replacing the mast step. Hinamoe is his understudy it seems, and she's bright and conscientious, and when Dominique is away from the yard, she's the go-to person. We wanted her in the loop.

Conni gets along better with both people, so she did the talking. She laid out what we need to do and Dominique said that for his yard, ours was an easy task. We were much relieved. Here's the plan. We will depart on schedule next week. We'll be in touch and arrange for our rigger of choice, Fred, to ensure that our rigging type is available in Papeete. At some point, Dominique will arrange to have the crane truck come to the yard and pull the mast. Before we depart next week, I'll prepare the mast for the pull by disconnecting and labeling all electrical and instrument wires: our anchor light, radar, steaming/deck light, and VHF radio. With that done, all they'll have to do is remove the mast boot (the plastic cone-shaped piece that spans the gap between the boat and the mast) and disconnect the rigging.

When the mast is out, they'll begin the removal of the mast step and begin fabrication. When they notify us, we'll fly down to FP and watch over the process. With luck, it'll take a week for the rigging to be fabricated. We hope that they will have completed fabricating the new mast step and we'll be ready to replace the mast with the new rigging already in place.

Will it go that smoothly? Probably not. In addition, we just don't want to think about the cost, but what can we do?

We both feel that the path forward is clear and we know that it'll be up to us to organize and push the various players to keep on track, but it's not a complex process, just expensive.

We also dropped by Madame Faux, our sailmaker, and she had all of our stuff ready: new binnacle cover, new windlass cover (a wind removed our old one), repair on our "Lasy Bag" main cover, and repair on a few winch covers.

I worked on preparing for storage our Mercury outboard. It's a several hour process. Fortunately, I found a wheelbarrow to haul things to a work area. We've worked hard and we're ahead of schedule.

Conni has been working like a fiend on her list of chores. She's got the deck in shape, the stainless steel cleaned, the windows cleaned, and much more. I do larger projects, such as the engine and such, while she does ten-times my work on myriad small chores.

Today, I removed the raw water impeller on the engine. It's a process and I'll buy an impeller puller someday. I also felt it time to replace the secondary fuel filter on the engine, something that I've never done. After several minutes of struggle, I decided that I needed a "belt wrench" since the problem was access for the large wrench that I use for the oil filter. I asked Conni for some advice, and she replied that I might try a hose clamp. Hose clamp? Yes! Using her idea, I slipped a hose clamp onto the filter, tightened it, and used a cold chisel and hammer to loosen the filter. Worked like a charm! I doubt that I would have thought of it and have never heard of the idea before, but Conni came up with it in seconds. Smart cookie! Still, I'll buy and bring a belt wrench next year.

I spent the last few hours replacing the Racor filter and working on the electrical system. We still have no power to the boat and we need it.

A short moment for citizens who died in the attack 22 years ago. I remember the day and what I was doing when I first heard, same as for Kennedy's assasination.

We've been busy after Wings being pulled last Friday. We worked a bit on Friday, but groceries and checking into bungalow were more important.

Saturday, it blew enough to remove any chance of getting the sails down, so we did other work. On arrival, i used a product called Fles Set to r-glue the rub rail on our dinghy. It's a great product and, using some blue tape to hold things in place, I got the rail glued into place. I got the engine oil changed and since there's a pump installed, it's easy and clean. I carefully removed a sample for our engine oil analysis, too. We only had 25 hours on the engine this season, but we still replaced the oil. I got the oil filter replaced, too. I also worked on draining and replacing the transmission oil, but was able to remove only 250ml: hardly all of it. It's a difficult thing to do to find the sump while searching blindly with our tiny manual pump. I also tried to get the power working for the boat, and was totally unsuccessful. What a day! We did make a stop on the way to the bungalow and bought engine oil, so we've got that done for next year.

Sunday was a vast improvement. We worked hard all morning, knowing the the weather prediction was for rain and wind for a few days. We were able to get the main down and stowed in its bag. We moved on to the jib and the weather held, so that, too, was done. Hurrah! Our last deck work was to get the dinghy stowed in its bag. For the most part, that's our deck work. After lunch, and with Conni's help, we got that damned transmission oil removed! We also got our sample for the oil analysis. We've got lots of chores to do, but those are some of the largest, most time consuming, and by far the most weather-dependent. At some point, we'll flush the engine by running fresh water through it: perhaps tomorrow.

After several hours of effort today, Monday, I finally got our power working. I had several problems to deal with. The electrical box that I was using had a bad breaker. The extension cord supplied by the yard had a mis-wired connection. The 5-feet of American marine electrical cable that I was using had corroded wire on one of the included three. Finally, the usual issue of connecting a 220VAC French Polynesian electrical connection to an American 120VAC marine connection. The wires have different colors and it's complicated since each connector has a different set of wire connections. I had no extra US marine electrical cable, so I constructed a Frankenstein cable with an American marine female on one end, a French Polynesian, all connected by 3 lengths of AWG10 wire! Ugly, but it worked.

Tomorrow, Tuesday, we have a scheduled meeting with Dominique, Hinamoe, and Conni and me, concerning our mast pull and mast step repair. Wish us luck.

Our last night aboard is spent in Apooiti, as fortune would have it: Apooiti bookends, as it were. It's a pleasant way to start and end.

Sunday, we sent an email to the Carenage, asking about getting the mast pulled, but heard nothing. We motored there yesterday, Wednesday, and no one had read the email, although they did confirm our pull on Friday. They said that they'd confirm via email. We didn't hear from them, so called and what did they ask? ""Do you want your mast pulled tomorrow?" Preparing for pulling a mast is not something one does in a few hours, something that they should have known. Hmmmmm...

It's been hot and humid today, very hot and humid. We did chores, read, and discussed our mast problem most of the day, and motored in for our second hot, standing showers. They were just as wonderful as our first! Earlier, we motored into the marina and delivered some parts that we want our sailmaker to repair or fabricate. We have a few other pieces, but they're still in use. Madame Regine Faux is a delightful person and she does superb work. Since her shop is in a major charter marina, she has a lot of work and a lot of visibility; she stays busy. Her daughter has begun working with her, so perhaps Madame Faux will retire and we'll work with her daughter. We haven't asked. Afterward, we strolled to Magazin Julien, the little store close by the marina. They don't have a lot and the owner, Julien we suppose, is a crusty old Asian guy. He never wear a shirt and sits at his counter most of the day. He does have baguettes, though, the reason for our journey. What's better than fresh baguette?

We sat outside in the cockpit for dinner, listening to the sounds of the island and smelling the odor of Raiatea. It smells like...what? I was in Kew Gardens outside London a few years ago and it smells like that. It smells like an old greenhouse. There's the smell of rich dirt, mildew, green plants, and perhaps a flower scent hidden in there. That's how it smells. We noted that we could smell the island from many miles at sea when we first approached French Poynesia many years ago. We were so surprised at that. Sitting here in the still air brought back all of those smells.

We're scheduled for the pull at 1000 tomorrow, so tomorrow we'll be in our little bungalow with Wifi, hot showers, and AC. How truly odd to be living on land again.

We had a nice day today (2 September). Our main task, as we sit in the cockpit, is to plan our attack on re-rigging the boat. Our insurance company is requiring the we re-rig and we if we decide to sell her, we need to re-rig. This "rigging" is the network of stainless steel cables and their fittings that support the mast. Obviously, the rigging must be correctly made and attached or we run the substantial risk of losing the mast: a catastrophic problem, especially if we're offshore. There are two issues. The mast step, the block of wood under the mast that supports it, is water damaged. It happened through the many years of leaks; it's our fault, but not from lack of trying. That block must be removed, a new piece fabricated, and the new piece set into place at the correct location and height. The second problem is the rigging itself. The old rigging must be correctly measured so that new rigging can be fabricated. Finally, the old rigging must be replaced with the new.

The obvious issue is sequence. We remove the mast and as it sits on supports, the old rigging can easily be measured and new rigging fabricated. While the rigging is being fabricated, the old mast step can be removed, the new mast step fabricated, and finally installed. When complete, and the new rigging is available, the mast is re-stepped and the new rigging is installed and tuned. Done.

OF COURSE...that's a bloody pipe dream! Timing issues, personality issues, all contribute to the unlikelihood that we can expect anything as simple as this.

So, we're trying to create as many optional paths as we can, while still hoping that the simple model works. Sigh.

We motored into the village of Tapuamu, if one can call it that. There's a gas station that sells petrol, diesel, butane, and odds and ends. There are several non-functioning "snacs" or family-owned restaurants, a nice but small store, and a small rhum-tasting tent. We bought a baguette at the store, and dumped all of our garbage and recycle, and then chose to sample the rhum, Mana'o. Our host was a young local woman who spoke excellent English. The distillery is based on Moorea, since they do not yet have the government approval to distill alcohol here on Taha'a, but they have the various distillation and fermentation devices here, and sell the booze. Our host showed the process that they would use, and their still.

The rhum, though, was excellent! They make a silver, or un-aged, at 50%ABV, and an aged at 40%, aged at 18 months. Both were excellent and we bought a bottle of the silver. In a very creative move, they're also making gin. Gin is pure grain alcohol flavored with juniper, of course. This company used pure "cane" alcohol, and flavors it with various local herbs; ginger and a few others. It's an amazing product, as our friend Jonathan would say. They take greater care in distillation temperatures to get nothing but alcohol rather than the stuff that they bottle as rhum, but it's the same basic stuff. They use traditional varieties of sugar cane, including one that the original Polynesians brought with them: 15 in all. It's an impressive product line. They even make a tonic water, flavored with local herbs. Pari Pari was the first distiller of rhum using all hand methods, and they have started a trend, I think.

We stayed for two nights and at 1000, we slipped the mooring and motored against 16 knot winds down the lagoon to Apu Bay. We've got five days of wind and rain ahead of us, so we wanted some good shelter to sit it out. As soon as we were in binocular range of Apu, Conni at the helm began to search for moorings. We found only one, an unused one just on the edge of protection, but it's what we could find, so I donned rain gear and headed to the bow. In a masterful way, Conni guided Wings to within a boat pole's distance and I was able to grab and secure the mooring.

Within half an hour, a nearby boat dropped her mooring and departed, and it was close enough for us to see and recognize as a better location, so we quickly started the engine, slipped our mooring, and motored to the now-free mooring. I quickly grabbed and secured the mooring, and here we sit. It rained and blew all last night, and so far, on Monday, it's continued. Our solar panels are trying to grab some sun, but it'll be a generator day. Tomorrow, Tuesday, is supposed to be the worst, with 18-24 knot winds, so we'll stay put.

Tuesday WAS a worse day! We had pouring rain all day and big winds slewing the boat around. There was no outside sitting, although we made it work for cocktail hour. Fortunately, we enjoy indoors activities: I read and she surfs political websites. We spent a quiet day.

Wednesday, we made ready to depart Apu for Apooiti. I pumped the water from the dinghy, a LOT of water. We got going, I slipped the mooring line, and we were off across the strait between Raiatea and Taha'a. We had great fortune and found an empty mooring, and I got us secured to it.

So, here we are again, in Apooiti. We are scheduled to get pulled from the water on Friday, 8 Sept, and we'll have our traditional bungalow room and a vehicle. Shoot, we'll be leaving French Polynesia on 19 Sept, so we'll head back to civilization.

We're still fighting squalls as they come roaring through, and it's hatches open, then hatches hurriedly fastened, as they come through. At least it's sunny sometimes and our solar panels are helping to fill our batteries from what our short trip from Apu didn't have time to do. AND...hot showers tonight! We'll get the motor on the dinghy and go pay our money for that. It's a deal: some water if needed, garbage and recycle if needed, and hot showers, which definitely ARE needed!