Rainy Day in Moorea - Sunday, July 8, 2018
08 July 2018 | Moorea in the Societ Islands in French Polynesia
Helen/Mark
Watched the movie, Field of Dreams, last night. It's one of our favorite movies. Lots more boats arrived today. The weather was picture perfect with flat waters and a breeze. Got up around 7. Had breakfast and worked on researching our route and checking weather. The weather was forecasting wind up over 30 knots and the seas to 10 foot. We really didn't want to have to deal with 82 nautical miles of those conditions. It would be best to just stay put for another couple of days. One of the small French Polynesian cruise ships Paul Gauguin came into our channel and proceeded to anchor in the channel. I didn't think there was much room there. Several tour boats went over and picked up guests. Busied ourselves with boat jobs until after 11. There is a park with a beach on the edge of this anchorage. We saw several cruisers taking their dinghies to shore, so that is where we headed. We secured the dinghy to a tree. One of the guides mentioned a reasonably priced restaurant close by with wifi. So, that is where we went. The restaurant no longer exists. There was a macaroon/dessert place. We did have to sample them. The owner spoke English and told us about the Hilton, further down the road. He also mentioned a snack bar by the park. So, we headed over there only to find it was closed due to it being Sunday. We thought about renting a scooter, so we walked to the Hilton. They were able to give us a brochure with rentals. We asked about their wifi and the concierge told us she would have to check with her boss and the boss was tied up. She also mentioned that we couldn't download anything or send pictures. What else would we use wifi for? We thanked her for her time. We also checked on small car rentals, but their price was too expensive. We walked back to the dinghy. It had rained a couple of times already. I regretted not taking in our towels from the lifelines. Got back to the boat and made us a very late lunch. We were tired after walking 5 miles, so we took an afternoon nap with several bands of rain coming thru our anchorage. Lots of wind too. By the time we got up the wind had completely changed directions. More boats decided to leave in the rain and a few new ones arrived and then maybe some were too close when we changed directions, or their anchor didn't hold. There seemed to be a lot of movement. The sailboat that anchored close by us, departed just after we went to shore. We decided to have an early matinee movie, selecting the first Die Hard movie, along with popcorn. We never found popcorn in the local stores, so as of now, we are out. The sun just set but it's been solid rain and cloud cover, so we didn't see much of the sun all day. Our plans changed and we will stay here where we are rocking a little, but at least we are not on the open ocean bashing along in this wet weather. I created emails and broke them up as it's rejecting my extensive list of recipients. Will try to send them tomorrow. The wifi is not dependable here. Sometimes it sends okay and then it just sits in the Queued status. We can see the shadows of dark mountains and lots of rain coming down.