We arrived in Raiatea on Tuesday after an overnight sail from Moorea
As we entered the lagoon and were dropping the sails, we quickly discovered that our main would not come down. Half an hour later we had it down, but it was a pain. Thankfully, and surprisingly, it was not blowing 30..that seems to be the norm for us!! Anyway, we still do not have the new bat cars that slide the main up and down. We have since ordered them...oh, and the main ripped too..naturally.
We thought we could hold off on hauling Indy until Samoa or New Zealand but we need to do it now. We contacted the yard in Samoa and they quoted us 4,800.00USD to haul for four days, any day after that was an additional 150.00USD. Wow, business must be booming to charge thos prices!!! The repairs simply will not wait until New Zealand. Not to mention our sails are in a sorry state of disrepair!! They can haul Indy here at a reasonable price, plus there is a sail loft so we can fix all of our sails. The problem is that there is not much on the island to do for me to do with the kids while we are in the yard, when O is working on Indy. There are no beaches here and the main town is quite a haul. I am going to snoop around for a hotel with a pool to loiter during the day. Normally if I buy lunch they let you swim..I hope!!!
The weather has been overcast, rainy, windy and cool. We have been kind of holed up on the boat since arriving which is never good for the family. Too much time in close quarters makes me a little nuts. I get short and irritable which then feeds on itself and goes rapidly down hill.
Today we left for town but it was raining pretty hard so O and the kids went back to the boat and I hitched in. I was surprised everyone wanted to go back to the boat as it was the last place I wanted to be. I got a ride pretty quickly and walked around town for the afternoon just delighted to be alone and off the boat. It does not help that I have not had any exercise. Have I mentioned that some sorry slob stole my sneakers in the Galapagos??? I hope he/she has foot rot. See, the mood is not full of joy and happiness.
I was up the majority of the night last night. We are currently on a mooring that belongs to the yard but a nasty storm blew through this morning which brought forty kt winds, and I was a little anxious about the mooring holding. The boats all around us were dragging and surprisingly we did not get hit!! That may be a first. I was nervous about the mooring, but also really happy that we were on the mooring and not having to do anchor watch. It seems so out of character for us!!!
That's all for know..