The temperature on board is 80 degrees F, at midday, probably the lowest its been since Bermuda last November! We are currently in beautiful Moorea, 25 miles west of Tahiti in Cook Bay, named of course after Capt. Cook, who was here in the late 18th century.

Last night it blew, and blew in huge gusts, that may have accelerated coming down the steep mountains which surround us, but boats at sea were reporting 50 knots of wind, and we had at least 55 knots here, and now have torrential rain.

Of the 12 boats in the bay, at least half had to move their moorings, and several spent the entire night going round and round, either unable to get good holding or unwilling to try! Several biminis were ripped to shreds, I'm happy to say ours is still fine, but our dinghy, luckily without an outboard on it flew in the air, and lost one seat and one oar, Giles who was in the cockpit at the time caught the others as they hit the deck! The seat will have sunk, but hopefully we may be able to retrieve the oar once the rain stops enough to be encouraging for a search party! An Australian boat 'Taking Off' who was anchored behind us is in a far worse predicament, his dinghy also flipped, losing both oars, and a drowned outboard, as well as losing his wind generator, and he currently has no engine!

Our trip over here from Tahiti was a pretty good disaster, we came out from behind the sheltered reef of Maeve Beach into unexpectedly large seas, so everything went flying. Our mainsail head, which I had repaired back in Las Perlas, Panama, and had hoped would last until Tahiti, then went, - we would have had to wait 2 weeks for sail repairs in Tahiti, and decided to trust our luck! So we got the main down, and found that the wind had picked up, we were making 6 knots under a reefed genoa, and just beginning to close the coast of Moorea when the GPS died on us! There was good light, and we quickly brushed up our dead reckoning skills, and picked up the entrance with no trouble. The hand held GPS takes about 2 hours or more to pick up satellites and locate itself if it hasn't been turned on for a while, so was no use to us. Our luck changed, as we went to moor and chatted to Aussie boat 'Diva', and Guy who's an electronics whiz came over to help! The problem lay with the aerial, and after a bit of fiddling and locating things we were again in contact with the skies, lets hope it lasts, it is awful how dependent we are on the GPS, particularly when offshore.

Then yesterday we did a stronger mend to the mainsail head, replacing the webbing, by drilling through the impenetrably tough canvas, and putting in a couple of small screws, washers and nuts, as well as drilling some holes for a few stitches. Our other pending task of finding a way, and some space for the RCC burgee was less successful, and the latest kit we had bought for this task couldn't find space up there.

It seems a long time ago since we left the Tuamotus, where we ended up visiting four of the atolls, and would have loved to spend longer there. In Toau we ate a fabulous meal ashore with the family who live there, wonderful lobster and Jack fish. The following morning the boat was coming from Tahiti to collect copra, and fish, which meant emptying the trap. This was an extraordinary sight to watch, a huge variety of tropical reef fish were caught in the trap, and after the unpleasant Moray eels were spiked and removed, basket load after load was scooped up and thrown into the bottom of the boat, then shovelled out onto the quay where they were sorted into types, and strung together to await the pick up.

This little village of Amyot, where basically one family live, is very fortunate, as the fish do not have ciguatera poisoning, caused by algae that the fish feed off. It has a cumulative affect on us should we eat infected fish, or their larger predators. In many areas the reef fish are inedible because of this problem.

We managed to get our bikes out in Fakarava, where there is good tarmac road for miles. Having carefully stored them all this way, we haven't used them since Annapolis, and were horrified to find that the spokes all began to go ping when air was put in the tyres. This of course meant that the wheels distorted, and one could only ride the in a very wobbly fashion. We did at least do so though! These expensive bikes from West Marine, with aluminium wheels did not have stainless spokes. We spent a lot of time in Tahiti emailing West Marine, who were amazingly good, and have got Dahon the makers to ship us out 4 new wheels to Rarotonga.

Meanwhile, one night in Papeete, Tahiti, we had one bike chained up on the dock, and the saddle and extension bar got nicked in the night, so that is yet another shipment. We arrived in Tahiti on Sunday, and decided to moor in the town centre, and indulge in a bit of metropolitan life for a few days, tied stern to on the large town quay.

On the evening of our arrival we watched the Chinese 'Miss Dragon' competition, where beautiful Chinese girls vied for this beauty contest! The Chinese make up a large proportion of the Tahitan population, every evening they set up their vans along the seafront, and one can eat very cheaply and deliciously. In the same area, is a stage where performing arts are practiced or just performed, we were lucky enough to see fire dancing amongst other things!However we are yet to see a grass skirt!

Once we had recovered from the frustration of Pentecost, and a public holiday on the day after we arrived, our time in Papeete was usefully spent, chasing round getting various bits and pieces, and catching up on e-mails, which is always a useful task, the pleasure of getting e-mails from friends, I wish, and the inevitable rush of business things to sort out. At $10 an hour you soon spend lots of money, which is pretty easy in Tahiti, as everything is horrendously expensive, probably 3 times the price of home. We are reliably informed that French Polynesia is the most expensive place we'll go to on our trip round the world. It is no wonder then that there is a distinct lack of tourists here, on our hitching/bus trip around the island, we had the Gauguin Museum to ourselves, and the botanic gardens likewise! The French government subsidise everything throughout French Polynesia, and everyone is well off, and drives around in smart cars. None of which explains why cucumbers should be $8 each, when they're grown on the island. There was a large Carrefour in Tahiti, which was a joy, sadly wine was $20 a bottle, so our cellar will remain relatively dry for now, but some things were affordable, and as in France the baguette are subsidised!

Tahiti is very populated, but very beautiful, high mountains on the interior rise to 7,000 feet, but unlike the Marquesas there is a coastal plain which means there are roads and places to grow things up beautiful valleys, and no doubt an awful lot more than we managed to see.

When the wind and rain stops we will head to the leeward Society Islands, one of which Bora Bora is meant to be the most beautiful island in the Pacific, but we are already running behind our schedule, and need to be in Rarotonga, Cook Islands, to collect Ned in less than a fortnight, which is very exciting.