After coffee and croissants at Reve de Lucie Cafe, we stopped by the Papeete municipal market to replenish our fruit and vegetable supplies. The market place is vast and cavernous - and about half of it is taken up by pearl sellers.

The fruits, vegetables, and fish stalls were actually a little bit of a disappointment - not that great a selection, and prices were high. It took some adjustment to find we actually had to pay for pamplemousse - all our pamplemousse supply up until now have been Marquesan gifts. Five dollars per fruit seemed like a lot to pay!

After the local produce marketing, we went to the Carrefour hypermarket. After all, we had a car, and one of the main reasons to come to Papeete was the opportunity to stock up on food. Our Saga friends came with us to share the ride.

Carrefour is more or less the French Walmart, with a little more emphasis on the groceries. The Papeete Carrefour is in its own shopping mall that would have fit right in on the Garden State Parkway. Somehow, the massive display of consumer goods left us yawning, and the grocery selection had less variety than we expected.

For example, we saw frozen bagels from Brooklyn at the magasin in Nuku Hiva, and assumed the Carrefour would have them. They did not. Nor did they have the Toulouse saucissons we had seen throughout the Marquesas and had come to like.

But the prices were a little better than the outlying islands, and they did have seltzer in cans and Bordeaux in boxes, as well as a cheaper version of Tahitian beer, so we stocked up on liquids for the next couple of passages. Which made for a very heavy load, with no dock carts at the marina.

We got under way for Bora Bora at abut 1300, following Saga out into the channel between Tahiti and Moorea. After a nice start, the wind went fluky in the wind shadow of the Tahiti mountains, so we got knocked around in cross seas for a while before the sold easterly trade winds filled in north of Moorea. Saga disappeared into a pass into the Moorea lagoon.

There was much chatter on the marine radio this evening. I could not follow all of the static-y French, but it started with Papeete Traffic repeatedly calling the Catamaran Poem. The calls sounded increasingly urgent, and I assumed that some dumb charter skipper was motoring into the airport approach zone without getting clearance first. But then came something that sounded like “vous serez evacuees” - you will be evacuated, and a pan-pan urgent call asking vessels to assist. I missed the exact position, but heard “nord-ouest de Moorea,” and we were northwest of Moorea. Another vessel reported that they were at the position and didn't see anything. A little later, a helicopter flew right by us with its searchlight on the seas around us.

Anyone who has sailed the Western Long Island sound with their marine radio on has heard similar exchanges - they often end up being hoaxes and don't result in scrambling a search and rescue helicopter.

In other news, the stars are out and a waning gibbous moon is just rising and we are rolling downwind under a loose footed Genoa going almost fast enough to make Bora Bora by sunset. And the mega yacht Arctic P which was docked across from us in Papeete just passed us, also bound for Bora Bora