We have settled on sailing to Tonga tomorrow afternoon - a 1300 mile ten days (more or less) passage. The easterly trades should persist for most of the trip, and there is really no reason to stop at Rarotonga. Just keeping an eye on a potential low pressure system ten days from now, that should stay to our south.

So today was provisioning day. We did most of our shopping at Chin Lee trading, which seemed to have a better selection than the Super U. But just after I had checked off everything on my list, I remembered we hadn’t bought eggs since Papeete. I asked a worker if the had “oeufs” and was directed to the cash register, where I was told there were none left.

So we stopped at the Super U to look for eggs, and coffee, which we had forgotten. At the Super U, they told me “Il n’en a aucun oeufs” because they were waiting for “le bateau.”

So many chickens on this island, yet, no eggs. Every tropical island we have visited, from Bermuda to Jamaica to the Galapagos to the Marquesas to Bora Bora has had healthy populations of feral chickens. They make their omnipresence known every morning in the form of crowing roosters in the trees, and in the hens crossing every road. But no eggs to be had.

We stopped at our favorite roadside pamplemousse and banana stand, and bought all her pamplemousse and a large stalk of mostly green bananas. Not a freebie this time! Early on a Friday morning, you do not give your fruit away.

My bike was quite heavy after that. But we got to the Bora Bora Yacht Club ok. Robin saw that a blue freighter had arrived at the cargo pier around the point. We asked the gardener at the yacht club how long after he boat arrived before the eggs were in the “magasin.”

“Mais, les oeufs arrive au bateau rouge, pas le bateau bleu,” she said. The eggs arrive on the red boat, which was due at 1100, and maybe the eggs would be in the stores by 12 or one.

So we went back to our bateau blanc, and waited for the red boat to arrive. The red freighter tied up at 1145. At one, I biked to the store in Fa’anui that I thought was closer (it wasn’t) and they had no eggs. But by the time I made it back to the Super U, they directed me to the pallet at the back of the store, where eager Friday shoppers were snapping up 30-egg trays of “oeufs petite.” That, plus one ginger beer and a small chocolate Mars ice cream bar used up the last of our French Polynesian currency. Which was one of my goals for the day.

Our tray made it back to the boat with only one cracked egg. Then we stowed the bikes and kayaks and set sail for the reef side moorings outside of Isle Topua, where will spend our last night in French Polynesia.

It is quiet here, with only one other boat. On Friday nights, the charter fleet has gone home to Raieteia to roost at their base. The only sound is the crash of surf on the reef, and the steady drumbeat of distant resort entertainment somewhere, under the crescent moon and the ghostly presence of Mount Pahia