HOW I ENJOYED RAIATEA AND TAHAA
by Mariska

These two islands share the same lagoon and are just 3 miles away from each other. They are not as pretty as Huahine and do not have white ...or any other beaches - that is really not so cool. We arrived at marina Apooiti and had to take up a buoy....mom was not too happy about that but it was just too deep to anchor anywhere else and fortunately the internet connection was excellent. We used the time to catch up on our updates, getting photos on our website, and printing out the last of my school work. We decided to start with our boat school after leaving Bora Bora, so for now we are on a holiday! I am now going to do a South African system, all the work is on CD , the reason why mom invested in a new computer for me!

We did another load of provisioning and got our duty-free diesel on the towns dock of Uturoa, by now Prrr was really low in the water and I was really stressing on the dock because we had a terrible East blowing the boat onto the dock and I was trying to visualize how we were going to get off the dock. We had a quick prep-talk, Claude took the the helm, Rochelle and I manned the bow line and fenders, Mom the stern and he got us away without any problems. I have forgotten about all the normal, day-to-day stresses whilst sailing and I was so relieved!

We were now on our way to a motu at Tahaa. A resort is built on the island and we anchored off in crystal clear water, just as the sun started to set.

We were in awe of the beauty of the setting - turquoise blue water, darker blue water, the white breakers breaking onto the reef, the green palm leaves... white sandy beaches ...very nice. Rochelle and I explored the cutest little island all by itself - we were the only two people on it!

The next few days had us exploring the motus, swimming and snorkeling and gathering coconuts. We grated the coconut, made milk and of course totally made piggies of ourselves eating the milk with chicken and uru(breadfruit). It felt good to be cruising again.

We are now sailing on a tighter schedule, because mom reckons we are late in the season; so, after a few days in this spot we lifted anchor to go to Bora Bora, but on our way to the pass�, Claude realized that the alternators were not charging. We sailed back to Raiatea with long faces and fortunately got someone to do a makeshift repair, either that or it was waiting for parts in Raiatea...so I was very happy that our delay took only 2 days.

And then at last we were sailing out of the pass�, on our way to BORA BORA!

Until next time

Mariska