At last we are sailing again after several weeks on Tahiti and a month of side traveling. It feels wonderful to be underway with beautiful clear skies and calm seas. The three hour crossing to Cook's Bay went very smoothly and the pass into the harbor was easily negotiated. A week before when I had ferried over and bicycled around the island there were about fifty boats anchored in this gorgeous large harbor, probably because of a sailboat rally being held. At that time there was a large group of Oysters (beautiful English sailboats) that were part of an around the world sail that made up a significant portion of the anchorers. However, on our arrival, there were only five other sailboats in the harbor. We had our choice of all the most beautiful anchorages in the bay. We chose to anchor deep in the bay adjacent to a beautiful small church with a red steeple. We immediately dove in for a refreshing swim and were delighted to find that the bottom of the boat had minimal fouling and the zincs were holding up well.

Going ashore I discovered that the Club Bali Hai Hotel had a small dinghy dock that they let cruisers use for free, as well as free wifi. Even better, there was an excellent small restaurant at the Hotel, the Blue Pineapple, that served breakfast and lunch every day. And even better, for dinner, most of the local restaurants gave free shuttle service to and from the hotel. An additional convenience were the small grocery store nearby and an excellent supermarket a short walking distance away. These amenities made staying in Cook's Bay most enjoyable, not to mention the exceedingly lush greenery of the towering volcanic spires all around the harbor with the dazzling mountains standing up behind the valley at the head of the bay. This gave a similar appearance to what we had considered the most beautiful bay we had ever seen at Hanavave, Fatu Hiva, Marquesas, though Cook's Bay was much larger with much better anchoring in about 50 feet with no other boats nearby. We had just finished reading Blue Lagoons about Captain Cook's voyages through the South Pacific, and we could really imagine how impressed he would have been on entering this essentially perfect bay. Of course there were no hotels, stores, or restaurants back then, but there were the Moorean natives, their villages, their feasts and celebrations, and their naked and receptive women which probable made the bay more than perfect for Cook and his crew.

Our first evening we had dinner at Le Rudy, an excellent French Polynesian restaurant. The second evening we dinghied around the point to the Moorea Beach Cafe, which was even better with a fabulous view of sunset. And for our last night we went to the crepery at the Moorea Hilton where the Crepes Belle Helene were to die for (I love chocolate). Our one island tour was very interesting. Our 4WD driver, Tom, was a French Polynesian who had sailed around the world as a teenager with his family and currently was living on a sailboat in Opunohu Bay (adjacent to Cook's Bay) and almost as beautiful. He had ten children and, like many polynesian men, was big on boar hunting with dogs and machetes. He had many colorful stories to tell. Interestingly, he loved Louisiana Zydeco music, and had it playing throughout much of the tour, alternating with blues by Stevie Ray Vaughn. The views from the mountains, especially from a lookout named Belvedere, down into the bays were fantastic. We were surprised to see a considerable amount of farming in the valleys, mostly of pineapple but also all kinds of other South Pacific fruits, in the volcanic craters that make up the valleys of the island. We sampled a number of delicious jams and juice drinks at a fruit stand. And later we tasted a number of alcoholic fruit punches made at a local facility near Cook's Bay. We also hiked down a hillside that had about ten marae, one nicely restored.

Our first full day in the harbor there was about 15 knots of wind, so I assembled the wind surfer. There was just enough wind to get me up and going and to practice my downwind jibes. I was looking forward to some stronger winds, but as often seems to happen, the assembling of the wind surfer immediately caused the winds to die, and for the next few days there was essentially no wind. I dejectedly disassembled the wind surfer without even getting a second chance to skim across the water. But the bright side was that the water was smooth that it was excellent for standup paddle boarding, so my core and upper body strength was much recovered after our three days at anchor. It was also nice to get all the boat gear repacked and the boat cleaned up too. We relaxed one evening and watched two short films and one feature length movie. And as we always love to do we spent time practicing our guitar, ukelele, and singing repertoires. New songs added this last week include Hasta Que Amanezca (ChocQuibTown), Drift Away (Uncle Cracker), And I Love Her (Beatles), and Domino (Van Morrison). And we fell in love with a beautiful Tahitian song that Tehani had given us, Honoipo by Verua, for which we learned the Tahitian refrain. We will be returning to Papeete to see Verua at the Pink Coconut at Marina Taina tomorrow night, and we are excited about that. And on Friday we will be seeing the Heiva sporting events of coconut tree climbing, stone carrying, fruit carrying, and canoe racing, all of which we expect to be very interesting, before we head on to Huahine and the outer islands this weekend.

Photos will be added to this and the previous post once we are back in Papeete.