June 2,2011 thru July 8, 2011

We made it to Papeete, Tahiti from Rangiroa after 32 hrs of travel. These single overnights are not my favorite travels as it takes about 3 days to get into the hang of overnights and 1 night just makes you (Paulie)really tired. After about 3 days you're finally into the swing of it and it's fairly easy from then on with your body used to the night watches. But sometimes, in order to hit new Islands and anchorages in daylight, you have to travel at night to hit to them right in the daytime. But it was a really smooth trip with calm waters and easy swells, so that was good. We were excited to get to Papeete to meet our daughter Lisa, her husband Andrew and our 2 year old granddaughter, Fiona, who were flying in to Papeete. We'd decided that a Marina would be the best place to stay with a two year old. Little did we know what we were getting to!! Much to our dismay, the Marinas here are all med-mooring which is not fun!!! You have to back into the slip, and at least at Marina Tahina where we stayed, you drop your anchor first and then a diver had to dive down and get ropes to bring up to us for our bow ties and then we had to hand the stern ropes off to the marina folks to tie us up to stern. THEN we had to have a board (yes, a regular 2x12 board plank) to walk on and off of the dock to Storm Haven. I guess that's how they all dock in the Mediterranean and Europe. But it sure wasn't our favorite way to be tied up to a Marina!!! And it was a very expensive Marina. New experiences are good for us, right? But the Marina was really nice, though, and the staff were all great folks and very helpful. It had several nice restaurants and easy walk to the store from the Marina. So, all in all it was good.
Lisa, Drew and Fiona flew in on the 12th of June and stayed with us until they flew back out of Papeete on the 27th. It was a lot of fun and we took so many photos it's hard to decide which ones to put on the blog. Before Lisa, Drew and Fiona got there, Don and I took the bus to the Market Place where they sell fresh vegetables and all kinds of stuff to look around. It has, of course, all kinds or touristy stuff too, with black pearl shops everywhere. Paulie found a black pearl set in a beautiful setting. Although the gold chain she plan to wear with it is at home, It is very pretty. Anyway, we are pretty disappointed in the City of Papeete. We can't really say it's Tahiti as a whole as we haven't been anywhere else on this Island and we hear there's a lot more to see than just Papeete. But Papeete is just a large town with lots of cars and noise and people. It was nice to have a big grocery store similar to the USA Wal-Mart, called Carrefore. It had a lot of fresh vegetables and even a lot of packaged salads from the USA. As far as Papeete itself, we were glad to get out of that town. We stayed for another 3 days in Papeete to let Lisa, Drew and Fiona look around and took them to the Market Place and found a beautiful park that Fiona got to play on. Then we motored over to another Island about 16 miles away called Moorea. It was really pretty and a lot better place to be. The kids went swimming and kayaking and one day we rented a car and took a tour around the Island, which was fun. Another days we walked to a beach ---far, far, away!!! We looked for a bus to take us as the books say they come around regularly. But we didn't find any so we kept walking thinking we would find the beach any minute. We wound up walking the whole way with Fiona being carried. Of course she only wanted Mom & Dad to carry her so they were both pooped by the time we got to the beach! But when we finally got to the beach we had lunch at a resort hotel there on the beach and she finally got to swim in shallow water and had a great time.
One of the most exciting highlights of Moorea was getting to swim with the stingrays! It was an area that the tour boats took tourist who fed the stingrays and black tip sharks at and everyone gets out in the shallow water to pet and feed the rays. We were in our dingy and had brought some frozen fish we had in the freezer to feed the rays. Don jumped out with some fish and started feeding them and they absolutely mobbed him! It was so funny. But they're so gentle and would come up and look at you with their beautiful big eyes and rub against you. Although they had a barb on their long tails, they never even acted like they wanted to use them. Their backs were soft with some barnacles on parts of them. They acted like they loved to be petted. There were probably hundreds of them and if you had food for them they came in mobs and ran over each other trying to get to the food. Don put one bite in and they bit his hand which didn't hurt except the pressure from their strong bones. They only have tiny teeth that didn't hurt. One came up to Paulie while she had her underwater camera taking pictures and tried to take a bite of it thinking it was food! They're so soft and sweet it was a totally awesome experience! The water was only about 4'-5' deep where the rays were being fed(of course deeper as you went out) and so you could walk around feeding them. Lisa and Fiona and Drew had a ball, although Fiona was a little spooked at first. Guess we all were until we got used to them. Fiona was in the water a long time with her Mommy and Daddy with them and finally got so she wasn't so scared of them. Of course we didn't attempt to feed the sharks but they were swimming all around us, not paying the least bit of attention to any of us.
After that we experienced a great time at the Cruisers "Tahiti-Moorea Sailing Rendezvous". It started Friday, June 24th at Papeete and wound up in Moorea with a Polynesian dinner, dance and fun contests for all. There were several race teams of 6 man canoes with 2 Tahitians as guides and they had races against other teams. Don's team won 1st place against the other teams in his race but didn't get in the finals. Drew was in two different other teams and also participated in a swim race. Sure is nice to be young with all that energy!! Anyway, the 2 weeks went by fast and it was already Monday, the day the kids had to return back to the States. We really hope they enjoyed their trip as much as we enjoyed having them.
After the kids left on Monday, we went back to Carrefore, the big store in Papeete and stocked up again with groceries. Then, with a great weather window we left Papeete on July 1st to head for Huahine. It's about 100 miles from Tahiti and another overnight run and we made it in to Avae Bay in 16 1/2 hours. We plan on leaving here probably Sunday, July 10th and head towards Bora Bora to check out of French Polynesia and head for the Cook Islands to meet another daughter, Donna and her Husband Bryan who flys into Bora Bora August 1st.
Till then,
Fair Winds and smooth sailing to all of you!
Don, Paulie & Bootsie
M/V Storm Haven