Happy 90th Birthday to my father.

Conni's back! It's so wonderful to have her here and to have her planning, her conversation, her attention to life's detail: all of those things that make our life aboard so pleasant.

She arrived a day later than I had understood, but she arrived when she said: 0750 on Friday. I awakened a bit early and took Phil to the Yacht Club dock for his departure back to the US, we said out goodbyes, and off he went to join his life, already in progress. Fare well, wherever you go, Phil, and thank you for your help. The check's in the mail.

From there I motored against the wind in the dinghy to the ferry dock and settled to await Conni's arrival. Within an hour, the ferry bearing my sweetie was entering the little Vaitape harbor. Since she was carrying her pack and a blue box full of boat supplies, she debarked last and I hurried over for a kiss and to take the load. After hurried greetings, we dumped the box in the dinghy and headed for great French coffee in the Aloe Cafe, a source of fabulous coffee and pastries. We had a meal aboard and started our four weeks of Conni and Bill time. We're NOT on a schedule! Holy smokes, this is the way other cruisers do it! Need a day for something? No problem.

We'll dinghy into town today, sometime, buy some groceries that include some luxuries for which passagemakers have no need such as cheese and wine (it is French island, for heaven's sake), and enjoy cocktails and a nice meal at the Bora Bora Yacht Club tonight. I've got numerous projects to complete, but I don't have to do all of them this instant: there's always tomorrow. What a difference.

We've got plenty of water, now, the solar panels are adding substantially to our energy balance, and for the most part, things are working. We'll charge the batteries heavily today and get them back on track. I completed rebuilding the main fresh water foot pump that began leaking, but haven't re-installed it.

Our tentative cruising plans are to re-visit Rangiroa in the Tuamotus, and see for the first time, Fakarava in those same islands. We might not visit the very expensive Tahiti at all, but perhaps its sister island, Moorea. We'll visit Huahine on our way to the Tuamotus. There are some 2-1/2 day crossings, but we can do that fairly easily at this point. The main thing is that we're on our own schedule, we move when we want and stay put when we wish. In all of our cruising, we've never had that ability.