One awakens at 0800 or 0830, or even 0900: it depends. Breakfast includes iced coffee, for who wishes hot coffee here? Fresh baguette and butter in the cockpit complete one's breakfast. It's so overpoweringly beautiful that an hour or two sweep past with alacrity as one scans the shore, the encircling coral reef being pounded by breakers, and the goings-on aboard the other inhabited boats. Any new member of the mooring crowd deserves, and receives, special attention from us. We glass them mercilessly to count sailors, their goings and comings, and what accoutrements they have that we don't, and can discuss the utility of getting one of them. A new, very modern-looking, large (120-foot) power boat dropped her hook this morning. A crew man saw to the operation on the bow then hurried back to the air conditioned interior. A lovely aluminum-hulled, Herreshoff-looking Australian flagged sloop also dropped anchor last night. She's at least 80 feet, perhaps more and sports a sky-scraping 4-spreader mast. A small square cave opened in her starboard side and provided nice access to dinghy and swimming. I'll bet that she just flies in the right wind.

We read, we talk, we quietly watch the world. At once an hour, one of us will say, "Just look at this! We're in Bora Bora on our boat!" Incredulity at our good fortune is common and appropriate.

Today, we'll go on a hike to another bay since the winds are still quite high and we don't wish to risk dealing with a dinghy inverted by winds getting under the hull. We'd say that the dinghy was "tumped over" were we in the South.

Yesterday, I did get the wind generator working and erected in the fore-triangle, so we can make some good use of the huge gusts of wind that are keeping us pinned here. Well, "pinned here" might be too strong a phrase, for heaven's sake. At any rate, those 20-40+ knot gusts provide some electricity for our always-starving house bank. Conni has exercised her Germanic ancestry by cleaning and getting the boat back into Conni-approved condition. I am grateful, having lived in a guy-dorm for several weeks. We're interesting and useful creatures, but this group was more filth-blind than most, I'm afraid.

The next bay has a few archeological ruins and the original WW2 dock, now used as a dock for local freighters. We noted that a garbage scow was headed in that direction this morning and we wondered what happened to all of the garbage that we and the other residents generate. Unceremoniously dumped into the maw of the Pacific? Shipped to some garbage island known only to locals? We don't generate much, but we do generate some. At sea, we throw overboard only metal, glass, and biodegradable paper such as cereal boxes, all carefully shredded to facilitate sinking or disintegration. Plastics and such are stay with us and we pass it off to some island. Karmically unsound, it's still our best bet. BTW, our attractive server tells us that there's a "colossal" land fill on the island into which the garbage is dumped. The tropical flora and fauna, accelerated by the heat and moisture probably reduce volume significantly in short order. The large hotels such as the Four Seasons, probably have their own corners of garbage.

After our return to the Bora Bora Yacht Club, probably induced by pouring rain, we'll return to the boat and, you know, relax some more. We'll enjoy a nice hors d'oeuvre/cocktail hour then a nice meal.

In our defense, we do get tasks accomplished during the day, but we're not frantic to get them done and they don't all have to be completed NOW, as is usually the case.

I'm watching the boat. She's the nearest one to the yacht club, port side to the club's view. I can see the wind generator whirling about and in sun, the solar panels pump in their contribution, too. While not completely the gasoline teat of the generator, we can delay it by days with careful use of our power supplies.

You wouldn't know that there was a coral reef far beyond Wings if you didn't, now and again, see the tell-tale white of breaking surf. No photo can catch it, of course, but it's unmistakable. Just now, there's a sailboat negotiating the convoluted passage into the lagoon. It's daylight so few problems for them, cowards. They should do it in the dark, like real sailors. Just kidding. Real sailors time their entrances so that they don't have the nighttime entrances that we did.

Conni's on the weather and we're discussing the possibility that we can depart Bora Bora on Wednesday morning after checking out from the local Gendarmerie. We're headed toward Huahine on the first trip, and we'll stay there, well, until we wish to leave and the weather cooperates. There are few amenities there, but it's supposed to be lovely. From Huahine, we plan to visit Fakarava, a favorite among cruisers. Do "Google" Fakarave since it's quite an unusual place. Weather dictates travel for us, of course.

Oh, yeah…we read until, oh, 2100 or so, then turn in. Sigh. Life in the tropics…