We've had some interesting weather the past few days. The prevailing trade winds, of course, are from the southeast, but these winds, called "Mahamo" by the locals, have been in the upper 20 knot range and continuous for the past few days. They've kicked up the seas in the lagoon and given some spice to our dinghy travel, as well as a mandatory wet butt.

Interestingly, Rangiroa's east side is very low and the west side has some elevation and all of the population. By elevation, I mean only a meter or two above the water, but it's sufficient. The Mahamo pushed the seas into the lagoon, overfilling it and causing the two passes to become raging torrents of outflow. Current speeds were at least 12 kts, and probably more, with huge standing waves and vortices making movement in and out of the lagoon hazardous.

Our borrowed mooring has been a wonderful place to hang during the many wind shifts and gusts. And when we leave tomorrow, we simply slip the mooring pendant and motor away.

We had made arrangements for me to have another dive yesterday, so I was at the Top Dive shop by 0800, being introduced to my very competent and lovely dive master, Daphne. Top Dive uses only Nitrox, so I had another exposure to that technology. With some Americans and New Zealanders whom we fetched at the very expensive and fancy Kia Ora Resort, we headed out the pass in a large RIB sporting two 140HP Mercury outboards. It was not the place for a sailboat! Once below the surface, it was fairly calm, of course with a manageable current to handle. We swam along the outer edge of the reef in about 20-25 m of water and enjoyed the multicolored fish and beautiful coral. We saw sea turtles and several sharks, as well as another huge manta ray. By the way. We have mis-identified the sharks that we saw the Fakarava fisherman feeding:they were nurse sharks. We turned into the pass itself, and the scene changed to moonscape. There were a few small fish, but most of the coral was dead and broken. It's a wonder that it ever grew there to begin with. It was quite a struggle when we surfaced, bobbing in the turbulence, but our guide had kept us to the side of the pass in about 10 m of water, so the current was diminished dramatically. Having been badly dashed about on a previous entry into the pass, I sat on the floor of the boat as we pounded through the pass, those two 140HP engines easily overcoming the outgoing current and the skillful pilot dodging most of the waves.

I would have enjoyed a "drift dive" along the pass, but the conditions were simply impossible. On a drift dive, one is dropped off in the blue (diver speak for deep water), and one rides the incoming current along the deeper channels in the pass, below the damage done by currents, where the fish and coral thrive. No swimming is needed, since the current gently pulls one past the decorated walls. Pull in your hands, get comfortable, and enjoy the show as it unfolds around you.

After some down time back on Wings, including a shower, we motored to "town" and used the wifi from Eleuthera Dive Center. After a few hours catching up on the world's news and exchanging email, we slowly walked toward Josephine's Restaurant, high on our list of things to do on our return.

Josephine, a lovely French woman in her sixties, is the brains of the restaurant, but she and her helper are the only kitchen staff. It's a prix fixe affair (US$49), and last night's offering after our cocktail and amuse bouche was a red tuna carpaccio over finely-sliced cabbage, and with a wonderful sauce of soy, ginger, and some other unidentifiable ingredients. That was followed by a (for lack of a better description) fish lasagna. The sauce was a bechamel sauce with some tomatoes, rather than a tomato-based sauce of a traditional lasagna. It was baked to perfection. Dessert was an outstanding bread pudding, made with the delicious local baguette. We enjoyed a fine bottle of Sauvignon Blanc with the meal. All in all, we were both ecstatic at the service and meal. Josephine has created a tiny bit of France in her pension (cabins for rent), but turned a bit to make use of the local resources. She's been in French Polynesia for 35 years, and here on Rangiroa for 15 years. I imagine her life has been an interesting one. Want a great vacation? Stay with Josephine on Rangiroa. She has a website, of course.

We sauntered back to the municipal dock and jumped into our faithful dinghy to make the 15 minute journey back to the boat. My fear that we'd both get soaked in salt spray was unfulfilled, luckily.

So, here we are this morning, finishing our morning coffee to the drone of the generator. We have a lot of charging to do, and some water to desalinate today, as well as getting some postcards written and mailed.

The plan is to leave tomorrow morning, mid-morning whenever we can escape the tidal currents in the pass, and sail for two days to Huahine. We'll rest there for a few hours, then sail to Raiatea to commence the decommissioning process.

Our flights will have us home by 20 July, after a brief stop in Oakland to visit with Conni's father.

We'll have wifi in Raiatea and Huahine, but you'll not hear from us during the two days to Huahine since my laptop is down and I need it for SSB email communications.

During decommissioning at Raiatea Carenage where Wings will wait through typhoon season, we will stay at the same Pension Tiare Nui as two years ago. It's a tiny cabin, two single beds, tiny kitchen added as an afterthought, and bathroom, but it's close to the Carenage and comes with a car that can carry blue boxes. Working all day, then getting a nice shower at the end makes for a much more civilized life. The Carenage's facilities are....both primitive and filthy. I won't miss them. It will be interesting to see which boats are still there and which have traveled on, carrying their crews to other worlds.