We're at the end of our trip. It's hard to imagine, really. Conni's been here for 28 days and we've cruised Bora Bora, Huahine, Fakarava, Rangiroa, back to Huahine, and now are the Raiatea Carenage. Wings was stored here two years ago, so we're old hands here, hence the Carenage owner's welcoming, "You're home!"

Our alarm buzzed at 0700 this morning but we were both so tired from our long days of the Rangoroa crossing to Huahine that we took an extra 30 minutes. We arrived in Huahine's Fare village bay in early afternoon and found the bay FULL of sailboats. Holy smokes! We counted 5 in the far end, 3 in the intermediate bay, 24 near the reef, and 11 near the village of Fare. Of course we didn't have a shot at a mooring and had to search for room to anchor near town. We succeeded at that, dropped the hook, and splashed the dinghy. There were 14 dinghies at the little dinghy dock! Crazy.

With our watermaker out, we carried our water jug like in the old days, and finally found some water. We visited the store and found our essentials of rum, beer, Roquefort, lunch fixings, and baguette. With our necessaries in hand, we strolled to the Huahine Yacht Club where we enjoyed some Internet and from which I posted yesterday's blog.

We were forced to motor sail in the light winds today. There were sailboats everywhere we looked. After our crossings where we see no one, it's a shock to see anyone at all. Raiatea is home to the largest set of sailboat charter companies in French Polynesia, so a lot of the boats are charter boats. I'm sure that it's nice for charterers to be able to see their destination and not be out of sight of land. The Society Islands in this are are ready-made for charterers since they can visit Tahiti, Raiatea, Taha'a, Huahine, Bora Bora, Morea, and all within a day or so of easy sailing.

We entered the Raiatea pass at 1400 and motor-sailed to the marina and borrowed a mooring. Man, I love moorings. We splashed the dinghy and quickly motored to the Carenage in time to meet the owner who welcomed us. We arranged to have Wings pulled on Monday. We'll stay on the mooring until then working to prepare the boat for storage. We'll move our blue boxes to the cockpit and start loading tomorrow. We're hauling back a lot of equipment that we haven't used since clutter is a bad thing on a cruising boat. We started with too much stuff and we're slowly making that right.

I bought a machete in Rangiroa. We've walked by coconuts by the hundred but have been unable to open them but not for lack of trying. Without losing fingers, I'm ready to take on the task. We also realized that it would be good anti-dog weaponry since we've been accosted many times on our long walks. C'mon, dog....I'll vivisect the next four-legged attacker.

The sailing is over but not the work. Our rental car will arrive tomorrow, and our bungalow will be ready on Monday night. We leave Raiatea for Papeete on Thursday afternoon, spend the night on the Fa'a airport floor (yuck) and fly out on Friday to Los Angeles. A week from now, we'll be in L.A.