Blog 9 June 2016 Sent by SSB from Herupiti Bay



16 36.936'S:151 32.695' W original location for blog





Does it seem that we�'ve been in this bay for a long time? We have, and this storm now raging over our heads, is the reason. The storm has been predicted for a week and we�'re in the safest bay (opposite the wind direction to give us the full island for protection), on a government mooring, and battened down for the event. We knew that it was coming and arrived early to be sure to claim a mooring, and have not departed for fear of losing it. Now that the storm is over us, we�'re pleased at our persistence in preparation.



Even with the full island as a wind break, the wind still flows over and down to our bay, hitting 25 knots at times. And the blowing rain is torrential, as you can imagine.



We expected it to begin around dusk yesterday and reach its maximum around 0800 this morning and that�'s been the pattern. The weather services that we frequent were correct about the pattern almost a week out: impressive.



I�'ll post a photo of how we�'re tied to the mooring pendant when I can, but it�'s done beautifully and has some nice redundancy. Yes, we could have been on our anchor, but we�'re always concern about getting tied around coral and losing the thing, and these government- placed moorings are supposed to be typhoon-safe. The pendant on our mooring is damaged and we took steps to minimize the problem.



Sleep was not a happen�' thing last night. The rain was loud and the rigging was singling, to say nothing of the boat movement. Conni wore ear plugs to dampen the sound, but I was concerned about my not hearing the anchor alarm we set.



I have an app on my ancient iPhone called, �"Drag Queen�". It�'s free and does exactly what we need it to do. We get as close to our mooring as possible, press a button to acquire the position, and use that as our set point. If we move past a given radius from the position, the alarm sounds. I not only love the name, but I love how effective it is. In this context, �"drag�" refers to one�'s anchor dragging along the bottom rather than being firmly set in it. At any rate, I wanted one of us to be aware if the alarm sounded so that we could take action. The wind, since it�'s coming from the opposite side of the island and down from the head of the bay, would push us away from the island and the reef is over a mile away. My concern was collision with some of the other boats downwind of us.



Conni arranged a tour of a vanilla plantation with a tour guide who�'s well known here. He owns his own plantation, speaks English, and will tell us about the island. We�'re to meet him at the Total station in our little harbor later today and if the wind doesn�'t die a bit, it�'ll be a wet ride. It might even require that I say behind and watch the boat. We�'ll see.



Of interest to some of you will be that of the six boats in the bay, there are a catamaran, some kind of sloop of unknown make, a Taswell ketch, a Tayana sloop, and a Passport 40. The final three, of course, are all Robert Perry designs, all built in a Taiwanese shipyard, and all well-known and popular cruising boats. In all of our years, I�'ve never been anchored with so many Perry-designed boats. And, as we�'ve always observed, Wings, a Passport 40, is the smallest boat in the bay. No one cruises with a 40-footer anymore: too small.



As I mentioned, I think, when one lays a teak deck, it�'s both glued and screwed to the fiberglass deck. The screws are countersunk and a teak plug, called a �"bung�" is glued into place in the countersunk hole over the head, sealing the screw from water intrusion. Bungs come loose through the years, and we�'ve had several come loose this trip, four on the foredeck. The bung is gone so the best practice is to remove the screw, clean things a bit, re-bed the screw with a suitable caulk, and replace the bung with some great glue. I use Gorilla Glue for this job. Bungs can be purchased in bags for just such a purpose. Unfortunately, I didn�'t bring enough, but I have enough to replace 5 of the 7 that need replacing. At any rate, the bung, in most cases, can only be re-seated to half its length, so much remains above the deck and can be damaging to bare feet. When the glue is set, one uses a sharp chisel to remove most of the protruding bung, then sand it smooth. I used a chisel to remove the protruding bungs, yesterday, and the results were fine. If I don�'t get around to the sandpaper, the remaining bung still won�'t hurt our bare feet and the screws are safely sealed. LaVerne, thanks for the sharp chisel!



It�'s 1830 and we�'re back from our tour, only part of which was a vanilla plantation. Noah, the guide, is the son of Alain, a Frenchman who, with his wife, arrived here in the 1950s. Of course, like every Frenchman back then, he befriended Bernard Moitessier. Moitessier helped build the tiny group of dwellings that they own and started their big garden.



We joined a group of four young, typically competent, Australians, two couples, who had booked together. The two couples had leased a large catamaran and enjoyed 2 weeks of sailing in the Society islands. They were very nice people.



We started with a tour of their home grounds. We�'ve got some nice photos on the site of this homemade group of buildings, built in the traditional style. We learned about a lot of the plants that we�'ve seen: starfruit, guava, breadfruit, noni, and several others.



We hopped into the family Land Rover and began our tour, first visiting the vanilla plantation, although not the family-owned one. Their plants had all succumbed to some disease and decided to go into the vanilla touring business instead. Clever folk!



We began our tour of the island, stopping at various locations for lessons and information. Noah, the tour guide and son, is a botanist so is familiar with everything that grows, although he sometimes knows only the French name.



Taha�'a is tiny, so it didn�'t take long to make our circumnavigation. We visited several villages, and finally visited a business in Tapu�'amu Bay, where Wings is moored. We visited an enterprising Parisian who�'s trying to make a go of creating products from local items. He manufactures coconut oil soap, coconut oil in bottles, coconut oil with vanilla pods, coconut oil with citronella as mosquito repellant, and other coconut oil products. He�'s also making rum, and good rum at that. While most rum is made of the molasses left over from sugar production, he�'s making his from whole sugar cane syrup and it�'s very different.



We sat around talking as the tour ended and he opened some green coconuts, supplied bamboo straws, and we all had a drink. I also learned my mistakes in opening coconuts with my own machete, the primary one being, USE GREEN COCONUTS! They�'re SO much easier to open and the milk is better.



He also told us that the locals get around the high booze prices by home brewing whatever they can find. Then they get into brawls and the local police are called. Yikes! He said that they hit hard and there are few deaths each year.



They do treat sewage, and don�'t just pump it into the lagoon. The main industry is tourism, even on Taha�'a.



Since we were so close to the dinghy at that point, we just gave our goodbyes, and walked to the dinghy. We were home quickly.



Yawn.



By the way, we do have a website on which are photos, so if you get tired of just reading, slide over to www.svwings.com.