been here for several days now, enjoying the beautiful Bora Bora. Once again, we're on a mooring at the Bora Bora Yacht Club, to which we can dinghy for very cold showers now and again. We can get Internet when we drop by for a beer, so what's not to like? We got our laundry done, too, although it took 3 days for them to have it ready. Island life!

On Saturday, yesterday, we rented bicycles and rode several miles along the belt road. I got to snorkel at a public beach. It must have been fantastic when the stag horn coral was alive, but it's all gone but broken pieces. They've also built a very nice bath house, with a nice restroom and shower area, although in true Polynesian style, it's a both-gender room.

From there, we could walk, down the road to the Lucky House, our favorite pizza place on the island. We've eaten there for years and taken guests there, too. They have a wood-fired oven for their pizza and they have a rotating list of interesting pizzas from which to choose. At any rate, it's a favorite and after 5-6 miles cycling in the heat, a welcome respite.

We cycled back to the Hotel Intercontinental Bora Bora-Moana. It's older but very exclusive and expensive. We got an entire pizza for the price of a single drink there, for heaven's sake. This is one of those fancy hotels with "bungalows over the water": hey, we've got one of those!

After cocktails, we biked back to Viatape, hopped in our dinghy, and motored to Wings.

The weather has stabilized a bit and it's been very sunny the past few days: very hot, in fact. We've tried to stay out of the sun so some of our deck work has gone wanting. I have replaced the teak bungs that cover the screws that hold the teak deck in place. I completed 8 today and will trim them to deck height tomorrow. The time-consuming part of the work is to reduce the diameter of the teak bungs from the package to the size needed to fill the deck holes. I remove and replace the old screws with new stainless steel ones, the caulk them before driving them home. After the bungs are suitably sized, I glue them in place. The new bungs are teak cylinders so I must and all the sides to acquire a decent and watertight fit.

We get pulled from the water on Sept 6, 9 days from now. It's hard to imagine, really. We'll return to the Raiatea/Taha'a lagoon on Aug 30 or 31, depending on weather. From there, we can visit one or two more locations before we must be at the Careange slip. Then, 10 days of effort to ready the boat for over-season, and we're out of here. Yep, we're thinking of that already.

We're still fighting with the fridge. When it goes off, it's very difficult to get it back on. It usually entails shits of our flipping the breaker on and off until the fridge is on, a process lasting 15-20 minutes, usually. When it's on, it runs well, but it's hard to manage.

The weather gods have decided: We're out of here tomorrow.