After an often windy 4 months in Gambier we are ready to leave. Problem is: there is no wind that we like. It's either to weak or it turns to the North West. That would be on the nose for Hao, or it simply disappears....zero wind. I don't imagine this. We follow other yachts on the SSB net and see how slow they are with no wind. I wouldn't mind motoring, but both my S-drives have saltwater in the transmission. Instead of pure oil I have something like mayonnaise in it. We have used them like this for two years but then only to anchor for a few minutes. Not 12 hours motoring. Other sailors panic and haul out right away. But here is no haul out and so we just enjoy this unusual weather. It's sunny and a totally flat anchorage every day. The cyclone season is over. Locals told me already about this nice weather period in May, just before the winter "storms" arrive. I guess we will have to sail one of those Maramus. That's how they call this strong South East wind that brings cold air from the arctic. The temperature change feels quiet dramatic, but it's only down to 22C at night, which is freezing for us. We are spoiled from the tropics. There is always a reason when we get delayed against our will. This time I got lucky with bicycle parts. A while ago I asked a Swiss friend to find me parts for my Chinese disk brakes. She ran around for a few days in Switzerland trying to find them: no luck. But here the owner of JoJo`s saw me struggling with my breaks and gave me a used brake exactly like the model I have ...funny eh? So now we can bike as much as we want .We can also get ashore with our dinghy without getting soaking wet. Only a few boats are here. Most of them left for the warmer Tuamotus and Marqueasas. Without so many yachties on the internet we get more speed. Maybe also because all other islands have changed to that new underwater cable and so there is more data left for the old Gambier satellite. No changes in the works for Gambier. More islands in the Tuamotus might get speed but not here. I guess we are too far away from everything. We could have left a week ago but waited for pills Daniela needed. The 3 nurses here looked at her old prescription from Nuku Hiva and told her that they could get them for her within a week. Cool we thought: we wait. But then Daniela was told that it was refused from Papeete. Why? Nobody knows, but one thing is for sure, the people here are not well trained. If you show 3 nurses an old used prescription, they should not promise you to get it for you. France is complicated. They waste the doctor's time with endless prescription renewals. Something the pharmacist is allowed to do in most other countries. In Switzerland she was given 3 years of Thyroid pills and here only 6 months. And that with a major drama from a doctor that I described earlier as the bitch from hell in the Marquesas. It's sad to see how the locals have to struggle here without a doctor or dentist. Everybody must fly to Tahiti.

Recently we watched a drama about an emergency evacuation for a woman that fell on her ass. Her hip hurt and her knee was weak. She could not walk anymore. They put her in a stretcher, transferred her on the ferry boat, ready to get on the plane. When they got to the plane, she had to be moved to a proper aviation stretcher. This aviation stretcher is only approved for 100 kilos. But most people are way over 100 kilos here!! Air Tahiti crew suspected something wrong when they saw the big woman's body oozing over her stretcher. So they put her on a scale ...et voila : SHE WEIGHS 103 kilos !! 4 rows of seats had been removed but now they could not fly her, because she has 3 kilos too much. And worse; somebody in town, most likely a nurse had falsified her weight as less than 100 kg .Rumor has it that the nurse wanted a trip to Papeete as well, to see her boyfriend. They shipped her back to her house with the ferry boat and 4 empty rows flew back to Tahiti. Locals got pissed off. Crying foul and racism against Polynesians in the far off island etc, etc . TV crew flew in and filmed everything. For 3 days it was on the local news. The minister of health was on TV and then they started to contact the emergency evacuation department. They have small planes, ready to bring any islanders to the main hospital in Tahiti within hours. But the coordinator is a doctor. From the symptoms he could tell, this was nothing life threatening and refused to take her. Many patients with heart problems etc were waiting to be evacuated elsewhere. More TV reporting and Air Tahiti was now in self defense, all on TV. Finally after a week Air Tahiti arrived with a stretcher made for Sumo wrestlers and Polynesian women. She was again moved on to the ferry boat, got to the airport and made it to Tahiti with her nurse. In Tahiti the doctors gave her some pain killers and the drama is now over. I hate to think what this madness costs. France pays for this. And as we speak more versions of this story come up in Rikitea. It is a small island with big gossip potential.