Shortly before we left for Tahiti, Gerald and Dianne popped round for our last Au Revoir for some time. They’re aiming to reach Australia by end of November. We’re waiting here for the next three weeks for John to leave and Ben to arrive. This will put us too far behind them to have any hope of catching up or arriving somewhere where they’ve been waiting. By the time we next see them they’ll be CLODs (Cruisers Living On the Dirt). So it was Au Revoir knowing the next time will be some time away.
Soon after they left we up anchored and headed out. With a weather front due in the area quite a few boats were on their way from Moorea to Tahiti. The winds were brisker than the forecast and for a while it all looked good. Shortly after leaving Moorea behind we ran into a wind shadow from Tahiti which slowed us down as well as turning 20 degrees the wrong way. I decided to tack and find the wind again which we did. We sailed all the way back to the reef around Moorea (albeit further south than before) and tacked again sailing away until we found the wind shadow again, this time further out. We kept this up for a few hours ending up at the southern entrance to the protected area behind the reef on the NW side of Tahiti.
Navigating the narrow passage between the shore and the reef we found ourselves facing a canoe race in progress with nowhere to go. We ended up motoring between two of the canoes racing towards us. Soon we found a space in the anchorage near to a number of our friends.
We went ashore once we felt we were positioned ok in the anchorage and cased out the local supermarket – a large Carrefour. Helen and I had the evening in to oursevles while John visited some friends on other boats.
This morning Helen and I have again been to the Carrefour to collect deposits on some of the beer bottles we’ve emptied. Unfortunately they don’t sell beer on a Sunday. We’ve invited a whole bunch of people over for my Birthday tomorrow so hopefully we’ll be able to score some cold ones tomorrow.
The weather today is horribly humid so I don’t think we’ll do a lot more than just sit here and sweat it out.
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