Mataiea

The seas had definitely calmed down overnight so in the morning we motored out of pass at Maraa and headed for Passe Aifa approx 10nm away. The light winds were on our nose, not conducive for sailing, so we motored the entire way. When we anchored inside the bay we found the water to be quite muddy and unappealing. We had thought to explore the area in the dinghy to find a more suitable place to anchor but standing on the bimini we saw that the muddy waters appeared to extend out to the reef. Without even stopping for lunch we decided to head out and try the next pass at Rautirare.

Inside the bay we found an anchorage in 30-40ft off a dark sandy beach. Before long, locals with kids aboard, kayaked out to have a look at us. We exchanged greetings but our French and their English had little overlap. I mentioned to one girl that we were looking for a shop that sold fresh bread. She came back later to try and explain and later still to arrange for her uncle/brother to take us to the shop.

I spent the afternoon topping up our 36 golf cart batteries. I had a little battery water from our first attempt to make some and used this first on the house bank. I then reconfigured the water maker so that the source and output could be put into a bucket into which I had poured 5 gallons of made water. With the output going into the bilge, the sea cock switched off and our previously installed by pass filling providing the source water I started the water maker measuring the output until it dropped below 20 parts per million. At this point Helen switched off the bypass and put the water maker output into the bucket. We were therefore purifying already purified water passing the only slightly saltier water back into the bucket to be recirculated. (Last time we took all source water from the fresh water tank and blew the lot pretty quickly).

We eventually made 2 gallons of water at 4 parts per million impurity which was pretty good. I topped up the drive banks with this water leaving little spare. Given the uneven use between house and drive banks I want to swap the entire house bank with one of the drive banks and repeat this on the other drive bank a year from now. I’ll wait until Ben arrives to do this.

Once this was all finished Helen and I dinghied ashore to meet the uncle/brother who took us to the nearby store where we picked up some fresh vegetable and bought him a drink for his troubles. I kick myself for not remembering his name but I’m pretty sure he said the area in which they live is called Mataiea. He was born here and has many, many brothers and sisters.

Back aboard we had a nice quiet evening together watching a couple of episodes of House on the computer.

This morning I have been back to the store for a fresh baguette for breakfast. Today we’re all for taking it easy. We may move the boat further east but this time staying inside the reef. In the vicinity there are a few things to see ashore. There is the Gaugin Museum and botanical gardens close to each other. There is also a public waterfall and fresh springs nearby which we may wait until Monday to visit as they are supposed to be popular with the locals at the weekend.

There is also a post office to the east of us which is probably where we’re currently picking up a pay for internet service. We’re still having issues and confusion with our parts order and would like to have a more stable connection which we should get if we shift east a little.