Tahiti Travails

We started looking for a weather window to head back to Tahiti.  Tahiti is about 90 miles from Huahine, which means it would take us about 18 hours.  Since we can’t make that trip all in daylight, we would leave in the afternoon and arrive the next day mid-morning.  The trip from Huahine to Tahiti is against the eastern trade winds, so the key was to try and find a couple of days where the wind was more from the south, lighter and hopefully not much swell.  The forecast gave us two days to go, otherwise it looked like we were probably going to stay put for at least another week where the wind would be blowing 25 kts on the nose.

We were sad to leave our friends, but we had put it off long enough.  We had to get back to Tahiti!  We left on a beautifully sunny afternoon.  The wind and swell was making for some pleasant sailing for the first few hours, and we had our fingers crossed that we were going to have a beautiful night sail.  That positive attitude quickly soured when the winds died out completely, then shot up to 25 kts, then died back down again, and back up to 17 kts.  We had quite a few squalls overnight that with the shifty wind kept us on our toes.

When we arrived in Tahiti the next morning, we were both pretty tired.  One overnight of sailing always seems to be a bit harder than a multi-day sail where you have the chance to get into the rhythm of shifts and sleeping only a few hours at a time.  And, with the challenging conditions, neither of us got all that much sleep that night.  But, we were pleasantly surprised to find our friends Marcus and Diana on s/v Allora waiting for us as we pulled into the marina in Papeete!  So, we left good friends in Huahine but greeted other good friends in Tahiti.  That is one of the best things about cruising.  We find friends wherever we go!

We had heard on the radio over the few weeks prior that there had been several thefts in the downtown Papeete marina recently.  And, the office manager made us aware of them again when we checked into the marina.  We’ve never had any problems with crime while we’ve traveled, but crime can happen anywhere.  Apparently the thieves would board boats overnight while people were sleeping and grab whatever they could throw in their pockets or backpacks, like cash, sunglasses and cell phones.  So, these weren’t very sophisticated thieves that were taking expensive electronics off boats.  Just your petty thief.

We usually do not lock ourselves in our boat at night.  Our cabin is right next to the companionway stairs as you enter the boat.  It would be really hard for someone to come in our boat without us noticing.  But, we weren’t going to take any chances with the current thefts.  The last thing I’d want to do is wake up to a stranger in my boat!  So, the first night we were in the marina, we had the companionway locked and nothing seemed amiss.  But, when we woke up the next morning, we found dirty black shoe prints on our deck and on the cockpit cushions.  Someone had been on our boat!  I couldn’t believe we didn’t hear them, as they stepped onto the boat right outside our cabin.  But, we were locked in and nothing was stolen.  We found out three boats were boarded that night and at least one was robbed.  The marina has stepped up the security, and there hasn’t been any problems since.  But, we are still sleeping with the companionway locked as well as our spreader lights and cockpit lights on to deter anyone thinking of trying to get on our boat again.  Whew!

The main reason we came into Tahiti was to do some work on the boat.  We haven’t done any real maintenance or projects since we left Ecuador in February, so that is a pretty good run.  When you travel thousands of miles on a boat in 8 months, there are going to be some things that need attention.  First, we had to find someone who welds stainless steel.  We have a somewhat complicated exhaust system for the diesel engine, because the engine sits mid-ships below the water line.  So, the exhaust has to be cooled and travel quite a distance to exit the boat.  Like all things in a salt water environment, things start to fail after awhile.  And, we had a few places that were starting to leak and needed to be re-welded.  Taking apart the exhaust system, having the pieces welded and reinstalling the system (while crossing your fingers that it stopped all the leaks) was a gargantuan task requiring you to twist yourself into a pretzel in a tight space to get all the pieces out.  It was a BIG project, but thankfully it worked.

Next, our sails needed some work.  The sails aren’t that old, but they’ve gotten a lot of use the last three years.  Some of the stitching on the UV covers was coming out, and there were some worn spots that needed to be patched.  We found a great sail loft in Tahiti that did the work for a reasonable cost.  We have a nice sewing machine on board, but without the space to lay out the sails, it just wasn’t possible for us to do the work ourselves.

Our maintenance list also included servicing our outboard engine for the dinghy, changing the oil in the dive compressor and generator, scrubbing down the decks, and polishing the stainless railings and cleats.  We’ve been hard at work everyday making sure Adagio is ready to go for next season.

Being in Papeete, the largest city in French Polynesia, also gives us the luxury of going to the Carrefour! The Carrefour is a large, western style grocery store with any kind of imported food you could imagine, including a lot of French pates, sausages, cheeses, etc.  After shopping mostly at the small magazins in the islands, being able to shop at the Carrefour is like heaven.  But, do not go shopping there hungry!  We made that mistake and came back with way too many French cheeses.  (You can also buy freshly made baguettes and crepes there – ok…this is making me hungry…)

In addition to shopping at the Carrefour, there is a large indoor/outdoor market downtown mainly on Sunday mornings.  The market starts at 4am.  We arrived about 7am and still had a pretty good pick of fresh local produce, including pineapples, papayas, pamplemousse (grapefruit), beautiful lettuces, and these delicious red plantains we recently found.  There are also a lot of prepared foods you can purchase, which are a combination of Chinese, French and Tahitian.  We bought pain du chocolat, chinese pork buns (char siu bao) and chicken shumai.  Inside the market we found roasted pork and a large fish market.  It was pretty awesome.

Now that we’ve gotten the majority of our projects done, we’ve got to figure out where we’re going to leave our boat when we head back to the States next month.  We’ve never had a problem finding marina space, but this year is a bit of a challenge.  More and more boats are staying in French Polynesia through the cyclone season, and there just isn’t marina space for all of them.  Our preference would be to stay in Tahiti, since we have to fly out of here, but so far we’re not having much luck.  We could leave the boat at anchor and pay someone to watch it, but we’ve never done that before.  Or, we could possibly travel to Raiatea or Apataki, but neither of those islands are very close.  It would take flying or possibly taking a commercial boat back to Tahiti if we did that.  So, we’re still on the hunt for a space, but we’re sure it will work out one way or another.  We’ll keep you all updated with our plans.

~katie