Location 16° 41S, 151° 29W
Monday, 08.27.2007

For the weekend in Bora Bora, we went on a little "road trip" to Taha'a, which is just a few miles across a channel. Twenty miles. For older romantics, you may remember the movie "South Pacific" where there was the big US Navy base on one island, but across the way, close but remote, was Bali Hai. The base that Mitchner was writing about was Bora Bora and "Bali Hai" was Taha'a and Raitatea (they share a lagoon). In the Second World War, most of the girls were sent across to Taha'a to be out of the reach of the Americans (Overpaid, Oversexed, and Overhere).

Taha'a isn't like that today. It is the sleepy garden island. Currently we are at the lovely Tara Vana Yacht Club, on one of their moorings, at 16° 41S, 151° 29W. It is a perfect quiet spot just at the south end of the island. We went touring around today and couldn't help but notice that the roads were the best we've seen in all of French Polynesia. The answer seems to be that no one uses them. No big trucks, no tearing up everything for new sewers, just bicycle on the smooth macadam from time to time.

We had a great sail across to Taha'a with three friends, Richard Postma and his son Kahai (see sailing vessel Tara Vana) and Erwin Christian. For those of you who might want to see more of this lovely area, go to Amazon and get some of Erwin's books: "Tuamotu" with Dominique Charnay, "Moorea" with Robineau, "Marquesas," "Light in the Lagoon," and my favorite, "Tahiti, au gre du vent -- Tahitian Glimpses." The last one is all black and white, and I think is totally Christian's favorite personal photos, as opposed to those that become famous postcards.

We were marvelously fortunate that Christian, before he sailed with us, got a speed boat and photographed the Maggie B sailing in the lagoon of Bora Bora and just along the reef outside. As all know, the Maggie B is beautiful, but Christian's photos may make her exquisite. The cover of Yachting? Who knows....

We are headed back to Bora Bora tomorrow, hopefully to return to our new favorite patch of sand near the Hotel Bora Bora. It should be a fun run across. Willis and Kath are scheduled to join us September 9th, so we'll probably hang out in Bora until then. No hardship! Once they are on board, we look forward to returning to Taha'a and Raitatea.

All is well.

Location 16° 32S, 151° 44.7W
Sunday, 08.19.2007

The Schooner Maggie B sailed through the Pass in Bora Bora at about 0945 this Sunday morning, the 19th of August. We are at about 16° 32.0S, 151° 44.7W I say "about" because, for the first time in a long time, the GPS and chart don't match up. The difference is only 300 meters, but then the Pass is only 200 meters wide. It certainly is a good reminder to keep one's eyes open. I did also do hand-bearing-compass sights to nail down our position, but they came out crazy, until I saw the note on the paper chart "Magnetic Anomalies." And then a little later "Differences in Latitude and Longitude may exist between this chart and others." So, anyway, we are in a marvelous spot, let here by our friend Richard Postma of Taravana and his son Kahai and his granddaughter.

We had a quiet motor sail from Papeete. Dodged Huahine, Tahaa and Raiatea, which was easy. Also dodged perhaps half a dozen cruise ships rushing back to Papeete for the next change-over, or whatever.

We have had a lovely welcome from Bora Bora already and our "dance card" is filling up fast. We are near the famous Hotel Bora Bora, where my father has been going for 45 years. Dad was made the First Honorary Citizen of Bora Bora when he was here last. We have already had the chance to check in with six pals. Bora Bora will be great fun even before our yachtie friends from Papeete arrive! We hope to work out the opportunity to do a traditional pig roast (underground oven, cook for a day, etc.) with all our new and old friends.

All is well.

Location 17° 35.2S, 149° 37W
Saturday, 08.18.2007

At 1400 today we departed the Marina Taina 17° 35.2S, 149° 37W for Bora Bora. The day is overcast with some rain and no wind. It is about 135 NM to Bora Bora, so we should enter the pass at about 1000 tomorrow morning. Having come to Bora Bora many times since 1972, it is going to be very interesting and emotional to sail (wind permitting) in through the pass.

We are greatly regretting Theresa's departure this morning for the Gambier Islands, to join a sloop, TeTega that we met in Raivavae. We all hope that she has a safe journey and we will do our best to keep a sense of her Joie de Vivre on board.

Kath Moore will join us and Willis Sautter will return on September 8th and 9th in Bora Bora. Willis was with us from Cape Town to the Seychelles and we met Kath in Hobart, where she was Mate of the Windward Bound, a Brigantine.

We had two marvelous days in Moorea. We anchored just outside Cook's Bay in a deep hole that didn't give us much swinging room. One high point was to have a drink with a long-time friend Moana Suchard, who is chief designer for Tapu, a Tahitian surf clothing firm. It was fascinating to hear how he got the inspirations for next year's successes, as well as the dynamics of leading the creative work for an international clothing company, from a perfect house on the beach in Moorea.

On returning around Moorea yesterday to Tahiti, we had the pleasure of watching a mother and tiny calf humpback whale pair play around at the edge of the reef.

In Marina Taina, we had gotten to know the crew of some of the Super Yachts. Friday night is BBQ night, and last night was a lovely one. We have persuaded the crew of at least one of the yachts to bring her along to Bora Bora for "training" while her owner is away, so we'll have some pals to play with....

All is well.

Location 17° 29S, 149° 49W
Wednesday, 08.15.2007

The Schooner Maggie B is anchored inside the reef in Moorea, just outside Cook Bay, at 17° 29S, 149° 49W. It was a lovely sunset with a two-day-old moon peeking above. We motored across the 13 NM and are anchored out in the perfect temperature Easterly trade. The "hole" we are in is very narrow, but 60 feet deep, reportedly in good holding. There are just three of us in this perfect anchorage, a nice plastic French sloop with a pleasant older couple aboard, and a Polish (really!) catamaran named Gdansk Spirit, with all the style and attractiveness of a 1920's boxcar. It has a large number of very big people on board.

We feel that we "escaped" Papeete. The "Lonely Planet Guide" well describes Papeete as "full of harder truths and fragile promises." Photos on the web will show us all alone on the famous Quai des Yachts. The reason why no one stays there, once they have cleared Customs, is that there are no services and it has much of the ambiance of any big city (sirens, rush hour, concrete, hot) anywhere. As quick as we could, we moved around to Marina Taina, a few kilometers past the airport. It is new, clean, well-run, full of interesting boats, and all services. There is also, on the other side of town, a nice Yacht Club de Tahiti, but it is in an area rather separate from the rest of things and is very crowded, with limited facilities.

We enjoyed the marina, and made friends among the other boaties. We met skippers from all over in the Dingy Bar in the Casa Blanca restaurant. Germans, Chileans, Argentineans, English, French, Irish, Norwegians, and many indescribable. But, still, it was a marina and the real islands beckoned us.

From my father's visits over the years, we have a number of friends in Tahiti, Moorea, Tahaa, and, especially Bora Bora. We had lovely dinners (Chinese fondu with the freshest-ever seafood), lunches and meetings.

We rented a car and had a nice drive around the island. Lunch was at the Botanic Garden, enlivened by a birthday party of about 400 people from a very extended family. The nearby Gauguin museum lays out the artist's life very well, but is rather spoiled by terrible reproductions of his work. Think old photographs that have sat in the sun too many years. The last room is both fascinating and pathetic. It has postcard sized copies of all his paintings, bunched together by location (Chicago, St. Petersburg, private). The diaspora is astonishing.

There is also a good museum of "Tahiti and the Islands," that was well worth it. To plug into "real" history, we stopped at the rebuilt Marae Arahurahu. It is tranquil, beautifully maintained and has amazing energy radiating from it.

We shopped at the huge "Carrefour" supermarket and refilled the boat with tons of food. It will be quite a while until we plug into a supermarket again.

The epic, however, was dealing with Customs. The basic issue was "Cautions." They are bonds worth a plane ticket to your home of record. If you are non-EU, you go to a bank and pay for a full fare ticket, plus the usual charges. When you check out, you take a paper from Customs and the bank gives you your money back, in Polynesian Francs, just what you need when you are going to Chile or New Zealand. Of course you can change the Polynesian Francs into "real" money, for a fee....

All that is good and well, but Theresa is switching to another boat, TeTega, that we met in the Australs. TeTega's Captain John is happy to pay the Caution, but there is no bank in the Gambiers, nor the Australs, for that matter. So no bank, no Caution, but she has one now, so how to "close" it when she switches to TeTega. Probably easier to get Shias and Sunnis singing "Merry Christmas" together. In theory, an affidavit from the Gendarmerie in the Gambiers will let me get the money back. We'll see.

Did I mention how expensive French Polynesia is? A "simple" dinner for seven at the Dingy Bar -- four pizzas, two bottles of wine, three big salads? US$245! Anchoring stern to at marina Taina? US$110 a night. Catch fish, eat coconut and grapefruit, drink rain water....

Theresa is off on the 18th for the Gambiers. We will probably head back on the 17th (Friday night!) to anchor off Marina Taina and have a barbecue with some boatie friends, then after tearful farewells on the 18th, we'll do an overnight to Bora Bora, which is about 135 NM downwind from Papeete. Hannah is the strong one of us as I have a broken rib due to a fall down the hatch when dropping the main and Ben has a strained wrist from an "sand surfing" incident. We'll do our best.

It will be nice to sleep out in the breeze tonight as Marina Taina got a bit hot in the lee of the island.

All is well.

Location 17° 29S, 149° 49W
Wednesday, 08.15.2007

The Schooner Maggie B is anchored inside the reef in Moorea, just outside Cook Bay, at 17° 29S, 149° 49W. It was a lovely sunset with a two-day-old moon peeking above. We motored across the 13 NM and are anchored out in the perfect temperature Easterly trade. The "hole" we are in is very narrow, but 60 feet deep, reportedly in good holding. There are just three of us in this perfect anchorage, a nice plastic French sloop with a pleasant older couple aboard, and a Polish (really!) catamaran named Gdansk Spirit, with all the style and attractiveness of a 1920's boxcar. It has a large number of very big people on board.

We feel that we "escaped" Papeete. The "Lonely Planet Guide" well describes Papeete as "full of harder truths and fragile promises." Photos on the web will show us all alone on the famous Quai des Yachts. The reason why no one stays there, once they have cleared Customs, is that there are no services and it has much of the ambiance of any big city (sirens, rush hour, concrete, hot) anywhere. As quick as we could, we moved around to Marina Taina, a few kilometers past the airport. It is new, clean, well-run, full of interesting boats, and all services. There is also, on the other side of town, a nice Yacht Club de Tahiti, but it is in an area rather separate from the rest of things and is very crowded, with limited facilities.

We enjoyed the marina, and made friends among the other boaties. We met skippers from all over in the Dingy Bar in the Casa Blanca restaurant. Germans, Chileans, Argentineans, English, French, Irish, Norwegians, and many indescribable. But, still, it was a marina and the real islands beckoned us.

From my father's visits over the years, we have a number of friends in Tahiti, Moorea, Tahaa, and, especially Bora Bora. We had lovely dinners (Chinese fondu with the freshest-ever seafood), lunches and meetings.

We rented a car and had a nice drive around the island. Lunch was at the Botanic Garden, enlivened by a birthday party of about 400 people from a very extended family. The nearby Gauguin museum lays out the artist's life very well, but is rather spoiled by terrible reproductions of his work. Think old photographs that have sat in the sun too many years. The last room is both fascinating and pathetic. It has postcard sized copies of all his paintings, bunched together by location (Chicago, St. Petersburg, private). The diaspora is astonishing.

There is also a good museum of "Tahiti and the Islands," that was well worth it. To plug into "real" history, we stopped at the rebuilt Marae Arahurahu. It is tranquil, beautifully maintained and has amazing energy radiating from it.

We shopped at the huge "Carrefour" supermarket and refilled the boat with tons of food. It will be quite a while until we plug into a supermarket again.

The epic, however, was dealing with Customs. The basic issue was "Cautions." They are bonds worth a plane ticket to your home of record. If you are non-EU, you go to a bank and pay for a full fare ticket, plus the usual charges. When you check out, you take a paper from Customs and the bank gives you your money back, in Polynesian Francs, just what you need when you are going to Chile or New Zealand. Of course you can change the Polynesian Francs into "real" money, for a fee....

All that is good and well, but Theresa is switching to another boat, TeTega, that we met in the Australs. TeTega's Captain John is happy to pay the Caution, but there is no bank in the Gambiers, nor the Australs, for that matter. So no bank, no Caution, but she has one now, so how to "close" it when she switches to TeTega. Probably easier to get Shias and Sunnis singing "Merry Christmas" together. In theory, an affidavit from the Gendarmerie in the Gambiers will let me get the money back. We'll see.

Did I mention how expensive French Polynesia is? A "simple" dinner for seven at the Dingy Bar -- four pizzas, two bottles of wine, three big salads? US$245! Anchoring stern to at marina Taina? US$110 a night. Catch fish, eat coconut and grapefruit, drink rain water....

Theresa is off on the 18th for the Gambiers. We will probably head back on the 17th (Friday night!) to anchor off Marina Taina and have a barbecue with some boatie friends, then after tearful farewells on the 18th, we'll do an overnight to Bora Bora, which is about 135 NM downwind from Papeete. Hannah is the strong one of us as I have a broken rib due to a fall down the hatch when dropping the main and Ben has a strained wrist from an "sand surfing" incident. We'll do our best.

It will be nice to sleep out in the breeze tonight as Marina Taina got a bit hot in the lee of the island.

All is well.

Location 17° 32S, 149° 34W
Tuesday 23:00, 08.07.2007

The Schooner Maggie B was safely tied up, Mediterranean Moor style -- anchor out and tied to the rade -- in Papeete at the Quai Bounty, AKA Quai Bir-Hakeim, AKA Quai des Yachts at @ 2300 local. We are at 17° 32S, 149° 34W. Celebrations included opening our last bottle of Laphroaig. Technical paperwork tomorrow, and then off to the Marina Tahina.

All is well.

Location 18° 55S, 149° 11W
Tuesday 12:00, 08.07.2007

At noon on August 7th, the Schooner Maggie B was at 18° 55S, 149° 11W, or about 72 NM from Tahiti. We have come 2633 NM from Opua, NZ. We are booming along at nine knots in a 15 knot SE'erly trade wind. As I write this at 1500, we have spotted the first glimpse of land in the distance.

We should come up to Tahiti at an hour or so after sunset, not a great time to work our way into an unknown harbor full of coral reefs. Our current plan is to shelter at anchor for the night at Baie de Popoti, a small bay that makes is an opening in the barrier reef. It should be protected from the breeze, but the Admiralty Guide says that the swell can work its way in. If it isn't a suitable anchorage, we'll just head out and stand off until morning. Popoti is about 10 NM South of Passe Taapuni, the complex entrance we will use to get to the Marina.

Our friends in Papeete have suggested a new marina a little south of the airport and a bit out of town. The Yacht Club is nearby, which is another possibility. The traditional favorite is Quai Bir-Hakeim, which is right at the forefront of town. We'll workout which is the right balance of security, fun, and access.

While I think of Tahiti as an un-Polynesian metroplolis full of noise, cheap tourism shops, dirt, gangs, and shiny office buildings, it is impossible not to also think of it in context of being the absolute goal of so many dreamers, many of whom came out, think Fletcher Christian and Gauguin, and the millions who never made it. We will find our own Tahiti.

All is well.

Bananas a Plenty

We ate the rest of the Mahi Mahi today for lunch, lightly steamed on bananas, with roast potatoes, onions and garlic. Greens were cauliflower and peas. Wine was Cloudy Bay Sauvignon blanc. We were twice blessed today with Theresa making bread this morning and Hannah banana cake this afternoon. Did I mention we have lots and lots of fresh bananas?

Location 21° 52S, 148° 38W
Monday 12:00, 08.06.2007

At noon on August 6th, the Schooner Maggie B was at 21° 52S, 148° 38W. We were making six knots with full main and fore and the G2 Gennaker AKA "The Bird." The wind is 8-10 knots from the SE, or 120 relative. The sky is full of small puffy clouds and we are all barefoot and in shorts and t-shirts.

This is Trade Wind sailing and it is a marvelous change for us. Most world cruisers sail from East to West, stay in the mid-latitudes, do the Canals, and follow the SE or NE trades. The Maggie B has generally followed the routes of the old clippers, rounding the Capes, going south to pick up the Westerlies, and riding the shoulder of the storms as they churn past. We certainly could get used to the Trades.

We have come 2451 NM from Opua and have 264 to go to Papeete.

When we set The Bird this morning I noticed a small rip by the clew and we had it down and Hannah had it patched within 20 minutes. Ben fixed the bow of the tender Reepicheep, somewhat hurt in the blow at Raivavae, and I patched a hole in my favorite shorts. All in all, very productive.

All is well.

Underway for Tahiti

At about exactly noon on Sunday, August 5th, the Schooner Maggie B was headed out doing eight knots with all sails flying, through Mahanatoa Pass, Raivavae, Austral Islands. We have a lovely 15 knot Southerly to blow us the 400 NM NNW to Tahiti. The wind is due to back to Easterly during the next few days, which should make for an easy passage.

The front came through Raivavae yesterday with torrential rain (think: an inch, 2.5 mm, of water in 15 minutes!) big breezes -- from NE at 35 knots to South at 30 in 1/2 hour. We knew it was going to happen, but it was quite a shift. We worked our way back around the island from the lovely little motu called "Le Piscine" or the Swimming Pool. We anchored at about sunset in the shelter of Rairua harbor. That night we had thunderstorms with HAIL! Hail in Polynesia! Quite a shock. We gathered up some for ice for our rum drinks.

Almost everybody on the island was friendly and charming. Even the French Gendarmes took me in to see their book of visiting yachts, which goes back to the 1950's, and urged a Maggie B entry. While we were out at Le Piscine, a small outboard fishing boat pulled up with a huge stalk of bananas and a dozen grapefruit. Only reluctantly they accepted six cold beers as thanks.

The island is supposed to be "dry," with no alcohol in the few stores and none allowed to be landed. But the Gendarmes didn't blink when I declared our ship supplies. Other yachties, who went to a "disco" in someone's house a week ago report that beer is brought to parties in buckets and ladled out. They also reported it to be fiercely strong, resulting in one guy doing a face plant in the road on the way back to his boat.

Our Onan generator, which has performed marvelously, took exception to a routine fuel filter draining and developed an air block. All the usual techniques were tried. Finally we were able to get it going by jury-rigging a header tank (really just a fat hose) that used the force of gravity to finally fill up the fuel pump. She is purring away just fine now.

I neglected to report earlier on our mountaineering expedition. Under sway of an enthusiastic Norwegian on another boat, we went off to climb Mt. Hiro, the highest peak on Raivavae at 1434 feet. We were under prepared. Hannah and Theresa were barefoot, Theresa in a cotton dress and Hannah in shorts. Lots of water and a lovely picnic, though. And cameras. We hitchhiked the five miles to the start in a passing truck. I had thought that we were just going to pop up for the view and a picnic. It turned out that the Norwegian was formerly with a special Army unit that patrols their border with Russia and one of the other guys was ex-British SAS.

We climbed a face and it soon became apparent that we wouldn't be able to descend it, and got to a lovely view and picnic spot. After lunch off we went along the ridge towards the top. Not exactly like a tightrope, but sometimes 500 feet down on one side and a few hundred on the other. Onwards, ever upwards, supposedly "the easy way back." The Norwegian took one side trip to chase and almost catch some feral goats, then on another side trip found an immature White Tailed Tropicbird, on its nest.

We finally split up with Ben, the Norwegian and another guy going for the peak, while Frank, Theresa, Hannah and ex-SAS started down towards the back or North side of the island. While steep, it was chest high ferns so one couldn't really fall. After a while the ferns gave way to a pine plantation planted on a rather steep scree of loose volcanic rocks, that made footing difficult. The layer of pine needles served only to disguise the configuration of the rocks under your next step. It had been raining for about an hour by then. As we came out of the pine plantation, just before we hit the road, we found ourselves in a large, relatively intact marae. It was about sunset and a large pig almost caused multiple heart attacks. We made our way out to the road and a kindly dump truck driver took us back to our boats, about six hours from when we started. Ben and his group arrived a few hours later.

My writing of this report was interrupted by a dual hook-up of Mahi-Mahi. I lost the big one (natch) and Ben landed his, a perfect 20-pounder. We faultlessly went to our "FISH!" stations. I can just smell the garlic, ginger and butter heating on a hot pan for our first taste of fish for a while.

All is well.