At Anchor in French Polynesia

The Schooner Maggie B remains at anchor in Rairua Harbor, Raivavae, Austral Islands, French Polynesia. The island is about three miles long and a mile across, with a typical barrier reef. The jagged mountains look like they were cut out from thick paper, especially at night. Mt. Hiro is the highest, at 438 meters. About 1000 people live on the island.

Rairua is the big town. It has the Mairie (Town Hall), one church, the Gendarmarie, a wharf building, a tiny medical clinic, a soccer field, and a store with no inventory. The bakery is a house about half a kilometer out of town. To get bread, one must order the day before, and wait at the end of the pier road at 0715 for Madam to drive around in her truck. The truck looks like a mobile grocery store, with Madam's grandson (granddaughter?) scampering around the back to get the bread and find whatever else is desired. Old ladies appear out of the underbrush with crisp 500 CPF notes to buy supplies. Supposedly Madam makes petit pain au chocolate two days a week, but she is pretty scary and I haven't asked yet about that, just being thrilled to have lovely fresh baguettes. A baguette is 60 CPF or perhaps US$0.50.

The only French or Europeans we have seen at the two policemen of the Gendarmarie National. They are very fit, young, good looking, and in perfect uniforms. But they also seem very innocent, like soldiers who have never seen a battle. Conversely the local cop is an older Polynesian, somewhat overweight, but with a happy face that has surely seen everything. I get the feeling that he is probably the high priest for the traditional ceremonies that are never seen by the Europeans.

Like many Polynesian societies, Raivavae seems to be a matriarchy. The somewhat overweight women in shapeless pareau or dresses seem to be running everything, to the extent that anything is running. Men that we have seen appear to mostly work for the Commune de Raivavae. Their work seems mostly to be to sit in the shade and discuss fishing. Church on Sunday is the big social event, with the ladies in their best, brightest dresses with huge hats decorated with flowers and ribbons.

I have some US dollars on board, but no clue how to turn them into CPF. Fortunately a friend in New Zealand gave us a few hundred CPF, so we have enough for bread. Not sure what one would buy, but we are going to walk or hitchhike into the next town which supposedly has a store. There are many trees full of grapefruit, mango, papayas, and bananas. Fields are planted in taro and cassava. Every yard has a pig tied up somewhere. The soccer field was full of dozens of chicken this morning, looking for bugs. I suspect that barter is used more than CPF.

The one surprise is that we haven't seen a single fishing boat, large or small, though we have seen many small nets hanging from trees along shore that appear to be the kind that are thrown from shore.

Yesterday Hannah and Theresa participated in a very traditional Polynesian ritual. They rowed out at sunset to a lovely nearby motu (small island) with two Norwegians from another boat and burned our garbage on the shore while drinking beer. There is no dump or garbage pickup on the island and all burn their stuff along the side of the road. We, at least, sifted through the ashes for things that didn't burn, not the usual practice here.

Today's project is to solve a fuel supply problem with the genset. We bled the fuel filter as part of routine maintenance and it hasn't been able to re-prime itself. The Onan is supposed to be self-priming, but for whatever reason, it isn't now. We are also going to set up the Hookah air breathing system to scrub the bottom and explore -- everywhere we can get up to 60 feet from the air pump.

I disappointed myself yesterday. There was a minor problem with this email program and it appeared, before two hours of hacking into the program, to be inoperative. I felt helpless and hopelessly cut off. And at the same time I felt ridiculous, being a world-girdling Blue Water Schooner Captain, who couldn't live a day without checking my email. I was only somewhat mollified by having perfect reception for my Motorola cellphone, which texted me with an offer for special ringtones, only $1.98 each!

All is well.

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