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.