The Dinghy Saga

 Woke up one morning in Papeete (Taihiti) where we were moored to a dock in the centre of town, to find that our dinghy and outboard had disappeared in the night.  Regret to say that we assumed it was a local and that we would never see it again.  But, after three days of detective work, we found out who had taken it - a young Brit who couldn't get a lift by hitch-hiking back to the marina, so 'borrowed' our dinghy.  In the meantime we had spent hours in the police station, hours being taken round the local area in the marine police launch looking for it, and hours looking at new and horribly expensive replacements.  Without a dinghy a sailing boat is quite stuck, we anchor out most of the time, and need it to get to land.  By the time we tracked down the culprit, who was crewing aboard another yacht, the dinghy had disappeared from the place where he had left it.  However the yacht he was on told him that he would have to buy us a replacement, and that they would provide the funds up front.  So we have a new dinghy, but not as good as the old one, and the same model of outboard as the one we bought new in Panama only a few months ago.  And A has a debt of 3,000 pounds at the age of 20 and fresh out of university.  An expensive taxi ride for him.

Followed by the Bike Saga......

This happened on Bora Bora when P was with us. We hired a bike for P, and had our two folding bikes and cycled right round the island - about 32 km.  Near the end of the circuit we locked up the bikes at the bottom of a steep track leading up to a WW2 American gun emplacement and trenches.  When we got down again the bikes had disappeared!  P noticed a 'guilty looking' boy in the woods, and she and G gave chase while I ran to the road to try and get him stopped.  With all our shouting (yes, we really said "stop thief"!) and running there were plenty of spectators, and a jogger told us which house the boy had gone to, and some builders called the police.  The parents of the lad put great pressure on him to tell us where the bikes were, and they were found in the wood - still locked together.

  By this time a community policeman had arrived, and then two police vans - 8 police in all!  They stopped a tour guide who was passing as she could speak English so we even had an interpreter.  It appeared that the local lad had seen what had happened but wasn't involved (he must have run because he was scared) and the others, one of whom threw a large rock at G, disappeared in the other direction.  It is such a small community, and the whole incident caused such local interest that someone probably knows who did it - they wanted the (new) hired mountain bike, not our bikes of course.  We were very pleased to see the bikes again, only slightly the worse for wear for having been carried/dragged together into the bushes.

  So the sailing life isn't all sailing!  However we have had P on board for 3 weeks, and have sailed the Society Islands fairly thoroughly.  In Moorea went to a spot where stingrays come to be fed.  A bit touristy (the rays have their stings cut off), but the rays come right up to you and take bits of fish from your hand.  We didn't take food for them, but there were enough people around who had, tinned sardines seemed just as welcome, so we had a close-up view.  Left the island with a good supply of small sweet pineapples which grow so well on the volcanic soil of Tahiti and Moorea. It was a night sail to Huahine, about 80 miles.  We chose a rough night, winds 25 knots which wasn't too bad, but the seas were big and we were running with the wind so rolling like mad.  Everything rattling and banging and none of us got much sleep, it was so nice to get into the calm shelter of the island early in the morning.

  Huahine is really two islands very close together and connected by a short bridge.  We explored the northern island by bike, filling our rucksacks with a tasty fruit called 'star apples' (not star fruit) bought at the roadside, and also some mangoes picked from a wayside tree, so were fairly heavily laden for much of the day but had plenty of fruity refreshment.  There were plenty of stops en route - a huge complex of ancient 'marae' or religious sites consisting of stone platforms and upright slabs of stone.  Some were beside the sea, and some up steep paved tracks through thick forest - plenty of mosquitoes. There was a vanilla farm to visit, and we hadn't realised that the pods grow on a sort of vine (the tourist info says it is an orchid??)  Only one harvest a year, then the pods are dried in the sun for 3 hrs a day for 3 months, so no wonder they are quite expensive to buy.  We've seen the pods used to make sweet-smelling bracelets, and also as a sauce for fish.  Don't fancy the latter.  Another break to take a short boat ride out to a pearl farm in the middle of the lagoon, with  demonstrations of how the oysters are prepared and a final stop was to see some sacred blue-eyed eels that live in a small river.  They come to the bank to be fed (tinned sardines again).  There's a taboo ('tapu') on eating them.

  We had hoped that there would be some dancing for P to see, so were pleased to hear that there was a local 'soiree' in the little town.  Actually it was a 20 min walk out of town, very dark and no pavement but luckily not very much traffic.  A large marquee had been erected with lots of food stalls and a bouncy castle around it.  It looked as though the whole town was there, and all evening people were coming and going into the marquee with food, and children were playing around, a real local event, not put on for tourists which was nice.  Many women were dressed in traditional brightly coloured mumus with coronets of flowers on their heads, and the men with necklaces of shells and sharks teeth and coronets of leaves and bark.  The dancing was great fun, lots of hip swinging and foot stamping to drums and guitars.  As we noticed before in Papeete, the dancers are all sizes, and those with rolls of fat dance as enthusiastically as the skinny ones, it's just not considered important. We have some good photos which hopefully will get on the blog in due course.

  Bora Bora was the last island we visited before leaving French Polynesia.  It has a population of 5,000, 50% of whom have arrived in the last 10 yrs or so to work in the tourist industry.  There are lots of resort complexes owned by Intercontinental, Sofitel, Club Med etc etc, ie international not local;  all very upmarket and self-contained, so the island outside these walled complexes appears poorer and less well-kept than the other islands in the group.  Local little restaurants and bars are only used by independent travellers, cruising people and Sunsail charter clients.  Whereas the other islands have income outside tourism - pearls, vanilla, pineapples etc., in Bora Bora there is nothing, even much of the artisan stuff in the shops is brought in from elsewhere.  A strange contrast.  The resorts all consist of thatched cottages built on stilts out over the water so you can swim in beautiful clear blue sea straight from your terrace.  And the lagoon is calm and has lovely colours, almost like the calendar pictures.

Now we have reached the Cook islands, a 500 mile, 3 night sail, and are in Rarotonga.