" A LADY TRIP " Sailing around the World.

A Lady
Stephen Hyde
Sun 25 Apr 2010 22:32
SATURDAY   24th  APRIL.    2010      Sailing from  Tikehau  to Tahiti.
 
All night the wind blew 25 knots and we were flying along, too fast alltogether,
One ship passed on Aileens watch, and at 03.30, Aileen could see the loom of the light house on Tahiti.
04.00hrs we could see all the lights on the Island and it was a great feeling, here we are so close, only 18 miles now.
 
06.00hrs, We are at the harbour entrance, and had to wait a while for some ships to come and go before we got clearance
to enter the port.
07.30 hrs,   We were all tied up to the make shift marina in glorious sunshine and a howling gale,
But we made it.  We are in TAHITI ........a wonderfull feeling..
 
First things  first, We connected the hose and washed down the deck before filling the water tanks, and then showered ourselves
as we were beginning to smell from lack of water for showers over the last few days.
 
The relief of being here is great, to know that we got here safely and now we can repair all the little problems we have
with some of the equipment and navigational instruments.
 
Aileen and Stephen went and got the hair done, Skipper got his cut shorter than ever before in his long life, but not quite a blade 1,
We had lunch in a local cafe, and the food was great, and so were the waitress's ( skip thought so anyway)
later we bought some shorts and new poloriods,
 
Then we met John from " Eowyn "  on our return to the boat, so had to have a few beers before going out again to
the " Oa La Bouche" french restaurant for dinner.  It was great ,
Aileen had fish, Donal had steak tartar, and Skipper had lamb, all jusf perfectly done , as only the french can do so well.
( excuse the writer for a moment while he fixes the clothes line or suffer an induced heart attack for lack of attention )
 
thats done now and everything is back to normal,  If there is anything normal on a boat.  
Later we met Bob and Maggie for a night cap . we also bumped into Paul from rally control and had a plesent hour or so.
 
Skipper was on the point of going to sleep as he had been on the go since 04.00hrs this morning, so after being introduced
to Bob & Maggie's daughter " Lisa " who had just flowen out to Tahiti to join them, we all scrambled for the bunks, 
zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
 
Thats it for now,
 
Signed   :-  Stephen  Hyde,  ( skipper )