Raiatea - West Coast - 16 44.603S 151 29.635W

Aurora_b
Mike and Liz Downing
Sun 22 Aug 2010 07:25
Fixed the heads (toilet) - not easy when we found the flexible pipes had been fitted on using a heat gun, so were welded to the metal joints and had to be cut off. The metal fittings used were too big for the flexible pipe, so the only way to get the pipes back on was by starting the generator (there's no electricity on the visitors dock) and using the hairdryer to heat the ends of the pipe. A hassle and a half that took most of yesterday. Still, we visited the main town of Uturoa today to have a look round and are now anchored on the west of the island in the lagoon for the night, with 2 anchors down to make sure we don't swing too close to coral heads. The main channels within the lagoons tend to be deep 70 - 130ft, so you anchor on the edge. The only problem is that in some places the sea bed shelves very steeply from a shallow depth, so there's not much room on the edge, hence the 2 anchors!

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