Heading for Bora Bora

Hebe
Mon 28 Apr 2014 19:28

27th April 2014
16:42:73S
151:02:40W

First sail without our trusty crew….off to Moorea with Louise and Phil. 
An inauspicious start with both of them very soon laid out in the cockpit clutching buckets and groaning. Admittedly it was rather rolly Phil had clearly not got as far as the Preparing for Sea chapter in his RYA book before it was destroyed when the waves poured in through their side hatch.

Competent crew.

See Louise fishing…no luck yet and Sophie had to scuba down to retrieve a lost lure - got all the kit !
Next day we found the blinking water maker wouldn't work, just when Harry's away - Cruising's all about fixing your boat in exotic locations.  In the evening we ventured into the dark to make the passage to Huahine in order to arrive in daylight to negotiate the reef. I held my breath as we trickled out of our anchorage in Moorea, a crucial red light was missing which was disorientating, and a flickering fishing boat confused things even more.  Andrew kept calm or rather silent…. Sophie and Ali merrily shining torches on the bow and squealing as sharks swam past. Very exciting for our friends to stand watches during the night and to see the Southern night sky with the  Milky Way. 
 Wind kicking up the sea and flapping the sails alarmingly. No one slept as Hebe behaved really rather badly making Phil imagine we were going to sink.  I really think she's missing H Boss and Imo…. Dawn brought the island of Huahine and we found a lovely anchorage though the stranded catamaran on the reef was a salutary lesson on anchoring.  But all's well and here we are in front of yet another Bali Hai Hotel, there must be one on every island. We had lots to watch with the salvage guys hauling the catamaran off and surfers zooming along.
Huahine is quite small about 6 miles by 3, but when we dinghied over to shore we found the most enormous warehouse shop packed to the roof with groceries, Whiteparish eat your heart out. Aisles of unheard of French wine, clearly they send all the rubbish out here.

We plan to sail up to Bora Bora on Tuesday and Sophie and Ali leave on Thursday…..it has just all gone like a flash….but very special. Looking forward to having Jonny and Kath aboard next in Fiji,,,,but that's a thousand miles away. You can just see Bora Bora from here, in the evening sun, like a blue wedding cake shimmering on the horizon.


Classic poses - Sophie taking pics and Ali sampling the local brew, this one is called Delirium Tremens.