Getting to Tahiti
Ripple2
Thu 3 Aug 2006 22:21
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Tuesday 1 August 2006 - from Annie's
Log
Well, we have been in Tahiti for 3 days now and are
just starting to get the hang of it. We leaft Toau, reluctantly, last Friday for
the 220 mile passage to Tahiti. Although it is a short stretch compared with
some of our recent passages it still had it's moments. There is some storm
activity in the south and it is sending swells up here so the seas were 'high'
to say the least - I reckon some of them were 11-12 feet, but they were a
reasonable distance apart so it wasn't too terrifying. Our autopilot had a
similar problem to the Puerto rico to San Blas leg where a bolt sheared. Luckily
this time Darren survived with only minor scrapes but alas we couldn't fix it -
need more bolts and bigger holes. So we hooked up the wind vane steering and
that did a great job getting us here - so all's well till we get to port for
more spare parts.
We arrived in Papeete (the main port for French
Polynesia) on Sunday morning early and made our way past the airport (it's right
on the waterfront) into a fairly crowded anchorage which varied in depth from 8
feet to 60. We chose 8 feet and cozied in.
But I must go back to arriving here from the
Tuamotus. We came up to Tahiti in the night so with no moon all we could make
out were lights on shore and we could hear the surf breaking on the reef which
rings the island and could eat our boat without even thinking twice. So the 2am
to 5am watch was a full alert 10 minute plots exercise in controlled fear. We
had slowed the boat down so that we could arrive at the entrance to the harbour
in daylight and we made our way through Papeete Pass in the wake of a big red
cargo ship just on daybreak. The island rises 2200 metres up out of the sea,
with a fringing reef and is quite a majestic sight after the flatness of the
Tuamotus and then the nothingness for 2 days during the crossing.
I'm not sure, but I think Papeete is a bit too
civilized for us after some much quieter places we have been lately. On Monday
morning we caught a bus into town and found hustle and bustle and long queues at
the bank and it was all a bit of a shock. It is quite a cosmopolitan town. There
are lots of shops - everything from jewellery/high fashion to you name it. And a
real mix of cultures and people - sort of Paris meets the Pacific, but the
dingier side of Paris. We muddled our way around on that first day feeling very
much like fish (or sailors) out of water. The formalities of checking in were
made all the more difficult by lack of information or signage as to where the
offices of the Port Captain, Immigration Police and Customs were - so we
walked the length and breadth of Papeete Harbour (and it's very warm here) in
search of the above. A couple of hours later we found them and Customs was
closed - they are only open from 9-12 every other day. We found the Port Captain
and cleared in with him, but would have to come back Wednesday for Customs, and
go to the bank to lodge a bond equal to our combined airfares home before we
could deal with Immigration. After 4 banks with long queues who couldn't help us
we found the right one and their Credit card machine was not
working..
If this is sounding like NOT paradise to you well,
snap. We are looking forward to leaving already. Like I said earlier it's taken
3 days and we are just starting to get the hang of it.
The good news is there's a huge supermarket with
all kinds of goodies - loads of baguettes, pate, cheeses, saucisson, fresh veges
so that may just make up for the rest of it.
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