17.32 S

149.34 W

On Saturday 23rd of April we arrived in Papeete, the Capital of Tahiti. The day after we met Laurent, the World ARC’s agent who had kindly taken care of the package Edvard’s daughter Ellica had brought with her all the way from Sweden. It was meant that she should have joined us in Hiva Oa, however being Easter holidays, she could not find any flights to Hiva Oa from Papeete. Luckily Edvard and David managed to find a flight from Hiva Oa to Papeete and joined her there instead. Meanwhile the package she had brought with all our spare parts had been kindly kept at the customs and Laurent helped us to declare it. So now finally a few weeks later we opened the package. Seriously it was Christmas all over again!

We had forgotten what we hade asked Edvards’s s wife Karin to bring along in the package… everything we opened was just like Christmas! We received Easter eggs (a month later haha…) and Jörgen got his VHF to the cockpit. The former one was no longer working.

 

More Swedish godis, magazines, Swedish newspapers (dated 23rd of March, a month ago…), chocolate, Swedish bread Falu rågrut or “kuddemacka” according to the kids, Swedish cheese (it was stil ok!), parmesan cheese, magazines for the kids. For Daddy wires for the steering system, new legs for our table and more spare parts. Wow, we still thank Karin again for the lovely package she had kindly put together. Happy!!s

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And now for the work to be done. As we had so much to do on the boat we finally ended up staying in Papeete for 10 days. Everyday was a working day in one way or another. The first 3 days the weather was really hot, warm and sunny. 

  

  

  

Then for the rest of the coming week the rain poured down like buckets! At least we got the deck clean...

 

  

 

All in all this is what we fixed these days:

- repairing water maker due to leekage and by new filters

- repairing steering system as the cable broke during the Pacific crossing

- replacing new VHF

- repairing hatches (that broke again the day after…)

- repair the GPS Furumo

- resow the genua and widen the bimi (when raining it was raining into the cockpit)

- service the motor Volvo Penta

- by fans and install them in the kid’s and the guests’ cabin

- repair the plotter

- clean all the cushions, the bilges and all inside the boat. 

- clean fridge and freezer

- repair the stern anchor

The water maker. The hard job was not the water maker itself but to dismount parts of the boat to get to repair the water maker. 

 

We also fixed ourselves: the whole family needed to visit the hairdresser. Especially the boys!

 

 

By the end of the week everything was fixed until we discovered that the toilet had clogged … again! Another 2 days more in the harbour in order to fix it. This time it was not something that was clogging the pipes, it was all the urin (sorry for being so detailed, but this is quite interesting) mixed with the salt water (we guess) that had turned into hard stone making the pipes smaller. In order to fix this we hade once again to cut into the boat’s plastic as most pipes and utilities are fixed so tight in the boat. The spaces in the boat are efficiently used however the boat constructors have not taken into consideration how to reach these utilities when they fail and need repairing. The pipe being hard as stone was impossible to remove as it was bent. Luckily our neighbours from Kroatia on the NZ boat Meermöwe had a special saw and Jörgen could cut out a bit of the plastic to be able to take out the pipe. In order to take away the hard stones, Jörgen had to slam the pipe onto concrete to brake it. Yes it was hard as stone!

  

During all this work Alex and Inez found their activities and occupations...

After more than a week of constant working on the boat we checked in for a day pass in Hotel Intercontinental of Tahiti. Wow …. did we and the kids like it !! Nice food and especially a pool for the kids as well as wifi for us = heaven for everyone!