Karen and Chance are x86ing once more. Slight SNAFU with the connection from Australia to NZ to Tahiti - buggers wouldn't let then on with one way tickets (we got those to allow return flexibility). So they stayed in an Airport hotel in Sydney and came 24 hours later with new return tickets. I walked to the airport at midnight and met them - all good, didn't get mugged or murdered even once.
Then I could finally move, after 5 weeks and $2500 in Marina Taina fees. Firstly, on Friday, we all went to the Pacific Puddle Jump Rally registration and briefing at Papeete Marina. This little rally (short island hop), was for all those who this season crossed the pacific. I spent an hour crammed in a tiny, well hot, room for the briefing, which turned out to be more an advert for the Islands, than a skippers briefing. Next day we cruised up the inside of the reef from Tainia to Papeete, and joined 40 other boats for the short crossing of three hours. The crossing was a race, but the organizers totally didn't have a clue, so it was an f-race, or 'farce' ... Like on the ARC, little bomber x86 was right up there at the start, punching well abover her weight, when at the  very last minute, some plonker in the committee boat didn't like something, and so the boat zoomed off and the start line moved backwards 200 meters. That totally screwed up the six most experienced skippers in the fleet, who were left with no chance of realigning, so didn't even start the race. We all just headed off anyway and led the fleet across the gap from Tahiti to Moorea. By half way there were  just four boats ahead of us on our port side, and the wind had died. We slowly overtook three of them, much to their annoyance - they all giving us a major staring, at with their binos, to see if we were using the engines. They saw no exhaust, as we left the Port engine off, and just used the Starboard one, with exhaust that they couldn't see :-). No we weren't cheating (!) we never started the race, so there were no rules, just suckers :-)
Leading the fleet into Cooks bay on Moorea, meant we had first choice of anchoring spot, so we got well set in 15m of good mud. The weekend went well - food, cultural dancing/demos, canoe racing - all good stuff. We stayed on an extra couple of nights and watched the fleet disperse. On the Monday we had Tim (friend I'd made in the Marina while he was also awaiting crew), and his crew aboard for dinner. Tuesday night we went to a restaurant 100 meters away, and found Sharks and Rays live in the waters we'd been swimming in!

By this time we'd given up with our routinely nadgered Suzuki outboard, and also lost the Torqueedo, the display showing 'Error 45 - You're Sooo Screwed'. So we upped the hook and went back to Papeete to buy a new engine. Lucky lucky - Papeete Marina (nearish the shop), was full, but we hovered for an hour, and eventually snagged a spot after a couple of boats left. Another $2500 bill, but 'success', we had a new tender pusher strapped to the back end of little boat. So now we get back on route, and at 13:00 on Friday (29th June), we set off for the overnight crossing to Huahine. Perfectly flat, very little wind, full moon - but even with those conditions Karen was still sea sick and threw up several times ... geeze - poor girl!!
On arrival we crossed the jackpot and hit the reef - nope, other way round. We snagged the only free mooring ball off the yacht club - excellentimundo - there were about 24 boats behind the reef, and there are only 6 balls available so we luckied that to perfection!

All's well on x86, BoraBora on the horizon.