Rolling Stones
Rhiann Marie - Round the World
Stewart Graham
Mon 21 Jun 2010 08:13
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Sunday June 20 2045 Local 0645 UTC Monday June
21
17:36.20S 149:36.98W
After our second attempt at leaving Scotland we
managed to fly out of Aberdeen on Friday morning arriving in Papeete, Tahiti
0400 on Saturday morning. Our flight the previous Tuesday had been cancelled due
to a strike in the airport in Tahiti..... let's not go there just now, I have a
few other things to tell you first.
After our flight, which was Aberdeen -
Paris, Paris - Los Angeles, and Los Angeles
Papeete, was cancelled by a short text message, we phoned as
instructed to Air France to re arrange. "No seats available all the way to
Tahiti until the 21st" she said. "OK" I said "can we go on the flight tomorrow
(Tuesday, as planned) as far as Los Angeles and then we can find another flight
or another airline to get us to Tahiti". "Oh no no" she said "we can't do that
without knowing you have another flight to Tahiti, we couldn't take the
responsibility". "I think I could take the responsibility myself" I said
"I have already sailed half way round the world to get to Tahiti, so organising
a flight from Los Angeles to Tahiti all by myself should not be beyond
me". "OK" she said (I could hear the dread in her voice at having to spend
several nights lying awake worrying about me all alone in Los Angeles not
knowing how to get to Tahiti) "but it is going to be more expensive". "How can
it be more expensive" said I "I have allready paid for the flights all the way
and you couldn't take me the LA to Tahiti leg so I'll just forfeit that part". "No, no, no, it does not work that way......"
"OK Ok" I said trying my best to keep cool "how soon can you get us all the
way then", "Monday 21st" she said. "What!" I said incredulously, "Well there are
seats available on the Friday the 18th but they are more expensive so we can,t
put you on these" she said, thinking she was being helpful. Anyway I said I
would think about it and called back later, got a very helpful guy who booked us
right through on the Friday the 18th (the more expensive seats). Now those who
know me know that I have travelled extensively all over the world, always
paid for by myself, and consequently I have never ever flown anything other than
economy class .... except that one time when I hooked up with some dame
(pleasant young lady) between the UK and Thailand who managed to persuade
the transfer desk in Abu Dhabi to upgrade us both to first class, but that's a
whole other story. Well the guy at Air France also upgraded us, Ok not
to first, but something in between that and my normal place folded into the
seats in the rear. In fact it was very pleasant but I still couldn't bring
myself to pay the extra.
We are here now and need to wait in the marina till
Monday to get an electrician to fix a couple of issues aboard that I have
brought parts out for. Then it's off. Our time in the Society Island is now cut
a bit short as we have to be in Tonga on the 15th of July or thereaboots,
to pick up Craig, Rhiann and Amy McBride from Ireland.
Saturday was spent provisioning and doing a few
jobs aboard, touring the south side of the island and trying to get our body
clocks adjusted. Today we decided to take a tour of the north side but it
rained torrentially all day. The roads had large amounts of surface water and
rivers and streams were bulging. Visibility was particularly poor and it was a
miserable day. I wanted to drive up into the national park to the mountains
where the dirt road degraded into a track from where you could
hike to a restaurant with a spectacular view. Trish didn't. As we
drove along the road, which was very steep to on her side, she was getting
ever more nervous about my plans. Then a boulder, a bloomin' great boulder!
- at least half a metre round, flew out of the trees, off the hillside onto
the middle of the road just in front of us. I tried to make light of it but
Trish's sharp intakes of breath and occasional screams at the conditions of
the drive, were now silenced by phase three of her nervousness. Complete
silence. Anyway I persevered and turned up off the road to head up the
mountain alongside a swollen river, which was almost red with clay and mud. The
road decended into a dirt track and then we came to a stretch of about
two hundred metres which was completely submerged. The silence beside me was
then broken .............. "what are you going to do?" It wasn't really a
question. Feeling like a bit of a lightweight, we had to turn back. The "when I
was a boy" stories did not make one blind bit of difference so off we went back
to Pape'ete on plan B. Up a paved road we went, which in itself was a bit
of a hair raising challenge, 7km into the hills above Pape'ete for a very long
lunch with spectacular views over Pape'ete and Moorea beyond.
The early evening saw us being hit by strong winds
and swell from the west and we had to work hard to keep Rhiann Marie from being
driven hard against the concrete pontoon face which we were stern-to against. We
have an anchor out forward and two bowlines which were attached to fixed
concrete anchors by a diver. The thought occured to me, that if things got
really tight it would be more than a little awkward to try and get off the quay
wall and out between the 70 foot catamaran to port and the 82 foot Swan to
starboard especially with two discarded lines which would by then be in the
water. Let's hope it settles down for the night.
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