17:35.375 S  149:36.957 W

27/06/09 A Rainy Saturday Morning in Paradise

Demetri arrived from London  without a hitch apart from an unexpected stopover in LA.

On the leg to Tahiti he sat next to a Venezuelan lady called Ligia Petit ( Whatever you do don’t Google her image) I think it’s fair to say he has nearly recovered from the experience. But not quite.

I’ve been in keyboard hell since leaving New Zealand.  The new wireless one has been playing up something rotten and Demetri brought  me another which doesn’t work either. They work in other parts of the boat but not at the nav station so, something is interfering with the  signal. I bought a cheap French USB  keyboard which adds a whole new dimension of bafflement  to a hunt and peck merchant like me but at least it’s consistent.

Last year when we were here I had a major printer problem so I bought a small stand by one.

Then I  found the problem with the old machine and started using it, only to run out of ink and the replacement cartridges I bought here  in the Southern Hemisphere  will not work in a machine bought in the Northern Hemisphere even though the part numbers are the same.

So I brought new cartridges from London and gave the stand by printer to friends in Auckland.  Demetri also brought a couple of extra blacks. A few days ago it stopped printing properly.  I ran the head cleaning routine a few times and  the alignment program as well which failed.  We opened it up to have a good look and discovered that the deep blue ink delivery  system had broken and poured ink everywhere gumming up circuit boards and  the print heads beyond repair. I bought a Brother Printer to replace the HP. It is cheaper, smaller, slower, doesn’t have fax, but is wireless and works for the moment.

When we were in St Maartins in  2004 I bought a little folding dinghy ladder and had it modified to fit on a specially  fabricated stainless plate on the dinghy transom.  Somewhere between New Zealand and Moorea, it was nicked.  Given my age and agility or lack thereof, this little ladder is an important element  when swimming from the dinghy. So I found one in Papeete which of course wasn’t exactly the same size, and we also found a stainless fabricator to make the adjustments.  To make a long story short we now have a new little ladder fitted to the dinghy.  It set me back £398 and it’s not even gold plated.

Friday morning  we were awoken at dawn by drumming as the locals prepared for a major canoe race involving  at least 60 canoes.  I enclose a few snaps. 

Midday today we motored anti clockwise around the lagoon to the new marina and anchorage.  There are several hundred yachts here of all possible shapes and sizes.  To get here you have to cross both ends of the airport runway, requiring radio clearance at each end so as not to frighten incoming or outgoing aircraft.