Tahiti

This place is something. Papeete is one busy metropolis. Crazy place. Shops, restaurants, street vendors, an incredible daily farmers market. Beautiful produce. We think we’ve died and gone to provisioning heaven. Chandleries for boat parts, hardware stores, electronic gear, fishing gear. It would be perfect if it weren’t for the fact that it is complete bedlam. We just returned the rental car with no additional damage. Which is a minor miracle. I just about got us killed once and Dawn about took out a moped with two guys on it in a round about.. One guy jumped off the bike and was chasing us down the highway. Get me the heck out of here!

In other news. We had a good time here. I definitely don’t need to come back but it was interesting. Got a lot of boat issues taken care of. I think the theory is that you sail around the incredible French Polyneasian islands till everything is broken then you come to Tahiti to get it all fixed. Then get out.

They have some crazy one way streets and round a bouts but a difficult one for us to get used to is that in spite of traffic bedlam when you get to a painted crosswalk all traffic has to stop and let you cross. I about hit a couple of pedestrians because the cross walks are everywhere. If they didn’t have that law you would never get across a street here.

But, as has been the case in most of Polynesia, the people are very friendly and helpful. Also helps that there is some English spoken to keep us hopeless Americans out of trouble. If you ask for directions it’s more than likely that they will not direct you there, they will take you there. We have had free cab rides, help getting money changed, help finding the port captain. I went into a fishing gear store looking to replace one of my reels. The fellow didn’t have what I needed so he drew me a map to one of his competitors so I could find one. Apologizing that he couldn’t take me there because he had no one to watch the store while he was away. We were on an island tour in the rental car looking for a particular restaurant that we knew to be hard to find. Way up a mountain they said.  Couldn’t find the way up so we stopped at a gas station to try to get some directions. We had a name and a cartoon map from Avis. The guy behind us in line says you will never find it. I will take you there. So we follow him and his buddy through all kinds of twists and turns finally leading to what looks like a golf cart path. He says that’s all the further he can go but we will make it in our miniature little car. Says its 15 minutes up and worth it. Best lookout point in Tahiti. This stuff goes on all the time. I will not live long enough to repay the kindness we have been shown. Oh, and after all that, the restaurant was closed. That also goes on all the time.

View from the top of the mountain. Smoked some clutch getting there and some brakes getting back. Sorry Avis. Vivo is actually in there. Somewhere upper left. So is a s$%tload of everything else. 

A rainy tour day but a really nice waterfall. A good memory of  Tahiti.

New crew. And Dawn.

Jam night on Vivo. From left, Ivan, a very good singer, Me, Jonny three chord, Lorenzo and Scott. Both very talented guitar players and vocalists. It was a blast. 

Vivo welcomes Brian and Lauren to the crew. They will be with us for a couple of weeks. Hitchhiking a ride to Bora Bora. They are from an ARC boat that is dropping out of the rally in Tahiti. We also said goodbye to Iris. Sadly. She was a great crewmember and her boundless energy and humor was great to have on board. She heads back to France to see family. We hope to see her again. She will be missed. She might rejoin us in Australia. We hope so.

From here we island hop to Bora Bora. Maybe three stops along the way. Not sure yet. Getting a little behind in my route planning. Sloppy actually. It’s kind of like…. We will leave sometime, and go someplace, and then get to where we are supposed to be, maybe. I could stay here forever. Maybe that’s why my brain wants nothing to do with planning how to leave Polynesia.

Probably a dry spell for Wi-Fi after we leave here. Actually here is called Wee Fee. You say whyfi and no one knows what you’re talking about.

Goodbye Tahiti.     Hello…..        not sure yet.    But I hope we catch some fish on the way. With my awesome new 400 yard reel. Bring it Marlin! I got your number!

peace

M