First Week in Tahiti!

 

A view from Pahto looking at the marina office/restaurant and the hillside of Punaauia.

 

Hello and Merry Christmas from Tahiti!  We’ve been stationed in Punaauia (the actual town that Marina Taina is in) for a little over a week now and yep, still loving it!  Our days basically consist of waking up with the sun, usually around 6:30am (don’t ask me how this happens.  It must be like some island time or my body just knows it doesn’t have to go to work so waking up early is okay, because normally I’m sleeping until the last minute and that is never 6:30.)  We do some reading or guitar playing, then eventually make our way to shore to get some stores for the day and ice cream and possibly, okay probably beer, then head back to the boat where we go swimming or snorkeling or do some boat work.  It is a pretty strenuous situation really.  Very stressful!  We have gone into Papeete a few times.  It is about a 15 minute bus ride that picks us up right outside of the marine and drops us off right in downtown on the waterfront.  I don’t know if it is like this year round because it is Christmas right now, but there are lots of street venders selling goods plus the big market that sells the daily produce and fish.  We like to check that out every time that we head to town.  Kevin especially likes to take a look at the fish.  It is a little difficult to get to good places to go hiking or sight seeing without either hiring a guide or renting a car so we haven’t been able to do much of that.  Which is a bummer because we both love to hike and I know the island is beautiful.  Kevin’s dad, Dave, is coming on the 27th for 2 weeks so we plan on renting a car when he is here and doing a little more of the sight seeing then.

To update our boat situation.  We are batting about 500 with regards to the repairs that needed to be fixed.  Good news is we finally have some power.  We were able to fix the solar panels.  Kevin took the electrical boxed apart and two of the three had water in them and corrosion.  After we got them dried out and new connections/fuses in place we can finally do things like turn on the lights at night without having to run the motor or worry about draining the batteries.  We, and by we I of course mean Kevin because I have no idea about these sorts of things, are pretty sure we got the tiller/rudder problem figured out.  We can now successfully go in reverse without having to throw up sails or break out the oars!  And our final and arguably, depending on who you ask, most exciting news is that Kevin fixed his bear clippers!!  We thought that we had the single sideband working and tuning property but a few days later it was giving us fits again, so not sure about that, and our wind generator still isn’t working.  We know what part of the problem is, but the other part is hiding within the casing and we haven’t been able to get that open yet.