Tahiti is a Very Pretty Island

Our beautiful anchorage in Papeete

I wasn’t entirely comfortable when David suggested a stop on the uninhabited atoll of Tahanea in the Tuamotos Archipelago on the way to our redirected destination of Papeete, Tahiti in the Society Islands.  I did not want to jeopardize our precarious status as visitors to French Polynesia under the ominous shadow of Covid-19 restrictions, for just a couple of nights reprieve.  But after 36 days at sea, and the possibility that we may never get a chance to see these dazzling atolls otherwise, my inner dialogue of rationalization brought to mind all the possibilities of Maritime Law that might cover our potential excursion.  And we did, in truth, need a rest break, repair stop, and a calm place to refuel our tanks from the jerry can supply, not mentioning….a cocktail and a swim!  And so it was that our first landfall in French Polynesia was to be a beautiful and memorable one.  David has already told you about the visit by the French Navy who were so polite, informative and helpful, and very cute, so you know that it all turned out well.  We drank the champagne that had been cooling for a month in the Dometic for this very occasion on our second evening watching a magnificent sunset and congratulating ourselves on a safe, successful,  and largely uneventful but long, so very long, Pacific Passage.

Tahanea, Tuamotos

We still had another 280 Nautical Miles to go to reach our first anchorage in Tahiti.  When the wind stopped filling the sails on our last afternoon as predicted, we motored the final distance, both of us on watch on the bridge, excited about landfall and diligent about the potential dangers that a night approach in unfamiliar waters might present.  We could make out the dark shape of the northern Tahitian coastline post twilight, dappled with lights.  The smokey emanation we had noticed for hours in proximity to Tahiti was suddenly perfumed by a more pleasant fragrance that could only be flowering plants.  It was intoxicating and conjured the many images of the Polynesian Paradise we had traveled such a long way to see.

This is what we saw when we woke up in Venus Point on our first morning.

We had a good sense of our position when we dropped anchor at Venus Point well after midnight, but it was a delight to wake up the next morning to see the green mountainous peaks dotted with houses.  There were a few local canoes about the bay and a man on a paddle board.  This was the first civilization we had seen since our departure from Panama City and Taboga at the start of the world wide lockdowns and it looked…well...normal.  And encouraging.  Although we might have remained in this beautiful spot for many more days under actual normal conditions, we wanted to push on to Papeete and get ourselves legally into the system.  Papeete, our temporary haven was 7 miles away.  It is a commercial port and is home to the largest population in French Polynesia.  The entrance to the harbor is restricted to daylight hours until 6pm and requires a series of VHF Radio exchanges as you make your way past the Faa’a International Airport and runway to the anchorages in the surrounding lagoon.  Again, things seemed normal to us as we slipped into the entrance before a rather large car ferry from the neighboring island of Moorea.  We didn’t know what to expect in the anchorages.  They are full of stranded cruising sailboats from all over the world, but not packed full, and there is plenty of space between the boats.  The water is clear dark blue in the channel depths and tantalizing turquoise in the shallows.  It is very protected calm water tucked behind the breaking seas on the distant shoals.  Soothing ocean sounds with the visually spectacular backdrop of Mo’orea.

We anchored near a group of familiar sailboats we recognized from Panama, some of whom we know, and have been in contact with via satellite on our collective journey to get here.  So, along with the Net Community, a morning VHF radio informational broadcast of fellow travelers who have been in FP long term or have just arrived, and the FP Facebook Group, we’ve had plenty of support and information available when we need it.  In fact, we were invited and attended a sunset cocktail gathering by dinghy in the shallows on our second night here and met some very nice people.   We also have LTE cell service on our phones, which doesn’t allow much video streaming but we appreciate it very much all the same.  We have been able to update ourselves with all the crazy news that we’ve missed during our month and a half of quarantine at sea, even though we were teasingly advised not to do so.

So here we are in Tahiti and legal.  David, who is, until the end of the year, a member of the European Union, can stay here until Dec 31st.  I, who am not a member, am allowed only 90 days.  There is some talk about extensions for other non EU nationalities so we’ll see how that plays out.  Right now, and this has been going on for some time, there is an anti-sailboat cruiser sentiment from the locals.  We have been made aware of this from many sources.  It has a lot to do with perceptions, a difference in perspectives and misunderstandings I am sure, as I have seen this sort of thing in the Caribbean also.  But an anchorage full of sailboats can sometimes spoil a secluded view.  And having us all stuck in one place doesn’t help our cause.  There is also a reasonable amount of fear of contagion by foreigners of this COVID pandemic, and let’s face it, it wouldn’t be the first time.  So, again, we will see what happens.  So far, we have been treated fairly and politely by everyone we have met both formally and casually.  The locals greet us with a smile and "La Ora Na" (Hello).  And from my American perspective, I am almost certainly being treated better here by the Polynesians under the circumstances, than they would be in my country right now.

As I mentioned in a post on our Cat india Page, many of the lock down restrictions had been lifted only three days before we arrived.  Quelle chance!  Water-sports are now allowed.  For the last six weeks no one was even allowed to swim next to their boats!  Many restaurants and shops are open and it is no longer necessary to obtain permission to go ashore.  The only restriction we have now is movement for sailboats.  Inter-island travel is still restricted although today they have lifted the ban on island groups, so one can travel the less populated islands in the Marquesas Group, or Tuamotos for example, if you are already there.  Even though that doesn’t help us here in the Society Islands, it is still good news.  Meanwhile, we can swim to cool off, snorkel the pretty reef all around us and paddle-board to our hearts content.

We also have time to service our equipment...

like these winches that got some good use on the voyage!

Monday, we rented a Fiat!  The island is easy to navigate and the roads are in very good condition.  Once outside Papeete, the traffic is sparse and the coastal roads are very scenic.  Tahiti is a very pretty island.  It is lush, green, and fragrant.  Bougainvillea in rich purples and vibrant fuchsia on every corner, brimming hedges of red hibiscus line the roads, fragrant frangipanis drifting on the breeze, groves of swaying banana trees (les bananiers), endless green ridges hiding distant peaks in the clouds.  And it is really true that Polynesian women, called vahines, tuck flowers behind an ear, or wear a wreath of them.  It is lovely.  The coast is amazing.  Most of the main road beyond the city is coastal road leading to neighborhoods of lofty homes on the lower mountain ridges or waterfront dwellings on the bays.  Along these roads were seen many young people carrying boogie boards and surf boards either on foot or bicycle.   There were lots of swimmers and surfers in the shallow waters but beyond the bays are long shoals of breaking waves.  Real Surf!  One of the places we wanted to see was the well known village of Teahupoo which has one of the most dangerous waves in the world due to their size, power and speed breaking over a sharp coral reef lying only meters below the surface.  A Teahupoo wave can reach a height of 30 feet in a big swell!  In season, spectators can rent a boat to take them out to the break to watch the surfing up close!  We could see a few surfers out in the big surf from our parked car but sat for a long time watching the younger ones in the shallows.  It was incredible watching what we estimate to be five year old girls and boys surfing smaller waves on proper surf boards.  I am telling you that these babies were unbelievably good at it!  Future champions!  We didn’t see any restaurants open yet outside of the city so for our lunch we stopped at one of the many CarreFour Supermarkets and bought sushi rolls and tuna sashimi.  A supermarket is not my usual nor ideal source for sushi but we know how fresh the tuna is here and I see them put new sashimi out each day and it is delicious!  We took it to the coast and picnic-ed with the ideal view!

It was a wonderful drive.

Especially on the coastal roads.

Beautiful Venus Point

And the lighthouse that guided us in one our first night.

Local boat.

We found a pink church

and a blue church

and a yellow one!

Teahupoo

These kids are skilled!

Everyone surfs.

The offshore break.

David posed a question in the title of his last blog - Are we mad?  Believe it when I tell you that it was question we asked ourselves for almost 40 days.  Because until and only when we were given a haven here in French Polynesia, were we absolutely validated in our choice.

When WHO declared an International Pandemic on March 11, 2020, everything changed.  Any travel plans that were made were subject to change, if they hadn’t already.  No one knew what to expect either.  The infection rates were escalating everywhere and rapidly.  This COVID-19 was on the loose and had found its way into almost every nation of the world and it was coming our way.  Borders where closing, shops were closing, businesses and transportation were shutting down and for how long was anyone’s guess.  Facts elusive, rumors rampant.  Fear and uncertainty prevailed.  Boats were now headed North instead of West.  David and I were in mid-provision for a Pacific Ocean passage that we had planned and worked towards for well over a year with a limited travel window in our long term retirement plan that does not include actually retiring on our sailboat.  And we are not alone.  Many people can only afford or even desire to do this as a once in a lifetime experience and on a schedule due to health, age, finances, GRANDCHILDREN!  So, what do you do in the unlikely event that the world shuts down suddenly and anyone around you could be carrying a deadly virus?  And you are on your sailboat (and only home) in PANAMA?  This is the stuff of fiction novels, right?  We immediately concluded two things:  1) We did not want to stay in Panama, nice as it is and 2) We were better off quarantined at sea even if the destination was fluid….literately.  

Our departure was a bit of a scramble but we pulled it off in time, others didn’t.  We do know now that Panama had a brutal lockdown.  They even segregated the sexes for outings, allotting different days during the week to discourage commingling.  Severe curfews were in place, liquor sales banned.  It would have been very difficult for us to get into town for groceries or any other needs as they closed the access points.  As for the quarantine that the whole world endured, we spent 40 days at sea, well provisioned and catching fish during this quiet time on the planet.  We were the lucky ones by far and no time was lost in our over all plan since that particular passage will always take around 30 days or more.  We were as safe as anyone could be from the virus anyway, it was also a smooth sail.  We were hoping the news would be better and conditions would be improved once we arrived on the other side of the ocean.  But the virus still cast a long shadow on our plans.  Every day we read grim reports from friends, family, our lite news feed.  Our network of fellow travelers passed on their bad news too.  For weeks the information was bleak indeed.  Especially when we were refused entry into the Marquesas.  That was very bad news day.  We formulated contingency plans based on what if’s until we finally decided to accept what is.

The rest is history as we have reported to you.  It turns out we are not mad after all, just very very lucky.  We are grateful to have this haven in French Polynesia.  The clock is ticking on my stay, but I am ever hopeful that we will still get to see more of these beautiful islands in the coming months.  Our story is a good one, a great one, in fact.  But we’ve all had to adjust.  On the bright side, Tahiti is a very pretty island.

Isn't it?

Crossing the Pacific - are we mad?

We left Panama in a bit of a rush.  This is mid-March and coronavirus lockdowns were starting to take effect around the world.  We had been provisioning in Panama City for several days and at first everything on the streets was more or less normal.  We managed to visit the BioDiversity museum not far from our marina on Saturday, but on Sunday we tried to visit the Canal Museum in the old city and it was closed.  Things were beginning to tighten up - we read online that all entry and exit to Panama by boat was closed and saw that some cruisers who had tried to process their clearance found the offices closed until further notice.  We were facing being imprisoned in Panama.

After the weekend, we made another couple of trips to Pricesmart (like Costco) and the large supermarket Riba-Smith at the mall, for last minute shopping needs and found that the supermarket was only letting a handful of people in at a time, and we queued outside for about an hour.  Things were definitely changing.  We did manage to go to the Health Center to have our yellow fever inoculations, and also to the immigration office which was now open again - at least for a day or two.  With our clearance papers in hand and india fully fuelled and provisioned, we decided to make a break for it.

We wanted to leave the rolly La Playita anchorage and find a calmer spot to ready the boat, including cleaning the hull and strapping the dinghy in place.  The small island of Taboga about 10 miles out of Panama was a good spot, or so it seemed on the chart. When we arrived we found big swells, rocking the boat throughout the night.  We did our last minute jobs, and the next morning weighed anchor to finally be on our way.  The wind and weather predictions for the next two to three weeks looked favourable, but on the day we left there was almost no wind, so we ended up motoring for about another 16 miles before deciding to anchor one last time at a small, almost uninhabited island, Isle Otoque.  It was a beautiful, quiet and calm anchorage where we could have a good nights sleep and recharge our batteries to 100%.  The next morning we left for real - the last time the anchor would be deployed before French Polynesia.

Goodbye to Panama

The island of Taboga

At this point we still had no idea what to expect when arriving in French Polynesia - the daily updates we were seeing on Facebook groups indicated that no sailing would be allowed between islands and the borders were now closed. All foreigners were required to repatriate and flights in and out were dwindling to none.  All in all, not a promising picture, but we couldn’t imagine how they could turn us away having been self-isolating at sea for 4-5 weeks.  We put these thoughts behind us for now as we concentrated on the task in hand - sailing the 4,000 plus nautical mile passage across the mighty Pacific ocean.

The first stretch is to the Galapagos islands. Typical routes may go north or south of the islands depending on currents and winds, but we opted to route North as there were strong currents reported all the way down.  The winds were light, so we raised our new Code Zero sail, which is a large, thin, foresail designed to be used in light winds. The sailcloth is very light and it has a large surface area to make the most of any breeze.  This efficient sail together with a strong current pushing behind us, enabled us to move along at over 5 knots.  The seas were flat calm, and it proved to be a very comfortable ride all the way to the Galapagos, about 1000 miles, perfect for sleeping and moving around the boat.  On the way out of the Gulf of Panama we caught a few small (10 lb) Bonito Tuna, but released them all back as they were not our favourite fish to eat, being very dark-fleshed and a little minerally tasting.  The most amazing thing we saw coming out of the Gulf were pods of dolphins swimming at night in the phosphorescent waters.  As they glided through the water, the thin layer of water close to their bodies glowed with the natural organic phosphorescence and gave the appearance of ghostly animals swimming all around us. The wake they formed as they sped along glowed intensely in the darkness and was truly an incredible light show, just for us. This was just the first in a series of night-time viewing spectacles on our journey.

The new Code Zero sail!

The sail to the Galapagos was uneventful, smooth as I said, and five days and nights of enjoying our self-isolation.  Our satellite system, Iridium Go, was working well, allowing emails, text messages and some limited web access for news and importantly weather and wind prediction updates to enable us to choose our most efficient route.  We were in touch with a couple of boats we had met in Panama, who had chosen also to take the plunge and make the crossing. One of these boats, Moorea, named after the large heart shaped island next to Tahiti, had originally planned to stop in the Galapagos although they had closed their borders a few days previously.  With young children on board, they took the chance to stop anyway, but were refused entry, so were able only to re-provision and refuel. They made a new plan to sail to Hawaii, since they were US citizens, hoping they would be able to enter there. They will need to quarantine on their boat for 14 days when they arrive, even after many weeks at sea. We wish them luck.

Up to now, the passage had been fast and smooth. As we passed north of the Galapagos, we turned southwards to sail down the west side of the islands toward the Southern trade winds below the equator, which should whisk us all the way westwards to French Polynesia.  We knew at some point we would hit the doldrums - the windless area called the Intertropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ) between the northern and southern hemisphere weather systems - and sure enough, here it was.  Our wind and weather prediction service had given us an inkling of where we would encounter the ITCZ and how wide it would be. The trick is to catch it when it is at its narrowest, so one can motor through to the beckoning easterly trade winds on the other side.  Before hitting the ITCZ however, we had to cross the equator.  We had spent some time in Ecuador and the Galapagos Islands three years ago, so this was a revisit, of sorts. At 1:56am on March 28th, we crossed latitude 0 degrees.  Since it was the middle of the night and Dara was sleeping while I was on watch, there was no elaborate celebration, just a quiet prayer to Neptune to keep india and ourselves safe for the remainder on the journey. We did have a small tot around midnight, before Dara retired, not wanting to upset Neptune.

As dawn broke, we were treated to a bizarre sight - the sea was glassy smooth, there was no wind at all, and a dense fog surrounded us. It was eerily quiet and we had one engine running to keep some forward progress.  Everything was damp from the fog, but as the sun rose eventually the fog lifted, but the sea remained like glass. It stayed like that for another day, until we were 3 degrees south of the equator, when we started to feel the breeze lifting and the seas moving. As we exited the ITCZ and entered the area of the southern trade winds (which blow from east to west more or less), squalls started to appear.  This is common in this area of convergence and weather change, and although squalls can be terrifying with high winds, lightning, thunder and driving rain, these were much more friendly, with barely no more than 20 knots of wind and some rain for short spells.  As the skies darkened with the squalls so the winds picked up from the south east at first, and for the first time since leaving Panama we raised the main sail and Genoa sail - the 'big boy' sails. Over the next five or six days, we enjoyed strong, consistent winds and averaged 8 knots of speed and were able to put 190 miles a day behind us.  Although we were led to expect following seas, the swells and currents were a little on the beam, so it wasn’t the most comfortable ride - but it was fast, and we felt alive.  One of the odd things about moving fast through the waves here is that the boat becomes a magnet for flying fish and squid - especially at night. In the morning we would walk the decks to see how many poor creatures had jumped onto the boat and perished. The daily critter count..

Critters galore!

Poor squid...

We were in contact with a couple of other boats crossing, one about seven days ahead of us.  They had advised us to contact the authorities in Nuku Hiva in the Marquesas - our intended point of landfall - to obtain authorisation to stop there, since effectively all of French Polynesia was under lockdown and borders closed.  We had hoped that for yachts in transit, spending weeks on the sea, quarantine at least would not be necessary and we would be allowed to stop to catch our breath.  A day or so later our form was returned with the message - ‘Stop in Nuku Hiva refused - proceed to Papeete’.  Not good news on the face of it since Papeete is in Tahiti, almost another 800 miles further on the west side the French Polynesia.  This would increase our passage time by maybe six or seven days.  Luckily at this point all systems were functioning well and we had no critical breakages, did not need water, food or fuel, so we resigned ourselves to the new destination.  Over the next few days the wind started to lessen, little by little, and our daily progress became less and less.  We were still sailing however, but soon enough the wind pretty much disappeared altogether.  Faced with using fuel to motor forward, or just letting what little current existed carry us along, we opted to just drift.  The sun was shining, the sea was calm, and we drifted - luckily in the right direction but our elapsed daily distance was now just 70 miles.  We figured we weren’t in a rush to be anywhere, so we actually enjoyed this drift, did some small projects on the boat, cooked and slept in comfort and watched some TV to pass the time.  We had hoped this would be short lived but we were plagued with light or no winds for the next week - and endured either drifting, sailing with the Code Zero at low speed, or motoring when our patience ran out. At times like this, the days seem endless, one can read, play games, doze to pass the time but the scenery doesn’t change.  For me the wonder of being in the middle of the largest ocean in the world, literally thousands of miles from another human being was uplifting, as any epic adventure should be.  During the night time, just one glance at the sky with the myriad of stars and galaxies that can be clearly seen makes one realise just how small we are in the huge universe.  The sight of the milky way stretching across the southern skies, with no light pollution, has to be seen to be believed, and never gets old.

Always a beautiful sunset at sea

Fishing is another way of passing the time, although there is virtually no active participation on our part. We send the lines and lures out behind the boat in the morning and forget about them. From time to time the reels start to scream and we rush down from the helm to see what we may have caught.  A friend had caught a seven foot marlin just out of Panama, providing enough meat for many meals, so we were ever hopeful.  One day as we were about to take a couple of nice steaks off the grill and sit down to eat, all hell broke loose as both reels started to scream.  We had sailed through a school of Wahoo who were hunting smaller fish and both lures looked tasty enough to be taken.  We abandoned the meal to reel them in, first on the port rod, and we landed a huge Wahoo, maybe 60lbs in weight.  Attending to the other reel we had the second Wahoo almost to the boat when it managed to wriggle free. No worry - the one we had on board was a beauty and yielded enough meat for several tasty meals. Dara is familiar with Wahoo and suggested frying it when we had caught a smaller one previously, so that is our preferred way to eat them - and they are really delicious.  There is nothing better than enjoying the harvest of the ocean to make this all worthwhile.  Towards the end of our passage, I had gone to bed one evening and forgotten to bring in the lines, when Dara called down on the VHF radio to say she thought a fish had taken the line.  I popped up from my sleep to find a nice size Yellow Fin Tuna on the line, in the dark.  These fish of course are the prize and can be eaten sashimi style, or lightly seared and are just beautiful.  Unfortunately that was the only Tuna we caught, but at least we had a little luck.

60lb Wahoo

Lovely YellowFin Tuna

On a grand voyage like this, one has to be well prepared, both the boat and the sailors, in many ways. Apart from the obvious preparation of provisioning with food and drink for many months - which is an art in itself, which Dara has perfected over the years - one has to ensure all the systems are functioning correctly, and have spare parts, tools etc on board to anticipate any possible critical failures or breakages.  Our shakedown year last year in the Caribbean was a useful experience to test and predict  - we were never far from the next port, and on the the whole one could obtain parts if needed.  Not so easy out on the Pacific.  Something often underestimated is the stress that constant wind puts on the sails and rigging, and even the hulls. With a huge main sail up in 20 knots of wind for days on end, the pressure on all the lines is immense. It is never unusual for a line to break, or for a sail to tear.  When this happens it can be catastrophic - the sail could fall in the water and be almost impossible to retrieve, or something else like a boom, or block system could be destroyed when things ‘let go’.  So we spent plenty of time checking lines and attachments constantly, looking for signs of wear before they become a problem.  We replaced a couple of lines ‘on the go’ including removing the main sheet line for the mainsail, dragging it behind the boat to remove twists, and then fitting it reversed to even out wear.  We did have one broken line we hadn’t foreseen - the first reef line which allows us to pull in part of the main sail to reduce surface area in high winds, had chafed on a steel ring and broke when we pulled the sail in one time.  Since the winds were never that strong, and weren’t predicted to be before the end, we didn’t even worry to replace it, although we could have done if needed.  Aside from that, the biggest failure was a water leak when we used the washing machine one time.  Every two or three days we would run the generator to power the water maker to make fresh water, and sometimes we would take advantage of the generator to run the washing machine also (not that we were collecting a lot of dirty clothes on this voyage :). One day it dumped its load of water....  With all this time on my hands I decided to jump in and tackle the job. On a boat like this everything is carefully shoehorned into its own place, and the washing machine in particular is positioned such that the only way to remove it to start to diagnose an issue is to virtually dismantle all the cabinetry around it until the machine is just sitting there in an open space.  So that’s what I set out to do - it look several hours to figure out the jigsaw of panels, doors, shelves and screws that needed to be removed in order to release the beast.  Once I had it free I could tear it apart and run it to see where the leak was coming from.  As luck would have it, no parts were needed - it was simply a plug in the rubber door seal that had come loose and needed refitting into place. Leak stopped. Then another few hours to put the jigsaw back together again!  And as always, I had a few screws left over…

Another casualty was our Satellite Antenna, which I broke when changing the main sheet.

Things wear and break on a boat

Repairing the washing machine in the middle of the Pacific

When I describe this as one of the worst things to happen to us, you can see that it was really an uneventful passage. Partly through thorough preparation, but also the weather cooperated - granted we would have liked more wind on those really calm days, but otherwise even during the squalls the wind never rose above 20 knots, it hardly rained, and we were never caught in a lightning storm (one of the other most feared events when in the middle of nowhere).  The seas were never really big, and were only uncomfortable from time to time because of the swells coming out of the south.   Boredom was the biggest issue, and next time we’ll take more books.

And so after 30 or so days, we were able to shout ‘Land Ho!’ - the time honoured way that sailors announce the first sighting of terra firma after a long voyage.  It was the Disappointment Islands, a few hundred miles south of the Marquesas, and on a rhumb line to our new destination, Papeete.  We had decided to illegally make a stop at an uninhabited atoll called Tahanea prior to arriving in Papeete. Partly to give us a couple of days and nights to decompress before a busy anchorage, and just to see something new since we knew we would be stuck in Tahiti for a while. And so, around 6pm on the evening of April 25th, as dusk fell, we entered the lagoon at Tahanea and anchored in about 40 ft of water. We sat down with a real drink and congratulated ourselves - after 33 days at sea we had crossed the largest ocean in the world on our own!  We slept together that night for the first time in 33 nights, and it was so peaceful, hardly any water movement inside the lagoon.  We woke the next morning to see our beautiful surroundings, crystal clear turquoise waters in the lagoon, sparse desert islands surrounding it, blue skies.  Then we spotted it - the French Navy frigate P675 coming in though the lagoon pass - we were busted! We had switched off our AIS to be in stealth mode, so there was no way they could have have know we were there, they were just patrolling the atolls, and happened to arrive at the one we picked to stop at.  We watched them anchor a couple of miles away and expected a tender to be dispatched to us right away, but none came, so we settled in to the few jobs we had to do - one of which was to take a swim in the inviting waters.  There were plenty of colourful fish swimming around the boat, attracted by our presence, and as soon as we entered the water, the sharks came. At first just small ones, some lemon sharks and black-tip sharks, neither known to be be aggressive, but then the larger ones - at times seven or eight just circling around as we saw close to the boat, cleaning the hull and so on.  There were enough that we were a little concerned about a feeding frenzy should anything happen, so we quietly finished our jobs and jumped back aboard. 

The lovely atoll Tahanea

The French Navy frigate left around the same time as us..

As it happened the Navy didn’t bother us that day, but the following morning did send that tender over to check on us. I was in dive gear, under the boat with tools repairing a broken saildrive anode. They were super nice, asked if we needed help, and just noted a few details of who we were and where we were headed for their log book.  We had planned to leave that morning anyway, so finished our jobs and prepared to depart. It would be about another three days to reach Tahiti - we knew from our weather forecast that the winds would again be on the light side, but the seas would be calm - that old trade-off.  The Code Zero went up after an initial lively exit from the atoll, and we settled into a leisurely progress toward Tahiti.

As luck and planning would have it, our arrival into Tahiti would happen at night - around 2am to be exact, on Thursday April 30th - 38 days and 4,800 nautical miles (around 5,250 land miles) since leaving Panama.  We planned to anchor until daylight at Venus point, which is the harbour where Captain Cook first landed in Tahiti, under orders to observe the transit of Venus across the Sun in 1769.  It was pitch black as we slowly guided india around the point with its lighthouse and trusted the electronic charts to dodge shoals to finally arrive in about 40 ft of water to drop the anchor, a few hundred yards from the shore.  We could see the silhouette of the island against the night sky, but it was only in the morning when we woke after a very short nights sleep that we could see for the first time, the island of Tahiti in its glory.

We had some Boobies join us for a while!

Who us? Stowaways?