Sheer Tenacity: A first taste of Tahiti

21 July 2013

Approaching Tahiti between squalls

Lush green mountains......very different from the Tuomotus

We arrived in Papeete during the Bastille Day celebrations, which in French Polynesia, are celebrated in their own local fashion, with the song and dance Heiva Festival being the highlight. Outrigger canoe races, long and short distance, physical strength and endurance challenges etc make up the programme

Finishing line of the outrigger canoe races seen from our boat

We moored at the Town Quay which was a first for us. We've never been moored in the middle of a city before................noisy, dirty but calm and very convenient. Fresh baguette for breakfast most mornings

Viewing the Town Quay from the main road

Sheer Tenacity on the Town Quay

A rather strange Polynesian charter houseboat moored in front of us

Another more conventional neighbour..................for you, Kim!

We arrived on the Friday, and the finals of the choirs and dancing were being held on the Saturday and Sunday, but were all sold out! So we dragged ourselves off to the Friday night exhibition, despite being whacked! It is a wonderful spectacle, particularly the dance routines, which tell stories of Tahitian history, fables and culture. The costumes, choreography, and dance movements were fantastic, and we were very glad to have made the effort to attend. Sadly, no photographs are allowed, so we cannot share anything with you. The singing, all in Tahitian, and therefore unintelligible, dragged on a bit, as it was tuneless, repetitive, and too blooming long for tired sailors! We walked through this stunning park to get to the outdoor stadium

This thatched shelter has beautiful carvings of ancient Polynesian craft on every wall

The view of the nearby island of Mo'orea from the park

And beautiful exotic flowers everywhere.........

The nearly 5000 miles of sailing from Panama, in conditions which , this year appear to have been unusually difficult, have taken their toll on many cruising boats, and we are no exception. The list of repairs and things to do seems to grow daily, as one checks and inspects everything.

Facilities in Tahiti are pretty good, but things are very expensive! Being French, the supermarkets and food choices are excellent, as are the medical facilities. For years I have been putting off a certain scoping procedure involving long pipes in unmentionable places, despite pressure from family members who shall remain nameless! I promised Mary, that if ever I had a symptom, I would have it done! Now Mary can be very sneaky and manipulative when she wants to be! The passage from the Marquesas to the Tuamotos was wild and nasty…… sitting on the loo was difficult enough, let alone producing anything! That was all the proof Mary needed…. That’s it….. constipated for 2 days!!! That’s a symptom!!! You have got to get yourself checked out in Tahiti! (This despite the fact that she herself was even more gummed up!) In a weak moment I agreed.

So challenge No.1 in Tahiti was to find such a facility and doctor, and make a booking. The Paofai Clinic in Papeete was not only within walking distance, but excellent to boot. I have now been “scoped” and am a newly signed up member of the “bottoms up club”. I have been given a verbal all clear, and am just awaiting the lab reports , which we should get later this week.

The 2^nd big challenge was to get the new genoa adjusted down to the correct size. Quantum had agreed to pay for the alteration, as it was their mistake. Nevertheless, I could not accept the outrageous quotation from the only sailmaker here, who was really not interested in the job. In the end, Mary and I spent 2 days unpicking and hand stitching the altered head board. It is now done, and fitted, and the old genoa is in the dumpster.

The hand altered head of our new genoa

No3 challenge was to collect the new mainsail, shipped by Quantum (now Ullman sails). That was a breeze! It arrived at 5.00am, and our agent had it delivered to us by 9.30am the next day. It is now up, and fitted, with the new Rusgarten cars, which look good. It is also the first of 5 sails bought from Quantum which fitted first time around!! The old main is on the dock, and will disappear into the dumpster tomorrow when its emptied!

Challenge no 4………………Trying to discover and remedy the cause of all the diesel slopping around in the bilges! The rough trip on the port tack, not done for many a moon, resulted in a seriously smelly and messy diesel leak into the bilges. In the end we discovered that the inlet pipe from the deck to the tank had hardened, and broken its seal, causing diesel to leak into the lifejacket and sleeping bag locker, the bilges, and the floor under the chart table. The automatic bilge pump, unknown to us, pumped about 75lts overboard on passage, leaving us to mop up and clean out about 8-10lts left in the bilges. This mess took 2 days to sort out, including pipe replacement, and we were mighty relieved when the job was finished. I decided it was also time to change the 2 x Z83 Gud Diesel filters, as well as the engines own filter. So that was the next job. The following morning, the boat stank of diesel, and we discovered about 8 lts of diesel slopping around in the newly cleaned engine bilge! The brand new Perkins diesel filter had a fault in the water trap valve, and had decided to prolong our diesel issues! So back to work, replacing the filter, and cleaning out the bilges! Only to find that the leak had now allowed air back into the engines high pressure diesel pump, which involved yet another whole air bleeding exercise, which, of course, dumped still more diesel into the bilges! What fun!!

Challenge No.6 (or is it 7?)…. Followed as soon as we mopped up the last of the diesel. I found a bolt head lying in the pool of diesel, which I traced back to the engine mounting bracket. One of the 3 bolts securing the front starboard engine mounting bracket had sheared. Fixing this required lifting the engine up on a block and tackle, removing the engine mount and bracket as a single unit, so as not to disturb the engine alignment, extracting the sheared stud, tracking down a replacement, and doing it all in reverse! In fact we were lucky as I was able to extract the stud with vice grips, and did not have to resort to welding on bolts, or trying to use “easy outs”.

No 8 turned out to be one of those lucky bits of serendipity that jumps up and saves you from what could have been a whole heap worse! Steve on Scott Free had just changed his raw water impeller, and showed it to me, with all the blades beginning to crack. It prompted me to change mine as well, as we were concerned that the exhaust was not spitting out quite enough water. We found only 2 of the 8 blades still intact, and it was only a brief matter of time before it would have failed completely! Who knows where that might have happened!

The prop shaft and engine anodes are now done, and we are only left with a couple of remaining jobs to do. Hopefully we will knock these off this week, and be able to start having some time off to start enjoying Tahiti and the rest of French Polynesia! This is the start!