Graptolite - Cooking in Cooks Bay

17:30.98S 149:49.22W Cooks Bay, Moorea, Tuesday morning

After fiddling with the dead instruments for hours I finally cracked and got an electro-wizard in who reconnected a loose wire in about five minutes flat.

The crew has changed a little. Belinda is now on board and Heike has left Grapto temporarily, to play with an old friend from Germany. Wilhelm was cruelly told to bring over many silly items in his hand luggage which included a freezer; a pressure cooker and a blender. Fortunately for him the airline wouldn't let him bring the freezer. It was a pity because the adventure could have made an excellent sequel to Tony Hawks' 'Round Ireland with a Fridge'.

Colin and I replaced the broken GPS antenna with the one Belinda hand-carried so we now have full video arcade capabilities for navigation although the radar is still a bit temperamental.

We lunched in the marina on some mussels and bread and wine brought around by Heike. The mussels were not the familiar small black and grey beasties but big bright-green and brown creatures that went well with the location.

With renewed confidence in the instrumentation being able to get us through reefs and crashing surf we set off yesterday evening towards Moorea. The sunset over the peaks of Moorea was indescribable and so I'm not going to describe it for you. We sailed into Cooks Bay in the dark, past a few mega-yachts that couldn't find anywhere else better to go, and anchored and ate dinner on the deck waiting for the view in daylight. (Excellent chocolate cake, Heike!) I knew it was going to be a good view as I had seen some of it on my birthday trip. I was not wrong.

M