Cleone - in Tahiti Vol 1

Tahiti buzzes; the rest of French Polynesia slumbers.

 

Days pass quickly in harbour.  There is so much to do to the boat, and on this Rally, so many friends to catch up with.  The Skipper has spent considerable hours wrestling with old and new oil and his best mate the Yanmar and its Gearbox, followed by chasing around Papeete in order to get the Anchor Windlass dismantled.  This last follows a tale of woe.  Since we left the Marquesas, the crew - now with arms like Garth - have been hauling up the heavy anchor chain and anchor by hand.  The cause of this was neglect, which led to the main bearings of the windlass disintegrating.  Huge efforts by Rosie, Veronica North and EC Smith (the Lofrans agent in UK) enabled the spare parts to be FedExed in time for noble Steve Rodwell from Kasuje to bring them back to Cleone in Taiti.  Meanwhile, JB from Quasar had been scouring Tahiti to find (successfully) a Lofrans Agent and someone who could help.  So come the day, following advice from Don of Harmonie, the winch was ceremonially dismantled.  Or rather not - all the bolts had seized.  So the skipper lugged the bloody thing in a rucksack (it weighs about 20 kilograms) across Papeete to the Industrial Estate where a world-weary Frenchman sighed over it and indicated (reassuringly) that he'd seen such problems many times before.  Sure enough, by next morning, all the bolts had been removed, and all the sheared studs drilled out and re-tapped (technical explanation available for anyone not understanding these terms).  In short, the windlass was ready to be rebuilt.  Following a further gruelling session across Papeete with a bulging rucksack, the Skipper reassembled the windlass in a surprisingly short time, with - given the circumstances - surprisingly little swearing.  And it seems to work!  Meanwhile, the crew have given Cleone a small spring-clean (deeply appreciated) washed her down, done the laundry, organised more gas, done some shopping (at huge expense.  How do the Tahitians afford to live here? And don't ask the French this one, because it's mainly subsidies from France) and cleaned and sorted out the dinghy.  Incidentally, this last is now looking very smart with Cleone's sail number painted on her.  And we've changed the Genoa, and we are just about ready for the next bit, which is a short cruise followed by the Black Pearl Regatta, ending up in Bora Bora on 12th April.

 

So we've not been idle.  And we have also had time to enjoy one or two memorable beers, the Prize Giving and Welcome to Tahiti, and an extended tour of this remarkably beautiful and extremely friendly island.  I will write more about these events later.

 

Meanwhile, all well, happy and hungry, and the skipper seems very tired!

 

James, Chris, Elizabeth and Will