19 April 2010
The Tuamotus are clearly suffering from the effects of the world wide recession. The hotel in front of our anchorage here is closed, the other hotel, Maitai, had only 2 guests and the winery was also closed although the owner told us they were still in production. We made our own small, contribution to their struggling economy.
David went for a dive along with Paul, presently crewing on Thetis, and Jan, Snorre and Stian from Ronja. I of course bought my pearls. We ate at the local Kai, Kai Restaurant, run by a young French couple who moved here from Marseilles one year ago. They were obviously trying to make a go of things. The husband was chef as well as our taxi service, his wife served at the tables. It was a great meal and great value for money with three courses for 3,300CPF. At the other end of the scale the following evening we dined at Relais de Josephine, paying the princely sum of 9,000CPF (70GBP)a head. At such exorbitant prices no wonder tourism is on the downturn here. Last night we dined modestly aboard Voyageur, A lady and Ronja our guests.
As Vibeke and Jan prepared to leave we found their tender missing. Although David had no recollection of tying it on he admitted full liability. At first light, 6am, off we went in our tender, Donal and Jan in A lady's, in search of the runaway vessel. It was eventually sighted about 6nm away at the entrance to the west end passé. A local man had spotted it and retrieved it. A HUGE relief all round. David gave him 3000CPF as a token of our gratitude. From now on the rule aboard Voyageur is that every skipper must now be responsible for tying up his own tender!
While in Rangiroa, Voyageur acted as a water barge, giving some to two other rally boats short of water. Ashore they charge 4000CPF for just 40litres! We filled eight ten liter canisters for Ronja and then the same for A lady. Ronja have no water maker and the generator on A Lady is not working properly. Although our own capacity capability is halved, producing 60lites an hour instead of the 120 to 130 liters, at least we can still make water. We have arranged for an engineer to look at it when we get to Tahiti.
I do not remember it being so difficult to obtain fresh fruits and vegetables. In the modest supermarket here, I was lucky enough to get the last lettuce. The bananas were from the Marquesas, the oranges from Valencia, mangoes and papaya which are in season now and presumably came from either Tahiti, or the Marquesas where they grow in abundance. I was like a kid in a sweetie shop when I set eyes upon the fruit. We had not had the merest whiff of such delicacies since our departure from Nuku Hiva. I am now down to my last two tomatoes however, so the tinned variety will have to suffice until we reach Papeete. The French love their baguettes so at least we could buy them fresh every day.
Susan Mackay