25 April 2010
Tahiti does nothing for me. After the magnificence and remoteness of the Marquises and the prettiness of the Tuamotus it leaves me cold. For us, coming here fulfils two purposes. We can seriously reprovision for the next three months up to Australia, and we can effect repairs. Papeete is busy, bustling but also a return to pollution, litter, and all the other less attractive trappings of civilised society. The marina was more run down then we remembered it. The swimming pool, open only for one hour a day made it difficult for us to cool off in the hot and humid heat. We were always in Carrefour at the time. Over two days we filled two trolleys at a cost of 500GBP! Our eyes were popping out when we saw the cheese counter, all the fruit and vegetables. A total puzzlement was why we could not find a bag of "petit pois" in a French supermarket. David loves peas but there was "pas de pois"! We struggled back to Voyageur, beasts of burden under our heavy loads. My backpack, a cool bag trolley, a shopping trolley plus three other carrier bags. After my washing machine the shopping trolley is the most useful item on the boat. This trusty trolley has been in every major supermarket from Turkey to Tahiti! It was left aboard Voyageur by Pat and Tony Pellegrini. They will never know how useful it has been! As Mario said to me when we met the crew of Arianne, like us doing their mammoth shop in Carrefour, going round the world was sailing and.... shopping! The market was just as I remembered it. We are so looking forward to moving on to the other lesser Society Islands. Less known (except for Bora Bora), less visited, less touristic.
Marina Taina is a sublime contrast of boats. On the one hand we have small craft that has obviously struggled to get here from across the Pacific. Then we have the super yacht quay. Admittedly it is on a small scale to the one we saw in Falmouth Harbour, Antigua, but they seem to get more and more elaborate. One Medeuse, has a moth balled helicopter on the bridge deck. They are lit up like Christmas trees at night, disco music blaring from the after decks. The crew are all in uniform of course but then so are we. David and I are very proud of our embroidered "Voyageur World Arc" polo shirts. We saw the crew removing protective tape from the varnished toe rail of a real beauty, "Erica", before the arrival of guests. Crew of Medeuse were electric polishing the smoky marks from around the exhaust. Perseus was David's favourite, a ketch, (it would be!) registered in the Isle of Man. Then we come across "Argonavis", registered in Bristol. I recognised the name immediately. (I have a great memory for boat names.) It had been on the same pontoon as Stella in Craobh Haven back in 2003. It looked split brand new then but was now a little the worse for wear. Rust marks showing through the deck fittings and a deteriorating tender was slung on the back of the davits. It was a far cry from the pristine boat we saw and admired back then.
Papeete
We were shopped out. Time to go and join the rest of the fleet on the town quay, 5nm away off the port entrance to Papeete. With the wind blowing us off we would have struggled were it not for Bob on Ocean Jasper who came to my rescue, jumping aboard and assisting in hauling up the lazy lines. As on every occasion a representative from WARC was there to meet us, Paul. Suzana's arrival fortunately had not been affected by the erupting volcano in Iceland and is due to be here tomorrow. I was really looking forward to a night off from the galley and had indeed been promised a meal ashore. However it was Sunday afternoon and the dock master had gone home for the day. We did not have a key for the gate. Other crews suggested we could climb around the security gate but on investigation David did not fancy it. Being too late in the day to defrost any meat from the freezer we had to make do with a plate of corned beef hash. Not quite the dinner that I had envisaged. Maybe tomorrow......
Susan Mackay