Being in a marina is always a mixed bag. On the one hand we enjoy the unlimited electricity, water and shopping. Here in Papeete there is a wide variety of groceries, great wine shop and pretty good boat supplies, although the prices are very high for everything.
On the other hand we've had barking dogs and the crews from the mega-yachts congregate about 10' from our transom to smoke since they are not allowed to do so on their own boats. And yesterday we learned that the boat next to us was very close to having a major fire when a battery leaked, shorted some wiring and was smoking when the owner discovered it. Boat fires are rarely contained and usually a total disaster. We would have been scrambling to get New Moring out of harms way.
Sunday we drove about half way up the mountain behind Papeete to an altitude of about 2,000'. A great view of the harbor and Moorea. We also walked through a training facility for the local special forces with lots of obstacles courses and all manner of climbing facilities. A bit odd to stroll through that on our hike up the mountain.
I spent quite a few hours up the mast the last few days doing some maintenance on our foredeck and steaming lights. Then I installed a guard over the steaming light to keep loose reef lines from fouling it as we have experienced a few times before. We're also catching up on a variety of other maintenance projects with all the parts we hauled back from the states. We have enough parts and projects now to keep us busy for a few weeks while we're at anchor on Moorea and Huahine.
One of the other cruisers here in the marina has found himself without crew. I'm going to help him take his boat to Raiatea, about 120 miles away. We'll take his boat to the CNI storage yard, the same facility where we'll also store New Morning in October. It should be a fairly short trip, depart this afternoon and arrive tomorrow morning. With luck I'll catch the late afternoon flight from Raitea back to Tahiti and be home for dinner!
Then Fay and I hope to depart on Thursday or Friday for Moorea.
