Tahiti

Bill,

All is going well here, tomorrow I pick up my parts from Laurent, I don't know how much he wants to charge me yet. thanks for sending those parts and my mail along to me. I had a great sail around the Island of Tahiti, I've got it pasted in here after this for you.

Katherine is off to the Space Cadets in Quebec, that girl will do well, she has a good brain on her shoulders. What if she becomes a famous astronautess and we all get called by CBC for the family interviews whilst she is spinning around the planet? I'm claiming most influential Uncle, you get the most influential and generous daddie.

I still haven't heard from my kid for almost a month now, I gotta get to the phone tomorrow and call the monster to make sure he remembers his most influential and generous daddie.

I'm just kind of idling here in Tahiti for the moment, waiting to see if some crew shows up that wants to jump ship. No such luck so far, but I'm getting better at meeting people on my travels. Shows to go ya, that a happy smile and chattering french-butcher can stop people for a minute on their busy way.

Here's the latest instalment of the Voyage of Island Prism::::::::: (PS Lorraine and Carol already got it direct)

I had a pleasant sail around Tahiti this past week. My engine parts have not arrived and that big colourful Genakker is in for repairs, so I really didn't have any need to hang around expensive Papeete. Tahiti is a great island, the reef is offshore and inside the reef the water is generally about 100 feet deep. I wouldn't describe it as a round lagoon, but a lagoon that is about half or one mile wide and all along the shore. There are many passes into the lagoon from the ocean, so you can enter a well marked deep channel and then travel in protected waters for many miles along the coast.

I left the Papeete harbour and sailed south down the coast to the Tahiti Yacht club. It was in a very protected anchorage and they have mooring balls set up for visitors, so I tied up to a mooring ball for free for one night. There was a big Carrefour, the french version of WalMart close by, so I stocked up and then spent the afternoon swimming in the crystal clear waters. Well, the dingie was not tied very well and it got loose and was blown downwind to the shore, so that was the real reason I had to go swimming. Later in the evening, I heard the Polynesian Drums, they are very exciting to hear. I went ashore and found the Polynesians doing their native dances in a well lit stadium. It seems that every village has a large dance troupe and in June they all go to the competition in downtown Papeete. The dance troupe meets once a week or so and they practice and so that is what I was watching. It's a pretty exciting dance, the drums are loud and very powerful, and they have about 10 drummers and the girls, in this troupe there was about 4 lines of 10 girls each line all dance that Polynesian dance of the shimming derrieres. It's not lewd or rude, but they are very feminine doing their dance. They wear sports bras and a short skirt open at one side but rather tight and low on their hips. The guys, about 5 lines of 4 guys, dance with them, but apart, and they really put a great effort into it as well. I took alot of movie of the dancing, and the one girl I found to film could really shake her derriere and looked very good doing it.

I wanted to go to the world famous Tahiti Yacht Club bar, but it was closed, so I just went back to Prism for an early night. Next day I was up and around midmorning the wind came up and I sailed south to another pass and stayed in an anchorage, nothing to note there. The next day was off to the next south pass and in there was a great little village and this was the anchorage where Captain Cook spent a lot of time. A big river flows out of the middle of Tahiti there and the bay is excellent holding sand in 30 feet of water, and the low land of the village lets the trade winds blow you off the beach, an excellent anchorage. I stayed there for two nights, it was the weekend and all the Polynesians came from town to camp on the grassy banks of the river.

The first night I went ashore and a family had set up a barbeque and for less than 4$ you could get a small batch of fries and a shiskebob of very tasty meat, so I sat there and ate three orders. They didn't sell beer so I had to walk to the village store and buy 6 cold beer, which I was allowed to drink with my food. Whilst I was eating the local guys had gathered right there to play Bolls. That’s kind of like lawn bowling on the gravel parking lot, they seemed to really get into it. Other guys gathered to play the ukuleles and guitars and sing, and they did a great job of that. There was one old guy, maybe 60 or so, he sang loud and clear and very well. There came to be about 15 guys singing and playing before the evening was over and I went home to the boat. I don't know where the women were, I missed them though.

Next day I figured I would just stay in the nice anchorage another day, it being Sunday and I wanted to go to church anyways. I got to the Catholic church at 8 AM, the mass was just starting. I've really enjoyed going to the churches here in Polynesia since they sing so lovely, it's like you are inside the choir, everybody sings the whole service and there isn't very much long boring praying or sermonizing. Except for this village and this Catholic Church, the priest was sermonizing in French, but you could tell that there was fire and damnation going on, and quite likely close by.

At 9 I left there and on the way back to the boat passed by the Protestant Church, which was just getting going, so I though, hey what's another hour, and this church sounded a bit more upbeat. Inside we were sitting in groups and each group had a choir leader, but the group up front had a real leader, she sang and waved arms and strode around to the other groups and pointed to non-singers (including me). Anyways this carried on for over almost an hour before the service began, and it did pay off since during the service the singing was very very good. There was even a hymn that I could join in with. And the sermon was easy enough that I could dooze off. Then the collection began and of course there was alot of singing, and each group had to go put their money on the table and there were lots of people quickly counting the collection of that group. My group went first and we were well praised in song for our total contribution, which I think was announced a few seconds after we had sat down. Next group went up and it wasn't as good for them, they didn't give as much as we did. They got a bit of singing, but the singing they got meant they had to get up and have another parade past the money table. By this time it was getting a bit of too much church for me, so I slipped out the back and got back to my boat.

I was thinking about another swim, the water there was very clear and warm, when two Polynesian ladies paddled up in kayaks to say hello. They invited me to join their family for lunch, so I did and had a great time talking and flirting with the one lady. she was about 21, 4 feet tall, and 275 pounds. No wonder either, they eat a lot of very fattening food, deep fried bread dough, starchy breadfruit and starchy other root vegetables and a lot of coconut, and wash it down with gallons of real Coke. I invited them for a sail on Prism, and the wind was blowing a good bit, but there were no waves in this big lagoon. I put a reef in the main before I even hoisted it and we flew across the lagoon, heeled right over and what a great sail. But the girls were sitting quietly, looking very seasick, so quickly back to anchor and get them back ashore with the zodiac. They packed up their camp and left for home and work on Monday morning.

I had a great talk with their man, Monsieur King. He works for ACE hardware and wanted to practice his english. The Polynesians don't really like the French very much, and I kind of don't blame them. So whenever I try my broken french on the Polynesians, they often reply in english and want to talk a lot. Whenever I try my broken french on a Frenchman, they make a big deal of my mispronunciations and then jabber away in fast Parisian French. I just look at them and say you have to speak slower and like I was a five year old. but they won't.

Next morning I was up at 4 AM and I left the anchorage and headed into the Southeast Trades. I had to sail around the bottom of Tahiti and it was a lee shore and had a nasty reef, that wasn't very well charted. So I gave a lot of sea room to the reef and had a great sail. That shore of Tahiti is deserted, no road can get across the mountains that dive straight into the lagoons, I would love to explore that shore if I had time and crew. I came up the SouthWest coast of Tahiti and back into civilization and into the pass and down the shoreline to a place called Teahupoo, but pronounced Chiapoo, like the poo that a Chia pet would do. It is a world famous place in the Surfing world. I got there and there was a really nice dock to tie up too, so I did and then went to the marina office to pay, and it was free. Seems the people who built it and the people who run it can't agree on a tariff, so it's free.

The surf comes from the waves that come up from the Southern Ocean and break onto the outer reef. It's crazy dangerous because if you don't get off the wave in time, it pounds you onto the coral reef. Only the crazy or best surfers surf it. If you surf it when the swell is coming from the Southeast, you are guaranteed to be stain on the coral, the swell has to be coming from the South or better yet the southwest. Anyways the day I was there it was a Southeast swell, so nobody was surfing and the place was deserted and very boring. Except that night the drums started up again and so it was off to the well lit sports complex and watched the dance practice. This troupe was better again, they had a "Masters" division of older ladies, and they could still shimmy and they had the rhythm down perfect. The dance leader lady would often stop the pretty young girls, dismiss them and bring on the masters to demonstrate the dance. The guys were also pretty bad and the dance leader lady watched in disgust and even dismissed a couple of guys, who then went off into a corner and did play fighting. She seemed to give the other guys a lecture but that didn't really help.

Next day I set sail with a strong following wind and made it all the way back to Papeete before dark. Now I'm here trying to find my engine parts, waiting to pick up my sail and looking for crew. No luck on any off that so far, but I've only been here one day.

I might go back down to Teahupoo later this week, there is a world champion surf competition scheduled and the waves are forecast to be good for it. There might be a lot of people there and it could be a lot of fun. If there is room at the free dock, I might even have a party on Prism.

The Polynesians are not like they used to be and like we imagine them. In Captain Cooks day, you could have a Tahitian girl for a nail, now Prism being fibreglass I thought ahead and brought a bag of nails. But nowadays they are much more proper, what with the missionaries, TV and all. They still look great, every Tahitian girl has long hair, doesn't wear a lot of clothes due to the heat, and many are tall and very slim. They don't seem to age very well, they get heavy. The guys can also look good, they do a lot of kayaking here and have very muscular upper bodies. But they don't age well either, they get heavy and everyone here smokes, everywhere all the time. So to think that you can sail to French Polynesia and have lots of fun with the local ladies for a bag of nails, not true. But they look good dancing and the guys can really pound mean drums. -----------------

And that's about that for another adventure, I am hoping that the weekend in Teahupoo is more exciting than before and I think it might be. Another adventure might be a return to the main harbour of Papeete, the dock is now free for the first night and so I might just wander up there for Friday night to see what might be taking place in the local waterfront divey bars. I don't think there will be another boatload of drunken Americans, but there are a lot of boats in now that the cruising season is getting into full swing here in Tahiti.

Jimsh