Raiatea (pt 2.) & Bora Bora November 8 2005

Okay, we finally made it to Bora Bora.But first--the dinghy took forever so we sort of hung out on the dock atUturoa. We rented a car and took an island tour one day, and the island isbeautiful, but there aren't very many good anchorages, so, after Bora, we'llhead back to Huahine and hit all the places we skipped last time. Did boatchores, fixed things, read alot. We did manage to mangle the mainsheetgetting the dinghy up. My original block had broken and the replacementjust didn't cut it so Tim goes up the mast and puts a new halyard in--Rosenearly had a stroke, but we all survived. Finally, the captain broke out amodel boat he had been saving for just such a lull in the action. One ofthose jobs one has to plank individually and then rig with all sorts ofteensy parts. Anyway the hull is done. We really don't know what to dowith it when finished as it's about 20 inches long and 2 feet high. Ohwell. Coincidentally, another Mayotte (our type of boat) pulled on the dockright in front of us. Owned by a 73 year old retired Hawaiian airline pilotwho is by himself. Needless to say we traded many Voyage Yacht storiesabout what they screwed up, etc. We also met a nice Irish/Scottish couplebackpacking around the world and had them over for cocktails. Joe and Itookour flight to Tahiti again for follow-up with the docs. I'm happy to reportall is well with both of us, but the guy did some very painful lasercauterizing of my blown blood vessel. Anyway, that was the 25th, and thedinghy came that day, so off we went to Bora Bora the next day. Short hopof about 25 miles so we stayed in the reef by Taha'a and then motor sailedthe remaining 20 miles in no time. Lest I forget, Joe's new loveaccompanied us and just left today (Nov. 4)!!!!!Overall, Bora Bora is beautiful from a distance and the motus (outlyingislets) are really cool and just like the travel brochures. However, it'sreally a big snooze. Rose calls it "Boring Boring". Mostly large hotelsfilled with honeymooners so there's not much for cruisers to do nor is itset up for provisioning, fuel,water, etc. Not only that, but much of the anchoring is done in 80-100 feetof water and I just don't carry that much chain, so we spent a lot of timelooking for safer, shallower anchorages, and had to skip some spots wewantedto stop at. That being said, we spent the first few nights on a mooring infront of the Bora Bora Yacht Club, which is really nothing more than arestaurant, but it's free if you eat there. Expensive like the whole place,but good and, Sandrine, Joe's Tahitian honey, paid. She also showered usall with gifts, like a bottle of JD and a Hinano t-shirt for me, andvarious items of jewelry and clothes for the other crew. Joe was in hogheaven and I spent the time singing "just a gigolo" as she kept buying himgoodies, food and drinks the entire time.There is, however, a great place on the island called Bloody Mary's. Veryfamous and has a huge board out front with the names of all the celebs thathave been there. After a few days we moved down to the southeast coast andavailed ourselves of their services. Great prices on drinks--really thecheapest we've seen and just about US pricing, and a really good, butexpensivemeal. Owned by an older American guy and he has the right idea of gettingpeople sloshed cheaply and then they don't mind paying $30 for ribs!!!!!Naturally, we thoroughly enjoyed the ambiance and prices at the bar andreturned to the boat totaled, only to find some deserted bareboat acrossour bows. I mean on the bows. No one on board, so Joe and I boarded,started the engines, got their dragged anchor up and moved and re-anchoredthe boat. No damage, I'm happy to say, to Rendezvous Cay. Anyway in thecourse of searching for a pen to write them a love note telling them whathappened, Joe came across a liter of JD. We appropriated this as our feefor moving their boat and left a note to that effect. You'd think the guyswould dinghy over the next day and thank us, but, noooooo!! Made us feelless guilty for taking the $60 bottle of bourbon. Well, we liked BloodyMary's so much we stayed for a few days and did return for cocktails andhorsd'oeuvres.About then, the water maker crapped out. After doing all the routinetrouble shooting, it was clear there was something wrong with the highpressure pump. After hours, by Joe, of trying to undo the lock-tited bolts,we finally got the head off and, sure enough, one of the valves was bad.Wouldn't you know, it is the one spare part, I don't have. however, not toworry, I just bought a new pump body, itself and it came with a spare head.Oops. Unfortunately, the spare head uses a different size high pressureoutflow so we couldn't hook it up. No problem; we went to plan B--waterconservation. Parts are on the way--shipping about $100 for $250 of parts.BOAT means "bring out another thousand"!!!!!! Well, try and get water here.Finally ended up back at the yacht club, but you have do a half-cockedsemi-stern to mooring to get to the hose. the good news is a completefill-up was only $15.So, watered up and ready, off we go around the north end of the island togo around to the southwest side where there are supposed to be beautifulshallow anchorages and lots of nice hotels, etc. This was supposedly ashort trip through well marked deep channels. Think again. As soon as weround the corner, there's like one marker and as we headed for it, waterdepth went from 100 feet to 6 feet in a nanosecond. Aha, but the forwardlooking sonar saved us from peril once again, and we avoided grounding, butspent about an hour trying to figure out the channel when a couple of localboats came through. We finally arrived at a very beautiful part of theisland and anchored in about 8 feet over sand near a motu with palm treesand the whole nine yards. Water, I'd guess, is about 86 degrees. Thecaptain even went swimming 2 days in a row. After scoping out the islandside anchorages, we moved over in front of the BB Beach Resort, which alsohad, dah, dah, relatively cheap drinks. Joe's squeeze bought again, reallydoubling our pleasure.Tomorrow, my errant mail arrives here so we needed to move back to the eastside to get to the Post office. We debated several nice looking anchorages,but Bloody Mary's won out so here we are again. We'll spend tonight here,get the mail and actually move to a more picturesque place tomorrow. Thenit's back to Raiatea as my parts are due to arrive early next week.Big deal here in Bora today, Sat. the 5th. We were going to have lunch atBloody Mary's, local bar/restaurant and were told last night we couldn'tbecause Bill Gateshad hired the entire place. He's here on his SHIP, Octopus--about 400 feetwith2-count 'em 2-helicopters and a 45 foot tender. We're moored right off thedock and saw him and his entourage disembark. About 20 people and 50 bodyguards. Cool huh? Missed the Post Office hours by 15 minutes and stayed'til Monday when they claimed my mail has not arrived.It's Monday, Nov. 7, and we're back in Raiatea for a few days picking upmail (PO here called BB and they're sending it back), watermaker parts andTim seeing the dentist for a hard candy induced chipped tooth and loosecrown. More later,Tim, Rose & Joe