Back In the Big City - Papeete

We are in the new downtown marina in Papeete, Tahiti, ‘Marina Papeete’. It is located right downtown on the old quay. One busy place – motorcycles, euro ambulance sirens, lots of traffic noise- which we haven’t heard since leaving Panama. But they are building a nice new embarcadero walkway along the waterfront. This is the view from the top of our mast. That’s the new marina on the left, the container port on the right and the island of Moorea in the background. We’ll be sailing over to Moorea on Saturday with a bunch of boats for the Tahitti-Moorea Rendezvous. Brother and sister-in-law, John and Lisa, will be joining us. Should be fun.
You can get most anything you want here in Papeete if you are willing to pay for it. Everything is steep. We had a meal at the low-cost roulettes that park a few blocks from here. They are very organized roach-coach diners with tables out front. There was probably 20 coaches to choose from when we went. Two hamburgers and a large home-brewed cider cost about $35. The atmosphere is good at least, very laid back with lots of locals, couples and families.
That brings me to why I was up the mast to take the top picture. If you look at this picture you’ll notice that something is wrong. We were sailing along nicely downwind to Tahiti when the boat all of a sudden slowed way down. It turns out that’s what happens when the big headsail falls in the water. The halyard holding it up chafed through, at about 15 feet into the mast.
So now that we’re in the marina, we can repair it. You can buy quality German line here. And if the bill is over US$300, then they will do the customs paperwork for you to avoid the tax, cutting the cost by 16%. Yes, the new halyard costs more than $300.
We’re busy with boat repairs and clean-up right now. We’ll be re-provisioning and re-fueling for another 5 month run before we leave here. A lot of work yet to be done but we do get some time away to peruse the big open-air market for goodies- fruits and veggies which we haven’t had access to for awhile, fresh fish, baguettes and  tropical flowers, traditional leis and head pieces. Oh, and Chris has noticed that there are “Tahitian” pearls in every store window.
Paul