[password] pilot25041
[position] 16 43.74s 151 26.55w
[status] Wednesday ........ since our last blog, we have left Raiatea and are now in Huahine, the weather and seas abated sufficiently for us to motor across the 25nm between the islands and we dropped anchor near the town of Fare. There is a very well stocked supermarket that was even open on Saturday 14th Bastille Day ........ unfortunately the weather since we got here has not been great, winds from E / SE gusting 25kts and regular very heavy rain squalls, some lasting up to an hour or two, necessitating regular bouts of emptying the dinghy!
We ventured down to the bottom of Huahine Iti on Sunday ....... on the way there was an 'electrical burning' smell from somewhere in the cabin ...... lots of crawling around and sniffing in cupboards ensued until it was eventually found to be coming from the 'top' fridge! Fridge emptied and removed ....... multimeter once again used to diagnose the fault which ended up being the electronic controller ........ after some discussion is was decided that it was a higher priority to have 2 working fridges rather than 2 working freezers, so we removed the electronic controller from the inside freezer to get the fridge working again, then rationalised the frozen stuff into the remaining working freezer. We now just need to source a new electronic controller, which may need to come from NZ as our contact in Papeete is struggling to source one there!
After a brief lunch stop at Avea we then moved and anchored in a small bay at Haapu ........ absolute bliss as we were the only boat in there, only downside was the colour of the water which was very muddy from 'run off' from the hills following the torrential bouts of rain! After a very quiet night we then moved on Monday into Baie Bourayne and picked up a very large mooring buoy, a quick lunch and we then ventured ashore to the village of Maroe, unfortunately the rain again caught us out and there was also no shop there so we went back to the boat. On the way back we had to pass under a road bridge connecting the two parts of the island and one of the local 'youths' decided it was a good idea to jump in the water and try to get us wet, not that we weren't wet enough already ......... there were only 6 boats in this large bay, 3 gin palaces at anchor and 3 yachts on mooring buoys. Tuesday morning we went out to a reef in the bay and did some snorkelling, there were hundre
ds of tiny brightly coloured fish, then it was back up to Fare for a resupply of essentials. After 'happy hour' with the crews from P'zazz and Tusi 2, we then had a great meal in the Huahine yacht club last night.
Today is forecast for high winds again and it has been blowing up to 25kts overnight ........ regularly accompanied by the torrential rain, the gribs for the end of the week look better, so we'll then be making a push for Tahiti / Papeete, as Ruth flies to the UK and Mitch back to NZ on Wednesday 25th Jul!
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