We continue on with the Tahiti madness as we rush to get through our provisioning, shopping, and projects.  If you missed part I (click this link).  We were both up early again to try to get through all of our tasks for the day.  

Matt greased the main sail cars that take our main sail up and down the mast.  This is much easier to do when the 300lb main sail is not attached.  We wrapped up the long-stay visa paperwork and are ready to pass that off the documents to Tahiti crew next week.  Many loads of laundry, and a little boat cleaning all before 0900.  We are expecting Guillaume any minute and we wait…and wait.  We are eager to get going to run more errands, but we stand by.

Wouldn’t you know it, a down pour hits us, putting a huge kink in our day.  Guillaume posts pones the main sail pick up until the next day so we are free to work on boat chores.

I decide it’s time to wash all our blankets, bedding, and try to remove the many stains on our clothes.  Not sure what it is about boat life, but every cruiser has stains on all their clothes.  You just can’t find stain remover like in the U.S. and the washer is always on gentle cycle so there is no real friction.  Another 4 loads of laundry later and things are smelling yummy.

Guillaume comes on Thursday to pick up the main sail. We spend some time pointing out all the areas we want repaired or re-stitched and he is on his way to work his magic. (Coming up next is our blog on the main sail repair).

Tahiti Madness Continues

More errands to the post office, the marina office, the market, Maxi’s, and a few small stores downtown.  Part of the beauty of being at the dock is that we have easy access to all the stores and we can easily work on boat projects – and we have many. 

Our ceiling panels are 20-year-old corrugated PVC.  We replaced all of the ceiling panels in the salon a few years ago and a few panels in the master cabin and aft cabin. However, there are few more that need to be replaced and it is a huge job.  We start working on the port, aft cabin panel as it needs the most attention.  Bottom right photo shows the cracks in the panel.  Matt removes the panel without damaging it which is good because we need to use it as a pattern.  Then the fun process of scraping all the glue.

Using a slanted razor blade, you scrape lawyer after layer until you get down to the glue residue.  Then you use mineral spirits or acetone to get the last bit of residue off before a light sand.

Matt tries to seal up a leak while we have the ceiling panel down.  The good news: he identified where the leak is and can plug it from the outside.  The photo below shows the silicone that has given way around the pipe.

Cut your pattern out of the new smooth PVC, apply VHB double stick tape (which is amazing) and install.

We finish the project several weeks later with the new ceiling panel place and all looking lovely.

Sweetie is feeling deflated

Sweetie is losing air.  We woke up to a flat “Sweetie” several days in a row.  Weird.  We know we have a slow leak, but she was losing air every day for several days in a row (even after we pumped her back up).  Time to look for the new leak.

The dinghy has 3 valves that put air into the pontoons.  Each valve has two “fail safe” leak preventions.  The inner mechanism on one valve has a slow leak, but the secondary cap always prevented air from leaking out.  However, it appears that the cap is now leaking.  It was cracked either by being tightened too tight or being hit.  Bummer. 

The quick fix is to swap the cap with another cap to stop the immediate leak.  Then try to glue it.  Of course, the dinghy is 20-years old and is no longer being made.  So, trying to find a new cap is highly unlikely.

Sunday Market Days

Part of Tahiti madness is Sunday Market Days.  The local farmers host a massive market day on Sundays in the center of downtown Papeete.  There are always local farmers selling fresh produce at this center, but on Sundays it is 10 times bigger than regular days.  They start at 0300 and ends at 1000 (yep you read that right, 3am in the morning).  We got up and made it there by 0600 and it was crazy busy.

The great thing about French Polynesia is that the locals actually listen to their government and follow the set rules.  Despite the Tahiti Madness, everyone was wearing a mask and everyone was using hand sanitizer (all around the market).  Very cool.  Even with the precautions, we bought our supplies and got out quickly.

They have a section with fresh flowers, which smell devine and are stunningly beautiful.

An entire section is dedicated to chopped, flavored meats. We purchased 1 kilo of three different flavors, because why not?

Then there is an even larger selection of fresh fish, crab, and lobster.

A large assortment of pre-packaged food (posion cru, baked goods, potato mixes and more)

And then rows, and rows, and rows of fresh produce!   Just look at the beautiful colors on each table!  So vibrant and pretty calling you to buy them.

The Madness Continues

Tahiti madness seems to be a necessary evil.  Always dread being here, but it is necessary to stock up the boat with marine parts, provisions, water, electricity and more.  Plus we get many boat projects down.

We took the opportunity to replace our fire extinguishers while we were here.  We could only find 2 in the stores so I called Incendie Moz Services a local person who comes to you!  I should have called him first because his extinguishers were $10 cheaper and he took our old ones!  Oh well, at least we have 4 new ones.  We had 6 extinguishers that were well over 10 years old.  However, they all had indicators in the green (meaning they were still good).  We decided not to take any chances and just order 4 new ones.  We kept a few of the old ones, just in case.

We dump some stuff we no longer need or use or want.

We made several more trips to random stores.  Picked up long flippers for Matt to help him with free fiving (diving without oxygen or gear), a hose to replace the outboard fuel line, a courtesy flag, flex tape, and a few other odds and ends.  The lower right photo is my 2nd pantry which is full to the brim.  Love it!

At the marina we have super cheap water.  So, we took advantage and did 3 more loads of laundry, pressure washed the boat, and filled our water tanks.  Tahiti Sails delivered our main, we grabbed a quick lunch and finally left the marina.

It was a short motor to the anchorage.  We dropped the hook and began the fun process of installing the main (check out our next blog on the main sail).

Marina Taina

The anchorage is just 5 miles from Marina Papeete but it is much closer to Marina Taina where we had lots of other business.  We could have come here on the bus but we were avoiding it due to covid.    Here is a list of things we did here:

• Tahiti Crew: dropped off original documents for our Carte de Sejure renewal in February 2021 (see “Passport and Visa Mess” blog post coming up soon)
• Tahiti Yacht Services: picked up a new baton to replace our damaged one
• Dropped off a ton of crap (old batteries, old fire extinguisher, unwanted cables and miscellaneous stuff we could recycle 
• Carrefore market – huge and final grocery run

French Polynesia faces a huge crisis with covid and there are threats of another lockdown as we are wrapping up our stay in Papeete.  We decide it is best to get out of town as quickly as possible as we don’t want to be stuck in Tahiti for lockdown.

Events from this Tahiti Madness blog occurred during the last week of October 2020.  Our blog posts run 8 weeks behind our adventures.