We are now a bit more than 24 h in Bora-Bora. We are hanging at a mooring in front of the famous Bora-Bora Yacht Club.

It’s the first mooring area after entering the lagoon of Bora-Bora through the only pass located at the west side of the island. About half of the buoys had boats moored to them. Thus, we could choose a mooring for tying up MaRe.

About an hour later the guy from BBMS (Bora-Bora Mooring Services) and asked for the fees. 4000 CFP / night (40 USD). After I paid for the planned 4 days, he told me that we are only allowed to stay in this morning area for two nights. Then we have to move to one of the other areas which are run by BBMS. Not very nice after taking the fees for 4 days. There is only 1 mooring area more with a distance of 2.5 km to the village. The other ones are way out. We hope we can moor to a buoy in the next closest area. Let’s see.

The water is deep this out doesn’t show the emerald green water we were used to see around MaRe at our Raiatea anchorage.

We had a gorgeous sunset dinner last night. The sun dropped behind a motus, a small island which is a part of an atoll.

Behind us it’s the main island with full and lush vegetation all the way up to the top of the Mt Pahia with its 661 m. The street along the coast line, just about 120 m away from us is pretty busy, thus noisy.

From the Yacht Club we heard music. Sounded partially Polynesian partially like a music you can hear in any place of the world. The Polynesian music gave me the impression that they have a show for tourons.

This morning I was lying in my bed and thought what the magic of Bora-Bora is? Everybody talks about Bora-Bora. I have seen many nicer places during my 17 month in French Polynesia.

I asked Shigeo, and he also wonders what’s so special on Bora-Bora. He shares my thoughts.

Once we got N of Taha’a we got out of the island’s lee and the wind got more stable.

We stored the gennaker back in its sailbag and set main at reef 1 and the genoa we unfurled fully. With the wind abeam we are making nice progress.

While storing the gennaker in the not original sailbag, I got an improvement idea. In Bora-Bora I ‘ll try to realize it.

The sun is out and the wind makes a very pleasant temperature. A swell of about a meter height rolls on to MaRe abeam from STB.

It’s simply peaceful to be propelled forward just by the wind.

Sailor’s life!

When we arrived back at MaRe and I was very happy having gotten my needed spare parts parcel hand carried by Nohea, Tevai’s charming cousin.
I opened carefully the parcel.

I got a shock!!!

2 of 4 ordered spare parts were not in the box.

The two in the box were damaged.

The exhaust gasket was pretty bent.

But much more severe, the filler neck of the muffler was on both sides badly bent. So bad that I thought for a moment I have no chance to bent it back and have to wait 3 – 4 weeks for a replacement. At the end I accepted the adrenaline push, used a screw driver and a hammer to bent the top of the filler neck until I could attach and remove the radiator cap. This problem appeared to be solved. However do the 2 rubber sealing inside work fine? To see this I need to run the diesel engine for about an hour.

The badly bent exhaust gasket I could carefully get back into its normal flat shape without it getting major cracks.

Among the 2 missing spare parts, which are included in the ordered muffler assembly, the main problem was the gasket between the engine block and the muffler. This gasket needs to be replaced always. Fortunately I could very carefully remove the old one. Now, I have to keep fingers crossed that this gasket lasts until I reach NZ in few months.

We lifted the hook about 30 min later than we planned and moved down the channel in side the lagoon to pass Rautoanui.

No wind at all only a bit than ripples.

Outside we got some wind and hoisted main and genoa. For about 3 NM sailing was not fast but we sailed.

Then wind fell asleep so much that even the sock of the gennaker works have fallen down (normally the sock needs to be pulled down with a bit of strength) nevertheless the gennaker is prepared for a bit more wind.

We had breakfast.

Being N of Taha’a I expected more and stable wind. However wind felt further asleep. On a long distance sail I would let MaRe sail as slow as she goes.
But I want to arrive around noon on Bora-Bora to get a buoy with some time in spare for unforseen matters.

Current route ETA: 12:47

I wrote in one of my previous narrations that my Polynesian friend Tevai will get the parcel with the genset spare parts at DHL in Tahiti and sends it over to Raiatea by ferry boat. This was already a great plan. But it turned out even much better.

After Tevai got the parcel from DHL Tahiti, I was already relieved. Once he got the parcel he will get it to Raiatea ASAP.

Then I got a message, that he will give the parcel to a cousin, who will make sure that the parcel goes with the next ferry boat to Raiatea.

Only a short while later I received another Signal message from Tevai: another cousin of him works on the ferry sailing on Wednesday and this cousin, Nohea, will hand carry to parcel to me. Gosh, how lucky I am!!!

I was pretty early at the “Gare Maritime” where the ferry boat docks. Then the catamaran ferry of Apetahi Express came. She went through the Tevahiti pass just south of Uturoa. Although docking in Uturoa is for all deckhands routine, it was interesting to see the speed she came in and docked routinely with all activities well understood and trained.

Then the forward boarding door at PRT side opened. First passengers disembarked. This is what I expected. But then I saw a Polynesian lady looking like the one I got pictures of from Tevai. She had parcel in her hands. That’s Nohea, Tevai’s cousin who brings me the parcel. We waved at each other to signal we are the ones who will meet now.

Then we met. Immediately she turned out to be very charming person with very nice Polynesien smile.

Unfortunately we didn’t have a lot of time to talk or maybe go for a coffee to the Pâtisserie Apetahi, my favorite place in Uturoa and just around the corner of the ferry dock. Nohea was on duty and the ferry boat departs at soon as the exchange of passengers and freight is done. No minute to waste. So we had a nice conversation for a few minutes. Very short, but very nice and warm.

Luckily my OBM brought some Japanese tea with her as presents for people who do me a favor. Thus, I could give it to her.

Then we had to say naanaa (bye-bye in Tahitian). She needed to go back on board.

I was standing at the dock and thinking that I’m very lucky getting my urgently needed parts to Raiatea by my Polynesian friend Tevai and members of his family.

I must have been born on a Sunday!

A quick info for all who follow through my narrations and the story of my genset repair.

Genset runs since 30 min. 3 x the time run before the repair.

Water maker runs as well.

Will write about the spare parts later. 2 very bad stories and one wonderful one!

Plan No. 1
Exchanging the muffler of the genset already on Saturday. I hope that DHL will fly to Tahiti early because the processing in the USA was pretty quick at the beginning. However, now since 4 days the status on the tracking site is always “clearing event”. Yesterday I do concerned that I sent a mail to Thierry of DHL Fa’a’a (Pape’ete airport).

Unfortunately I’ll get a reply from Thierry only on Monday. Curious what it will be?

The service is called DHL Express but I rather call it DHL Slowpress.

Tevai, my friend in Tahiti is on stand-by to ship the spare part to Raiatea with the next available ferry and I’ll pick it up directly at the ferry.

How does this unpleasant story develop? All I can say now is “stay tuned!”.

Plan No. 2
Our planned hike up to Mt Temehani fell through as well because of rain. Already during the night I woke up once hearing the rain dripping on the deck and hatch above me. I started wondering about the weather a few hours later.

When I got up early, Shigeo was already sitting in the cockpit with an unhappy face. We looked at the clouds every 5 min to finally give up. We had rain at MaRe and the mountains were covered in clouds and rain. Not much to be said.

Only in the afternoon hours the rain stopped and the sun came out again. But then it was too late for the hike. Right now it’s sunny and has a bit of wind to charge the batteries at least a bit.

The next chance for the hike depends now on the spare parts situation. Should the spare parts fly on Monday, we can hike on Tuesday. On Wednesday I will try to complete the exchange of the spare part. Unfortunately I have to remove quite a lot to replace the special muffler.

Beside this, I did smaller boat jobs and prepared my waypoints (WPT) up to the possible anchorage in the lagoon of Penrhyn Island.

Later today, after replacing an LED lamp, I’ll send a letter to Kiritimati to ask for the best of the 3 channels in the only pass into the lagoon is the best and where approximate I could drop the anchor. I do this because locals have the best knowledge of the situation.

I did a few boat jobs and could make check marks on my to-do list.

The arrangement of spare parts shipment from Tahiti to me took also some time. Fortunately my friend Tevai in Tahiti will get the spare parts at DHL Fa’a’a (Pape’ete airport) and send them to me. But how can I pay him the money he uses for me in Tahiti? As he has an account with Socredo Bank and in Uturoa is a Socredo Bank branch office. I thought I just make a deposit on his account. In Pape’ete I made the same thing at Socredo Bank for the down payment for the new sunscreens. Here in Uturoa they say it’s not possible without a banking card which requires a bank account, which I can’t get here. Now I will transfer the money from my German bank account. Problem solved.

I also could arrange with DHL Fa’a’a that Tevai can pick up the shipment instead of me. Thierry Tchung of DHL Fa’a’a is really of great help.

And now I have to wait that the spare part arrive at Tahiti.

Yesterday we took again a rental car from Easy Car for 3 h to get gasoline for the outboard motor and took the chance to drive almost to the SE corner of Raiatea to visit a botanical garden, which we could not look at on Sunday because we were running out of time.

The “Jardine Botanique de Faaroa” is not big, but nice. Well maintained with lots of plants and especial with a variety of bird of paradise flowers. I found that these plants are original from South Africa but became very common here. They just look beautiful.

I also could identify the tree growing the Tahitian chestnut we ate on Sunday. The trees pretty big with roots starting already above ground, this y the trees are easily to be recognized. The fruits are pretty hard and difficult to open. I assume the locals have a special tool to open them.

As I’m writing about special tools, we got recently the chance to see all steps of copra production.

Around the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century the copra production was booming here in French Polynesia. Nowadays there are only a few production places to be seen on the islands here.

As the first step I consider the collection of coconuts being good for copra production. This means the ones not eaten by the coconut crap. Then they need to be cracked open. The gentleman who showed us his work used a pretty heavy ax to crack it open in one stroke. The next step to fully break them into two halfs and take the meat out. For getting the meat out a specially formed tool is needed and a skillful move.
The meat is then put on a drying platform which indicates that there is still copra produced. The drying platform can be covered with a sliding roof or the platform can be slid under a roof to protect the drying fruits from rain. The drying process takes in normal weather conditions about 5 weeks. Finally all is packed into jute sacks and shipped by supply boat to a collection place, most likely in Tahiti.

We got all this shown from an elderly man who told us many things of his life and that he got a pacemaker in NZ.

Gas for cooking and baking – one of my two bottles holding maximal 12 kg of propane or butane gas got empty. As I always want to have it refilled ASAP I asked at the fuel station if they refill bottles. However, here on Raiatea they only exchange bottles, which is not possible für me.

I also asked Rava, the very kind secretary of Marina Lu and she gave me the hint to ask at Marina Carenage. There they do indeed refill bottles using gravity filling. Thus, I brought my empty bottle there. To my big surprise they cannot fill my bottle without an adapter. It’s the first time that I need an adapter in French Polynesia. As I have a set of adapters I went back to MaRe to get the right one.
This morning I’ll pick up the full one. Then I have again 2 full bottles in the storage for gas for the kitchen. This should last again for 6 – 12 month. Changing the connection takes only a few minutes thus the food on the range still stays warm when I reconnect the bottles.

Yesterday, I checked the DHL tracking site several times to see in the evening that the parcel arrived at the DHL facility in San Francisco. I thought about all the alternatives I have to get the genset spare parts on board as fast as possible.

There is first the uncertainty of the arrival of the spare parts at DHL Fa’a’a, which is the DHL office close to the airport of Pape’ete. DHL says 9th but my experience is that it could be faster.
However01 The 9th is a Monday thus the possible earlier days are Saturday and Sunday; DHL office is closed.

Also sailing back to Pape’ete and pick it up myself was considered However02, the wind for the next about 4 days looks very bad. Around 25 KN on the nose caused by high pressure system moving far south towards west. Such winds mean tacking several times and sailing for 2 days a really tough upwind course.

I even checked the possibility to fly in the morning to Tahiti and return in the evening. With Shigeo on board I could have risked to leave MaRe with him. However03, flight cost are prohibitively high.

Already started days ago I reached out again for Tevai, my Polynesian friend. He offered to pickup the parts and ship them by ferry boat to me and I pick them up at the ferry boat at the pier. However04, how can I pay Tevai the money he first needs to pay for me?

Now there are 2 howevers left. The arrival time at DHL Fa’a’a is not yet know precise enough and I need to check if I can deposit money on Tevai’s bank account. The bank has a subsidiary here in Uturoa. I’ll will find out about this tomorrow.

Then also my bank on Japan created a problem. They suddenly questioned the correctness of monthly payment, which is done via my credit card since I left Cartagena, Spain.

For most of the time until mid afternoon I was busy writing messages and emails. I felt like a guy in an administration office and not like a sailor.

I also got a bunch of messages from family and friends today. All needed to be answered.

Now it’s afternoon and I’ll upload this story and then attach the new fruit net under the solar panels at the stern.

The rain stopped and we jumped the tender to go into the bay where “Easy Car” is supposed to be located. But where in the bay?

Being in the bay, I suddenly saw a signposts with “Easy Car” on it. We went there.

A man was working in an half open workshop and I asked him if they have rental cars. He consulted with his wife and the answer was “No, because it weekend”. We thanked him and turned back. But we got the idea to leave the tender at their their jetty and have a walk and hitch hike a bit. So I went back to him and he suddenly asked me for how long we want to have the car. “Only today” I replied. There were about 3 1/2 h left. When his wife joined the conversation we got quickly the deal and took off.

We followed the road to the south, thus drove counterclockwise around the island. At the famous Marae Tainu’u we stopped and walked around despite a bit of a drizzle. I wrote a while back already about this marae.

Then we continued. Houses were located left and right of the street. As everywhere in French Polynesia the properties are kept pretty tidy.

The view to the right was always kind of interesting in terms of the color of the sea. The weakened sunlight coming through the thin layer of clouds created always a special atmosphere with the various shades of emerald green water above sandy areas of the inner reef. There were also the deeper waters with dark grey blue color. The waves rolling from the open sea to the outer reef must be at least 2 m high was our guess when we looked at the surf in the distance.

To the left, houses interspersed with areas, where water was also on the left side of the street. Sea water intrusions creating a brackish water; mangroves grow there.

But not only house and sea water intrusions interspersed, but also rainforest. Very dense rainforest. Lush green. Beautiful to look at

After driving maybe an hour, we got a bit hungry and decided to look for an eatery or a restaurant.

We also decided to drive a loop. This, by taking the road in NW direction through the island from a point about half way along the southern coast, then turn right at the intersection at the east coast and drive clockwise around the SE corner back to the street through the island before heading N towards Uturoa and back home.

Along the road through the hilly island, there was a “belvédère”, a view point overlooking a huge and wide valley. Despite a bit of a drizzle we got out of the car. It was again an interesting view over the wide valley.

Being only about 1 – 2 kilometers on the road around the SE corner, there was a small eatery.

A makeshift, pretty open cottage with an extended roof to stay somehow dry when it is raining like yesterday. At one side there were 2 tables under a plastic sheet roof but the chairs where taken by some local folks who just had there chat.

When we arrived, about a handful of young people were hanging around. Most likely they bought some take-outs. Buying take-outs is very common in French Polynesia.

The possibly boss of the eatery pointed to a cardboard fixed on the outer wall of the cottage; it was the menu. I don’t recall all what written there but the biggest meal was barbecued chicken with French fries. The possible boss, was also the one who did a lot the talking being good for more sales. Before I could really order something he asked already “Poulet avec frits?” To me this sounded good, and Shigeo also agreed after translation. Main dish was ordered.

“Coca Cola?” was his next question and my answer was straight “No!”. I saw something, which gave the impression it could be homemade lime lemonade and coco. I asked what Coco is and he showed us real coconuts of which the outer husk has been removed. Thus I ordered two. With the corner of an old machete he open a hole on the right side of the coconut and handed one by one over to us. Shigeo expected a straw but a real Polynesian doesn’t need a straw. The delicious coconut water can just be drunk out of the opening of the coconut.

Then we watch the preparation of our food. The French fries came out of a bag where they were once frozen. Two plastic rectangular shaped containers, to be used to eat French fries from, were used as the measure for a portion. From there they were put into boiling hot oil. The lady, most likely the wife of the boss, skillfully stirred the floating French fries in the hot oil and checked their degree of readiness.

The big boss also in charge of the grill, took two pieces of already to a certain degree barbecued pieces of chicken, spiced it up with a black sauce and put them on the grill. He also adjusted the height of the grill that the meat got barbecued a bit more but did not burn.

There was a local guy standing beside me drinking also “coco”. He started talking and asking and I took all my French to reply to him as good as possible. It turned out that also the big boss jumped into this “conversation”. For me French is a challenge but French spoken in the real deep country side of Raiatea was a real challenge.

At a certain point the conversation slowed down. I got the impression that there was more than coconut water in his coconut…

Then our French fries and the chicken were ready and we got the rectangular plastic container filled with French fries and the barbequed chicken just on top. A splash of ketchup on the fries and because we are so friendly guests we also got splash of the black sauce on the fries as well. Then the meals were standing in front of us.

Cutlery is not available. No need for. We are born with 10 fingers.

The meal simply was good! I think I never had a better tasting grilled chicken before. The meat was tender, and tasty. The skin excellently crispy. The French fries were just good.

So with the tools given to us at birth we ate our “Poulet avec frits”. Great taste! Stomachs filled!

Much later we discuss the meat. I think that the birds were just caught in forest, where plentiful of wild cocks run around with their chickens until someone catches them.

When I wanted to pay to the daughter, who worked as the cashier, the big boss smelled some additional business by selling a dessert. They offered chocolate cake and a mostly likely coconuts-bread with thin slices of oranges on top and they offered us “Mappe”. Although he showed it to us, we had no clue what it is. We bought one plastic bag of Mappe.

While driving along we tried it and it looked outside the plastic bag and tasted like a chestnut.

Looking later in the web found the fruit is called Tahitian or Polynesian chestnut. Looking in the web at the pictures of the tree and the fruit from outside, I feel I saw trees and fruits already but didn’t know what fruit it is.

The rest of our drive had again nice sceneries but the “Poulet avec frits” was the special event of our drive in the special rain.

In Uturoa we stopped quickly to buy some more plastic water which we still will need until the genset engine spare parts and MaRe meet.

If Onan would have sent the parts from Australia directly to Tahiti they would be there already…. Customer dis-satisfaction, long shipment times, and high cost vs a smart, more than 30 years old different approach to spare parts stock and delivery. Every company has its choice, but customers have a choice as well.