Sailing WSW on the trade winds is easy sailing. We are being spoiled. The wind always seems to be following us wherever we go in the South Pacific -- so far.  I would be pleased to tell some exciting stories of pounding into the wind to make the sailing part of this adventure more exciting, but it is more pleasing to just enjoy these fair winds and following seas.  I expect that we will get our contrary weather when we try to make our final run to New Zealand.

Rangiroa (Rangi) is a wonderful place to anchor in fair weather.  The lagoon is 70 miles long, and 30 miles wide and so if the weather is very windy, the waves inside of the lagoon can be almost as big as the waves outside of the lagoon.  It takes about 47 miles and sustained winds, for waves to reach their maximum height, all other things being the same.  We had great weather, so the size of the lagoon created no problem for us.

After our white-knuckle experience (as I believe George called it) we had going into Ahe lagoon, it was a delight to enter a lagoon through a deep pass 500 meters wide.   But we were shocked to see a catamaran about the size of Cosmos, wrecked on the beach.  We later learned that the professional crew were moving the boat from another island to Rangi at night and on the watch change, the man going off watch told the next man to go onto watch and went to bed.  The next man did not wake and take the watch so the boat was on autopilot with no one at the helm.  They must have been auto-tracking to the marker right outside of the pass.  When no one was on watch to take action as they approached the pass, the boat simply ran aground.  There is a picture on the Cosmos web site of the catamaran wrecked on the beach.

We anchored only about one half mile from the entry pass, and in 48 feet of water we could see all of the way to the bottom.  We could watch fish, including a pair of sharks about three feet long that seemed to like it under Cosmos.

We spent a week on anchor in Rangi.  While on anchor, we went snorkeling several times in the lagoon, just inside of the pass.  The coral and fish were the best that I have seen.  I saw so much that was easy to see while snorkeling, that the Super Snorkel (compressor) was not needed for deeper diving.

I also managed to get a 40-minute ride in an ultra-light.  The pictures are on the web site.  This was my first ride in an ultra-light, and I felt completely safe and comfortable.  Of course the views were spectacular.

I was sad to leave Rangiroa, but we thought it best to move on to Tahiti.  The sail to Tahiti was a delight.  Winds were perfect.  As a matter of fact, they were so perfect that we arrived about ten hours early.  I won't go into a port for the first time if it is night when we arrive, so we stood watch and hove-to about ten miles from the port entry from about seven at night until about seven the next morning.

For the non sailors, "heaving to" is not pulling hard on a line, but is a way to set the sails and the rudder so that the boat hardly moves.  The nice things about heaving to, is that it is almost always more comfortable than sailing and uses no power -- not even battery power for the autopilot.

We arrived in Tahiti on sunny Saturday, September 30, 2001.  The rain started on Sunday and it has now been raining off and on for a week.  The sky gives us hope of clearing almost every day, and then heavier clouds move in and the rain starts again.   We still manage to get some things done, in spite of the weather.

I am surprised that Tahiti is the most well known vacation island in French Polynesia.   Anyone who comes this far, just to stay on Tahiti is making a big mistake.   The Marquises and the Tuamotus are more beautiful and serene in their natural state.  Throw on top of that, the city smells of dirt and Papeete, Tahiti comes in fourth of the three places to vacation.  We have not been to nearby Moorea or slightly more distant Bora Bora.  Those are actually the more popular final destination, vacation spots.  Tahiti has the airport and the major shipping port and by far, the largest shopping district, so Tahiti is how many people back home would identify any of these vacation spots in the Society Islands group, and even French Polynesia as a whole.

Unlike sailing among the Marquises and the Tuamotos, sailing around the Society Islands is under tight control of harbormasters.  We had to ask permission to enter the harbor.  We had to ask permission to leave.  If we leave Tahiti, we have to get permission and tell them where we are going, even if we are going south of the airport, or to a nearby island.

Our stay in Papeete was soured by the rain, but even more by a storm drain that emptied into the harbor about 100 feet from our anchorage.  As the days progressed, the smell got worse, and today, we moved out of the city harbor to south of the airport, to anchor between the reef and the island.  Here we can once again, see the bottom, 40 feet below our boat.

We were surprised in Papeete to see three huge cruise ships in port, and more surprised as the days went by to see the ships stay tied at the bulkheads.  We surmised that they were stuck without passengers because so few people have been flying.  Two the boats were of the Renaissance Line.  We later heard that the Renaissance Cruise Lines, with its eight cruise ships has entered bankruptcy, pushed over the edge by the tourist slowdown.

Next we are exploring other parts of Tahiti and perhaps Moorea while we wait for Aaron and Anton to arrive on 15 October.

Joe Dorr