Monday 30th July

Papeete,
Tahiti

17 32.422 S
149 34.279 W

Many happy returns Matthew D., congratulations on your coming of age.

At 06.30hrs Gerry was out of bed and itching to get things moving. The boat was going into the yard at 07.30hrs. He woke Abigail up to close and lock the hatch over her bunk, then we both joined him in getting everything put away ready for the move across the bay. We cast off the lines at 07.00hrs and began the short motor across the bay, arriving at the yard early. The yard was just getting ready for us and Gerry was soon backing the boat into the travel lift whilst Abigail and I handled the lines. This was the first time that we had been hauled without having to remove the backstays - a definite bonus. As soon as the boat was securely in the slings we all jumped off the back end onto the dock and watched as the boat was lifted out of the water, happily without incident. We had thought that we were going to be put onto stands straight away and hadn’t taken anything off of the boat that we needed for the stay ashore; to our surprise they told us that they were going to leave the boat in the slings until they had the rudder removed. This created the problem of us having to get back onboard, collect our gear for the shore stay and then get off again. Gerry and Abigail did the climbing back aboard bit – I don’t think that they trusted me not to rock the boat, anyway we got a bag of clothes, some wash gear and a couple of books – anything that we hadn’t got would have to be collected later. Gerry prepared the floor for the removal of the rudder and then we spent almost the rest of the day sitting in the car waiting for the guys to get the rudder out, I think they tried everything to get it loose including the hammer (I suspect they used even heavier gear when we weren’t looking). Abigail and I spent most of the time reading or dozing – it was hot just sitting there and as the only person authorized to drive the car was Gerry we were a captive audience to the yard workers. Gerry of course spent the time supervising the workers and getting in their way. Eventually the rudder was removed, and the work ground to a standstill – it was getting close to 15.00hrs and they stop work then! Gerry pushed the point that we wanted to get the work done quickly and they continued to work, removing the bearings so that they could get straight on with machining new ones at the beginning of work the next day. By 15.00hrs the bearings were out and we were ready to go home for the night. After locking up the boat we drove home via the port authority where we were going to pay for our 3 nights in the lagoon unfortunately they closed at 15.00hrs too so we had to postpone paying them until tomorrow. We encountered a car accident on the way which held up our side of the road for about an hour but finally we got to the turnoff. We stopped so that I could buy some breakfast foods and then made our way to the pension. We all showered and changed clothes then headed out to the closest restaurant, a French place where Abigail ate snails and kebabs, Gerry ate kebabs and I had goat cheese salad and duck breast, it was good food if a little expensive. We drove back to the pension and discussed plans for the morning before going to sleep.