Wednesday 1st August

Papeete,
Tahiti

17 32.422 S
149 34.279 W

The day began with Gerry feeling unwell, he had an upset stomach, anyone would have thought he was on his death bed from the way he carried on. Abigail and I had decided to spend the day at the pension and go swimming and relax at the water’s edge so with out too much sympathy we waved goodbye to Gerry and set about relaxing for the day.
I did a small amount of laundry – just to keep it under control as the load that we took to the launderette here cost nearly AU$100 – that was expensive in anyone’s book! With the laundry outside drying on the deck I had a cup of tea and some left over bread for breakfast, by now Abigail just about had her eyes open and muttered something about going for a kayak around the bay. The pension has kayaks which are free to use so she went off to commandeer one whilst I set up the computer and typed up the last couple of days’ worth of blog notes. I kept being interrupted by Abigail calling out to me – I had to take photos of her kayaking, bear kayaking, her snorkeling and so on, it just made the time it took me to type notes even longer. Abigail finished with her water exercise and came to join me in time for us to go and see if we could hook up to the free WIFI here. To cut a long story short – we failed! Everything we tried was a disaster and in the end we packed up the computer and decided to leave it until Gerry came home to see what we were doing wrong. The woman who runs the pension dropped by with a bowl full of fresh ripe bananas from one of her trees just before lunch time. Abigail and I prepared a feast of left over pate, cheese, bread and fruit for lunch and sat eating it on the balcony outside of the chalet. When we were full we laid down and read for a while, Abigail dozed off until Gerry suddenly appeared at the balcony doors – he’d had enough for the day and had come home looking for sympathy and something to eat, not that there was much of either. We told him that we had experienced difficulties connecting to the WIFI and he huffed and puffed in exasperation and stomped off with the computer to get closer to the source of the WIFI. It took him quite a while to sort it out and get connected but he eventually got there. So how did his day go? He managed to pick up the alternator for the generator from the airport without too many problems. The customs people wanted proof that he was on a yacht in transit and luckily he had thought to take all the boat papers along with him to the airport so it wasn’t any problem. The alternator fitted in the space that the old one came out of – a relief as it is a different (newer) model. The frame for the whole generator was in the process of being welded up and the bushes for the rudder were being installed so all was good on the boat for the moment. As for his stomach ache – what can I say? One day of having the shits and he was feeling like death warmed up – it was a good job it was me who was sick with food poisoning on the 5 day trip to here, as he would never have survived! Even Abigail showed him no sympathy, poor Gerry.
He laid down on the bed for a short doze and I ended up waking both him and Abigail up in time for dinner. We went to a different restaurant close to where we had been last time. The food was good but it wasn’t cheap, this restaurant seemed to cater for a different crowd – the early, family crowd and we were the last to leave the restaurant as they were clearing all the tables away for the night – and it was only 20.30 hrs! After the short drive home we were all in bed and asleep by 21.30hrs.