Tahiti Nov 5-7

5 Nov 2008

Brenda had a go at cutting my hair and did a fine job. Fortunately I was able to provide a good electric clipper with various heads and sharp stainless steel hair-cutting scissors. I took photos of the Raymarine ST60 wind instrument to send to John Moffatt in Adelaide, who responded to my plea for help on calibrating the ST60.

6 Nov 2008

Brenda and I took the ferry to Moorea Island, only 12 miles from Tahiti. There are several ferries that ply this route and it looks like we wound up with on of the best: Large, quiet, very well appointed inside.

At the terminal we caught a bus to the public beach and had a wonderful time swimming in the lagoon not far from one of those resorts with individual thatched-roofed apartments over the water. There was plenty of fish life and the fish were extremely – tame, I guess you'd say. Big schools of small colorful fish would swim along side and below us without much concern. As the morning wore on more and more families arrived for their frolic in the water.

Then we started walking toward the next town and were rescued by a lady in a 4WD whom Brenda approached for directions. We were actually in a trap because the walk to the town was miles away and would involve negotiating our way through many private waterfront houses. The woman drove us to the town. She lives in Europe, was visiting her mother, has a son who has a degree from France and is about to start an MBA in Sydney. Next week she was going to fly to Sydney to buy an apartment. She dropped us off at the entrance to her property, Villa something or other.

We had a good lunch, looked around town, then found our way to the water where Brenda had a couple of swims, the most memorable one around the concrete boat ramp next to a hotel. The fish were using the concrete as a reef and Brenda found herself with colorful fish swimming around and under her. (I had a siesta under a shady tree.)

We caught the bus back to the 3 PM ferry and were back in Papeete at about 4 PM.

That evening I found that my laptop was on, fiddled around with the Firefox browser, and discovered that we have very good WiFi wireless internet service to the boat.

Brenda and I went ahead of Arnold to the food court. Our favourite place was not operating that night so we tried a new one. Brenda had the steak and green beans. I ordered the chicken and green beans. They turned out to be two pretty stark dishes: a mountain of green beans with the meat on the side and some pretty good cheese sauce. As we returned to the boat we met Arnold and advised him to avoid the green beans. He went for the steak and chips.

There is a reason why I've described the meals at length. I woke up in the middle of the night knowing that I had some big stomach problems. I spent hours dealing with the worst case vomiting and diarrhea that I have had in years. By dawn my alimentary system must have been squeaky clean, a colonoscopy delight.

Shit happens.


7 Nov 2008

I spent the day pretty debilitated by my intoxication alimentaire, as the French say. In future I will avoid that food van and all chicken entirely.

Arnold and I got our wireless cards and we are now able to do internet work from the comfort and convenience of the boat – I think. The email has worked just fine and I am about to send this blog entry. The real trial is how it deals with photographs, which take a lot of bandwidth. Also, WiFi is by nature insecure so we will have to visit the internet centre for banking and other secure work.

After Brenda returns from her visit to a botanical garden we will have dinner on board then go for a walk to see the latest cruise liner in port. She has promised that we can walk around the food court and no where near the stall where I got the food poisoning, lest I leave them an inadvertent calling card.