We are in Raiatea, tied up to a dock here.  It's really nice to be at a dock or at least it's different. We sailed from Moorea to Huahine, an 2-overnighter. Stayed there one night, position 16 degrees 44 minutes south- 151 degrees 2 minutes west. Then sailed to Raiatea position 16 degrees 44 minutes south- 151 degrees 27 minutes west. We'll stay here for a day or so, then to Bora-Bora, we walked around the town today & visited with some other cruisers most of the afternoon.

JULY 3, 2000
Cruised all night. Friends from Belgium were there so we anchored with them, by the beach of the village and had a nice visit.  They went to town to look and see.

I cooked dinner - it was going to be a simple dinner as I had already made a pasta salad,  so I just had to cook hamburger patties. Dan was doing boat stuff and all of a sudden we had 50 some flies in the boat!  I think they were after the meat. So Dan said "we are moving". So we pulled anchor and moved to another bay with dinner right there already on the table and everything,  well you know the hamburgers were cold by the time we ate them. Was about to rain but got there just in time. Only one other boat there. But mosquitoes began to come in the boat so we put up screens and a smoke coil. Worked pretty well. After dinner, kids on shore were practicing bongos and drums, probably for the competion in Papette. It really gets stuffy and warm with the boat closed up, so we turned on the fans. We didn't even go ashore there, we just decided to go to Raiatea.

JULY 4, 2000
16.43Sx151.26W Raiatea. Huahine was short,  not much to do there but we should have gone to the other end of the island because others said it had beautiful snorkelling. Great coral formations. One couple was going to dinghy to the other side to see 6 foot eels. We heard there were sharks, so we didn't go down there.

At Raiatea we came in the pass on the 4th of July afternoon. Tried to anchor on the Motu island by the entrance, but couldn't get a good hold. So we came closer to the village and found a brand new free dock to tie up to for a few days. First time we have been at a dock since Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. We met Topaz (Tulree and Per) from Norway, and we visited with them and also another boat came in with a young boy (30) and his friend (girl) 25 he was from New Hampshire and she from Hawaii. That was our 4th of July.  I had mentioned that it was the 4th of July and they had forgot also. The Norwegian couple thought we would set off loud noises all night. But things were very quite. Friends from Belgium (Pearo and Yavana) showed up on the 5th. We visited with them. Told them why we had to leave so abruptly (the bugs). Dan and I walked around town. Kind of dirty here. There are lots of little shops and markets. Not too much to do.  Dan looked for a special restaurant that was in our book, but he couldn't find it. Then by noon everything closed and we went into the grocery market to get pop, bread and ice cream for lunch.

JULY 6, 2000
Dan decided he needed a chart for the other part of the island Tahaa, so we walked 2 miles to the Moorings and got a chart.  the woman there gave it to us for free since she had to leave to pick up someone at the airport. We had lunch there - Hamburgers and french fries. We met some people who were just renting a boat and we talked with them for quite awhile. They wanted to hear our stories.