Bora Bora
Dear friends, Thank you Thank you Thank you so much for the warm birthday greetings. I had a nice relaxing day. We lounged around till lunch and Dan took me to the Meridian Hotel. We dinghied upwind to get there. Had lunch on the outdoor patio. I had marlin steak and fries and a glass of wine for $1900 F and Dan had a hamburger and fries and coke $1600 F. We walked around on the pathways - they had a canal way all the way around this place and little motus out back with little huts on them. I used the bathroom here and no flowers, must be a budget place Ha Ha! There was a swimming pool in the front over looking the bay. Very nice place. Then Dan took me to buy a Tahiti T shirt.
We were supposed to meet our friends to go snorkelling to see the manta ray, but they didn't come down this way so we swam ourselves. Went back to the boat and later that night 4 boats got together and celebrated Fantom (Tina) and my birthdays. We had lattes, cake and polavaka, an Australian meringue fruit pie.
Next day, we swam around the boat. Overcast and drizzly. Thursday 7-27 we had a big blow. Gray Hawk and Astrolade decided to go to the other side of the bay for better protection from the North winds. The wind popped up to 30K then clocked around to the South, it was pounding them on the rocks. Astrolade pulled up anchor and exited to go back by Fantom and us. But Gray Hawk was stuck. They couldn't get their anchor up. So they tied a buoy on it & left it there, and suddenly got slammed on the rocks and couldn't get out of there. So Astrolade went back to assist. Shane got in his dinghy and took a rope to Astrolade and his dinghy took quite a lot of water on, almost full. They pulled them loose with the wave surges. But before they got loose Sue on Gray Hawk got so scared she put out a call for help, a Mayday. She gave her quadrants and Fantom called in the Mayday for her. The Tahiti Navy was on stand by, a fisherman also responded. They got loose and fled for safety. They have a 2 yr old son and a 4 yr old daughter. Things got very panicky before they were done. When Sue called, she started to cry and so did I. When they got over here they still had to rig a new anchor, so Phantom (Dale) dinghied over to them to help rig one. So there were hero's everywhere and a happy ending.
We are all holding well and the winds got up to 45k last night. All day they have been 25-30K . Dan was up till 4:00 am this morning and then got 2 hours sleep before they pipped up again. So he spent some of the day sleeping. I didn't sleep much either but rested some. I kept busy all day cleaning out cupboards. Tonight will be another windy one. Two of our friends are out in this wind moving to Suwurrow where we will go. Glad we stayed here a while longer. Will listen on the SSB to see how they are coming.
It is very tiring to sail in stuff like this, not to mention very wet. Oh by the way - we lost our snubber on the anchor so we were out on the bow in that 45K stuff tying up a new one. But we are doing fine, just part of the cruising life, not every day is perfect, but most days are. Till Later Dan & Sandy
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