More fine days enjoying the cruising life and settling into the swing of things more and more. As we await our heat exchanger coming from France we are hanging around our favourite spots in Moorea.
Days seem to pass by very easily as we spend the time snorkelling, paddling, various boat jobs and reading. We are starting to meet a few more cruisers too which is nice. We had a sundowner catch up with an American couple from the boat next door who moved aboard in 1997 and have been cruising ever since. After 5 years here in FP they are a mine of very useful information as well as a trove of boaty stories. In the anchorage today we met an Aussie couple with a 3 year old on board, hanging out with the Brazilian boat next to us with 2 littlies on board too. It is lovely to hear the kids playing and their excited voices as they see the dolphins in the bay. It brings back so many wonderful memories of our time as a family on our last trip.
Other than that, not much news at the moment. We have ordered a new dinghy which will come from France and we will get a new outboard too when the dink arrives end of July. The current one works well (now we have fixed the outboard and repaired a couple of leaks) but it is just a bit too small and the 8hp outboard just doesn’t have enough guts. Anything more than just Deb and I and it will not plane. This makes any trip slow and wet. We depend heavily on the dink and when we have more folk on board or go further afield it will be really important to have a good one.
The good news is that the exchanger has arrived in Papeete today so we will go back next week to put it in. Deb then takes off to the UK for a couple of weeks so I will stick around the airport anchorage until she gets back. So time has been spent on Amazon ordering boat bits she can bring back with her (including 2 new toilet seats – how good is that!).
The weather has been unsettled with plenty of sun but also many showers and some heavy rain. It has produced some very dramatic skies which Deb has captured in the photos below. I suspect one or two may inspire some of her lovely artwork too.