After all the World Cup matches concluded (and I watched a lot of them very early in the am, the 3rd place match being the best), boat repairs were made (sail sewing, bowsprit welding, and running rigging reversal). The eclipse happened. We had a 96% coverage-blockage, whatever, it looked like the last sliver of the moons cycle. It got dim but not dark. Brian said it was like the Kentucky derby, months of hype and build up and its over in 5 minutes. Yup. I didn’t really have a whole lot to do while in Tahiti. I finally went swimming for the first time (in Tahiti/Moorea) yesterday (Sunday, Eclipse day). Wow. I was surprised to find there are not really a lot of beaches with sand to swim at in Tahiti, and the few places that are, one needs a car to get there. Oh, not to mention the buses stop at 5pm and don’t run at all on Sundays. Hmmm.
I really shouldn’t say swimming; it was more like playing in water with a dinghy raft up on a sandbar. Actually, we played volleyball with a net set up in the shallow water. It was very cool and very fun indeed. The locals make their pontoon boats look like Tiki huts and their were many of them on the sandbar. Some of the Tiki boats even had BBQs on stilts sitting in the water.With just a few remaining chores/ repairs to be made we had nothing holding us back from leaving except for the fact we wanted more crew. Well, that didn’t seem to be a problem either. As soon as we posted an ad on the bulletin board, voila, we had interested parties. It seemed like Tahiti was the place for boat musical chairs, so to speak.
In the end, we got 2 very nice ladies to join as crew. Mona, the first to join, is from Denmark, and Paula is from Australia. Both women are only short term as they have places to go/be by the middle/end of August. That’s okay with me, it’s back to girls rule……. :) Meow!
