Papillon in the Pacific

  La Orana! Strange things have been happening on Papillon this week.   I’m blaming it on the equinox which also gets cited for the continued unsettled weather but skipper rubbishes that idea as “an old wives’ tale” (oddly appropriate after last weeks celebrations!) and suggests I’m just overexcited for the arrival of our visitors on Monday.   Has the man no soul??     beautiful sunsets   and sunrises in Raiatea It started on Sunday.   We had popped into town to do some shopping and returned to find a frankly gigantic inflatable buoy attached to our mooring ring. Had someone observed my latest attempts at retrieving the mooring?  Was this an attempt to make my task easier? Seriously, that was my first thought, but it turned out our additional buoy was marker number 2 in a swimming course stretching from one side of the lagoon to the other. For the next hour or so swimmers splashed past accompanied by their support/safety t...

  La Orana! The rain persists – now into its third week.   According to “Met Bob” it’s all about the "South Pacific Convergence Zone" pushing troughs closer to French Polynesia than normal.   New terms to me but i f I was on my “holiday of a lifetime” I would not be happy.   For us its an interesting interlude but for tourists it must be so disappointing.   No azure skies and turquoise seas for them.   It's 50 shades of grey (no pun intended!) as far as the eye can see and that’s not very far!    turquoise colour of the lagoon   coral on the beach Indeed, we are attributing the behaviour of "Wind Spirit", a luxury cruise ship operating out of  The Society Islands, to the dreich conditions.   We had noticed her because after coming through one of the passes into the lagoon she was clearly gaining ground on us as we sailed north back towards Uturoa (in heavy misty rain I should add).  From where we were sitt...

  La Orana! The phrase “it never rains but it pours” was never so literally translated as in French Polynesia this past week.   We have been experiencing biblical levels of the stuff on the island of Huahine, approximately 30-40nm from Raiatea.   It has been driving against the hatches and pounding down on the coach roof for days now and shows no sign of abating.   It has easily been the worst week of weather since we arrived – not a problem per se but certainly not to be recommended if solar is your primary source of power.        wet fishing floats in Huahine  and excuse the sound track in the video - no men in sight except Skipper - but it seemed to go!   Skipper has downloaded every App known  man to monitor our battery health and this week’s readings have left him twitchy shall we say.   More than once we have resorted to using the engines to rectify the situation but its not ideal.   Most cri...

 La Orana! We have been on the move this week circumnavigating Raiatea on the third time of asking.   The trip started badly with winds unexpectedly blowing from the south leaving us no option but to sail north around Taha’a and wait for the predicted north easterlies to arrive.   For the most part we were on anchor watch owing to the strength of the wind, but we did manage one trip ashore to explore the “Taha’a Traverse” a walk following the route of an old road through the mountains.   The track is now so overgrown and pitted that it’s hard to imagine vehicles ever using it but for walkers it provides stunning views: craggy peaks appearing as if out of nowhere their outlines sharpened against the intense turquoises of the lagoon, and under the canopy an explosion of flowering shrubs and glimpses of the rare green tailed Raiatea Fruit Dove.   It was extremely cool but sadly will need to be completed another day as the wind continued to blow and we were reluctan...