28 August 2024 – Tahiti

We woke to a lovely day and all was initially calm. We had an early breakfast and then I had to take Mark & Corinne to the marina so they could get a taxi to the hospital so that Corinne could see the Ophthalmologist. I took the opportunity to fill all the petrol cans for the dinghy as we had used quite a bit.

I returned to Stormbird and took ropes etc out of the lazarettes as everything got soaked coming across from Moorea. I then cleaned the forward heads fully as Keith Winstanley is arriving tomorrow and I will need to prepare his cabin bit Mark & Corinne are using it as a dressing room. There were bits and pieces to put away and I waited to hear from Mark & Corinne as to how things went.

I managed to read for a while and as I was doing so the wind got up and we got closer to the boat behind us so much so that I had to take action. I was on my own and started the engine and I went forward and took the snubber off and pulled some anchor chain up. The idea being to shorten the chain so we would not fall back on to the boat behind. I hoped this would work as if it did not it would be quite tricky on my own taking up the anchor and moving. I had to take up two lots of anchor chain and that seemed to give me enough space to the boat behind but it was still closer than I would have liked.

Eventually Mark called me and Corinne has a detached retina and she will be operated on tomorrow. This was quite a shock and she is not sure how it happened. They told me when they would be back at the marina and I then went to collect them and hoped Stormbird would be ok. I collected them and we returned and all was ok. We had lunch and M&C had got some bread and a few other things.

We then took up the engine from the dinghy and tied the dinghy to the front and prepared ourselves. We upped anchor and headed to the marina. As the wind strength had increased considerably they put us on the end of a wall and we will no doubt move tomorrow on to the main quay. We connected the electrics so we can use the plugs as you would at home.

We then did some cleaning and preparing and filled the water tanks. We hoovered and prepared Keith’s cabin and made sure all was ship shape.

We decided to go ashore for supper as this was easy after a stressful day for Corinne. She has an operation tomorrow on her eye and is likely to stay in hospital for the night. We hope this goes very well.

Keith arrives in the morning from San Francisco which will be good. We are probably here again for a few days to see how things go as Corinne will not be able to fly immediately.  

Crewing Opportunity Year Two

In year two I will be going from New Zealand in early January 2025 across to Sydney and up the Eastern Australian Coast, Indonesia and then through Bali, Singapore and on to Thailand to end year two about the end of November 2025. I will need some more crew.

If there is any interest do email me at  hine.nick9@gmail.com  

The blog will continue as we move through French Polynesia and beyond. If you have any comments or suggestions about the blog do email me on hine.nick9@gmail.com