Yesterday (Saturday, July 3rd) we had been striving to depart Tahiti to sail 500 miles east to the easter Tuamotus Islands so we can watch the total eclipse of the sun on July 11th. We plan to watch the eclipse from one of two islands: Hao or Amanu. It appeared a good weather window was opening for Saturday evening. So, we worked hard all day to get the boat ready. This involved getting fuel, scuba tanks filled with air, new food provisions, cash from the ATM, checking the boat engines, getting laundry done, taking trash ashore, and many other details.
While we were doing all the items on our checklist, we sent Patti and Gerard ashore so they could do some sightseeing until their plane left later in the night. They finally left around 6 PM to have dinner ashore before heading to the airport. We were all sorry to see them go, as we had a fantastic time together.
Meanwhile, we had managed to get most of our assigned tasks done. But, a series of problems were thrust in our way during the late afternoon. For example, we tried to hang our laundry on our boat like we normally do. But, a series of rain showers drenched the clothes making it impossible to dry quickly. We would have to go ashore to get them dried in the expensive machines, but the marina office was closed so we couldn’t get money changed to coins easily. We tried using our onboard machine, but it was too much clothes for such a small machine. Meanwhile, some of the rain squalls started shooting out lightning offshore. Not only that, but the winds shifted and another boat was in the way and we would have to ask them to move in the middle of the night to pull up our anchor. At least two of us have colds now. The Internet was acting up making it hard to take care of last minute e-mails.
Any good sailor (sailors for centuries are known to be very superstitious) will tell you that if you have a number of calamities and you are trying to depart in a rush, it is now time to consider delaying. Given the number of issues we were having, and how tired our crew was looking, I made a prudent decision to delay.
We should be leaving soon. If so, we will be without direct Internet access for up to 2 weeks. We will still get posts out via our radio E-mail system and our satellite phone. But, it will be difficult for us to check our normal E-mails. Please be patient if you can’t reach us.
