Day 132: Bora Bora – 17/05/10

The day seems to start in the same way – more washing.  The boat looks like Wishy Washy’s laundry by the mid morning.

John strips out his cabin and washes the bathroom out (makes a good job of it too) then packs his bags so that he can take them over to his new living quarters on the yacht, A Lady, where he will remain until Australia.

As we have had our three days at the Yacht Club and more WARC boats will be arriving and needing the mooring balls, we vacate ours and anchor just outside in 85 feet of water.  Thank goodness we have a lot of chain – the weight of it alone should keep us in one place.

The washing is finally done, hung out to dry and the machine stowed ready for the passage in the morning.  We have decided to bypass Suwarrow in the Cook Islands, and head for Raritonga instead.  Since Mike mooted this idea, five other boats have said they will do the same thing, but everyone else wants to leave on Wednesday and we want to leave tomorrow so that we will be there for the evening of our wedding anniversary.  This means that we will be sailing alone, but we’ve done it before and at least going this different route means that we will cut off 150 miles of the journey.

There is another dinghy race in the afternoon, for the boats that are in the second group leaving Bora Bora.  I make a vegetable dish for tonight’s barbecue (the restaurant at the club is still out of action from the cyclone in February this year) and tidy around a bit ready for our journey tomorrow, then shower and wash my hair ready for going out.  I am allowed the luxury of using my hair dryer for the second time in a week, although Mike mutters about it becoming a habit (I normally use it every time but had to stop when we started having generator problems).  He’s got used to me not using it and thinks this is the norm.  I must re-educate him, maybe by using the hair dryer AND the straighteners, thus giving him a double whammy!!

It is an enjoyable evening and we see lots of people that we haven’t seen for a few weeks.  Jutta and Jochem from Chessie actually fly into Bora Bora, leaving their boat in Tahiti where it is still having work done on its rigging – a four day job having been spread over the best part of a month.  They will probably go straight to Tonga now, having missed out of most of the Society Islands, as well as the Cook Islands and Niue.

The barbecue is really good, with each boat taking a ‘pot luck’ accompaniment, and the club provides a wonderful creme caramel type pudding.

Photo:  World Arc pudding

Photo:  Jochem, Jutta and myself

Then it’s another round of goodbyes as Mike and I leave, ready for pastures new.  Cook Islands here we come!