A Successful Rain Dance

The culprit! Broken end of our transmission control cable

Poor MAGGIE showing damage to davits, stern rail, swim ladder, and marina railing!

A Successful Rain Dance

May 23 2015

Luc was telling us earlier in the week that only if the stars were aligned right and we appeased the good luck gods with a rain dance would we have a dinghy before the weekend. Well, here it is Sat am and a brand new dinghy has been delivered to our slip. It had been in a shipping container all week, but was unloaded Thurs and got through customs Fri. The repair estimate for the old dinghy was about $3000 and a minimum of a week's work. We went ahead with our order before the surveyor being sent from the insurance company visited us. He said it is repairable, however has since changed his mind! We made a claim for it and the marina damage. The boat repairs will be less than our deductible of $15000 so won't bother to clam them.

Rob repaired the engine cable which took most of the week. Someone came and repaired the stern rail using the metal from the davits which were unfixable. We will leave the davits, hydro generator, hull damage, and leaking backstay adjuster for now.

We have a few chores left for today but hope to leave early Sun. The plan is to sail directly to Bora Bora so that we can participate in some of the activities there. It is only 25 nm back to other islands in the chain so could motor that afterwards if we want to see them.

Pannikin (Steve and Angie we met in Fakarave) is now in the marina. They organized a dock cocktail time Thurs which was fun. Chris and Linda (Tom Tom) were here at the time. Tomorrow I can celebrate another Mother's Day with the local holiday. We have also been entertained right at the dock. There has been live entertainment many nights at the restaurant right across the street.

 Last night Rob and I had a special treat. There was an "Abba's Back" concert on the grounds of the town hall. A girl at the gate asked where we were from and invited us to sit in the VIP area up front .Two original members, Benni and Bjorn, were there with a drummer, bass, and 2 younger girls doing vocals. They were very good. The audience was having a very good time singing, clapping, and dancing as well as listening. And this was despite the fact that the girls spoke British English with some accent I didn't recognize, and the audience would understand mostly Polynesian and French.

When we get underway we will start to use the tracker so you can see if it really happens. It will be our first passage with only 2 people.But it is not far.  We should get there by Mon sometime.