Raiateia

Sunday, May 28, 2017
Patio, Society Islands, French Polynesia
We arrived at Raiateia on Saturday 25th at 6 am local time. This time we flew from the Cook Islands. Oh not by plane but with Te Kaihau. Despite its short mast (13 m instead of 18) and its small sails (we have about 1/3 of what we used to have), it took us 3 and half days to cover 750 nm i.e an average speed of 8.9 knots, truly amazing (1 nm is 1.85 km).
The first 48 hours were a bit rough . We were bith sea sick for a short while. May be the beer we had with Keith, his friend Kent and Marco and Sabrina, a french couple preparing their trip to Tonga, was not such a good idea. The beer did not stay in our stomachs too long...We sailed south-east for 2 days taking advantage of an unusual northerly wind and then north when it turn to the south-east. Te Kaihau did very well but we struggled we some leaking in the front hatches. Occasionally we had to run the moto to recharge our batteries so that the auto-pilot (the third crew), continues to work. Once anchored in the quiet water of the lagoon of Raiateia we realized how noisy and bumpy this ride was!
We spent our first day cleaning the interior that was swamped and rather smelly...and to sleep!
So all together the news are good, the repaired rigging functions well. We hope to find some new sails here.
More later.
Francois
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