Dreaming of World Famous Diving off my doorstep (Rangiroa, Tuamotos)

14 58.107 S
147 38.151 W

I don't mean to complain about sailing. When its been uncomfortable, I've tried to convey how it felt to Monsieur Blog, but its a very difficult thing to relay. All I will say about this 110 miles is that the day sailing was great and the night was the most uncomfortable that I have been... ever. This means something coming from me. There was one evening that I hitchhiked from Caledonia to Waterloo and dozed in a country side ditch propped up against a backpack. There was one night in a backwater guesthouse that I woke up sweating profusely from the heat and got up to see a black, shimmering outline of my body on the sheet. Thinking it strange, I turned on the light to witness a perfect outline of my body scribed by black ants. Nothing to do but sweep off what I could and lay back down. Would have gladly transported myself to these or any other slice of uncomfortable past.... anything but this boat bobbing around like a top.

The pass was ridiculous (abnormal winds out of the south that caused waves to tumble into the lagoon, over the "sides". Too much water in the bathtub when the tides pull the "stopper" out). I had become somewhat blasé on the whole pass thing, but this one set me right. Had some pretty big green waves over the side as it was, not sure what would have happened if we lost the battle against the current and went beam to the surge. Would have been ugly. Threw out the genoa to get a couple of extra knots when it became clear that the engine wasn't up to the challenge and squeaked through in the end.

Forgive me my attempts to describe some of the stuff that I am going through (good and bad) and they surely come across as dramatic ramblings, but they actually have happened (I couldn't make up some of this stuff if I tried ;)

Rangiroa is the most turisted island, which is still a far cry from what I would say is "Touristy". It is built up though and has the most infrastructure that I have seen in almost 3 months.

My French is getting better. Today I sat at a small snack with Walter and was able to have a real conversation around normal everyday life with the owner. Mutual understanding - what a treat. He ended up being able to speak English quite well, but that's neither here nor there :) Moonshine from a 2 gallon plastic jug never tasted so good.

Going to leave on Thursday, hit Moorea on our way to Tahiti for the 12th. We'll take a week to get the boat cleaned, start to get sorted on some more repairs, make some plans and I'll launch the 3rd part of my trip on the 19th. First plan is to put Mike into a hotel for 2 nights.