Tuesday, June 22, 2010

it's about time

Island of Moorea about 10 miles from Tahiti 17 30.8S 149 51.1 W

Been a long time since I wrote all of you but we have been so busy with prep for and then a wonderful visit from Zak, Sierra, Rob and Emma that there was just not enough hours in a day. Now we are playing catch up and repairing all the broken things with the parts that they brought and feeling bit blue to not have my little Emma here calling Grammy J, Grammy J come jump with me(she loved to jump on our bed and let me tickle her). What a trooper and wonderfully adaptive person that little girl is. She is so smart it blows me away. Her disposition is fabulous and it makes my heart swell to realize what wonderful parents Rob and Sierra are and what a delightfully happy child that helps produce. Zak has a very special relationship with her and it's way cool to see a 19 year old boy be so tender and loving. A neat role for him as he was always the baby in our family. He found out while he was here that he got his first choice for living accomodations at McGill so that is a welcome relief. He will be at an alternative residence...it's suites so more like an apartment- with kitchen. He got a single room but will have suitemates(good for him as he has never shared a room with anyone). He sure did grow up alot with the experience of living on his own this winterso will be happy to be cooking and shopping for himself and have that independence. Also he seems to appreciate us more than ever!

While the kids were here we mostly cooked and ate and did dishes and went to the beach and just enjoyed the time together. We came across the Sea of Moons as they call the water between Tahiti and Moorea and spent our time at 3 anchorages on Moorea. Did a fair bit of snorkeling but the reef here is dead. dead. dead so was pretty disappointing. Still some good fish but without the beauty of the reef alot of the experience is lost. Zak and Gram dove once and Bill, Zak and I another time but we felt that the quality of the dive was barely worth the effort of filling the tanks! The boys tried a day of kiteboarding and we did lots of swimming with Emma who is quite a good little waterbaby. One of the last nights we went out to eat and saw one of the Polynesian dance performances. The girls here are such beauties and so graceful. The arm movements are slow and willowy and their hips and fannies do things that I know mine could never learn. Quite amazing and they learn at such a young age. Some of the dancers were probably only 12-14, yet they moved like sexy ladies...Hmmm no wonder Captain Bligh and his men did not want to leave the "South Pacific".

Zak was supposed to leave after a week (while the Dietz's were staying for 2) because he needed to start his summer job. However a day before his flight home a national strike shut the airport down(no we did not organize it to keep him with us longer). Apparently the lack of fire fighters made it so that no flights could come in or leave and it stayed that way for 5-6 days ...what a mess because then we had to deal with rescheduling once it reopened and there were so many disruptions that it took another few days for things to be back on track. Luckily we were able to get Zak rebooked to go home with Sierra and Rob and by Fri things were back on schedule and relatively smoothe again. We still are trying to locate an inverter that we had ordered from Europe and can't be tracked as it got stuck in Paris during the strike. What a mess and very bad for an already hurting tourist economy!

We sadly put the 4 of them on a plane last Fri eve. and then were able to join up with the Puddle Jump Rendevous. Have met lots more cruisers and many will be on our same track towards New Zealand so that has been nice. The weather has been raunchy tho' finally seems to have broken today and the sun is out after 3 days of wind and rain and huge seas. We have delayed our departure for Huahine another day or two till the seas die down but are anxious to move on. Hope everyone has a happy solistice and you friends in Maine enjoy the long long days!!! Miss being there a bit now that it is" summertime and the living is easy".

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