Dear friends, near and far, it’s time to bring our blog back to life. After nearly 8 months of “Roman holidays,” during which we focused on our usual activities, on April 25th we landed in Raiatea after a flight of about 34 hours, including 3 layovers.
Arrival at the Tahiti airport
We rented a studio apartment for a week near the boatyard where we had left Zoe in storage.
Friday market in Uturoa (Raiatea)
They’re having loads of fun
As every year, we had to deal with a series of unexpected events — not least the weather, which turned out to be much rainier than we anticipated, and the sudden breakage of the main 12V switch, which split in half and left us in the dark, fortunately while we were docked. On the bright side, we enjoyed a touch of social life, having been invited by Jerome, a microbiologist and sailor, to the Raiatea Yacht Club for the final evening of a regatta series.
After a week, Zoe was launched into the water at the boatyard marina.
Transfer from the dry storage area to the launching ramp.Instead of the classic travel lift, this marina uses a tractorFinally in the water!
At the end of the following week, we finally cast off our lines and set course for Ta’haa, the “twin” island of Raiatea. We were hoping to visit a renowned vanilla plantation there, but unfortunately, it wasn’t possible. Nevertheless, we stayed for a couple of days at the mooring owned by the plantation’s proprietors, whom we discovered to be a couple made up of a kind French gentleman and a friendly Swiss lady who had lived in Milan for many years.
Mooring in the bay of the vanilla plantation (not visible).
We then set off toward the island of Moorea, a few miles northwest of Tahiti, taking advantage of a “favorable” wind window that allowed us to complete the 100-mile crossing in 24 hours, most of which was close-hauled.
Back to French Polynesia
Dear friends, near and far, it’s time to bring our blog back to life. After nearly 8 months of “Roman holidays,” during which we focused on our usual activities, on April 25th we landed in Raiatea after a flight of about 34 hours, including 3 layovers.
We rented a studio apartment for a week near the boatyard where we had left Zoe in storage.
As every year, we had to deal with a series of unexpected events — not least the weather, which turned out to be much rainier than we anticipated, and the sudden breakage of the main 12V switch, which split in half and left us in the dark, fortunately while we were docked. On the bright side, we enjoyed a touch of social life, having been invited by Jerome, a microbiologist and sailor, to the Raiatea Yacht Club for the final evening of a regatta series.
After a week, Zoe was launched into the water at the boatyard marina.
At the end of the following week, we finally cast off our lines and set course for Ta’haa, the “twin” island of Raiatea. We were hoping to visit a renowned vanilla plantation there, but unfortunately, it wasn’t possible. Nevertheless, we stayed for a couple of days at the mooring owned by the plantation’s proprietors, whom we discovered to be a couple made up of a kind French gentleman and a friendly Swiss lady who had lived in Milan for many years.
We then set off toward the island of Moorea, a few miles northwest of Tahiti, taking advantage of a “favorable” wind window that allowed us to complete the 100-mile crossing in 24 hours, most of which was close-hauled.