Sun, sea, sand, snorkelling and supermarkets.

Here we are in the exotic location of Papeete Tahiti, and what a culture shock it is after so many months away visiting tiny islands and anchorages in remote locations. Here, we have buses, cars, planes, traffic lights and supermarkets!

And supermarkets mean lots and lots of fresh veggies and fruit! For anyone who has never experienced deprivation when it comes to fresh goodies, you could never possibly understand the taste sensation as we dug our teeth into a bright red, crispy apple or a juicy sweet nectarine and then gorged ourselves on a huge bowl of salad with dinner! The supermarkets here are filled with a myriad of French products and this is definitely where one has to give the French credit
for choice, style, decadence and all things tempting, wonderful and fattening.

The anchorage came as a bit of a shock as well as there must be over a 100 boats nestled behind the protective reef with a magnificent view of the island of Moorea nearby. There's an upscale marina with all the facilities and terrific snorkelling and diving a short dinghy ride away. We have lots to explore yet as we've just arrived; getting something fresh was our first priority.

Again, the French know how to do things well. Checking into French Polynesia was quick, efficient and free. Such a phenomenal change from all our stops in South and Central America where every procedure meant jumping through half a dozen hoops and paying an absolute fortune for the privilege to do so.

Anchoring is free, dinghy docks are free (with plenty of them), water is free, fuel is duty free and laundry facilities are provided. However, I have to be honest, everything else costs an arm and a leg. Despite the temptations of the shops, we certainly won't be doing much provisioning here. Thank goodness we stocked up so well in Panama.

Our bow roller is already fixed. Paul was able to cut out the old one and get a mild steel bolt the right size which will do the job until we get to New Zealand. It will have to be replaced with stainless and we need to replace the nylon roller as well but he managed to tidy up the damaged part sufficiently to work in the short term.

We've done a brief check on the distances still to go before New Zealand and the start of the cyclone season and realise the need to press on. It's around about two and a half thousand miles to NZ and we still have the remainder of the Society Islands to visit before heading off to the Cooks and beyond. As much as we'd like to stay put for a while, we don't want to get ourselves into the situation of having to rush into bad weather at the last minute. With this in mind, we'll try to visit a bit of Tahiti by land and then head off to Moorea early next week.

I wish I could include some photos but I'm still battling with that. The internet connection is fine for text but I'm simply unable to upload photos. Very disappointing as this is such a beautiful part of the world and photos tell a much better story than I can. However, I'll keep trying.

PHOTO GALLERY:

Here we are in the exotic location of Papeete Tahiti, and what a culture shock it is after so many months away visiting tiny islands and anchorages in remote locations. Here, we have buses, cars, planes, traffic lights and supermarkets!

And supermarkets mean lots and lots of fresh veggies and fruit! For anyone who has never experienced deprivation when it comes to fresh goodies, you could never possibly understand the taste sensation as we dug our teeth into a bright red, crispy apple or a juicy sweet nectarine and then gorged ourselves on a huge bowl of salad with dinner! The supermarkets here are filled with a myriad of French products and this is definitely where one has to give the French credit
for choice, style, decadence and all things tempting, wonderful and fattening.

The anchorage came as a bit of a shock as well as there must be over a 100 boats nestled behind the protective reef with a magnificent view of the island of Moorea nearby. There's an upscale marina with all the facilities and terrific snorkelling and diving a short dinghy ride away. We have lots to explore yet as we've just arrived; getting something fresh was our first priority.

Again, the French know how to do things well. Checking into French Polynesia was quick, efficient and free. Such a phenomenal change from all our stops in South and Central America where every procedure meant jumping through half a dozen hoops and paying an absolute fortune for the privilege to do so.

Anchoring is free, dinghy docks are free (with plenty of them), water is free, fuel is duty free and laundry facilities are provided. However, I have to be honest, everything else costs an arm and a leg. Despite the temptations of the shops, we certainly won't be doing much provisioning here. Thank goodness we stocked up so well in Panama.

Our bow roller is already fixed. Paul was able to cut out the old one and get a mild steel bolt the right size which will do the job until we get to New Zealand. It will have to be replaced with stainless and we need to replace the nylon roller as well but he managed to tidy up the damaged part sufficiently to work in the short term.

We've done a brief check on the distances still to go before New Zealand and the start of the cyclone season and realise the need to press on. It's around about two and a half thousand miles to NZ and we still have the remainder of the Society Islands to visit before heading off to the Cooks and beyond. As much as we'd like to stay put for a while, we don't want to get ourselves into the situation of having to rush into bad weather at the last minute. With this in mind, we'll try to visit a bit of Tahiti by land and then head off to Moorea early next week.

I wish I could include some photos but I'm still battling with that. The internet connection is fine for text but I'm simply unable to upload photos. Very disappointing as this is such a beautiful part of the world and photos tell a much better story than I can. However, I'll keep trying.