POST

Wednesday July 18, 2007
The wind blew all night, but we shut our hatches because of occasional rain showers. The first one occurred while I was in deep concentration writing yesterday's blog while lying in bed. I felt little cold prickly things that I at first ignored, but when the water droplets appeared on my laptop screen I knew I had to rise up and close the hatches.

This morning the wind was blowing about 5 to 10 knots. The forecast for today is 30 KM/H, which is around 20 knots per hour like yesterday. John looks asleep in the cockpit, but says good morning as I make a pass by him to the galley to make coffee. In the distance we spot a French navy ship hovering off the coast outside the reef. Farther out there is a large white ship coming right at us; could that be a cruise ship? I settle into a cockpit chair with coffee and my binoculars. I look over the other boats in the anchorage. Several people are sleeping in the cockpit of other yachts. On the boat anchored behind us, the owners are a young couple that Deborah says are full of life and really enjoying their circumnavigation. The husband sold his IT business and his wife has taken time off; she is a colon surgeon. They have another young couple visiting them.

I notice that John and Susan on Silky are looking in the direction of the white ship. As I turn my binoculars in its direction I recognize the Princess Cruise line logo on the stack. The name of the ship is Tahitian Princess. They invade our little bay and drop anchor behind us. This stop can't be for shopping; it must be either to play with water toys or to go ashore to the tiki resort nearby for a beach party.

John, Ant and Deborah take our dinghy to look for mountain bike rentals. Deborah will bring the dinghy back and the guys will ride back on two bikes. This takes all morning; the bike shop is 6 or 7 miles away by dinghy and the ride back, at least 10 miles by road, takes almost 2 hours. One of the bikes has a flat tire on the way back. They have to return to the bike shop for a fix.

After lunch John takes Ant and I, with the bikes loaded in the Dinghy, to shore. Donna is going to get in the water and exercise, something she really looks forward to doing following her back surgery. We decide to ride towards where the cruise ship is landing people, the same direction we walked the other day. I am not surprised one of the bikes had a flat tire. There are many other things wrong with the abused rentals that are poorly maintained. One thing is the bike has 21 gears of which only 6 or 7 actually work. The breaks function less than medium good. Even so, we fly down the road with the wind blowing in our hair, what a thrill.

It seems the cruise ship people are coming ashore to take tours; there are some Moorea Adventure vans taking them to destinations on the island. The beach party must really be a pool party on the cruise ship. We could ride forever except our bottoms are already sore from the tiny hard bike seats. After an hour we stop and turn around; we almost reach the surfer area we saw the other day in the rental car; a 10 to 12 mile ride will be 20 to 24 by the time we get back to Bella Donna.

It's a good thing we turned around when we did; the body is suddenly telling me something. The wind is against us so while the wind may be blowing through our hair the bike is in a lower gear and slower on the way back.

Donna just finished her exercise and we all settle in for early dinner and retire early to bed.

God Bless Bella Donna.