18/5/2015 2 Comments Svend & I haul the yacht by hand!!In Papeete the Monday dawned & we compelled to move the boat from the side of the dock to a mooring on the new marina, easier said than done when you don’t have a gear box working & sails are impossible for the 100m move. The new marina was now working & we were officially the first occupants regardless of how we achieved this. The only thing was to pull it by ropes & strategic planning with regards to winds & a big container ship moored alongside us. Svend & I were given ropes & dinghyed across to our new home, Mark stayed in the dingy & Maureen was on the boat, both giving instructions to the new work horses of where we had to pull the boat to without letting it slam into the jetties etc or let the wind swing it around into the container ship etc etc. This we managed with precision timing, only losing control a little when the boat became to strong to hold & I couldn’t get the ropes ties onto the moorings quickly enough but Svend came to help out & the move was achieved in less than 30 minutes, (with about 12 hours of planning) Mark was immensely pleased with his crews efforts!!
The new Marina was officially opened a few days later with a ceremony & drinks & food laid on. There were speeches by the president & the mayor, followed by Tahitian dancing & drumming with all the necessary tribal costumes pulled on replacing their billabong shorts & t-shirts! The night was a lot of fun & we made sure we enjoyed their Beers with Vodka, (sold commercially in a bottle) & their dubious pineapple spirited cocktails which tasted like soft drink. Also over the last week or so repairs have required Svend & then Mark to be harnessed up, secured with ropes & hauled up the mast which is around 20m tall, on a tilting boat on the water. They & the rest of the crew got quite proficient at this exercise even though it was heart racing stuff for the individuals involved, but it would be a different story out at sea. Lessons on how to deal with stress! Again we all know that people deal with stress in different ways, & on a boat of 7 people stress is can be observed quite intimately. Quite rightly when the yacht had gear box failure & needed to be towed one would imagine a person to be immensely stressed, & would be forgiven for how he reacted. First things when we hit land was to find internet or wifi access, which was understandable as a lot of people needed to be contacted re the repairs on board & services etc, so a few hours of internet was purchased which should cover the next few days. It was now weekend & most business were closed until Monday which restricted how much could be achieved. Svend & I wandered around town & found a bar where we spent a few hours contacting our family & friends, checking emails & banks etc. And also of course Face Book was logged onto to see what was happening away from paradise. One of the first items I noticed was from Mark our captain, (posted about 10 minutes ago) posting NOT his experiences or frustrations with the sailing BUT some article about science that he was subscribed to!!!! Followed by umpteen others.!!!! OK the captains not so stressed that he’s not tempted onto Face Book when he has the chance. We returned to the boat several hours later & came up on Mark still on his computer, “come & look at this” he says, ……Ok some solution to one of our many problems???” I’ve been watching some clips on You tube on South Pacific,“ Oh, research on where we are? “NO,”he says “clips of the movie & musical South pacific Ive always wondered where it was set!!” Stressed, …….nah, Relaxed, yes,…….. he’s almost horizontal!!!!
2 Comments
Bernadette
5/5/2015 01:24:04 am
I can just imagine it Helen :). Keep writing.
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Toni
5/5/2015 08:47:21 am
great blog Helen xx
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