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run out but the gendarme was willing for us to stay on a few days. However he wanted to retain the bond 'in case you have an accident and we have to repatriate you at our own expense!" As he seemed to think we had no money I said, "We need the bond money repaid so that we buy the fuel so that we can go!"
That was the magic bullet. "It is highly irregular," he told us. But "Oui".
The next morning the bank paid back the bond, roughly the equivalent cost to a one way ticket home. As he carries a E.C. passport, Michael had not needed a bond . We posted our letters, drank an overpriced cappuccino at the cyber café and then returned to the boat to feast on ripe avocados before moving Sea Quest into the fuel dock.
At the dock as the fuel gurgled into the tank, I struck up a conversation with the skipper of a superyacht with an all Kiwi crew. The 30 million dollar yacht had suffered a knock down on the way to Bora Bora, after which their motor would not start. Its not just the smaller yachts that suffer these things…
We cut off the fuel at 700 liters, unwilling to pay high prices to completely fill our tank, trusting that the fuel would be cheaper in Samoa. With the 200 liters we still had, we would have ample in an emergency to power the thousand miles to Samoa, if necessary.
That evening, in company with other cruisers we had a drink at the yacht club hotel. The conversation leapt to a discussion about the huge yacht carrier that is transporting not just super yachts, but more modest boats across the oceans so that they may cruise distant parts of the world without the trouble of sailing there! Oh my, but how cruising is changed.
We anchored out by one of the motus for a day and night and swam in the warm water. The only fish I saw was a beautiful trigger fish with a hide like a modernist painting.
As we rounded the island the great basalt pinnacles seemed to contorted and twist so that from the same peaks gave the illusion of belonging to different islands. The following day, we headed around to southwest side of Bora Bora through a lagoon as bright as a shimmering opal.
Michael and I are ready to leave Bora Bora and the Society Islands. We are sated. The islands are so beautiful….but we are too much on the outside --- just tourist looking in. Traveling without the enrichment that comes with personal contact with locals is meaningless in the end. We might as well just buy a coffee table book. Without touching her people, the island remains little more than a cardboard cutout.
Penrhyn Passage
18 Oct 2002
Day melts into nights into days, until one knows time only by the waxing and the waning of the moon, by the grand progressions of the stars. Dawn makes its daily weather forecast, dusk pulls a welcome curtain across the sun's
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