Tahiti, French Polynesia to Rarotonga - July 2016

Josie Maria in Tahiti, French Polynesia (Marina Taina) 24^th June 2016 to 15^th July 2016

From June 24^th to July the 14^th July, Gordon and Charlie worked tirelessly to ensure that Josie Maria was ready for the voyage to Australia and the remainder of her South Pacific crossing.  James departed on the 26^th June – Thank-you James for your help in moving Josie Maria from Galapagos to Tahiti.  If there is an opportunity for you to join us again we will be in touch!! Gordon and Charlie were assisted by Bud Gilroy, our Yacht Agent (Tahiti Yacht Agent, who made the of completion a tight deadline of repairs possible and went above and beyond what was required by assisting with shopping for favourite wines and O-rings for our dive tanks at the last minute! Thank-you Bud your help – it was much appreciated!!

On Wednesday 13^th July, John and Vicki, farewell David, Emily and Matthew (the last of their family to depart Tahiti!).  After the quick trip to the airport they head back to their hotel to pack, check-out and re-join Gordon and Charlie on-board Josie Maria for the final part of a three-year epic journey to bring Josie Maria back to her home port in Sydney. Upon John and Vicki’s arrival at Marina Taina, Gordon, Charlie, John and Vicki had a working lunch, discussing and planning the completion of all the necessary jobs, to ensure that Josie Maria and her crew were ready for a 15 July departure.  In the afternoon we all participated in a major a provisioning shopping expedition – 6 trolleys of goodies!! The food should last us to Sydney!!  The entire evening was spent packing away food, John prepared a delicious steak and veges for dinner and John and Vicki found time to unpack and make their bed!! Unfortunately, their custom-made mattress protectors didn’t make it back from the laundrymat in San Cristobal – fortunately some generic ones were bought – so all good!! It’s quite easy to loose linen/towels/clothing when you are on the move – and not easy to pick it up when you’ve moved on!!

By nightfall there is still a lot of stuff everywhere…..so will need a marathon effort tomorrow to ensure Josie Maria is in ship-shape!!  Thursday 14^th July was the first full day John and Vicki had on board for a couple of months. The day was incredibly busy with washing and lots of packing stuff away.  When you pack things away on a yacht there is literally stuff everywhere(!!).  You need to lift floorboards to store things away (in every nook and cranny!) so at some stages there is nowhere to sit! During this time John and Vicki had a few work phone calls to deal with – I hope that we were able to contribute!!

John cooked for most of the day, using the fresh ingredients bought, and prepared some easy-to-prepare at sea meals such as Bolognese Sauce, Chicken Cacciatore, and a couple of Lasagnes - one refrigerated while the other was frozen!  It’s a real blessing having a good chef on-board!! The evening was spent with all of us working with Charlie and Gordon to ensure that they had submitted all the requirements for their Australian Visa applications – the process was quite time consuming and there was the need to create/find and print, sign and scan lots of documentation for uploading onto the immi website.  It took a lot of time!!

On the 15^th of July we prepare for our departure to Rarotonga. Gordon and Charlie, found out in their morning emails that they had to front for biometric identification within 15 days, as part of their Australian Visa application…. John and Vicki also tried to do last minute work emails, as well as updating the Raymarine software in the hope that this would cure some of its 13 problems we had in Panama, while we still had a reasonably good internet connection!  Bud came over in the morning and we waited for the immigration official to come on-board and sign us out of French Polynesia.  As South African’s, Gordon and Charlie had already been given a 2-week Visa extension in French Polynesia - this was only allowed because of all the problems that Josie Maria experienced on her passage from Galapagos to Tahiti, and the necessity to repair her so she was seaworthy for the next passage! John, Vicki and Charlie spent the rest of the morning with our agent Bud who very kindly assisted us with some last minute shopping, after the completion of the boats paperwork!

We all ensure that Josie Maria is ship-shape for her voyage, John and Vicki head off for a late lunch, while Gordon and Charlie move Josie Maria to the fuel dock for fuelling. The last chore before we leave! Unfortunately, Gordon can’t get the bow-thruster to work – Vicki remembers that there is a red mushroom button in the forward cabin – and if this has been pressed the bow thruster won’t work! It was just as thought!  Unfortunately the Visa requirements and bow-thruster malfunction added to the stress of a departure that felt all too soon!! However, we had to leave!!

The Journey to Rarotonga - Friday 15^th July at 1530hrs Josie Maria departs Marina Taina, Papeete for Avatiu Harbour, Rarotonga arriving at 1630 on Wednesday 19^th July!

Josie Maria motor sailed to Rarotonga, with winds mainly 8-18 knots from the E to SE (on our stern – behind us!) and swells of 1-2m for the first few days.  The wind moved around to the E –NE at 2100hrs on the 17^th July at 10-18 knots.  Josie Maria was a rolling bit at times, in the bumpy sea conditions -  but all in all this part of the journey was very enjoyable! We did experience a few Raymarine issues – with the unit resetting itself several times (be great if we could fix this!!), which keeps everyone vigilant when on watch! When Vicki was on watch the SSB alarmed– Vicki turned on the BGAN to see what the DTSTRESS ACK 00503001 message meant –it was an emergence relay message from Australia – and we are definitely too far away!!
 In the early morning of the 19^th (0100) the wind turned E – NE and we experience a trough/squall with winds 24-30 knots from midnight until 2pm on the 19^th July these winds came from the S-SE. There was a lot of rain with the squall and visibility was poor at times.  The radar was full of colour from the passing troughs! We were very happy to get into Avatiu Harbour and can’t wait to go ashore!! We tried to contact the harbour master on VHF channel 16, but got no answer so we med moored with our stern to the Harbour wall.For more info on Raratonga see our next post!