What a lazy day today, at least for everyone but Ben and Chantelle. Those two started off the day with a scuba dive. They called last night from Bloody Mary and were picked up by the diving boat this morning from our boat.
While they were gone for several hours until 12:30, the rest of us took naps, read a little, cleaned up. We discovered our pizza dough had unfortunately grown mould and some bananas were getting too ripe. Actually, I think we were all tired and didn't mind the rest.
The weather today was actually quite crappy. It rained on and off and the skies were mostly overcast. Gusts of winds came and went as well, but we were well moored to Bloody Mary's buoy.
I didn't even put on my sunscreen until mid morning, but even before I was sticky from the humidity.
Chantelle and Ben came back from some amazing dives. Lots of big sharks out in the ocean, and a place with tons of manta rays.
We ate lunch then went back to Vaitape. We had a hell of a time finding a parking spot though. All the mooring buoys north of town were taken. We tried stopping off at Total for some gas but Hilton Bora Bora shuttle snuck up in front of us and prevented our docking.
We eventually anchored nearby in 30 meter waters and dropped rode down to rope and went to town.
Chantelle and Ben did a run part way up the mountain while the rest of us strolled town, going to Super U and Chin Lee for some supplies.
I'm not sure, but I think a little boy gave me the fist. Ben told me the first time here that he got the finger from a woman. I wonder if there is a lot of tourist resentment here on Bora Bora. I guess that wouldn't be surprising since this place depends so much on tourism yet all these people are in your village all the time.
At five when we returned to the dock, it was raining, but this time, it wasn't a quick in and out rain, but a continuous rain that would last the rest of the night. This wasn't entirely unexpected because More Mike had checked the weather forecast earlier and today was supposed to be a thunder showers day progressively getting better the next two days.
We gritted our teeth and set off in the dinghy back to the yacht, tourists laughing at us from the dock, and us laughing at ourselves.
Because we weren't sure about the anchor scope, we motored off to where we anchored the first night we were here in Bora Bora. It was getting relatively late by this point being around six when our anchor was in place.
We had a nice dinner with the rest of our burgers topped with mushrooms and goat cheese.
Ben and Chantelle were obviously wiped. And it was only eight thirty. Then the wind started blowing in gusts again. Strange and ominous sounds came from the boat. We checked the GPS to find that we were about 65 meters from the mark that I placed upon anchoring. At one point during a gust the boat seemed to have snagged something and jolted a bit, followed immediately by the bilge pump going off. Strange. Then the bailing device we made by cutting a water bottle in half blew inside the galley. Are these omens?
Ben told us stories about sailing when he was younger with his family and that fateful Friday the 13th when their monohull was knocked down shredding sails and such. I shared some stories about races that I've read about.
Watching the GPS, Ben said he now knew how his father felt when anchored and how he would always have a drift alarm and double anchors. The GPS never drifted further than the 65 meter radius fortunately. I double checked around the boat. There were no snags, the anchor appeared proper and there wasn't any coral within headlamp range. I was actually impressed that the water was clear enough for me to be able to definitively say that.
So we decided to set alarms throughout the night just to check on the GPS and make sure we hadn't drifted.
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