SOUTH PACIFC ISLANDS!!!!

Tuamuto's WOW, what a place to visit. We arrived in Fakarava after a 4 day sail from the Marqueses islands. We met up again wth our good friends on Tigger , which is a very modern Cat and fast!!

We started off by doing several dives through the pass and what a great time that was. We made 2 drift dives with a wall of sharks to swim through, yes so many sharks I have never seen so many sharks in one place...OK, this is not another fish story, sharks , sharks and more sharks...WE happen to be in Fakarava for the annual dance contest. One night after having a fabulous dinner at a local French restaurant, we were walking back to the dock and heard music. We ventured towards the music and it was one of the local group of dancers practicing their routines. They allowed us to stay and watch, cheering as every dance was superb. We ended up sopping by 3 other occasions and the day of the contest we were there to cheer for them. The competition was good, but not as good as our group. We also was in the area for the local spear throwing contest to spear a coconut up in the air on a pole. It was a very unique sport to witness for sure. We ended up staying at Fakarave for almost 10 days. Tracy fund a superb black pearl necklace from a local black pearl farmer and he mounted it for he. A few days before we left , we wanted to go back and snorkel one of our favorite snorkel reefs. We were going and decided since it was far by dingy , we had already made a dingy trip there before and aalso had taken Elysium there before , we decided to invite any of the boaters that had not been to go. We loaded up Elysium and had 23 persons aboard in total. One person brought a spear gun, and after everyone had their fill of snorkeling he jumped in and shot a beautiful large grouper, but he was out of the water in a hurry with the fish due to the many sharks wanting his catch.

We were surely sad to be leaving Fakarave but it was time to sail on.

We arrived in Tahiti 2 days later after a great sail. We visited the many stores in town, toured the island with a rent a car and visited some of our fellow cruisers we had not seen since leaving Galapagos Islands. One of the days here, while on the boat a storm blew in from nowhere, this happens all the time in the islands. A British sailboat started dragging and before he knew it he was leaning on a reef. I was already calling him on the radio to let him know he was dragging but he did not have his VHF radio on. I jumped into the dingy and able to get him pulled off the reef before he was hard a ground. As we toured the island of Tahiti we were able to also stop at many f the famous surf spots and many locals were surfing.
We left Tahiti and headed for Moorea, where it was so pretty and was just like it is described. We also toured Moorea by car, hiked up to a waterfall and stopped at several of the famous surf spots. At one of the beach parks , was a local couple that were the care takers of the park. they lived there and ensured the park was always clean and ready for anyone to use the beach area and was always spotless. We met them and they introduced us to their local way of using coconut milk as a dip for the bread. It was awesome.

From Moorea, Elysium headed for Huahine. The first day I met a couple of Americans living there. We organized a small friendly poker game. the 2 local Americans and myself and Tom which was on a chart boat from Sunsail Charters.. I never have been good at poker. I ended up hanging with Tom and his wonderful family until they had to depart to head back to Las Vegas. We cruised back to his base and had a few more days of fun with Tom, Cindy and the kids.

After they departed it was time for Elysium to be moving on but there was a storm warning and so I went to the next village and stoped at the public dock. I ended up getting stuck to the dock for 4 days in bad weather. That wasn't so bad because while there I met a local retired ships Captain that lived in Bora Bora. He was there with his wife in the hospital for surgery on her foot. When I left headed to Bora Bora , I invited him to sail along to Bora Bora and he accepted. It was his first time to sail on a trimaran. Once we arrived in Bora Bora , he directed me to where his house was and anchored right in front of his house. The next day he introduced me to so many of his friends and after a few days he wanted to marry me off to a local girl so I would stay and make charters in Bora Bora. I declined politely and thanked him for the offer.

Elysium has been in the Society Islands for almost 3 months, great weather, great anchorages and great people. The Tahitians I met were so very friendly. I knew it was time to leave that area when they want to marry me off! One stop I really like while in the Society islands was Huahine, It is not a known place but they have some great surf there!!!!

I have now left left the Society Islands and my next stop was an Atoll in the middle of the Pacific called Palmerston! It has been in several write ups in sailing magazines. They welcome sailors to the Atoll and there are 3 families that actually almost race to see who will host and feed the cruisers at there home during the stay at Palmerston. I could not stay longer then 2 days because it was not an official port of entry and they allowed me 2 days rest after my 5 day sail. Here is a photo of downtown Palmerston on the Ilsand. From there Elysium head on to Nuie in which I stayed only 2 days due to a problem with the fuel filter system on Elysium and so I departed and sallied directly to American Somoa's in which this is where I am now.

From here I plan to sail to Fiji and hope to stay n the islands of Fiji for 2 months , weather depending!!

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