May 21, 2019
Good evening! Once again, I am writing from my 9 pm – 12 am
shift. Conditions are still light with only 8 knots of wind floating around.
We’re managing to convert that into a blistering 6 knots of speed which feels
very slow. Many of the boats we travel with would consider that a fairly decent
pace but we have higher standards for speed here on Charm! Tonight, the wind
gods care nothing for our standards.
Our new crew members, Chris and Griselle, are learning quickly. They showed up
on the 15th, laden with all kinds of goodies for us – a new spinnaker, books,
crosswords, water filters, Mac and cheese, blueberry pop tarts and
Butterfingers! All of us were happy to see them.
I was especially happy to see them since they brought new credit and debit
cards. When we were at the dock on the island of Raiatea, near the town of
Uturoa, someone came on the boat in the middle of the night while we were
sleeping and took Hoe’s laptop and my wallet. They had two phones in the
cockpit but left them behind for some reason. They also left two other laptops
sitting right next to Joe’s. They got very little in the way of cash but my
wallet had all kinds of useful stuff to me, including the wallet itself which
was the perfect size, with the perfect number of zippered compartments.
After the theft, I was trying to talk to the police and the bank at he same
time. Sparing you the horrible details, all of our credit cards and debit cards
got cancelled or cut up, including the ones in Joe’s wallet that were probably
still usable. To add to that, Joe told me he had just spent the last of our
cash reserves to pay for a repair to our SSB. Then I learned that my fallback
credit card had also been cancelled a month ago due to fraud concerns. The
helpful lady on the phone reassured me that a new one had been sent to the
address on file.
So we borrowed some money from our friends and, after they left, just didn’t
spend money until Chris and Griselle showed up.
So most of my time in Bora Bora was spent on a curb outside the post office (it
closed 10 minutes after I arrived but the hotspot still worked (and was
literally quite hot – the post office was air conditioned but its curb was
not)) which had the most reliable internet in town, setting up all my recurring
payments again while tracking down receipts for the insurance company for the
last time we got robbed.
Now we are at sea, with a gorgeous pumpkin moon that rose during Joe’s watch.
We appear to be leading the fleet. Sky is still in sight behind us but no one
else is around. Our faithful companion, Nica, has dropped off our screen but we
are sure we will see her again soon.
The photos are of yesterday’s start. Seaside is pictured with Bora Bora behind
and then Sky, looking lovely with her spinnaker and all different shades of
blue.
It may be hard to make out but the other photo is of Tully at one of the
roulottes (food trucks) that are very popular here. She was patiently waiting
for her ice cream. The staff just worked around her until it was finally ready.