I bet her internet don't work

I'm in Cook's Bay Moorea, there are 3 forms of WiFi available, I've paied for both and neither will work. When everyone asked why we give the Internet away free on Brighton Beach I say "cos were nice people". Its also cos its bloody hard to make it work well enough to charge for it. I understand and sympathise with Ioranet and hotspotWDG, I know its hard. But I have paid, succeeded in paying, all gone through and everything, now give me my bloody password, your unsing chillispot for god's sake, I know that software like the back of my hand. I can make it sit up and beg and Ioranet, it says "No usage time remaining" right next to the history of me paying your for time! Grrrr. The net result is no idea when this will get uploaded.

I've been remiss in my blogging since I got to French Polynesia really. Its great here. Exchange rate's improving thanks to Greece as well.

As I said the rally is in Cook's Bay, guess what that's named after. He was a captain. Knocked around these parts alot. Far be it from me to argue with such a man about an anchorage. I've been here before, we found it very deep. Errr Al if your reading this we anchored in the marine reserve bit that says "No Anchoring" Doh!

 
Outrigger Sailing Canoe

Took a look around yesterday. More pictures of the anchorage are in the Moorea Gallery. From better angles this time. Cos we hired a car yesterday to look around. Last time we were late leaving from Papeete, so were going to get to boring boring in the dark. So we anchored looked and left.

Amongst other  things one of the posh hotels has a dolphin centre, festooned with writings about "Education". Its a dolphin petting zoo. Where the rich can pay to pet a dolphin. Its not the dolphinarium I object to its the pathetic cover. They've also a sick turtle sanctuary. One of who's occupants was clearly dead. Floating, blown against the fence not moving, with its shell half cracked by the sun and the submerged part of the shell growing weed. Great sanctuary.

Hmm my spell check can't get dolphinarium it suggests delphinium.....

Part of my  lack of blogging is due to the lovely trips I've been doing. Here's some advice, which I guess I already knew. Dolphinarium crap, Guagin museum crap. Scenery awesome. French Polynesia is expensive as hell. The best bits are free.

 
Sunset from Island Kea

 Fortunately the rally have put on some stuff, the aforementioned outrigger sailing canoe and dancers. I'll do a gallery at some point, I didn't take my camera to the dancers. Katrin has changed card's on hers and I've not got hold of it yet. The above picture is from Gill on Spirit of Nina, she can't complain after all the IT support I've given them!

Many of the dancers male and female hips are more blurred than Elvis in his latter, flabbly days. The effects of very fast hip movements in low light. Now I got dragged in the the pig dance in Nuku Hiva (too low light to be usable) others got into this one. I was feeling sick any way. My hips do not move that fast. I'd have dislocated my pelvis if I'd tried that.

Island kea Updates

The boat is running well. The huge battery bank used to power the boat has seemed week and feeble. The long engine run to Rangiroa seems to have done it a power of good. The last time it had a good charge was Antigua. And that was off the mastervolt nobby battery charger. Mastervolt are in my opinion too clever by half. Because of our generator troubles. We've bought a little Jackal style petrol generator. Its power ouput is a bit messy and the mastervolt detects it and won't charge. Damn. Our main generator is fixed. But not as happy as we'd like. Quite a lot of gunk comes out of the breather from the crank case. Stuck or damaged piston rings probably. We're piping this through the old screen for the water and out a pipe on deck. It seems to be running ok...... touch wood.

 
Island Kea leaves Rangiroa

Katrin is Icelandic, not flying the flag right now, financial crisis and volcanoes being what they are. She's got three brothers, all marine engineers. They, she, and the world in general are wondering why they are at home on land and she is in the middle of the pacific with a dodgy marine generator. One of them had a skype call he is positive about our generators survival chances.

 We got alot done in Tahiti, and I fixed tweaked or played with a lot of peoples IT problems. Also swaped some photos. Steve and Maria off "Aspen" decided to photograph us leaving the pass at Tiputu in Rangiroa. Partly for us and partly I suspect to see what happened. The large southerly swell was throwing waves over the reefs and motus on the southern side. Acting as a pump to fill the Lagoon up. It meant the pass never stopped ebbing. We punched into it and we flew out like a cork from a bottle. They shot video as well and its fab! Not even going to try and uploaded it right now, even if I could get on line.