6 September - On Watch

0600 position 17-50S 149-08W. At anchor in 56 feet, mud bottom, off of
Aiurua, Tahiti Iti

Night watches are over for a few months, but I am a creature of habit.
It is 5AM and I'm supposed to be on watch so sleep is elusive. It was the
rain that woke me at 4AM. A big rain squall rolled through about 10PM
last night, enough to thoroughly flush all of the salt from the passage
off of the boat, and I thought about setting up the rain catchment system,
but I was all snuffled up in bed and didn't want to move. After the
second big squall came through at 4 I decided it was time, so I got up and
spent the next half hour setting it up so all rain water that falls on the
deck gets routed into our two fifty gallon water tanks.

We're not low on water, but anything I can do to dilute the horribly
tasting Tongan water still in the tanks will be a benefit. We only just
switched from the aft to the forward water tank 2 days ago. That's pretty
good water management, seventeen days on one fifty gallon tank. My effort
to set up the catchment system should guarantee no more rain until we
depart this morning at 9AM.

Our arrival in Tahiti Iti went nearly as planned. After first light I
noticed that there was something wrong with the gooseneck where the boom
connects to the mast. A quick investigation revealed that the cotter pin
that holds the critical and beefier pivot pin in place had broken off.
The pivot pin had worked its way up, and now the gooseneck was twisted and
bearing on only one half of the hinge joint. This overloads the aluminum
casting and it probably would have fractured if we'd had a full mainsail
up, but because we had a triple reefed main loads were small and the
fitting was OK. We ended up dropping the sail to take the load off of the
fitting completely, putting the pivot pin back in position, and installing
a new cotter pin. The mainsail went back up, and we were back in
business. Whew, a broken gooseneck would have been a problem. By the
time we were done fooling around with the gooseneck we were approaching
the entrance channel. Roll up the jib, turn on the engine, jybe into the
channel, and the next thing we know we are in the calm waters of the
lagoon.

We powered up to the motu I recall anchoring at and exploring twenty eight
years ago, but it looked like people were living there now so we turned
around and headed back to an anchorage off of the small village at
Aiurua. We found a nice spot tucked in behind a peninsula that blocks
all of the sea and most of the wind. Very pleasant.

We are right up against the high mountain cliffs of Tahiti Iti. It
reminds me of the road to Hana on Maui. It's these high cliffs pushing up
the clouds as they approach the coast that is causing all the rain. There
is just enough flat land below the cliffs for some settlements, but its
not flat enough to build a road. So all of the transportation is by boat.
Yesterday afternoon the "school bus", a large outboard driven passenger
skiff, arrived first dropping off the elementary school kids and later the
high school kids. Water transportation works well for them because the
fringing reef is close to shore and totally protects the deep hundred yard
wide lagoon that is their highway. The lagoon is full of coral heads, but
they are well marked and the locals know where they are. We plan to pick
our way through the coral heads this morning when the sun is high enough
to the next opening in the reef, about a mile to the north, before
entering the open ocean for our sail to Point Venus.