5 October - Laughing Up

1600 position 16-38S 151-29W. At anchor in 14', mud bottom, Haamene Bay

Lori and I spend a couple of days biking, hiking, snorkeling and preparing
for David's arrival. We did some great hiking and exploring through the
maraes of Maevea, an area full of ancient religious ruins. The name of
our favorite restaurant/bar adjacent to the dinghy dock in Fare had been
changed to "The Huahine Yacht Club" to attract more yachties, and it is
working. We enjoyed too many mai tais there one night.

David arrived on schedule Friday morning and we met him at the airport on
our bicycles. We wanted to get him into island cruise mode immediately,
so he and I rode the bikes back to Fare and Lori took a taxi. After some
shopping for baguettes and wine we were off for Avea Bay at the south end
of Huahine. We stopped along the way for a snorkel on the barrier reef
and anchored for the night at 4PM. We were surprised to find just one
other boat in Avea Bay. During previous visits it has been so crowded
that we've moved to avoid the fleet. It doesn't seem that there are as
many cruising boats in French Polynesia as there were in years past.

David brought two special wines that we shared with our grilled eggplant
and rib eye dinner. A great evening of catching up. David reminded me of
an experience we shared years earlier in college.

I was a sophomore at the Coast Guard Academy while David was in the same
year at Cornell. He decided to come visit me one weekend, but had no
where to stay. The Coast Guard was pretty strict about only cadets being
admitted to and staying in the barracks (dorm), but I had a room adjacent
to a stairwell on the first floor, making it easy to sneak somebody into
and out of my room from outside the building. My roommate wanted to go
away for the weekend, but he didn't have leave and we had bed checks to
make sure we were there. So we decided to kill two birds with one stone
by having David sleep in my roommate's bed. Duck Soup. The only other
concern was the varsity sailing meet I had to compete in on Saturday at
home against Tufts University. My normal crew in the two man dinghies was
otherwise occupied so we decided that David would crew for me. This was
strictly against NCAA, ICYRA, and Coast Guard Academy rules, but we didn't
care. We dressed him up to look like a cadet and took him down to the
boathouse. Our coach looked at David skeptically. He'd never seen David
before, and clearly he wasn't a cadet (the long hair tucked under his
watchcap and mustache were a giveaway). But if he said anything then he'd
have to find me another crew, which he wasn't prepared to do, so he let it
go. We sailed and won A division, and our team beat Tufts in the meet.
David still complains about not getting his Coast Guard letter jacket.
Good times.

On Saturday morning we sailed back to Fare where we left Lori on the dock
for her flight to Papeete and home to Honolulu. Lori and I had a great
three weeks revisiting the favorite anchorages from our cruise three years
ago and exploring to create new favorites. It was like another honeymoon
for us, and I was sorry to see her go. We will meet again in Hilo when
she joins Moku pe'a for the final leg back to Kaneohe.

After we made sure that Lori's Air Tahiti flight was still a go, we cast
off the dock in Fare and David and I set sail for Tahaa. We had a great
sail wing and wing all the way to the far end of Haamene Bay where we
anchored at 315PM. We completed SOP1, cracked open a couple of Hinanos,
and relaxed before our planned dinner tonight at the Tahaa Mai Tai.