9 October - Money Buckets

0600 position 16-31S 151-46W. At anchor in 30', sand bottom, In the lee
of Toopua Island in the Bora Lagoon

On Tuesday after breakfast we pulled the anchor and headed off for Bora,
which is how the locals refer to Bora Bora. The wind was less than ten
knots from the east, and I was not interested in powering all the way, so
we tried sailing, first with the jib wing and wing, and then with the
spinnaker. About half way across the channel the wind filled in from the
northeast and we could no longer hold course with the spinnaker up, so it
came down and we jib reached the rest of the way. No fish again, even
though we switched lures multiple times. The swell and resulting surf on
Bora's barrier reef were not large, but we still encountered three knots
of ebb current as we tried to enter Bora's entrance channel. We motor
sailed in as there was no way we were going to make it in under sail
alone.

Josephine, David's wife, was staying at the Hilton on Toopua Island, a
small motu inside Bora's lagoon while David cruised with me. We decided
that a circumnavigation of Toopua was in order so David could check out
his wife's accommodations. After powering around Toopua we anchored just
off the south end of the island to do some snorkeling there. The current
was just too strong though, and I barely made it back to Moku pe'a without
being swept away. After recovering from our snorkeling adventure, we
moved over to the south end of Bora and found a mooring off of Bloody
Mary's restaurant, where we had dinner that night. Our Bloody Mary's
dinner was excellent, and helped make up for missing out on the Tahaa Mai
Tai.

Wednesday is hiking day when we are in Hawaii, so it's hiking day in
French Polynesia. We moved the boat to an anchorage off of the main pier
in Vaitape, Bora's principal village, and dinghied ashore. We first went
to determine if our friends the Seamans, who live in Vaitape, were home.
We found Maui Seaman and his son Honui loading the car for their imminent
departure for Australia. We chatted for a few minutes and they had to
leave to make their plane. Maui's parents, Bruce and Ramine, who live in
Bora part of the year were up in Hawaii, so with nobody left to visit we
took off on our attempt to hike to the top of Bora's mountain. It was a
tough hike. Two hours of mostly near vertical climbing with six ropes to
make it to the top of the 2000 foot peak. We got some great video and
photos on top and headed back down about 11AM. As we got near the bottom
it started to get dark and when we reached Vaitape the skies opened up and
it started pouring. It would have been dangerous on the steep slopes in
the rain. We were very lucky to have made it out before the rain started.

During the hike we came across some African snails which got us to
reminiscing about our small business as seven year olds. African snails
were out of control in Kaneohe in the early 1960s. You couldn't walk
across your yard without squishing some with nearly every step. They were
a real nuisance, and David's father would pay us 25 cents for every bucket
of snails we collected. It was implied that we would collect the snails
from David's yard, but it was not specifically stated so in the contract.
We discovered that the jungle in the undeveloped lot next door yielded far
easier pickings than in David's own yard, so that's where we collected
snails. We nicknamed the spot "Money Buckets". We made a small fortune
(for seven year olds) before David's father figured out what we were doing
and made us stop. Good times.