0800 Position 16-29S 151-46W. On a mooring at the Bora Bora Yacht Club
Yesterday dawned clear and sunny, but the wind was still blowing hard out of the south east so our options for the day were limited. We were in the most protected anchorage on Bora Bora, but we had a problem. The next Americas Cup races are Saturday and Sunday and there was no way to watch them from behind Toopua Island where there is no WIFI. After a morning of boat projects, we decided to do some reconnoitering in the dinghy to determine our options for Saturday morning's races.
It was over a mile from our protected anchorage on Toopua to Bora Bora's main island, a long way to go in a dinghy with a four horse power outboard. But we wanted to take the dinghy because we had a couple of stops to make which isn't practical in a sixty four foot sloop. We were looking for TV coverage of the America's Cup, if possible, and strong WIFI if we couldn't watch the races on TV. We went first to the Bora Bora Yacht Club which has moorings and free WIFI, but no TV. We then powered around the point to Vaitape and The Maikai Bora Bora, which also had moorings and WIFI, but no TV. The Maikai was very exposed in the strong tradewinds though, and it would have been uncomfortable there on Van Diemen. With no TV options we decided that our best alternative was going to be the Bora Bora Yacht Club, but first we did some shopping and had lunch in the island's main town of Vaitape.
After lunch we headed back to Toopua in the dinghy. It was a long way and we were concerned about running out of gas for the outboard so we decided to try taking a short cut over the reef at Toopua's north end. That turned out to be a bad idea. We ran aground in the coral and broke the shear pin on the propeller.
We paddled ashore on Toopua to check it out. Of course, we had no tools and no spare shear pin on the dinghy. We spent almost an hour first taking the prop off and then jury rigging a shear pin. We used rocks and some nails we pulled by hand from a rotting pier ashore for tools. It was a feeble fix, but it worked for about a quarter of a mile before failing again.
So there we were, four poor souls in an engineless dinghy more than a half mile dead to leeward of Van Diemen in nearly twenty knot winds. We did have three paddles, but no oars or oarlocks. We spent the next hour paddling and walking the boat over the reef back to Van Diemen. We were exhausted, but we made it.
After taking a few minutes to recover, we weighed anchor and powered over to the Bora Bora Yacht Club where we picked up a mooring right in front of the dingy dock at about 430PM.
The next problem was how we were going to watch the races. They are not available on the internet here in French Polynesia but they are being broadcast on network TV in the US. Lori held her phone up to the TV last Sunday so I could hear the races on my phone using WhatsApp, but we want to see the action too. Someone suggested Skype, which neither Lori nor I have ever used before. I have my WIFI amplifier set up on Van Diemen's boom so we will have a strong signal from the Bora Bora Yacht Club aboard the boat. Late last night Lori and I finally got Skype working and we tested it with a video chat. The plan is that we will connect on Skype this morning and she will put her PC in front of the TV in Hawaii so we can watch the races. Stay tuned....
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