Welcome to the Maunie of Ardwall blog

This is the blog of Maunie of Ardwall. After a six-year adventure sailing from Dartmouth to Australia, we are now back in Britain.

Sunday 30 June 2013

Acclimatising to the pace of life in Papeete

above: The Quai des Yachts and one of our smaller neighbours
 
Pepeete is a busy French city with a noisy dual carriageway boulevard (quieter at night, thankfully) running close to our pontoon moorings. Shops, cafes, bakeries and a very good supermarket are within walking distance so we've been able to do a bit of a restock and take in the sights. Yesterday (Saturday) was some kind of national holiday so the streets were eerily quiet in the afternoon as all the locals headed out to the beaches and everything shut at midday.
 
Our plan is to spend a couple more days here before heading down the west coast of the island for some quieter anchorages. Stormvogel will be here for a couple of weeks getting various boat jobs done (they will be hauled out for paint repairs and new antifouling next week) so we'll meet up with them in one of the other Society islands.
 
Tidal fact fans will be interested to hear that the society islands are situated on what is called an amphidromic point where the tides are not affected by the moon. Instead there is a solar tide so high water is at midday every day of the year. Something for you to drop into lulls in conversation.
 
Anyway, must get on with a few jobs on the boat today. The trusty sewing machine is coming out for repairs on stitching ravaged by UV on the sprayhood and dodgers; never an idle moment (well, hardly ever) on Maunie.

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