Return to Raiatea
Leave Rhum Punch
On Monday, June 11, we return to Raiatea. After dinner, we go to the Club House, a restaurant at the Apooti Marina. Pete and I buy a round of drinks for everyone on Rhum Punch and say our official good-bye.The next day we motor to town and help Rhum Punch's crew get fuel and some more provisions. Then we motor to Carenage where Tilikum is located. Alan retrieves his rudder and finds out that it won't be ready until tomorrow. So we have one more day with Rhum Punch and her crew. We have dinner on Rhum Punch and then return to Tilikum for the night. On June 13, we say our final final good-byes to Rhum Punch's crew. We stand on Tilikum and watch Rhum Punch motor out of the anchorage. It was sad to see our friends of three months motoring away. The only consolation is that we might be able to met up with Steve and Duane in Australia in January or February 2002. We spend the rest of the day cleaning Tilikum.
Life Aboard Tilikum
When we found out that we would be on Raiatea before Dario, we emailed him and asked if we could stay on the boat before he arrived. He agreed and gave us a few instructions for operating some of the boat's items. He told us how to turn on the batteries and charge them, how to connect the gas for the stove, and how to use the water system.
The evening of June 14, Pete decides to use the stove to make
spaghetti. I wanted to walk about a block and eat at a place called Snack
Mimosa. Pete connects a cooking gas tank to the line in the cockpit. We open
the safety valve under the sink. We find a box of matches. There are three
knobs on the stove, two for the burners and one for the stove. We press the
knob farthest on the left in and turn it. We try to light the left burner.
After about 20 matches, which are slightly wet from the humidity of being on
the boat for the past nine months, we figure out that we were turning the knob
for the oven not the left burner. Oops. Once we get the burner lit, it won't
stay on unless you keep the knob pressed in. After about one hour and 100
matches Pete gives up. By this time it is raining out. I suggest we have peanut
butter and jelly sandwiches and raw carrots, which we have.
Dengue?
During the night Pete becomes ill with diarrhea and vomiting. The boat is on the hard so he has to climb down a ladder about 15 feet to the ground. Then walk about 30 yards to a disgustingly dirty building that houses one toilet, one shower and a large sink. There is never any toilet paper so we have to bring our own. Let's just say he didn't have a pleasant night. The next day we talk to a Canadian boat that is already in the water. Two of their crewmembers were up all night with the same symptoms as Pete. We hope they all just have a virus. We have heard that the Carenage Boat Yard is ground zero for the current dengue fever outbreak on Raiatea. In case you are unfamiliar with dengue, here's some data. There are four strains of dengue. You get it from mosquitos. Once you have had one strain you can never get it again but you can get the other three strains. Your symptoms are flu-like symptoms (aching bones and joints, fever, vomiting, etc.) but the worse that you have ever had. It can take up to one month to fully recover. Like the flu, there is no cure - just rest, drink a lot of water and make sure you have a lot of vitamins. We find out from the Canadians that five people who were staying in the boatyard on their boats have ended up in the hospital because of dengue. Apparently, you become so dehydrated that you need an IV.I'm concerned that we may have drunk contaminated water so I want to go to a store and get bottled water. Pete is not feeling well so I go alone. It is pouring rain and has been doing so all day. I leave the boat yard at 2 PM. The closest restaurant is closest. The next shop is a bakery, closed. About 10 minutes later I come to another grocery store, closed. Ten more minutes, the Apooti Marina where the restaurant is closed. Another five minutes, I find an open store and buy water. I'm about a mile and half from the boat yard. It is still pouring. On the way back, a woman on a scooter stops and gives me a ride to the boat yard. Ah, the trials and tribulations of living on a boat in a boat yard on Raiatea.
Tilikum's Crew
On Saturday, June 16, Dario arrives. What can I say; he is a typical Italian. I don't think he can talk without moving his hands. He also curses more than anyone I have met in my life and in three languages sometimes all in one sentence. He is from Forte Dei Marmi near Lucca and Pisa, Italy. He is 42 and single. Tilikum is the 3rd boat that he has owned. He is a great storyteller and had us in stitches when he told us about his adventures in Granada. A very abbreviated version of the story is that his crewmember, who was Irish, punched Mr. Stephens, the dock master, and broke his jaw. Mr. Stephens then sued Dario because he was the captain (under British Admiralty Law the captain is responsible for all the crew while ashore) and pressed charges against the Irishman. Their passports were confiscated. The Irishman spent time in jail before Dario could post bail. They had to hire a lawyer. Dario's trial lasted a few days and he was found not responsible. The criminal trial only lasted 4 days but they were spread out over a month's time. At the end of that time the judge said she could not rule on the case and it had to go to the higher court, which would be in session in four months, and they had to stay until them. Dario's lawyer then talked to Mr. Stephens and for $3000 USD he agreed to drop the charges so they could leave the country. They spent 2 months in Granada. They had planned to spend only two days.
Juan,
another crewmember, is from Barcelona, Spain. He left there 9 months ago and
plans to take two years to sail around the world crewing on other boats. We met
Juan on Hiva Oa when we were on Rhum Punch while he was on another boat
named Joss. We also saw him in Papeete, Tahiti. He is single and 43. His
girlfriend will be joining him in Australia and they will continue around the
world together.The other crewmember is Mike from Wellington, New Zealand. He owns a 30-foot boat and loves to race it as often as possible. He has lived in London for the past 9 months working for a bank doing data warehousing. After London, he did a boat delivery from France to Croatia. Then he visited Egypt for two weeks. Then he spent a few days with a friend in Seattle before flying to join us. He is in his early thirties and single.
Work Done on Tilikum
After a boat has been closed up and stored on land for 9 months, you know that you will have some work to do. Well, we have been very busy as indicated from our following to do list:
- Wipe down everything inside
- Scrub the boat lines that were left on deck for 9 months and are moldy
- Clean musty sheets and pillowcases left on board
- Fix outboard engine that seized up
- Fix engine alternator that seized up
- Change engine oil and filters
- Replace roller furling part that broke when putting genoa on
- Patch 3 holes in dinghy, repatch with different glue when patches come off in water
- Empty all four water tanks, refill, drain, fill again
- Borrow a water filter and fill 20 bottles for drinking water
- Spend $500 USD provisioning
- Pop blisters on the boat's hull, fix, paint with antifouling paint
- Power sand Dario's air tank for diving because it is full of rust and repaint
- Remove old depth finder and get yard workers to fill hole
- Put in new depth finder and mount it
- Try to fix leak from water pump
- Try to get the refrigeration repair man to come find the hole in the system and fix it so we can have a refrigerator for the next 5 months
On
Friday, June 22 Tilikum went into the water. Yeah! That afternoon, we
all ate tuna sandwiches from a restaurant. That evening I skipped dinner
because my stomach was in knots. I don't know if I had food poisoning or what
Pete had but I spent all night vomiting and going to the bathroom. I actually
slept in the cockpit so it would be easy for me to vomit over the side. I also
was feverish. Dengue? Yuck! About 24 hours after I started to feel bad, I was
better. I decide I had what Pete had, a virus. But then Juan started to feel
bad, fever, aching bones, etc. He went to the hospital. The doctor told him it
sounded like dengue but he wasn't sure. The doctor told Juan to eat a lot of
fruit for vitamins and drink a lot of water and rest. He said if in 4 or 5
days, Juan had a bloody nose or gums then he had denuge and should come back to
the hospital. Hopefully he just has what Pete and I had. Two days later Juan is
weak but feeling much better. We talk to Russell, an American from Long Island
who will be sailing his boat with us to Bora Bora. He met Dario last year and
they became friends. Russell says that they all (him, his wife Barbara, his
daughter Lisa and a family friend, Dennis) were all sick with similar symptoms
as me and they ate tuna sandwiches from the same restaurant as us. Now I think
I had food poisoning. Let's hope everyone stays well from now on.
Future Plans
We plan to sail for Bora Bora on Wednesday, June 27. Russell and his crew will leave on that day as well. We will spend at least a week at Bora Bora. We will then sail to two other small French Polynesia islands before moving on to the Cook Islands.