As I write this, Mark is down on his sore knees in the engine
\nroom trying to fix our water pump that suddenly stopped working
\nthis morning. Having no water on the boat is about as bad as
\nhaving a broken toilet – so it is pretty high priority for him
\nto fix it. Unfortunately our boat came with an Italian made pump
\nthat came with no directions, so Mark has to get this worked out
\non his own. Quite a challenge, and I am certainly no help at
\nall. We are anchored out in the harbor, having decided that
\nthere was no advantage to moving into the marina – at least not
\nuntil our pump stopped working. We may try to move into the
\nmarina tomorrow so we can at least use their showers and hoses
\nuntil this gets fixed. We have been to the town of Papeete a
\nfew times now and we are not too thrilled with it. To get there
\nyou catch “le truck” – one of a stream of badly driven and
\nrickety trucks that pick up passengers and take them between the
\nmarina area and downtown Papeete. It is about a 20 minute drive
\nand the road is filled with cars and exhaust and it is a very
\nshabby looking place (except for the tourist resorts that we
\ndrive by which do look very beautiful). The town of Papeete is
\nfilled with shops and restaurants and entertainment of all
\nsorts, but we are not really that interested in all the hustle
\nand bustle -and there are just way too many cars. We had heard
\nthat there were lots of activities going on this month in
\ncelebration of Bastille Day, but the events we have seen so far
\nhave been pretty threadbare – for example, the tourist guide
\ntalks about multitudes of food stalls operating by the
\nwaterfront, but they are just trucks selling very expensive,
\nvery bad looking semi-Chinese food.<\/p>\n
One of the pluses of being here is the terrific, huge grocery
\nstore – one of the French Carrefour chain – just a few blocks
\naway, and we have already been there 4 times trying to stock up
\non everything we can. They let you take the carts back to the
\nmarina which is incredibly helpful. It is fun going there just
\nbecause we run into so many people we know. All the boaters are
\ndoing a lot of shopping and it is pretty much impossible to walk
\nover there without running into at least 3 couples we know.
\nThere are a ton of American boats here and most of them know
\neach other. We are definitely not in the “in group” here – since
\nwe have spent most of our time on the trip so far with a handful
\nof boats which are all European, but we do recognize the names
\nof the American boats, and have at least met many of them at
\nsome point along the way.<\/p>\n
The Carrefour store is in a mall with several other stores
\nincluding a hairdresser – so we were finally able to get
\nhaircuts. The hairdresser was good, but very very quick with the
\nscissors and I think my head looks a little too much like Daffy
\nDuck, but at least it is better than before. He went a little
\nscissor happy with Mark and proceeded to shear off almost all
\nhis hair, plus most of his beard and mustache. I think it looks
\ngood, but it does take some getting used to. It may be months
\nagain before we get to treat ourselves to a “coiffeur” again.<\/p>\n
Prices here are absolutely crazy. We passed by some fruit
\nvendors on our way to Papeete yesterday and they were selling
\nsmall watermelons for $15 each. We actually walked out of a
\nrestaurant on the dock the other day when we saw the prices, and
\neven the local MacDonald’s sells their meals for about $10 each.
\nCheap looking skirts in the mall sell for $60 and flip-flops
\nrange from $15 to $40 – and I am not talking about fancy
\ndesigner styles either. Wine and beer are heavily taxed, and a
\nsmall bottle of coke is about $2.50. It is hard to imagine how
\npeople can afford to live here. Even the fruit, which was almost
\nfree in the Marquesas, is extremely expensive – several dollars
\nfor a small bag of lemons.<\/p>\n
Will keep you posted on our water situation…..
\nL.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
As I write this, Mark is down on his sore knees in the engine room trying to fix our water pump that suddenly stopped working this morning. Having no water on the boat is about as bad as having a broken toilet – so it is pretty high priority for him to fix it. Unfortunately … <\/p>\n