We were talking to friends in Germany and mentioned that we had “finished work for today”. The lady laughed and said “Your life is a holiday. What work do you have?”
Well the last two days we have been anchored in a bay off Tahiti so we wake up late, have fun and eventually manage to drag ourselves in to the cockpit where a negligee clad Heidi serves brunch which takes us through to midday. A few hours of sunbathing, swimming and WhatsApps and it is time for afternoon coffee with the neighboring boat before we all dress in casual smart clothes to visit the yacht club for a sun downer followed by an evening meal on their terrace.
In our dreams!
The day begins with a coffee and French lesson to get the brain working. Yesterday was lequel, laquelle, lesquelles and today s, ss, c & ç so a great way to wake up. The following breakfast is normally combined with a planning conference when we agree “the plan”. Yesterday was meant to be easy with a quick change of the motor and gear oil and food resupply.
Run the engine to get the oil warm and fluid and then extract the oil with the suction pump, twist off the oil filter, new filter on and refill back to the correct level. Easy! It would have been if the suction pump had not developed an air leak, the filter wasn’t on so tight and the spare filter wasn’t the wrong size. But no problem. You can seal an air hole temporarily with an oily tissue, the shop at the end of town can order a new filter from Papeete and they also had a better filter removal tool than our current one. Today the engine oil is changed and now we just need to find some one that sells 20W gear oil.
Shopping began with a stock taking, checking that those items we believe we have agreed with the actual contents of our lockers. The food is all below the seats in the saloon so dismantle everything, empty the cupboards and count. Once we were sure of what we have it was easy to create the “big shopping list” for the next three months.
With all the bags we owned, we took the dinghy across to the marina and walked in to town and to the supermarket to fill two trolleys. Shopping is also good for the brain. If one tin of beef costs 483 francs but you can buy a pack of three for 1456 francs, which is cheaper and is 0.7 kg of milk powder for 634 or 0.8 for 712 better value? Good that we had both paid attention in mathematics forty-five years ago.
Luckily a local friend had agreed to drive us from the supermarket to the marina so we “only” had to carry the shopping to the dinghy, ferry it back to the boat, lift it onboard, sort, store and document it all. And on the second day it was just a case of buying diesel, gas and oil.
The sun down drinks really happened. They were mixed by Heidi on board and followed by home made hot dogs with a fried aubergine relish and special yogurt sauce. Who needs a yacht club when we can prepare food like this onboard?
And did I mention that at some point during the two days we also dismounted the anchor winch motor to replace the brushes? Or that we found that the leak in the front cabin is from the holding tank?
There’s always something to do on board.