Departure and Arrival

We departed Anchorage on 8 May, stayed about 24 hours with Conni's dad, LaVerne, then flew on to Los Angeles, to Papeete, Tahiti, then to Raiatea. Here we sit, recovering from long, sleepless hours on flights.

RFP, the Raiatea Airport near Uturoa. This is our pile of gear in front of Raihau's little stand from which he rents his tiny cars to tourists. That's Raihau coming up from the parking lot to help with the loading.

Wings! She's been waiting in her cradle for 10 months. She looks great to us, at least from the outside. Her cover is mostly intact and you can see the new center section.

A new and more powerful engine next year, requires a larger propeller to deliver that extra power to the water. This 16-inch diameter prop needs to be 18-inches in diameter. The MaxProp company, manufacturer of this prop, will do the work of enlarging the blades. We only need two-inches of clearance for a new prop, so we have plenty. The bottom paint looks good. The red wire behind the prop is a jury-rigged ground system: I've designed a better and more effecdtive one.

Our first look at the Raiatea Carenage building after a recent rain. Little has changed since we departed. Wings is in the yard behind the fence at left.

Champion, one of the two best markets in Uturoa. It's full of color and community activity.

Conni's first shopping spree. The aisle to right has nothing but UHT (ultra high temperature) milk, that can stay without refrigeration for a long time.

Goat milk? Perhaps we'll skip that.

The 200-pounds of gear in our marked and secure travel boxes. My enormous red Bill Bag stands among them. Thankfully, this is the end of the line for this stuff and we'll slowly unpack to get gear to the boat.