SV 'Dream Weaver' anchored at Opunohu bay, Moorea

Before leaving French Polynesia we hiked up the hills between Pufau and Uturoa through pine plantations, scrubby steep clay goat tracks and into the high grassy peaks. Weary and footsore in Uturoa we spent our last FPF’s on apples and checked the weather. We were in for a bit of mild rough stuff on the way west to Palmerston Atoll.

We had been sashaying slowing in the right direction, but when got to Palmerston Atoll (the one with 55 people all with the surname ‘Masters’) the weather was too rough to anchor or pick up a mooring so we just hove to in the relative still of the lee and did some sail changes (replaced the No1 headsail with the No3 and reefed and tucked the main). We showered, cooked, ate and generally cleaned up. As is the drill here, a little skiff came out with one or perhaps two people (two heads anyway) to "welcome us" and tell us where to anchor or not as the case may be. Whilst hove too in VHF range we gathered an appreciation of the lives of the people there anyway - they are wirehaired freaks living a make believe life of normality, one in which the wheels are back down the road but no one has noticed!! They have adopted a super bureaucratic framework where all persons are known by a call sign and have fancy ‘job titles’. The English they speak is almost unintelligible. Their farewell message to us was so rehearsed that they even thanked us for gifts, although we hadn’t been ashore.