May 29

Tuesday, 29 May 2012  Roosters! I almost forgot.  Lucky we learned to sleep through rooster-crowing in Penryn.  They are really big into free range chickens in French Polynesia.

L's blood pressure this morning: 120 over 76.  Pulse 67.  A result of eating Sientje's salt free healthy food, lots of exercise trying to stay upright on the boat and B being an angel.  I quit my child's dose of lisinopril 2 weeks ago.  So far we are bug-bite free.  All in all, all is well.

We wait around in the boat this morning waiting to hear from our agent by email about going to the gendarmerie to check in.  Eventually, Barry pulls out the file about our agent.  We are supposed to contact her on Channel 11 on the VHF radio.  Our VHF has been set on the US hailing Channel, 14.  So I hail her on the radio and VOILA, she responds.  We agree on a time to meet at the dinghy dock to go check in.  With a little surge in the water, Lynne has a hard time climbing out of the dinghy onto the concrete dock and pulls a flank muscle and scrapes her shin.  Not a good start.  We have a large trash bag full of all the plastic that we cannot toss overboard at sea.  We also have a smaller plastic bag full of some shopping bags, a water bottle and we cannot remember what else.  Both bags end up in the trash truck.  Our agent drives us to the gendarmerie.  In 2000, we had to walk the mile and a half up hill to get there  We quickly check in, as the agent goes to the head of the line.  Then we go shopping for produce.  The farmers market has one vendor and we score some nice tomatoes, a tiny pineapple and a papaya.  Then, to the first magasin (store).  We get some bananas.  After 3 more magasins, we have scored some carrots and a baguette.  There were potatoes in two of the magasins but they looked pretty dodgy.  So no potato salad will be made, even though one magasin has celery from Oxnard.  Can you believe it!  We get a taxi back to the harbor.  We are very, very thirsty by now.  We can hardly recognize Atuona from our visit in 2000.  There must be 20 times more cars and trucks this year and many more houses dotting the hillsides.  There is a covered, open-sided warehouse at the wharf filled with bags of cement for more construction.  There is the taxi service now.  There is a Mobil station by the wharf.  They must have run out of fuel before the supply ship came yesterday, since there are about 40 vehicles lined up to get gas and diesel in the morning.  Atuona has hit the big time!

Our agent reluctantly agrees to fax our paperwork to Papeete this afternoon so that we can get our copy back by the end of the working day.  One of the papers will allow us to get duty-free fuel.  We get the papers about 4:30 PM.  At that time, our agent informs us that the local Mobil station does not sell duty-free fuel after all.  DANG!  That was one of our incentives to employ the agent.  By now, we have discovered that the Mobil station had already closed for the day at noon.