This story begins 8 years ago with the chance meeting of two catamaran crews. Both Stray Cat and Salish Dragon were spending the day at a small anchorage near Vancouver. Tracey from Salish Dragon brought her paddle board along side and introduced herself. After introductions it turned out that they had just returned from Alaska, we were on our way there. They were planning on heading to Mexico at about the same time we were. The friendship was inevitable.
We stayed in touch and eventually caught up with them again in San Fransico and spent the next 3 years buddy boating the west coast of Mexico. We carried on down the coast on through the Panama Canal to end up in the Caribbean. They headed west and crossed over to the South Pacific Islands.
Fast forward to the present and we received a call from them. Their son was getting married in June and they were wondering if we would be interested in “boat sitting “ for them. We quickly answered YES!
The last week of May we flew to Tahiti and then caught an inter island flight to Fakarava. The plan was to spend a couple days exploring the atoll then sail with them to Tahiti. Weather changed the plans and we had to leave the next day.
The 2-day sail to and 4 days around Tahiti allowed us to get to know their boat a little bit before they handed over the helm and headed home to Vancouver. That gave us a month to sail around the Society Islands before we had to give their boat back.
We made the short hop over to the island of Moorea and spent a couple days in Cooks Bay before we made the overnight run to Raiatea. We got pinned down here for a few days due to winds and high seas. Once they abated, we moved up to Taha a for a couple nights. Then over to Bora Bora for 4 nights. We would have stayed longer but we had a weather window that permitted us to move southeast back to Moorea. We had to take advantage of this window as it was a break in the predominant wind pattern, and we needed to get the boat back to Tahiti eventually. After a few more days sailing around Moorea we move back to Tahiti and to the Marina Taina for Steve and Tracey’s return.
With just a few more days left in Tahiti, we rented a car and spent a day touring the island. We made it to Teahupo’o where the experts surf so we had to hire a water taxi to take us out to see the action. As luck would have it there was a women’s competition underway and we saw some awesome surfing skills. We spent another day doing a 4X4 over the mountain tour of the island. WOW what a ride. Quite literally up and over the mountains in the middle of the island and out on the other side. Switchbacks, 20 percent grades, a tunnel and views forever. Then in what felt like the blink of an eye our adventure was over. A massive thank you to Steve and Tracey for trusting us with their “Dragon” She treated us very well and we had an amazing time.
Now we rest till we can get back to our boat and start the next chapter.
Very, very cool! Does it give you some inkling to point Stray Cat in the direction of the S.Pacific?