CNI came through!

They fixed the trailer and hauled us out as promised. New Morning is now safely stored on land in a one piece cradle. And a few extra months in the water doesn't seem to have done her bottom any harm as she clean up very nicely.

Thank you to Karin and everyone at CNI!

This is a good news, bad news posting. We received this Christmas greeting from CNI, the yard in Raitea where we left New Morning. As you may recall, we had to leave her in the water until they fixed their trailer and can pull her out, hopefully early next month. It's a lovely greeting, and if you look closely at the picture, you'll see that beyond promoting beer for Christmas, there is New Morning in the background, still floating!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Toute l’équipe du Chantier Naval vous souhaite de passer de très bonnes fêtes de fin d’année!!

Je vous rappelle que nous sommes fermés du 22 Décembre au 4 Janvier inclus.


All the CNI teem wish you “ Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!!!”

I remember you that we are closed from the 22 December until the 4 January.


CNI Teem
Vive la HINANO !!!

Now that everything is working again I'm trying to clear the backlog. I've just uploaded the photos from Moorea. Soon I hope to get to the photos from Bora Bora, Tahaa and the other Iles sous le vent.

I also posted Fay's most recent article in Sail Magazine. It was published last year, but while cruising we never got around to posting it. See what she writes about Sun, Heat and Humidity also available on the In The News page.

And last but not least is an excerpt from Chuck Paine's career retrospective My Yacht Designs where he describes New Morning as "our very best Performance Cruiser design". Quite a compliment from a designer with such a long career.

After a month of trying to reach the developer of the plug-in I use for the photo pages through the support pages on his site I was growing quite frustrated. I scanned some forums and was able to find a direct email address for him. Then as soon as I contacted him he responded and fixed the problems! So last night I was able to upload the photos from Tahiti and this weekend I'm hoping to add more photos from Moorea and the Iles sous le vent.

But the weather is so nice this weekend, crystal clear after some big winds earlier this week, a bit crisp, but still beautiful, I may get distracted...

I've been hoping that I could post our pictures from French Polynesia, but the software that I use to create the web site has stumbled badly and is currently not operational. If I attempt to add new photographs I'll lose what is already posted. The software developer seems to have disappeared so no I'm seeking another solution. Until then, I hope you're enjoying the holidays!

According to the dictionary, a "warning or indication of a future event".

Our original plan, confirmed many times with the boat yard here in Raiatea, was to haul out yesterday. That would give us today to tidy up New Morning in her cradle on dry land and work with the woman who will be her caretaker.

Last Friday we saw the wheels had been removed from the carriage used to haul the boats out of the water (old school - the boat floats onto the carriage, then they pull it all out of the water with a winch and tractor). Over the weekend Fay expressed some concern that being hauled on Monday meant we would be the first boat hauled after the "repairs" which made her a little nervous.

Then while talking with Jerry over the weekend, a retired navy doctor now cruising in a small sailboat, he cautioned us that the haul out schedule could be a little soft and could easily slip by a day or two.

None the less Monday dawned clear and sunny. Karin (the admin who runs everything) advised us we'd be coming out about 1pm when the tide was highest. In the morning they would haul another boat which had a shallower keel. No problem as 1pm gave us plenty of time to get a few last minute things done and then we'd have all day Tuesday to finish up. At 1pm the other boat had been pulled from the water, but the carriage was barely out of the water and the workers were still at lunch.

By 2pm I double checked with Karin, but she was still confident, telling us that they would shortly be moving the other boat to its storage location. At 3pm Karin came by to say that things were going slower than expected and they would have to haul us on Tuesday. Jerry's guidance had become reality. But no problem we were ready to go and could still complete everything on Tuesday afternoon before flying out on Wednesday morning.

At 4pm Karin came by with additional news. The carriage had broken under the weight of the previous boat and they would not be able to haul us at all! Wham, Fay's comments foreshadowed the problems with the morning boat. And as we walked by the morning boat it was clear that all was not well, though the yard was carefully using what they had to get it safely positioned in its cradle with a combination of a forklift and a small TravelLift from the adjoining yard. We were glad we were not the first boat after the repairs.

So now they are only going to haul boats up to 15tons (we are 20 metric tons). However, the week before the Christmas break they will be completely rebuilding the carriage to handle heavier boats so they can haul us in January. And they will be happy to have us stay in the water until then.

So New Morning stays in the water until January, at which time they will haul her out and store her on dry land. "The best laid schemes of mice and men / Go oft awry…".

We've now been here for a week and it's been a full week of work. No snorkeling, no fish pictures, no sailing, just work. New Morning is now incredibly clean, probably cleaner than when she was launched. Every locker, all the stainless, the decks, the lines, the hatches, dingy, outboards, you name it it's been cleaned!

And after almost three weeks of rain every day we've had two days of clear sunny weather so we got everything dried out and put away. We have a few things to do on Saturday, then we'll take Sunday off and haul out on Monday. Then end of almost a full year of cruising. Just in time for winter in California.

But don't stop reading just yet. I've got a lot more pictures to post so you can see the full season. And then I'm going to be adding some pages on equipment ratings. Equipment to buy and equipment to avoid. So if you're a cruiser or sailor you may find our equipment experiences useful. And I'll probably update a few other sections as well. But first, time to finish getting packed up here and catch a flight home.

Well we're in the "marina" at CNI. It's pouring rain, it seems the rainy season may have started early as we've had rain every day for the last ten days, but today is particularly heavy. Check out the "Where's New Morning" and the satellite picture shows our location on the dock.

Amazing snorkeling today. The coral river adjacent motu TauTau is just phenomenal. These are a few of my favorite fish.

First is the Picasso Triggerfish. It's obvious what inspired the Picasso part of the name.

Next I was able to capture two nice fish in one picture.



The lower fish is a Rabbitfish and above is Checkerboard wrasse. The Rabbitfish looks sort of like brain coral or a maze. They're monochromatic, but still striking. Entirely the opposite is the wrasse. The coloring on the wrasse is hard to capture, it's absolutely iridescent. I think the amount of checkerboard versus green and hot pink waves changes as they develop as we saw them a more or less checkerboard.

And then finally the Orange Lipped Triggerfish. One of the drawbacks of this location is the abundance of urchins. There were hundreds of these long spined black urchins, lurking under every clump of coral.

Some of the fish names are so obvious. Like Big Eyes that have - you guessed - big eyes! But I don't know who came up with Rabbitfish or Triggerfish.

For the last week our weather has been dominated by a very slow moving low. First there were 3-4 days of southerly winds. Those made the mooring in Bora Bora uncomfortable, but we took advantage of them to sail to Tahaa. Today the low is quite close so last night and today we had almost no wind at all. That made our last anchorage a little problematic since drifting to the east had the potential for wrapping our anchor chain around a mooring. So we moved south a couple of miles to Baie Tapuamu opposite Motu Tautau (or Islet Tautau). We had tried to visit Tautau yesterday but a few miles straight into the south wind at 10-15 kts and 1' - 2' chop in the dinghy was just not going to be in any fun so we turned around and went north to the village of Patio which was a more protected trip as we headed around the north shore. Then the wind died last evening and today was almost flat calm. From our new base in Tapuamu it was quick trip in flat water.

We snorkeled between TauTau and Maharare in the "coral river". The water was very shallow which was challenging, but the fish were amazing! Several kinds of trigger wish we hadn't seen before, some new wrasses that looked absolutely psychedelic and lots of clams. Fay got some great clam shots, but this is the one she likes the best.

Then back at the dingy I shot this "screen saver" view of the southeast tip of Maharare looking north. Not much I can add, I think the picture says it all!