The Russians

Aug 20, 2230
Moored in Apooiti Marina
Aloha Everyone, here we are back in Apooiti Marina. We had a wonderful dinner last night at Hibiscus and we heard about a funny story that had happened a few days earlier. Apparently there was a group of Russians chartering and had come into dinner with the ones we were talking with. They spoke good English and enjoyed drinking to much. One of them complained to the one who was relating the story that he thought the moorings were a little questionable. My friend told him that he had apparently used the tag line that holds the floating buoy to the mooring line which is normally about 1.5 in. So the Russians headed out to retie and returned to cold dinners. After dinner, they realized that whoever tied up the dinghy didn't do so well, so it was gone. My friend said it was probably just a 100 yds or so down the shore due to wind direction. They headed out and did find it as predicted. They got it back to the restaurant and my friends headed back to their boat. A short while later, they here women screaming, my friends look out and find that the Russians were motoring back to their boat and the engine conked out and they were loosing ground trying to paddle back against the wind. They were ending up on the reef. A jet ski from the restaurant came out and towed them to the boat. And then one of the ladies fell in trying to climb aboard the catamaran. Story led to many laughs. And I thought I was having frustations! Anyway, we had a pleasant dinner of lobster, talked with some interesting people, and had a pleasant night of sleep. This morning, we headed back to marina and picked up a car. the girls took off for awhile, while I tried to get hooked up to electrical system. My charging system requires a transformer to bring it down to 110V from the 220 they have here. For some reason, I have to reverse my wires to make it work, which it did in Bora. However, here, it seemed to pop the system, as it did a few weeks ago. It started out okay, and I was very happy about it. I then decided it was time to move transformer into an unexposed area, and all of that led to it pooping the circuit. I walked the long distance to the [ort captain, and he re set it again. It happened again. I had the foresight to borrow a charger from the car rental guy who I have seen numerous times this summer and he let me borrow his just i case. So when mine did not work, I tried his. It didn't work, so felt really frustrated. Then I borrowed a 220V hairdryer to check on the circuit and realized that it probably wasn't working now due to the polarity switch (hey, it worked in Bora!). So I switched polarity and it still didn't work until I realized I was trying wrong plug. Long story short, borrowed charger working, not as well as boat charger would, but functioning. The girls returned from their adventures, we cleaned up, cocktailed ourselves and headed out for dinner. Jane wanted to redeem herself with our card game, Oh Hell, and she did a fine. job. We take her to airport in the morning and then prep for next guests. All is well for now. Aloha, David


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