Sabrina and I were now getting ready to go deep into the Tuamotos, a four day trip (500nm) to reach the remote edges of the archipelago. We planned to stay around those atolls for the next several months – so we needed to stock up the boat.

We filled three shopping carts at Carrefour in Papeete and spent a whole day packing it all into Aldebaran. It is an enormous amount of work: cleaning the compartments, sorting dried good into bins, “sweating” and drying the fresh produce, and packing the fridge.

To do our shopping, we rented a car for $30 from some friendly French cruisers who had settled here in Tahiti. We made the most of the car to finish our laundry, visit the machinist shop to fabricate a new rudder arm, wander Papeete’s streets looking for a new fish ID book, and meet our agent to renew Kristian’s long stay visa in French Polynesia.

We had to squeeze everything in for efficiency with the rental car; but also because a weather window to was appearing, which allows us to go east against the predominant trade winds. This “weather window” is actually a stormy low pressure that sends NW winds into the region. Tahiti was supposed to get hit by 40kt winds in a few days, and we were keen to be sailing as far from that as possible.