Bad Karma in Tahiti

We’ve been in Tahiti almost a week and we struggle to find its good points. The only thing that comes to mind is access to more products: fresh fruits and vegetables, boat parts, etc. Other than that, we would skip Tahiti altogether.
At first blush, Marina Taina seemed a good find. Three notable restaurants are on the grounds and the large convenience store is within walking distance. Several wifi services were listed as available and the staff spoke English. Sounded perfect.
Wanting to take a break from cooking, we dined out the first two nights in port at two restaurants within steps of our boat. The meals were, well, terrible. We left unsatisfied and Eric was up all night on the toilet. Back to cooking….
Fortunately, fresh food was available locally. I scored some tuna and made sushi. Yummy. Most items could be found at the Carrefour, which is like an American Walmart but not at Walmart prices. A whole, small watermelon cost about $25! The only inexpensive item was baguettes – still about 50 cents each. But those can really take their toll on the ol’ waistline. (Grumble, grumble.)
We were told the best place to buy produce is the downtown market. One morning we ventured there by bus which pick up every ten minutes at the marina entrance. It’s a twenty minute, ten kilometer ride – which takes about five minutes in a taxi. Later in the week, a taxi would charge $17 one way, and $35 return if after 8pm. We found neither the bus nor taxi easy to find and were frustrated by the inconvenience and expense of it all. The market itself was fine but not worth the trip.
But we took it all in stride as it was only a couple of days until my sister, Cathy, and her husband, Tom, would be arriving and we would be off to Morea and beautiful anchorages. Then the strike hit. The French government employees chose Thursday, June 10th, to walk off their jobs to put pressure on the French government to meet their demands. This meant no firemen or air traffic control workers at the airport which meant no flights in or out. The result left Cathy and Tom in Los Angeles for three days waiting for news of a settlement which has yet to come. We are all so sad.
Hoping to uplift our spirits, we proceeded with a preplanned tour of the island and had some friends replace Cathy and Tom. Our grouchy Boston tour guide was so cynical it would have been comical in the right mood. Alan, a 63 year old American married for 40 years to a native Tahitian, had nothing good to say about Tahiti. In fact, he wished he’d never moved to this godforsaken place with its fat, lazy, drunks and homosexuals. According to Alan, the traffic is atrocious; they keep building more stupid round-abouts in the roads; more apartments keep going up but whose going to live in them? We learned more about how things “used to be twenty years ago when I first came here” than life on Tahiti today. It was an abysmal excuse for a six hour, $250 tour. The bright side is that we got out and saw the island with its waterfalls, surf beaches, and reef protected coasts.
The wifi has been spotty and unfortunately not good for skype calls. The med-mooring in the marina is difficult and time-consuming making it inconvenient to come and go easily. Tomorrow we’re bailing out to Morea in search of improved juju. C’est la vie!