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French Polynesia departure adventure

  New Adventures 2026 no 3 After Hiva Oa the first test sail was to Tuaotha island and that was a very pleasant place to be fixing things in exotic places I met up with Sabine and Jochen on Josa in the bay and we had a few evenings together with great conversation and her fruit breads and other treats. They introduced me to new software to keep track of sailors in the bays you are in so you can keep connecting (No Foreign Land) After realising I wanted to try my second shakedown sail sooner than later I decided to prepare for it and planning started for the 100mile cruise from there to Nuku hiva because that was where Steve and his son Henry were going to meet up with me to sail to Tahiti on the 4 th of April and then fly home to USA on the 20 th Well I set off with Joas taking photos which you can see below I left at 4 pm so it would be a night sail and to be sure I arrived in the morning in daylight Sailing was going beautifully until around 3am a very serious Squ...
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The Launch after 3 years

 
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fixing Opela to get back in the water part two

  Chapter two I left off where I had left UK with two bags of toys I was going to use to get Mrs Opela back to some sort of restored dignity after leaving her for almost three years In my bags I had A new chartplotter with AIS built in A new Raymarine autopilot control unit Second (useless) wind turbine with a mppt controller A new vhf radio and aerial A new Battery charger that ran off the honda generator A new 3000W inverter A new Starlink mini system and hundreds of other smaller spares that I needed because the yard had allowed the boat to go to ruin I found the yard had turned off the automatic bilge pump and let the boat fill with water so all the veneer on the inside had gone rotten and peeled or been stained Taken my dinghy off the boat and let it get destroyed by their staff but it was too late now to push that so I buckled down and started working on it I ordered a new Dinghy but the French sent a bigger one than I ordered so now I have to make comprom...
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Moving back onto Opela in French Polynesia part 1

  Hi to all my friends and family out there It has been a very long time since I last posted but the new era has started and that means changes are happening and its time to start sharing my adventures again You all know I sold galileo and decided to come and see if it was worth salvaging Opela in the Marquises islands where she had been standing on the hard for almost three years. Well in September the French allowed me a one year visa to come back and look at her to make the decision whether I should walk away and abandon her or get her back into sailing condition My journey began in Grenada just after I had sold Galileo I was told I could get my hernia operation done and so I moved off the boat and handed it to the new owner and booked into Cool Runnings so I could recover from the operation The op went well and when I woke my good friend Jock was waiting outside the hospital to help me home and support me which I wasn't expecting but was a really pleasant surprise. ...
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 January 2 2023 Hi all After the dragging incident I couldnt safely sail to Grenada so just before I left to come and spend Christmas and New Year with Nicholas, Kristel and Max I had to take Galileo out of the water and leave it on the hard to be sure the waves didnt break the duct tape sealing the gaping hole in the Hull and sing her while i was gone. Check the bandage The Insurance Company handling the claim against the boat Triskell that hit me was quite vicious to me accusing me of being an opportunist and looking for a windfall and then threatening me that they would do nothing to sort out my claim but a Surveyor who came to the boat and did the survey of the damage intervened and helped me and the good news is the contractor has been paid in advance to carry out the repairs on Galileo I must say it was really stressful being left on tenderhooks but the Insurance administrator Marc from France achieved his goal in metering out the worst dose of abuse on me to ensure i went th...
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