Kelcey Chandler-Yates and Jim Yates present...

UnderSeaPhotoVideo.com

March 24th 2003

My record searchlight article sums it up here in Tahiti!: God is it hot here in beautiful Tahiti. To think just a week ago it was life with chilly San Francisco breezes as we strolled the hills in search of the French Embassy. All things considered they were polite and gave us the OK for 3 more months in French Polynesia. Six were asked for but hey this is life with the French! Even before this war thing they were fickle in each port we visited. We will deal with it now that we are back in the laid back islands. Here at least you get a smile when they say "no"!

We might as well enjoy it as it was hard enough to get back here. Between sketching through the streets of San Francisco due to chained up rioters and air port security being so tight that after they tore apart all our carefully packed baggage we expected to be strip searched at any moment and to increase the tension a security officer in Hawaii during our 6 hour layover came in while we were watching the TV and abruptly turned it off and walked away. This was followed shortly with a loud speaker blaring, "terror alert has been raised…" -----Humidity is a blessing after all the stress! But the work to be done seems endless.

Each time the boat is "on the hard", (put on land to be serviced-by us-), we must work our bottoms off in a seeming race against time. The locations are always mosquito infested filthy places with little wind but superb as far as safety goes if there is a cyclone! After sitting in this "island paradise" for the past four months this boat is a mess. Algae has grown on the few ropes we were forced to leave exposed, plant material covers the decks and cockpit and any place I failed to wipe with a large dose of vinegar solution has ugly gray mildew growing. Clothes left in the cupboards are smelly and need to be washed by hand in bleach solution and ants have invaded our cockpit. If all this is not enough we have parts and pieces strewn all over awaiting placement in the stinky cabinets! -Where does one begin?

 Jim is in the engine room replacing the regulators and God knows what else between his profanities. Chris is digging the holes to drop the rudders so the new bushings can be installed, Nick is scrubbing the slime off the deck and I just finished a huge load of laundry. Not too many smiles here in paradise until the end of the day when a long cold shower is the compensation. Soon we will be back in the water and enjoying this tropical delight!