Touring Moorea

We rented a car today for 4 hours and drove around what is described in the guidebooks as one of the best drives in the world, around the outside of the island of Moorea. It was OK! The island is heavily "touristed" and that takes something away from the natural beauty, still it was pretty stunning. There is one road that goes partway up the central mountain to a lookout looking over Cooks Bay and northward. On the way up are the remains of an ancient Marae that in the time of exploration by the Europeans, was reputed to be continuously inhabited for over 600 years. The foundations are still in evidence (or at least rebuilt for the tourists). We toured a "Tiki Village" which was supposedly a recreation of a typical island village. The effect was somewhat muted as every building was a business trying to sell you something, less a re-creation, more a tourist trap. One of the locals asked if we wanted to tour the "pearl farm" they have just of the beach. We told her that we had visited a farm in Manihi and her only comment was, "Oh, you've seen a real one then". At least she was honest.
When we returned the car and made our way back to the dinghy, we saw that the big steel schooner that had left the day after we arrived had returned. The day they left, they lost a piece of canvas overboard that Cathy and I just happened to see on the way to the juice factory tour in the dinghy. We returned it this afternoon and were hopeful for a tour, we weren't disappointed. The captain (Boomer was his name) invited us on board for a tour. The ship was built in Thailand and is 110 feet long. Very traditional with only a few winches, mostly everything is done by hand. She was built, and is used, as a sail training ship and marine biology research vessel. She has a full time crew of 5-6 and carries up to 24 students. Their plan is to circumnavigate every 2 years, picking up groups of students for different legs. The students do double/triple duty as they learn how to sail the ship, provision, navigate, stand watches, study marine biology and participate in research projects. A very interesting ship and a wonderful group of people crewing. They were all a bit taken aback that we had fished this canvas piece out of the tide, a saved it with the hope of returning it. Just as dark settled over the bay tonight, a large 4 masted ship made it's way in the reef entrance and is anchored about 500 meters from us. Tomorrow we will buzz it with the dinghy, who knows, maybe they will drop something and we can get a tour of her as well!!

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Tahitian Dancing Will Never be the Same

We actually got the timings right and made it to shore in time to see a Tahitian dance show at Club Bali Hi in Cooks Bay. The dancers were great as were the musicians accompanying. During the introduction, one of the dancers mentioned that about mid show, they would be asking for volunteers from the audience. Have you ever had one of those feelings that you KNOW that you will be asked, I did. I was asked, and what the heck, I went up and had a great time making a complete and utter fool out of myself. Bill, crew off Island Time, and I must have set the art of Tahitian Dancing back at least a century. Everyone had fun so that was fine. A bunch of us headed down the road afterwards to the local pizza place and had a relatively inexpensive dinner out.
Around 03:30 this morning the wind started finally. It has been very calm for almost a week. Because of the step hills, we got some nice gusts. I set the GPS alarm in case we dragged and eventually got back to sleep. It's been blowing a steady 15-20 knots all day and has been overcast but no rain. I spent the day polishing all the stainless on the back of the boat, pushpit, solar panel mounts and Monitor Wind vane. Actually it was an ideal day for polishing with no sun to bake me and nice wind to keep me cool. It looks great, which is one of the joys of a job like that; you get to see the results immediately. We will hang out here a few more days yet before heading back to Papeete. We talked to Toketie yesterday and they probably left the Tuamotus today for Papeete. We may hire a car for a few hours tomorrow to drive around Moorea, depends if the winds drop out overnight.

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Moorea

We pulled up anchor yesterday in Papeete and after a brief stop at the fuel dock to fill jerry cans, we motored over to Moorea. We were pretty happy at the fuel price for diesel. When we checked into Papeete, we applied for and got a Duty Free form for diesel. It dropped the price by almost one third and we ended up paying around $1.17/litre CDN. We motored to Cook Bay on the west side of Moorea and anchored at the bottom of the bay. There are few other boats here for a change. Most boats are anchored outside the bay in shallower water. The scenery is once again stunning. The bay is steep sided with tall craggy cliffs. When we came in I imagined Captain Cook sailing in here through the reef into a deep water harbour protected from the winds. There is a fresh water stream at the head of the bay and I'm sure in his day, lots of fruit trees and friendly natives. Now, it's small hotels and a road circles the bay. We are planning on doing a little exploring today and then taking in some Tahitian dancing tonight. We'll see how far we get!

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Life in the City

Another week has come and gone! Time is flying by and we don't sem to be doing much. Our friends got their boat hauled out Wednesday morning and the damage, although ugly is repairable and not excessively expensive. They took us out to dinner as a thank you for following them here and getting their anchor unstuck in Manihi. They chose a restaurant from Lonely Planet, billed as a chic French Bistro serving lunch and dinner. They didn't serve dinner! They did however recommend a nice restaurant just around the corner and we thoroughly enjoyed it. One meal out was enough. Prices are comparable to Europe in just about everything. Eggs are $7.00 a dozen, cereal $6-$7 a box, but bread is cheap. We got a tax free exemption for our diesel so the price is actually less than you are paying in Canada, a small win. We have wandered around the city, experiencing the local market and local transportation. The cheapest ride into town is on "le Truck Bus" A fixed wheelbase truck with seating built onto the truck bed. There are two benches, one on either side, with a roof and simple windows. I'll get some pictures before we leave and post them to the web site. I did manage to get all the pictures from the trip so far to the web site last week. We had to do a few repairs while here. The raw water pump for the motor started leaking so I had to get that rebuilt. Cathy managed to sew out spinnaker back together so we have a light air sail again. This morning, I started the motor to top of the batteries and the oil warning light came on. I changed the changed the oil and filter (most likely cause of the alarm is a blocked filter). That didn't work. I checked the pressure switch, that seemed fine. I finally found the problem, the wire going to the oil level sensor on the oil pan had come loose. I think I've managed to get it sorted out, at least for now. We'll see how long my repair lasts. No big deal, there is no oil leak but when the wire works loose it sets the alarm off, annoying. Cathy also managed to make a bit of cash while here. Our friends that we followed here needed their dodger re-stitched so asked Cathy if she would do and they would pay her rather than [ay the prices here for it. 10 hours of work and we have a few spare dollars. We are planning on going to see some typical Tahitian dancing tonight with he Kiwi couple that leant us their spare antenna tuner for our radio. That's the other thing, we got the new tuner and it's installed and working fine. The price of paradise though is that we by the time all the shipping and hanlding fees were paid, the tuner cost double what it we would have paid if we were in North America. Oh well…..

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Papeete!!

We arrived here at dawn after a SLOW sail yesterday (on purpose) in order to try arrive during daylight. Before we entered the harbour we called the harbour master on VHF 12 to tell them we would like to enter and transit around to Maeve Beach. He said OK and advised us to call him at the east end of the airport before proceeding. There are large signs on the water advising this so….. We called and he told us to proceed and when we got the west end before crossing the flight path we called again and were cleared for transit. We anchored just west of Taina marina and after talking to Ulf and Christina on Roxy (a Swedish boat) they told us where to go with the dinghy etc. Well, along with Ann and Barry from Cats Paw IV, we headed into shore. We eventually caught the "truck bus" for 130 cfp per person to downtown. We found a place for lunch and stopped and ate and watched the world go by. The anchorage is calm, the dingy landing is free, water is available, diesel and petrol is here and there is laundry on shore. As we explore, I will write more. I am slowly updating the web site, there are a few more pictures and I will get the rest up as I can.

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Still Sailing to Papeete

We were able to shut the motor off Friday morning after 25 hours under power. We have been making a steady 3.5-4.5 knots which means an extra night underway but better than burning diesel! We changed out our headsail this morning for the bigger genoa that Derek and Anthea gave us almost two years ago before they left Victoria on their boat Sukanuk. It doesn't seem real that it was that long ago. Time just slips on by. We have now been in French Polynesia for over a month and in some ways it seems like a long time and in some ways it seems like we just got here. We have been keeping in contact with various boats via the HF radio which his great and are now pretty much ahead of the pack with our earlier than anticipated run to Papeete. We have been looking at the cruising in and around Tahiti and it looks pretty inviting. We heard on the radio the other day that they ran out of butane on Nuku Hiva and that a lot of boats were basically stuck there waiting for a delivery as here is none available until Papeete and most boats were planning to spend time in the Tuamotus. I'm glad we filled up as soon as we got to Nuku Hiva and didn't wait. I like my coffee in the morning!

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Manihi to Papeete

We started to pull up the anchor at around 08:30 yesterday morning. A couple of days before I dove to check out how we were hooked and the anchor was caught under the edge of a coral head. When I dove, I attached a retrieval line, hoping that I could use that to pull the anchor out if need be. After a few anxious moments this morning the anchor came loose and we were free. Some of the other boats were taking a few hours to work their anchors free so I felt pretty lucky. Unfortunately Cats Paw IV wasn't having the same luck. Their anchor was stuck but good so I offered to dive and see what I could see. The first dive, in 15 meters, let me see the anchor but not detail. The second time down, I took a knife and went down their retrieval line. That got me to the bottom faster and I found their anchor wedged between two coral heads and under the lip of one of them. I cut the retrieval line and managed to pull the anchor free from the coral heads and made it back up. It was only a little while ago however that I realized that I was free diving to 45 feet!! I'm glad I can still do this stuff. We got out the pass by 09:30, just under 2 hours after low tide, and the pass was flat calm. Fernando came by to keep us centre channel and to say one final goodbye. I will miss him. He called on the radio a little while later and told me he would be in Papeete on June 5 so hopefully we can connect. We are experiencing a no wind crossing right now and have been motoring since we left. We may get some wind by tomorrow morning according to the Grib files. We did have a nice surprise tonight when just after we checked into the Pacific Seafarers net we made contact with Lynn Greentree off Dolphin Tales. They were anchored next to Rick and Dawn on Kalagan on their way to the Bluewater rendezvous. We had great reception and had a good talk.

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The Last of Manihi

After a great breakfast of French toast on baguette, I started cleaning the underwater portion of Tarun. I got about half done when Fernando came around with the bread and 3 guys off a Polish flagged boat from Florida called Macheka. Kaz, Conrad and Mache had expressed interest on Tuesday on going on the pearl farm tour so when we saw Fernando last Tuesday night we mentioned it and he picked them up this morning. After giving us the bread, he asked if I would go and translate for these guys. OK, why not I thought. A good day out and I liked talking to Fernando. We did the while tour and the guys loved it and at the end, Mache, the skipper/owner, wanted to do some business with Fernando and buy some pearls. What Fernando does is sell you a string of 20 oysters for 11,000 CFP and then guarantees you at least 12 pearls. Well Mache bought 7 strings. After a few more hours of busily opening oysters Mache got his pearls and for my efforts helping out all day, Fernando gave me four beautiful pearls for Cathy. Cathy had asked to buy 2 pearls the day before for earrings so Fernando, knowing this, put me to work for the day and I earned them. I had an absolute blast! Cathy got not 1 pair of pearls but two so will eventually get some nice settings made for them. I ended up spending most of the day on the pearl farm and it was fantastic. This was why I came cruising.
Cathy spent the day beachcombing with Ann and Barry and then we spent and great evening with them and Andreas and Karin onboard Cats Paw IV. Fernando gave us a bunch of oysters to cook so I prepared and cooked up enough for all of us, Cajun style. They went down pretty well. Not the same as Canadian oysters but really tasty. Tomorrow we head for Papeete and hopefully we will have no problems raising the anchor.

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More of Manihi

We spent what felt like a busy day yesterday but when I now write about it, it doesn't seem that hectic.
The day started out with a visit form Fernando for baguette delivery. He presented us with a small gift, an inscribed Book of Mormon. He is the Mormon minister here on the atoll. He also asked if we would write a short note in his journal. He tries to get something from each visiting yacht in Manihi. We talked with Fernando for some time and he invited us to dinner at his house that evening along with Ann and Barry and Andreas and Karin, a young Swedish couple on an Endeavor catamaran. After a morning of talking with Ann and Barry both here on Tarun and on Cats Paw IV, we took a trip by dinghy to the village. Two harbours have been created for boats so landing is easy. There are a couple of stores for provisions and rumour has it that here are 4 churches. We have seen two of them so far. The village is small but neat and tidy. There are only about 600 people left living on the atoll after a high of nearly 1800 a few years ago. Still everyone seems happy and everyone was very friendly. We went in or dinner a bit early as we wanted to get in before dark. We spent an entertaining ½ hour or so talking to s few of the local kids. A couple of 12 year olds and a few who were a bit older. We figured out that we were in the wrong place to meet Fernando when one of the kids we had been talking to came back and told us that Fernando was waiting for us further around the pier. After getting sorted out, we finally arrived at his house. It faces out into the lagoon and it turns out that they used to run a restaurant until about 6 years ago. The kitchen is industrial and Stella was busy cooking up a feast. Fernando got us out from under her feet by taking us on a small tour of his bakery. Each morning at 02:00, they start making bread. They usually produce around 500 loaves a day. He has a new, Swiss, industrial oven which is guaranteed for 15 years. He hopes to get 17-18 years out of it with good maintenance. His last oven lasted 18 years so it is possible. The government subsidizes the operation paying 20% of the cost of supplies and providing free freight for the flour, by far the heaviest of the ingredients. Thursdays and Fridays he makes bread for the neighbouring atoll, Ahe, and also makes coconut bread. The bakery is mostly handled by his son and his son's cousin now so Fernando doesn't have to get up every day at 02:00!! We went from there to the Mormon Church which has 80 or so members. Very nice, with facilities for activities for the kids and a basketball court out back. As we were talking, Fernando said that things changed a lot after 1968 here when television and telephones made their appearance on the Atoll. He said that they used to gather most evenings on the pier and play music. The price of progress I guess. We made our way back to his house and sat down to a veritable feast. Fernando and Stella had gathered fresh clams and harvested some oyster meat that day and along with beef form New Zealand, chicken, veggies, rice, etc made a huge meal. He and his family like to host a meal for some of the visiting boats as they make their way through. They are a very generous and hospitable family. Fernando has travelled extensively around the world and knows that he is happiest in Manihi. His rational is very straightforward. He observed that in many countries if you have no money, you don't eat. In Manihi, if you are hungry, you go and gather some food to eat. There is fruit and seafood in abundance and easy to gather. He and his family are very happy and absolutely stress free. His son and his wife live with them along with their two young girls. His son speaks English quite well and is a certified outboard mechanic, essentially runs the bakery and is working with his father to open another bakery on the atoll of Tukaroa. A busy, busy family.

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The Atoll of Manihi

We arrived yesterday morning and following local advice, waited for 2 hours after low tide before coming in the entrance. We had an easy passage with no current and no problems. The entrance is well marked and you line up centre channel and head directly for the north cardinal mark inside the atoll. As you get to the mark, you jog left a bit and pass it on you right hand side. There is a marked channel that goes counter clockwise inside the atoll that takes you past the village and on to other more sheltered anchorages. We anchored about 1 mile from the village in the "east" anchorage. There were 4 other boats here but anchoring is easy as you really don't swing due to prevailing wind. The only issue is getting the anchor back up. There are a lot of corral heads and most boats have had issues with their anchor chain getting caught on the corral. I have yet to dive the anchor to see what we look like but will deal with that later today. Shortly after we arrived, Fernando, the baker (among MANY other things) came by with fresh baguettes. After a comfortable 4 day passage, it was pretty nice to find fresh bread waiting for us on arrival. Our NZ friends on Solace are here and invited us over for a cold drink mid-morning and let us in on all the goings on here. Fernando has a pearl farm and offers tours to visitors, he also hosts a pig roast once a week or so if there are enough boats here. He has his finger in a lot of different things in the atoll. When we got the bread, he asked if we would be interested in a tour of his families pearl farm that afternoon. We said sure, why not. It was 2000 CFP per person, so not too expensive. He came and picked us up around 14:00 and along with 3 other couples made our way out to his farm. He then proceeded to show us in detail how you farm oysters and seed them to get pearls. It is a fascinating operation that takes 24-27 months to grow the oyster to maturity and get the first pearl. It is well worth the visit as the process is fascinating and very labour intensive. His family has a concession hat has 600 buoys to support a line that where the oysters grow. Suspended from the line are recycled plastic bundles about half a meter long that the baby oysters find their way to. At the beginning they are only half a millimetre long! This line is suspended 10 to 15 meters deep. Any deeper and they loose too many oysters to predators. After 8/9 months, they harvest the small oysters which are 3-5 centimetres across and then suspend them in a more captive environment. Once they get large enough (about 15 months in) they are again taken out of the water and they seed the oyster to get it to generate the pearl. The process is extraordinary. First they find an oyster that has good colour and remove a small piece of muscle from it. After careful trimming, essentially a surgical operation, they then open each oyster a crack and carefully insert a seed and a piece of muscle in the egg sac. This grafting is amazing to see. When they are working they can do one oyster every 15 seconds or so. The seed they use is made from Abalone from Mississippi in the US. They come in different sizes and the grafter (in this case Estrella, Fernandos wife), chooses the appropriate size for the particular oyster. The grafted oysters are then re-strung and left in the water for 12 months then the first harvest begins. Again they wedge open each oyster and remove the pearl and as long as the sac is unbroken, they will re-seed it with another Abalone seed. They can do this up to 3 times and each subsequent pearl is larger. Typically they get 12-15 pearls from 20 oysters. After the first harvest, they can re-seed about 85% of the oysters. The whole operation is family run and they have it set up so that they are continually harvesting. It was a great afternoon and I got a whole of practice in French as I spent most of the time translating for the others. It was kind of fun! At the end of it all, Fernando informed us that we would each be given one oyster and if luck had it, we would get a pearl. I got mine opened first and found a tiny natural white pearl. Cathy's had none and Jim off of anther Canadian boat called (appropriately enough) Prairie Oyster, also cam up blank. OK, that's they way it works, no one was disappointed but Fernando pulled out three more oysters and Jim and Cathy both got pearls then he handed one to me and lo and behold I got a really nice blue/green pearl (the tiny white one I got was pretty small after all). The afternoon is best experience we have had since getting to the south pacific and I highly recommend it.

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Atoll Ho

Not much to say except that we are 45 miles away from Manihi and will make the entrance with plenty of time to spare so will have to wait for slack water before we enter. Better early than late! It has so far been a pretty uneventful passage. The jury rig that Cats Paw IV had on the their Monitor Wind steering system didn't last unfortunately so they have been hand steering the past day and a bit. Other than that we are side by side and we are trucking along under full canvas at 6 knots in 12-15 knots of wind on a broad reach. The seas are calm and we are well rested. I have spent most of the passage mucking about with rat lines to the first spreader. I have 5 steps done and other than a few adjustments, I'm pretty happy with them. I used some old rope and the only downside is that you have to wear shoes to climb them. I went up in bare feet and balancing on rope in bare feet is pretty painful. I went up a few times to make sure!!

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Fast Boats and Big Fish

We spent most of the day running cats Paw IV down. By this morning, they had got about 15 miles ahead of us. Where we got caught in a several squalls (no real rain but they took all the wind!!) they had only one. Anyhow, they shortened sail and we pulled up the main with a reef and ran headsail, main and mizzen all day. We had a great run, 6+ knots all day and by this afternoon we were hitting 7 knots pretty consistently. The boat is running flat and fast with seas running only about 1 meter. I just rolled up some headsail to slow down as we need to stay behind Cats Paw.
This morning's deck inspection found one really tiny flying fish and one granddaddy of a flying fish. In the middle of the night, Cathy asked me to check to see what the banging was on deck and when I looked it was the bloody great flying fish thrashing out its last. Probably 8-10 inches long, big for one of these guys. This fish has survived birds, other predators, accidental landings on boats so my question is did he jump or was he pushed? Do we have a case of fishicide here? We will probably never know the truth.
Just talked to Barry on Cats Paw IV and we are now keeping about 2 miles separation and both boats are comfortably running between 6-7 knots. At this rate we will have to heave to Monday AM to wait for tide. Rather that than push it, however we did hear from friends who are there now that you can enter pretty much anytime EXCEPT at low water so I'm not too worried about time now.

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On to the Tuamotu's

We had a wonderful evening last night on board Scarlet O'Hara with good eats, good conversation, and calm seas. We got up this morning and upped anchor and said goodbye to all that and set sail for the Tuamotu's. Our plan is to head for th atoll of Manihi but we will see as we get closer. Other than an hour under motor to clear the western lee of Nku Hiva, we have been under mizzen and headsail and making 5-6 knots comfortably. The seas are 1-2 meters just now and we are taking everything on the stern quarter. We are rolling a bit but having a great sail. The monitor is doing it's thing perfectly so we are both pretty happy. We hope that the wind will hold for the next few days and that we can get to the pass on Manihi by high tide on the Monday. We will only spend a few days there as it is still 2 full days to get to Papeete and Cats Paw IV has to be there on the 18th to allow them to clear in and get ready for the haul-out to get their skeg and keel looked at.

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Anaho Bay - Nuku Hiva

We sailed around to Anaho Bay on the north side of Nuku Hiva yesterday from Taiohae Bay. We were close hauled until we got the SE corner of the island. We left on port tack and one tack to starboard and we rounded the bottom and sailed up the east side of the island. The waves were pretty confused but once we let out the full headsail we charged along at 6-7 knots so we really didn't care. We had dolphins cavorting around us once we got to the north side of the island and watched slack jawed as they jumped, did flips, barrel roles and generally had fun!! These dolphins are a light brown and quite small. Cats Paw IV followed us around as they wanted to see something on the north side before heading to Papeete. We will leave with them tomorrow morning for the Tuamotus which should take us about 4 days. A couple of days to catch our breath and then on to Papeete. The plan is to arrive in Papeete on Sunday May 18. Just now however, we are enjoying what has been without a doubt the calmest anchorage we have yet experienced. They bill it in the cruising guides as the best anchorage in the Marquesas and its probably pretty close. Stunning scenery, excellent fresh water source on shore, a few locals who are very friendly, an easy beach landing, secure anchorage, and the list goes on. A boat called Scarlet O'Hara arrived just ahead of us and there was only one other boat here (Pax Voviscum). John and Irene on Scarlet were great on the way up here. They left an hour or so ahead of us from Taiohae Bay and kept us up on conditions as they made their way around. Always nice to have an idea what's ahead. The four boats that were here last night are getting together on Scarlet tonight for a few hours, should be fun.

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Taiohae Bay Nuku Hiva

We ended up hove-to for a few hours Wednesday morning waiting for the sun to come up so we could see where we were going in the anchorage. Had a reasonable rest and arrived in good light. There were and are quite a few boats here but the anchorage is large so no crowding. We had a baguette delivered to us courtesy of a boat named 360 as they sell out of bread here pretty early. A nice treat for the morning. Cathy and I headed in to check in with the local Gendarme (you MUST). They could not have been friendlier and suggested that we should end the boat back to Canada but stay and settle in the Marquesas. Somehow I don't think so! We are travelling on our NZ passports but I don't think anyone has really made the connection yet. All the officials we deal with, we deal with in French which helps pave the way to smoother relations. It's funny though; some of the locals are so used to Americans coming here with no French that even after you speak French to them, they answer in English. I have made a point to a few people that it's OK, I speak French, I'm from Canada. That helps a bit. Of course, the automatically assume we are from Quebec but that's OK too. Thursday we did good walk up to a local archaeological site. They are trying to piece together the history of the islands and there has been sporadic interest in digging it up. It was amazing and as soon as I get good internet access I will post some photos on the web site, hopefully tomorrow. We have managed to get our propane tanks filled, but with butane as they do not use propane on the islands, too volatile. We have been assured that butane will work just as well but maybe a bit less hot and under a bit less pressure. No choice really as we have to have gas for cooking. We went to a cruisers happy hour hosted by a lady who first sailed here with her husband in the 70's. They came back a few times and eventually bought some land, built a hotel and made a good life for themselves here. Her husband passed away some years ago but she has carried on and now has a small pension and museum that shows some very early pieces that have been recovered around the islands. The first settlers came here from Melanesia around 150 AD and the "Islands of Man" as the Marquesas were known were settled. They Polynesian culture flourished and spread through he Tuamotu and Society Islands and finally in 800 AD the last push left from here to NZ which was the Maori migration. A great similarity in cultures but significant differences, some to do with the Catholic church which came to the Marquesas and built their churches on the local holy grounds, basically supplanting the local religions. We spent an information filled hour with her today. This morning we took a another great hike to the head of the bay. The view was spectacular. You could easily see Oa Pou, the tallest of the Marquesan islands in the distance. We will spend one more day here before heading around to the top of the Island to explore a couple of the bays there and then we will head for the Tuamotus. A couple we know from Canada on a Fast Passage 39 called Cats Paw 4, had an unfortunate grounding a few days ago when their anchor dragged and they ended up on the rocks. Some pretty good damage to the skeg and the keel but no leaks and it looks like no internal damage. Still they were looking for a buddy boat to stay with them to Papeete so we said we will go with them. We will stop at the Tuamotus but not stay as long. They have to get to a yard and get hauled out and get the damage fixed.

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