august 2008

friday august 1^st 2008 (hiva oa, marquesas islands)

Every time we try to leave on a Friday it doesn’t work out. Maybe it’s the superstition from sailing lore in the back of our minds, or maybe we’re just lazy.

In all honesty neither of us are all that revved up for this next passage. It’s a round 500 miles and we don’t relish the thought of being at sea again for days. Besides, laying around and reading our magazines all morning was way too easy. The extra day will give us the chance to check out the posh hotel overlooking our anchorage. It’s a bit of a hike but they have an infinity pool overlooking the bay and may have an internet connection better than the one we’ve been using. We downloaded all of our emails yesterday and would love to get the responses off before we leave.

We made it up to the Pearl Lodge. Cool place; a cluster of little bungalows high up on the hill, a bar restaurant, and yes, a luxurious infinity pool. I ordered us up a couple of drinks knowing it would cost a fortune (a beer will set you back six in the cheapest Marquesan bar) but sipping them beside that pool should more than make up for it. If we could get on the internet it would be an even better value. Minutes after I had enquired we were on line with a half decent connection replying to emails and finally getting a little work done on the site. We did as much as we could before the battery died on our laptop. We can’t plug it in here because they use those funny round French style outlets. All in all we were felling pretty smug and satisfied with our successful little venture… and then we got the bill.

I had a beer (Heineken) and Jaime had a tropical blend fruit juice, no booze. We could not have been on the internet for more than 90 minutes because that’s the most I can get out of a full battery. Want to take a guess at what the bill was for this modest service? 10 dollars? Maybe 25? It was a fancy place so why not go all out and make it a 40? Wrong, wrong and wrong. The bill we received was the equivalent of 60 Canadian dollars! What did we do? What could we do? What would you do?

I peed in the pool, Jaime pitched a breadfruit through a bungalow window and we ran off without paying. Okay, that was the original plan but then the nice lady at the desk who had apparently mistaken us for billionaire celebrities or something knocked the internet charge off the bill. So we escaped with only paying a meager 30 dollars for our two drinks. Jaime thinks we did okay, but I would still think that knocking out a window or two would have evened things up.

One final piece of bad news we discovered this evening; all of our pictures and videos had been wiped off the camera. Fortunately I had just downloaded all the Pacific crossing stuff, but we lost everything from Tahuata to Hiva Oa. We think it must have been left on the card reader or the thing they use to deactivate the security tags at the grocery store. That’s why you haven’t seen many pictures for a while now.

saturday august 2^nd 2008 (hiva oa, marquesas islands)

Still procrastinating. Our “get out early” plan was scrapped in favor of the have a nice breakfast, go ashore for Hollywood showers, and lug a few more jerry cans of water back to the boat plan.

We were ready to roll at the crack of noon but were delayed another half an hour trying to figure out why our engine wouldn’t start. We got lucky this time and Jaime gets the credit for diagnosing the problem. It was a loose wire on the back of the ignition switch. It took two minutes to tighten that down and 5 to put the panel back on. With everything fixed and reassembled in a record breaking time we were ready to up anchor.

It’s a rolly little anchorage here so everyone uses a stern anchor. The idea is that it should keep your boat pointed into the swell instead of swinging with the tide or wind. I’m not a big fan of the stern anchor but when everyone else has one out you kind of have to follow suit otherwise you run the chance of bashing into your neighbors in the middle of the night, which is considered bad boat etiquette.

A big mono hull dropped their stern anchor pretty much on top of our main anchor this morning. Maybe they had trouble seeing us past the massive American flag hanging off the stern. We had a hard time retrieving our anchor without getting tangled in their stern line and it could have easily dislodged our anchor. What a loser move. It seems funny for us of all people to be in the position to critique others but the lack of common sense you see out here sometimes can be as shocking as the bill for a couple of drinks at a Marquesan hotel.

On the way out of the bay we saw another one of these little inter-island speed boats leaving. People from the outer islands use them to come in for groceries and supplies. Then they cram all of their stuff along with 5 or 6 big islanders and the plunky little speed boat with a single outboard engine then makes an open ocean run. The boats are so small that they completely disappear between the swells. They must occasionally lose one to big seas, strong currents or those craggy coastlines. Scary but I guess that’s what the big boats are probably saying about us when they pass by too.

Dolphins escorted us out of the bay and we were soon making up for our late start. Slapdash wanted to run and we let her. We were still averaging 9 knots when I started trialing my favorite lure. Twenty minutes later we had a nice Tuna on the line. This gave us perfect opportunity to stop the boat and put a reef in the main, a few turns on the headsail, and some fresh fillets for the freezer. Even after all the sail reductions we were still plugging away into the night at a respectable 6 knots. We love that this boat lets us set a really conservative sail plan for the night without grinding progress to a halt. I can sleep soundly knowing that the sails are prepared for winds in excess of thirty knots but still provide enough speed at 15 knots to turn in 150 mile days.

sunday august 3^rd 2008 (tuamotos passage – day two)

I noticed this morning that our port side rudder was, to borrow some airline phraseology, in the full upright and locked position. They are designed to kick up like that to avoid damage when you hit something. We are in thousands of feet of water though, I wonder what we hit?

This morning I took the reefs out from last night and we were off like a shot again. We’re getting about 20 knots on a beam reach and averaging 9-10 knots under full sail. At this speed we will arrive too soon. The Tuamotos are a string of 78 coral atolls that stretch over 1000 miles. They are low lying which make them difficult to see, and have lots of reefs and tricky currents around to mess you up. Referred to as the “Dangerous Archipelago” they’ve developed a bit of a ship swallowing reputation causing many yachts to steer clear. We have good electronic charts and GPS positioning so aren’t worried too much about that, but we don’t want to arrive in the middle of the night either. For that reason I’m constantly pulling the reigns back in on the slapdash. We are having a hard time keeping her under 7 knots even with double reefs in headsail and main.

The swell has not been our friend on this passage. Jaime is out of commission and I’m not feeling so shit-hot either. That didn’t stop me from pan searing some tuna for dinner. The magical combination of garlic, onion and olive oil served with Thai noodles and spicy peanut sauce on the side. High times.

monday august 4^th 2008 (tuamotos passage – day three)

Disaster at sea!

I was off shift and trying to get some sleep up in the front cabin when I heard Jaime calling me from outside. That can be instantly interpreted as bad news. Yelling from the cockpit is unusual. It means something is going on out there that prevents her from leaving the cockpit. I arrive to see her hanging on to the port side of our davit system with both hands. The main stainless steel brace that supports the structure had snapped cleanly through. It looked like someone had gone through it with a hacksaw. Not a life threatening situation, but for this to happen while charging through a rough sea is no joke either.

This davit system hangs off the stern of our boat. It’s an arrangement of stainless steel tubes built to provide seating, support our solar panel, and our dinghy hangs from it when we are underway. In these conditions it looks as though we are about to watch the whole thing go overboard.

I quickly released the main sheet and turned the helm into the wind. This slowed the boat and eased the motion in the large swells. I locked the wheel over and joined Jaime in trying to keep the davits, dinghy, and solar panel from prematurely departing the boat. We ran a couple of small lines to secure the broken side to the deck of the boat. With our hands free we were now able to take a larger dock line and run it from the davit to the port side winch. I used the winch to tension the line and force the whole system back into place. I inserted a ¼ inch stainless steel bolt into the broken tubing to act as a kind of tent peg to further secure the quick fix and then we lowered the dinghy. With the weight of the dinghy now off of the system we were able to take a breather and think things through.

It appeared as though that for the next move I would have to get into the dinghy which was now tied along side but still pitching and bucking madly in the surf. Once inside I would disconnect the motor and somehow get it up to Jaime without dropping it or myself into the Pacific. We tied a line to the engine and secured it to the deck as a back up in case we dropped it. With no style and much cursing we eventually managed to get the engine off the see-sawing dinghy and safely aboard. Our next move was to work the dinghy around to the other side of the boat where we could attach a halyard to it. We would use that to winch it up over the stanchions and onto the front deck. There were two forces of nature in play at the time which made this job particularly unpleasant for us. The wind was blowing between 15-20 knots the whole time. In addition the trade wind swells were their usual 4-5 feet. A dinghy suspended 6 feet in the air by a line from your mast in these conditions acts a cross between a giant kite of death and an indescribably unruly 100 pound tetherball. Jaime was at the winch and I was clinging to our kite-tetherball swinging around with it wildly trying not to cause any more damage or get knocked overboard myself. Despite the theatrics and a few tense moments we managed to finally get the dinghy winched up and secured on deck. Mission accomplished. With the davits temporarily secure and our precious overpriced dinghy safe aboard we were once again ready to get underway. As soon as we were pointed back towards Hiva Oa we saw a rainbow and knew that everything was going to be okay.

During the afterglow of our unwanted mid ocean escapade we apologized for all the screaming and name calling that took place and then reflected on the incident. We were incredibly lucky. Jaime had spotted the break almost immediately after it had happened. If she hadn’t it was only a matter of time before the other side would have snapped under the increased strain and things could have been much more serious.

wednesday august 6^th 2008 (manihi, tuamotos)

We are anchored in the crater of some ancient volcano. Exhausted after a long and squally night we arrived at our destination at 8:30 this morning.

It’s kind of a funny thing to roll up on an atoll after a few days at sea. You can’t see them at all until you are a couple of miles away, and then all you see is a row of palm trees poking up from the waves projecting a very isolated and mirage like image.

An atoll makes its debut as a volcano. Then a reef forms around the volcano. Eventually the volcano recedes back into the sea and you are left with this big coral rim with a nice sheltered lagoon where the crater was. Submerge a salad bowl in the sink so that just the rim is showing and you will have yourself a mini porcelain atoll. In the real life version, way out here in the middle of the ocean, people actually live on that thin rim.

That’s where we are now but first we had to get from the horrible davit smashing ocean into this nice calm and clear fish filled water. There is only one way to do that and it involves a tricky passage through the Tairapa pass. The guide recommends caution and to make this passage only during slack tide. The reason being is that all the water of the Pacific is trying to enter the atoll during a flood tide and all the water of the atoll is trying to rejoin the Pacific during the ebb. So every 6 hours the passage looks quite pleasant for roughly 30 minutes and the rest of the time it looks like pictures from your friend’s white water rafting trip. Based on the horribly inaccurate information we had we thought our timing was perfect. By the time we had figured out that it was far from perfect, and that we were in the middle of an ebb (outgoing) tide we had committed ourselves to the channel. Jaime was on deck watching for the reported coral reef and I was at the helm trying to push slapdash through the rushing current and standing waves. It sounds bad but things were actually going really well. We’ve experienced similar conditions in the Bahamas and this channel was a luxurious 60 feet deep, initially. Of course our luck would change. Soon it was 30 feet, then 20. Turning around in this narrow passage at this point under these conditions was out of the question. All we could see was white water to the left and a big exposed reef to the right. Things were looking grim with no way out when the sounder counted down below 20, rocketing through the teens to 10 feet. With no answer and a nasty outcome seeming inevitable Jaime started signaling for a turn to port. That would take us into white ripping water that appeared to be about 6 inches deep but away from the gnarly looking reef. I had no additional information from my position available so the boat was completely in Jaime’s hands at this point. I took a deep breath and swung the wheel over. Nine feet, eight feet… waiting for a big crunch. I don’t think either of us exhaled for the next 15 seconds and our butt-pucker-terror-alert-level was orange (high) but the crash didn’t come. In agonizing slow motion the sounder gradually clawed its way back into the teens and finally to a sphincter relaxing 40 feet. Jaime maintained her position on deck to watch for coral heads and we threaded our way through the lagoon over to our anchorage.

thursday august 8^th 2008 (manihi, tuamotos)

We spent the day recovering from our passage. This means catching up on much needed sleep and slowly transitioning ourselves and the boat from passage mode to anchorage mode. Cleaning up, eating a decent meal, shaking the salt out of… everything! The trip was only 500 miles but it seemed like a really tough slog. Maybe it’s because we’ve put on so many miles over the last couple of months but these passages are going down like barbed wire lately. We are both looking forward to some extended shore time once we get to New Zealand but that’s a lot of miles away still so in the meantime…

I went back to the infamous Tairapa pass today armed with a snorkel, mask and fins. Jaime wasn’t feeling all that well so I was in the company of an Aussie troop anchored nearby in a huge 48 ft catamaran. They are taking it back to Oz from the US to sell. We’ve met a few Aussies since Panama that are doing the same thing. Apparently the Aussie economy is humming along right now and since the American isn’t people are buying boats at below market prices in Florida and sailing them to Oz where they can sell them for enough to pay for the whole trip and then some.

The trip through the pass with a snorkel was much more rewarding than the trip with the catamaran. We drifted out through the pass with the tide floating past black tip reef sharks, unicorn fish, parrots, angels, moray eels, and a million others.

Later on Jaime and I hit the town. The town is tiny, it didn’t hit back. They have a post office, two little general stores, a bakery, clinic, and one small restaurant which consists of a couple of tables in someone’s back yard.

friday august 9^th 2008 (manihi, tuamotos)

The winds have been picking up so I dove the anchor today to make sure that we were secure.

Our guide reads:

“The best anchorage is in a bight about .5 miles ESE of the village where it is sheltered from the chop of the southeast trade winds and has only modest coral to foul the anchor rode.”

Once I was 50 feet down I saw that in reality the “modest” coral fouling our anchor rode looked more like the Ewok forest of Endor. Our chain wove a path of the most extreme resistance through the forest. It was laughable. As I followed the chain towards the anchor thinking about how this would be a great dive site and wondering how on earth I would ever be able to retrieve it without a windlass the thing shot straight up towards the sky. This was interesting. The last time I checked anchor chain was not buoyant and yet here I was following ours up, up, and up. Turns out that the chain was draped over a rocky arm jutting out from a massive stone structure large enough to nearly break the surface. I came up, took another breath and followed the chain back down the other side. Eventually it led to our anchor. You could hardly say that the anchor was set, only the end had found purchase in a small crack. Like a rock climber would wedge the tips of his fingers into a tiny hold. Having seen the scrabbled terrain the anchor would have cope with if dislodged I wasn’t the least bit worried about it dragging. On the contrary, retrieval would be our concern this time.

The wind howled all night. We slept soundly.

saturday august 10^th 2008 (manihi, tuamotos)

It was coconut harvesting day. Last night I met a guy who taught me how to husk and shell a coconut. He even provided instructions on how to identify the various stages of the coconuts lifecycle, each providing a different treat. The early green pluck-from-the-tree stage is the best for collecting the sweet water inside. The husky brown pick-up-off-the-ground stage provides the nut we are all familiar with. A little older and that nut will contain the rare heart of palm.

We set off for shore armed with machete and assorted containers to collect our bounty. Jaime cheered me on as she picked away at the soft flesh inside one of the green nuts I had hacked open. I applied my newly learned technique to various nuts and within 30 minutes we had two liters of fresh coconut juice and a big Tupperware bin full of coconut. Not bad for our first attempt.

Jaime was feeling better so we took our mask and fins and joined the Aussies for another float through the passage. It lived up to the hype and all the “you missed outs” we gave Jaime after the first trip.

We spent the evening on “Plan B”, the big Aussie cat. They had a friend visiting named Bob who had brought them a fresh supply of Vegemite.

I said, "Do you speak-a my language?"

He just smiled and gave me a Vegemite sandwich. No really.

I had the stuff on a trip to New Zealand years ago and hated it but decided to give it another chance. You know what? I liked it. So did Jaime. Good stuff that Vegemite. I think the key is fresh baked bread with a very thin and conservative application. Stray to far from that formula and you are asking for disappointment.

monday august 12^th 2008 (manihi, tuamotos)

So much for leaving. It was my turn to be sick today. I started putting some chicken on the barbeque for lunch and couldn’t finish the job. Within 20 minutes I was flat out in bed and running a fever. I don’t think I’ve had a fever since I was a kid so this was unusual. Jaime finished cooking the chicken and then had to eat by herself while I moaned away in the cabin.

tuesday august 13^th 2008 (manihi, tuamotos)

We are ready to go in all respects except for retrieving our crazy anchor and my current lousy condition. After my hasty retreat yesterday I didn’t leave the cabin until about noon today, 24 hours later. The fever seems to have broken after a miserable “hot cold then repeat” kind of night but I still feel a lot like the way I did the time I ran a half marathon mildly hung over; clammy, dehydrated and hurting everywhere. The girl on the boat next door has the same thing. Maybe we ate a bad coconut or something.

The weather has been crap so probably not a good time to leave anyway.

wednesday august 14^th 2008 (manihi, tuamotos)

Time to go. Still not a hundred percent but we are going stir crazy. It’s still blowing over 20 even in the shelter of the anchorage but the weather has settled a little. If we catch the tail end of this system it should be a quick passage to Tahiti. Now for this anchor.

We started out in the usual manner, Jaime at the helm inching the boat forward and me on deck heaving in the chain. We haven’t had to use the cheater line since Fatu Hiva, our technique is getting pretty good and it was tested today.

The squalls of the past couple nights have twisted and wound our chain through the Endor forest even more thoroughly. After we had 20 feet of the 200 retrieved we were hooked solidly around our first obstacle. I donned the mask and fins and followed the chain to the bottom. The problem was obvious. Jaime was at the stern waiting for me to surface. I would come up and provide instructions for the helm based on what I saw, then would dive back down as she worked the boat forward. With slack in the chain I could free it from the obstruction, surface, swim back to the boat, climb aboard, go forward and start heaving in chain again until we reached the next obstruction. Then we would repeat the process. It was completely exhausting. We could have really used a third crew member and a windlass for this little exercise but a half hour later we had chain and anchor safely stowed away. I collapsed in the cockpit as Jaime took us back towards the channel of death.

Having snorkeled the pass a couple of times by now we were much more confident taking slapdash through here than we were a week ago. We circled around for a half an hour or so waiting for the tide to lose some of its momentum and then pointed it through. This time we were running with the tide so it was a faster ride. Fortunately our timing was much better which made for a nice smooth atoll egress.

Outside the passage we were met with a big swell and a stiff wind pushing waves in an opposing direction. We pitched and rolled while I set the sails but before long they were up and finally we were pointed towards Tahiti.

The sea was really rough after the bad weather over the past couple of days so we had a double reef in the main and same with the headsail. We had 275 miles to make Tahiti and wanted to keep things easy on ourselves and the boat.

thursday august 15^th 2008 (tahiti passage – day one)

So much for taking it slow. The wind has been between 20 and 28 knots. We are still double reefed and have covered 160 miles in our first 24 hours out.

I just realized that we’ve been on some variation of a port tack since we left the Galapagos. I guess that’s what sailing in the trade winds is like. It’s been a fast and wet ride. We’ll be in Tahiti tomorrow morning if this keeps up.

friday august 16^th 2008 (tahiti passage – day two)

We sighted Tahiti at 7:30 this morning. We were rolled around by big southeast trade wind swells mixed with local surface conditions that never dropped below 20 knots. It wasn’t exactly a pleasure cruise and we certainly didn’t have any chess board conditions but nothing broke and we covered the 275 miles in just over 40 hours.

By lunchtime we were safely secured on a mooring ball at the Tahiti Yacht Club, had the boat cleaned up and were making our way ashore in search of some much needed propane. We are sucking on the dregs of our last bottle and are shocked that it has even lasted this long. We’ve been rationing propane by shutting off the fridge at night and even taking such drastic measures as forgoing my morning cup of joe… ouch.

The second objective was to locate a welder to fix our davits. We didn’t expect to have one on the boat today but at least wanted to make the arrangements before the weekend.

saturday august 17^th 2008 (papeete, tahiti)

No luck on the welding front or our pet propane project. Have I mentioned that our fridge runs off of propane? Depleting our supply would put our frozen wiener stock in grave danger. Our barbeque uses a separate gas supply so if we run out our plan is to cook everything that requires refrigeration and invite the whole anchorage over to help eat it all. For the time being our little reserve bottle keeps hangin’ in there though (thanks Charles and Giselle, it still has Wild Ride written on the side).

So the reason we couldn’t get anything done is that we just happened to land here on some kind of religious holiday; ascension? Anyway the whole town is closed for business; the busses aren’t running or anything. No problem, we could use the exercise. Oh, and there is one place rumored to do business on this the holiest of holy something or other’s. Oh yeah, you guessed it….McDonalds!

After our 4 kilometer walk into town we felt completely justified to tuck into a Big Mac combo; which the French call a “Royal with cheese”. Yep, old Vincent from Pulp Fiction was right. Why do the French always have to be so damn chic?

Another interesting Mickey D’s fact; they seem to have employed the majority of Papeete’s transvestite community. With physiques that would raise the eyebrows of an All Blacks talent scout, baseball mitt sized hands, and 5 o’clock shadow, these great big Mc He-She’s dominate the local house of Ronald.

Actually you might be surprised to learn that Tahiti’s transvestites carry little of the stigma usually attached to their western counterparts. Mahus, Polynesia’s third sex, have been around since the first European explorers showed up. For reasons unknown to us, families here will occasionally raise one of their boys as a girl. They are dressed, treated and grow up as if they were a girl. From what we’ve seen they are totally accepted in society and we’ve met Mahu’s on every French Polynesian island we’ve visited so far.

On the way back we were crossing a bridge over a small creek and heard a bunch of weird gurgling and splashing sounds which sounded not unlike nude female jello wrestling. Upon closer examination it turned out to be a bunch of 2 to 3 foot long brownish eel-fish like creatures. It was dark and tough to get a good photo but there were at least a dozen of the creepy things twisting and squirming around down there. We were happy to have a bridge because trying to cross a creek filled with slippery brown eel-fish would have been horrifying, even if they did sound like nude female jello wrestlers.

We were about to make the turn down our marina road when we noticed something else interesting. We had left an empty parking lot behind this morning on our way out, now it was filled up with vendors selling food out the back of their vans to hungry Polynesians. Tables with table cloths, chairs and happy diners filled the once vacant lot. Turns out that this is a nightly event, and not just here but at several vacant parking lots all over town. You can get local cuisine, barbeque, pizza, Chinese, seafood or whatever. They were a lot cheaper than the restaurants and just as good, if you don’t mind eating van food in a parking lot.

monday august 19^th 2008 (papeete, tahiti)

This morning while you were on your way to work I was on my way to the local propane plant with two empty propane bottles in the slapdash family dinkus. It was a bit of a long haul but I managed to weave my way through the shipping traffic without incident and arrived at a suitable looking dock within an hour. I say suitable because it was the only one there. In truth it actually left a lot to be desired by a guy floating alongside in an 8 foot inflatable dinghy. For one thing there was an enormous steel commercial vessel tied up alongside which took up the entire length of the concrete dock. I puttered around behind the big ship hoping that the captain wouldn’t choose the same moment to fire up his big diesel engines. Once I had arrived at the stern of the vessel the second problem became obvious; it was about 8 feet from the waterline to the top of the dock. Clearly my needs were not considered when they designed this place. A guy on the ship eventually took notice of me and signaled another guy who was on the dock. He came over to the edge and peered over the side. I expected him to laugh at me and tell me to get lost but instead he acted like this was perfectly normal. Despite our inability to communicate using a common language, they soon had my propane bottles lifted up onto the dock and the dink secured in its place just behind the ship. It turns out that this wasn’t even the plant, it was commercial fuelling station but I guess the propane bottles revealed my intentions. They pointed me in the right direction and ensured me that it was okay to leave the dinghy there. At least I think that’s what they were saying.

A couple of hours later I was back at the dinghy. The tanks were full and I even set a new slapdash record. It cost 86 dollars to have them filled! I have no idea how people can afford to live here. Oh well, at least our wieners will be safe.

On the way back to the boat I passed this couple in a small mono-hull perched on top of a reef apparently sitting down to some lunch in the cockpit. They looked perfectly content and appeared ready to just live out life there on the reef. I swung by and asked if they needed assistance to which they simply replied; “oui”. In fact they even looked a little annoyed that I had interrupted their lunch. Over the next 45 minutes or I coached them through the process of getting their little boat off of the reef. Their rudder was damaged so they had no way of steering but by that time another boat was on the scene and offered to tow them back to the marina. On the way back it occurred to me that there are actually people out here who know less about sailing than we do. That scared me a little.

It was a productive day. Propane filled, rendered assistance to boaters in distress, oh and we managed to get a welder lined up to fix our davits. I decided to toast our success with a drink but the booze situation was borderline desperate. Because things are so expensive here we’ve been burning through our on-board supplies instead of drinking out. We are down to a bottle of watermelon vodka and butterscotch schnapps. Not good.

wednesday august 21^st 2008 (papeete, tahiti)

Today is welding day. We are looking forward to having the use of our hammock back. One of the great features of our boat is a seat that stretches across the davits, which has been out of service since the davits broke.

The welder came by last night to look at the job. We made a phone call and he was there at the boat an hour later. Today we need to move the boat to their shop. It’s not far, only 5 or 6 miles down, so it should take about an hour. The dock was in an industrial area with all kinds of commercial traffic though so we weren’t too excited about that. What little excitement we had retained about getting this job done melted away when we saw the dock that they were signaling us into. It was a big steel structure obviously built for vessels a little bigger than ours. We handed bow and stern lines over and they walked us in and tied us off. There was a lot of room between the boat and the big gnarly rusted steel framework of the dock so we felt a little better. Then the owner came over and introduced the guy who would be doing the welding. He explained that the other guy standing there beside the welder had only one job. He would be on “ferry watch” and standing by to cast off our lines if he saw one so that we could put out to sea. Oh yes, and one more thing; would we be so kind as to leave our engine running to facilitate a hasty retreat if necessary. Apparently these big catamaran fast ferries go by every hour or so and throw a monstrous 5 foot wake. If we were in the dock while one passed, the slapdash would be slammed repeatedly against the steel framework which would tear us to shreds.

We spent the next hour and a half completely ferry-phobic. Our line-handling-ferry-watcher began to get a little annoyed with our paranoia because every time a boat would come around the corner we would point and shout at him and he would shake his head and say; “no, c’est d’accord” (no, it’s okay). After 10 false alarms we did finally spot the right ferry but it was entering the harbor and from that direction we were sheltered from his wake. They finished the job quickly before the ferry left the harbor (apparently the bad news end of it’s wake) and we were able to get out of the danger zone without incident. Well not entirely without incident, in our hurry to get the boat into a safe area we left without paying. Not for lack of trying though, like many businesses here they only take cash or cheque so we would have to return later to settle up.

The welders did a great job. They machined and then inserted a solid metal pin into the hollow stainless steel davit tubing and welded around that. It should be incredibly strong because, even without the weld, the pins will easily hold things together.

Instead of heading back to our marina we decided to check out some new surroundings. We are at an anchorage now near the Taina Marina on the northwest side of the island.

It’s a beautiful spot. We dropped anchor near shore and just outside of the channel. We set off to explore a little but the dink engine quit on us. It’s been acting up lately and Jaime elected me to use what little daylight we had left to fix the thing. With a manual in one hand and a wrench in the other I started taking things apart. Pretty soon there were outboard guts all over the place. Unfortunately the tide changed during this process and we drifted alongside the channel. Now in addition to having engine parts all over the place we were constantly being waked by every boat that went flying past. It was obvious that we would need to move. We had to act fast because it was near dark already and it would take some time to pack up all the parts and tools. It was at about this time that the marina bar happy hour must have ended or something because a long line of do-gooder yachties started streaming past us. Each one felt the need to swing by and state the completely obvious; (insert nasally voice here) “excuse me sir, not sure if you know this but you are drifting towards the channel.” Or if that wasn’t bad enough; “excusez moi monsieur blah blah blah humma humma…”

“No. Really? Golly gee, thanks sparky. Now if you could come just a little closer so that I can ram this crescent wrench up your…”

It didn’t help that the fouled engine already had me in a twisted mood and that we were in a big hurry to up anchor and move before dark, but sometimes these boat people really seem to need a good stomping. We eventually got the anchor up and found a good spot well away from the channel and the other boats. On the way I tried to run over a couple of the little helpy-helpertons as they zipped around getting into other peoples’ business but they were too quick for me.

thursday august 22^nd 2008 (papeete, tahiti)

This morning we awoke to find that yet another one of our beautiful and pristine anchorages has had its view ruined by the terrible sight of naked blonde Swedish sunbathers. Sorry lads no pictures, it’s not that kind of site. I tried to convince Jaime that the only way to put a stop to this insanity was to fight fire with fire. Once again I find myself sadly misunderstood. She somehow misconstrued my unselfish and helpful suggestion as just a cheap attempt at increasing the already abundant amount of female toplessness in our vicinity.

Graham came by and offered to give me a hand with my dead outboard engine. His old business required that he spend some time as a small engine mechanic so it was an offer that I wisely accepted. What followed is one of those really humiliating times when you run down the list of the 50 things that you’ve already tried, to which the professional then replies, “good job but lets just give this little thing a try before we get too carried away”. The professional then makes some tiny adjustment at which you inwardly scoff; “yeah right as if that’s going to do anything”. But since he’s been good enough to help out you humor him and give the cord a half hearted pull. Before you can even offer your condolences for a good try, your engine is purring like a kitten while he fiddles away at a couple more things. These guys have been great. Every time we bump into them they seem to be saving us from ourselves.

Later on we met the Swedes at the bar who had chosen to wear some clothing for the occasion. We also met up with Graham and the Plan B crew. It was Bob’s last night on the boat (the Vegemite sandwich guy) so we did our best to send him back to Oz with a hangover. The party continued back on their boat where much sausage, rum and baguettes were mercilessly consumed.

friday august 22^nd 2008 (papeete, tahiti)

We went back into town today and settled up our tab with the welders. They seemed to have forgotten all about us. We actually had to remind them who we were and that we owed them 200 dollars. The place was called Technimarine and the guys there are fantastic. The job was done well, our job was accommodated with little notice, they trusted us to come back and pay them at our convenience, and when we finally did they even gave us a lift back into town.

We were happy for the opportunity to be away form the boat for a while. We used up our day and some of the night just exploring our way around town. It’s a neat place and apart from the prohibitive prices we actually quite like it. This is another one of those places that seems to have received a bad rap from the cruising community and we have no idea why. Apparently the officials are horrible, the petty crime bad, and pollution unbearable. In our opinion that’s completely backwards. The water is crystal clear and we’ve been swimming and snorkeling every day. We haven’t been bothered by a single official, and the crime? Well, the beer prices could probably be called extortion, but other than that we haven’t so much as picked up a bad vibe. We are thoroughly enjoying spending some time in a city big enough to support two McDonalds, multiple internet connections, ATM’s, and a solid café culture. Sure the coffee might cost you ten bucks (gasp!) but it’s a great place to pull up a patio and people watch for a while. The bread is great and even the stray dogs get to munch on baguettes here. Oh, and the world headquarters for that mysteriously hushed secret society the “Silence Cult” is here too (I tried to get more information but they weren’t talking).

By the time we started thinking about getting back to the boat the busses had stopped running. A taxi ride would set us back over 50 bucks and it was too far to walk. Before we could decide on our plan one presented itself. A pick-up pulled over and some drunk guy in the back asked where we were going. We told him. He relayed this on to the driver. Although it was a bit out of their way he agreed to take us. Before we could think through the potential ramifications of jumping in a pick-up with 4 burly looking and inebriated Polynesian guys, we were flying along at light speed towards the marina. If you have already done the math you are probably trying to figure out how 6 people managed to fit into the cab of a pick-up. The answer is; not very well. We couldn’t stop laughing about how absurd the situation was. Stuffed into the cab with at least a thousand pounds of well meaning Polynesian men while this guy next to Jaime mumbled away at us incoherently in a language all his own, only pausing to laugh hysterically giving us a good look at his completely toothless gums.

sunday august 24^th 2008 (papeete, tahiti)

Eventually we are going to have to leave but right now life is just too easy here. We’ve been killing some time by crashing the neighboring hotel pools. There’s a fantastic one 5 minutes from here and nobody seems to mind us loitering poolside. One difference between these pools and those back home is the amount of topless French women. Okay I don’t mean to go on and on about boobs all the time but someone pointed out the irony in this situation to us that we thought was brilliant. So a few hundred years ago the European missionaries show up to save the souls of the naked heathen savages by tricking them into thinking that they need to put on a shirt or face a fiery damnation for their evil heretic (if not practical and aesthetic) ways. So the Polynesians eventually adopt the white mans shame and now even 3 centuries later modest dress is a cornerstone of their society. In fact, the only boobs you are going to see uncovered here now are the tourist boobs which belong to the descendants of the same European missionaries that shamed them into covering up in the first place… and the occasional Swedish girls on a sailboat but that was mostly just a fluke.

When we’re not philosophizing about contemporary social conditions of the beleaguered poolside breast we are trying to figure out why the locals park their cars on the sidewalks and watching French guys down platefuls of raw hamburger. This guy next to us at the café smiles as his plate, (which contained at least a couple of pounds of raw ground beef) is plunked down in front of him. He adds some kind of chopped herbs and half the bottle of salt, cracks a raw egg onto the pile, stirs the whole mess up together and dives in. We couldn’t help but stare. He plows through this big pile of raw meat, downs the last swallow of red wine in his cup and sparks up a “full flavored” unfiltered cigarette. He chases that with a second one, slaps 30 bucks down and presumably goes back to his spaceship. If this guy actually was human he is a modern medical miracle and should be the subject of extensive scientific research.

I forgot to mention the Maltese Falcon. I mentioned that our friends gave us a big pile of magazines a while ago. I was reading through one which had an article on this incredible boat. Billionaire venture capitalist Tom Perkins became obsessed with creating the world’s biggest, fastest, most high tech sailboat. It would be as long as a football field, 14 meters wide and have three masts reaching twenty stories high. So he had this thing built for a paltry 130 million dollars. I read Jaime parts of the article and we both were amazed at the photos of this massive square rigged sail boat with its 3 carbon fiber free standing masts and 15 huge sails. A week ago we had never heard of this boat, and now 3 days after reading this article the Maltese Falcon is right there in front of us. It was incredible to see them unfurling the big sails, it’s all computer controlled of course and the whole process took less than 10 minutes.

We hung around for a while but nobody invited us aboard so we snapped a few pictures and took off. I guess you can actually charter this boat, but only if you happen to have 300 thousand euros worth of expendable income that you don’t mind dropping on a single weeks rental. It comes with a crew for that price, but don’t expect it to include food, fuel, tip, or keys to the 600 bottle wine cellar. We were tempted to take it out for a week but decided that since the Gemini’s 18 inch draft can get us into places that the Maltese Falcon couldn’t dream of, we would just stick with the slapdash.

wednesday august 27^th 2008 (papeete, tahiti)

Unfortunately our “support ship” Kauhali Kai turned up here yesterday. This is a real disaster because now we have to spend a bunch of time wake boarding, kite surfing and stuff like that. It just wouldn’t be polite to turn down the hospitality. Try not to feel bad for us though, we knew what we were getting into when we started this trip and have brought it upon ourselves.

friday august 29^th 2008 (papeete, tahiti)

Our attempts at leaving lately have been completely ineffective. For example, on Wednesday night we were packing up the boat, getting passage-ready, but yesterday we found ourselves teamed up with Seonagh and Mark from Kauhale Kai circumnavigating the island in a rental car.

After a perfunctory stop at the Gaughin museum to look at a ramshackle bunch of artifacts and copies of old paintings, we carried on to the primary objective of the day; a hike into the interior to explore lava tubes and waterfalls. This was an off-the-beaten-path kind of place with no signs or directions. We were working off of a hand drawn map and some verbal clues that had been shared with us that morning. We found a muddy track that fit the vague description and bottomed out the rental car almost as soon as we left the main road. We weren’t certain that we had the right place but the day was young and so we decided to start out on what would end up being a lot more hike than any of us had bargained for.

After gaining enough altitude to actually change the air pressure in our water bottles, we were drenched in sweat, covered with mud, and gasping for air. We had been following a small dirt track that led straight up into the steep green interior of the island. There was a great view but we were beginning to seriously question whether or not we were in the right place. Eventually we came to this sign that read, “unconsolidated ballast forbidden access life threatening”, in three different languages.

Undeterred by killer ballast (whatever that is) we carried on and eventually met a very animated Tahitian guy who mercifully put our minds at ease and confirmed that our climb had not been in vain; we were on the right track. As if to test our resolve one more time, the wretched track became even steeper. Insultingly steep to a quartet who had already huffed their way up 6 kilometers of torturous incline.

It was worth it. Our hike led to a small creek which in turn led us to several waterfalls being discharged from enormous cavern-like lava tubes. We climbed, slipped, mucked and splashed our way up the creek, over the falls and through the caves all the time surrounded by a thick blanket of lush green jungle. Despite the uncertain beginning this turned out to be an incredible trip.

Six hours later we were back at the rental car. Apparently someone had been along the track and didn’t approve of where we had left it. We assume this was the case because the car had been dragged 30 feet down the hill and pushed off the side of the road. Just in case we were thinking of parking there again a note had also been left under the wiper blade which warned us in french that next time the car would be pushed over the ravine. At this point we were exhausted, starved and thoroughly enjoying the cold beers that Mark had been clever enough to put on ice and stash in the trunk. Mark made good on his saying, “it’s a rental don’t be gentle”; we rocked the car out of the ditch and pointed it down the steep hill towards food.

It didn’t take long to find one of those roadside restaurant vans which Mark affectionately labeled a roach coach. They sliced us off 4 plates of melt-in-your-mouth spit-roasted veal which was devoured and washed down with a dozen cold Hinano’s. We caught our second wind and carried on at the Pink Coconut into the wee hours. We were all grateful and relieved when sometime this morning we finally found our beds.

Today we are nursing our wounds and recovering from the hike. Some laundry and a few more boring little tasks and we will be ready to head for Moorea. Tomorrow!

sunday august 31^st 2008 (huahine, society islands)

We finally came through on our planned date of departure but instead of sticking to the plan we decided to change up the destination en-route. Leapfrogging over Moorea wasn’t our first choice but we snapped a couple of pics on the way by. It seemed like a good way to make up a little time and get in front of a big weather system which has been forecast to settle into the area for a week or more.

There was exactly zero point zero knots of wind when we left Tahiti yesterday. It felt like a guilty pleasure but it was nice to motor without thinking about sails for a change and we indulged in the glass calm seas. We didn’t see the whales everyone has been talking about (apparently they are as thick as flies here), but the dolphins didn’t let us down. To our delight they saw to it that we had a full aquatic mammalian escort leaving Tahiti.

The passage was a short one; only one night shift each. The wind picked up this morning so after the night off our headsail was finally pitching in to get the job done. By 7AM we were closing on Huahine and a couple of hours after that we were transiting the Avapehi Pass through the reef into protected waters.

Our sum total of knowledge about this island couldn’t fill a thimble. The only point of distinction Huahine holds to me -and the reason we decided to stop here- is that the folks from work gave me a snazzy pair of marine binoculars as a going away present which are named after the place. At the time I didn’t know that Huahine was an island in the South Pacific or even how to pronounce it (who-ah-hee-knee). Now here we are anchored beside it and pronouncing it three times fast. Neat huh? Thanks for the binoculars WestJet; we use them every day.

Speaking of work, exactly one year ago today (Friday August the 31^st 2007) we finished up our jobs. Later that night we handed the key over to our landlady and drank too much beer at Milestones before hopping a red eye flight to Florida. So in August we quit our jobs, in September we were catamaran owners, in October we were officially underway, in December our condo finally sold and we were able to buy the catamaran back from the bank. Since then we have visited 7 countries. 7136 nautical miles (12,987 kms) of water from South Carolina to Huahine has passed under our hulls in the process. We budgeted $15,000 dollars and spent $18,017 and 85 cents. Our largest operating expense has been food and drinks with fuel a distant second. We have yet to see a green flash but can tell you where Huahine is.

Maybe next year we will learn to sail.