Where to Next?

 During our 15-month stay in French Polynesia, we thoroughly explored the captivating atolls and islands. However, as all good things must come to an end, the time arrived for us to chart our next course.

Goodbye French Polynesia 

Hype or Reality? Exploring Bora Bora

Bora Bora, a name that evokes images of pristine beaches, turquoise waters, and luxurious resorts. It's a place often associated with dream honeymoons and celebrity getaways. . My son, Rivers, and his wife, Laura have a Screensaver on their TV that flashes up a scene from Bora Bora.

I wasn't able to exactly replicate it for several reasons. 1) The peak of Otemanu is almost always at least partially covered by clouds. 2) This picture was taken from one of the resorts, across a reflecting pool with the overwater bungalows between the camera and the mountain 3) I did not see the "No Signal" sign floating in the air.

Sharks!

Sharks are fearsome, sharp-toothed predators that can smell blood from miles away, and they have been known to attack and kill humans with their powerful jaws and razor-sharp teeth. This is the picture that many people have of sharks and the thought of diving with them can be rather daunting. 

Oceanic Black tipped reef shark

A Blue Passage

Embarking on an overnight sailing passage is not my favorite part of sailing, especially if it's only for one or two nights. It is just enough to time disrupt my sleep and definitely not long enough to get into a good watch and sleep rhythm. Our latest passage was two nights, leaving in the late afternoon from Tahiti,  and arriving two days later in Fakarava, approximately 250 nautical miles. We had been watching the weather carefully in the days preceding our passage as there were some potentially scary winds that we wanted to avoid.

We made our preparations, shopped for groceries for a potential 6 weeks stay in the remote atoll, filled up our fuel tanks and headed off from the Society Islands to the Tuamotus. 

Guest preparations, a long list gets longer!

 We love to have guests come visit us, to share our experiences and to enjoy the wonderful countries we are visiting. However preparing for guests to visit on a boat is never easy, even in the best case scenarios. There's a lot to consider, from deep cleaning the boat and ensuring there's enough space for everyone to sleep to making sure everything is in working order. Beginning with changing our pantry/ storage area to a guest berth,

from this:

Coconut bread on the beach

What a fun way to spend Christmas day, beginning with gathering coconuts and ending with warm coconut bread, fresh off the grill.

The coconuts were lying all around so we had our pick. We looked for brown coconuts, not green. The green ones have more liquid, which is good for drinking, but not enough flesh which is what we needed for the coconut bread.  

On the beach was an iron rod filed to a point to facilitate peeling the husk off the coconut.

Coming home...wherever that is

Traveling, exploring, seeing new things. This is the life that we have chosen. And even though we are carried by our home to explore new places and try new things, we still find areas that become more familiar to us. Returning to Tahiti after 3 weeks in Tikihau atoll  I got the distinct feeling of returning home, returning to the familiar. A place where we know how to get around and where to buy groceries and boat parts. A place where there are groceries and boat parts that we can buy.

Approaching the Island of Tahiti. Our red fender at the bow adds a festive holiday touch!

Manfred the Chocolate Guy

 Combine a hike, a waterfall, and some delicious freshly made chocolate and you have the makings of a very good day. Setting off from the town of Hakahetau in the NE corner of Uo Pou we began our search for Manfred, the famous Chocolate Guy. The road lead us up to a small dirt road and we took off into the Marquesian woods. It had recently rained so we spent a good deal of time avoiding puddles and trying not to slip in the mud. We passed several people on the road and were usually greeted with the Marquesian "Kaoha" meaning "Hello", or occasionally the French "Bon jour", and always with a smile. 

We were traveling up a valley,  occasionally we could see through the trees to a ravine on the side of us. The vegetation was lush and green, the trees varied in size from the very small to the very large. Along the road there were some botanical signs placed telling us about the trees. Sometimes we could figure out which trees they were referring to, but more often than not, we were left guessing as to which tree we were trying to identify. The names of the trees were listed in Marquesian, French, English and Latin, however the explanation was only in Marquesian and French, neither of which I can read.

After about 2/3 of a mile (or 1 kilometer we) we reached a sign:

Another day, another island

 Ua Pou

Setting sail in a south westerly direction we reached Ua Pou in just a few hours. Our first anchorage was small, but the scenery was breathtaking.

Tattoos anyone?

Nope, sorry, not going to do it.

Yes, I know it is tradition, yes I know that it can be beautiful, and meaningful and a rite of passage, but just not for me.

Maybe.

Exploring Nuku Hiva

 It is always enjoyable to explore new areas, see new cultures and experience new sights, smells, tastes and sounds. Nuku Hiva in the Marquesas is where we have been exploring. (This post will help you place it on the map).

Where the heck are we?

Taioha'e Bay, Nuku Hiva, Marquesas, French Polynesia 

If you are not sure exactly where that is, let me help you place it on the map.

French Polynesia is both an overseas collectivity of France and its own country. It comprises more than 100 islands, and stretches for more than 2,000 km (more than 1200 miles). It is approximately halfway between California and New Zealand.

Your Questions Answered

In finishing up our passage from the Galapagos Islands to French Polynesia I asked my family if they had any questions for us. They came up with some great ones. My answers are in blue, and Bob's are in green. I hope you enjoy the answers, and please feel free to ask any of your own queries in the comments.

Sighting land at dawn.

About 3:00 am. Morning of day 20, graveyard watch as usual. Sarah mentioned seeing skimming birds feeding at dusk last night when we were just under 100 nm. from land. Birds are always our last send off and first greeters on passage. Also, as is usual since leaving Panama, a red footed booby has chosen our bow rail to rest for the night. We marvel at the flexibility and unwavering tenacity their webbed feet display in gripping slimy, salted 1” stainless steel pipe bouncing about for hour upon hour.

Land Ho!

After 20 days at sea,
over 3000 nautical miles,
5 trips by Bob into the back lazerette to fix the autopilot
One broken halyard
One Code Zero sail retrieved from the water
3 days of on and off hand steering
A Refrigerator and freezer with decidedly more room and less food than 20 days ago
Several rounds of picking up things that were not properly secured,
Numerous bumps and bruises, also known as boat bites, as the boat lurches one way and then the other, reacting to the wind and the waves,
and one entire box of Chocolopagos chocolate turtles
land has been spotted!

It always breaks at 5 AM

Four nights ago, while on the 2 to 7 am. watch, I heard a new, but faint, clicking sound I couldn't place. Over the next hour went from intermittent to occasional, and then it increased in repetitions and volume until I finally tracked it down as something connected to the steering. After a preliminary investigation by flashlight I found a wiggle in the bolt that connects the autopilot arm to the steering quadrant that was causing one to rub on the other...but only when a larger wave from the aft port quarter shoved our stern strongly to starboard. So waking Sarah from her favorite deep sleep session, (not happy, but ready to help), we emptied the aft port lazerette. This storage area is 5' deep and holds all our extra diesel and gas jerry cans so we don't have to store them on deck. We have knotted lines tied to the handles to help raise and lower the heavy cans when full as they are now, but in the dip and roll of 2 meter seas it can still be a challenge to empty the area safely. Finally, after collecting necessary tools, shims, and spacers, I got decent lighting set up and climbed down into the aft bowels of our boat, and stuffed myself into a seriously contorted position to access the quadrant. With Sarah hand steering and the autopilot off, I finagled a way to manipulate wrenches top and bottom, removed the nearly immovable nuts, and got the bolt released. After adding an additional spacer for just enough clearance, I had to time the reassembly with Sarah's turning us into the wind far enough so as to slip things back together as we fell off the wind, but quickly. I was truly relieved when all was tightened back down, the autopilot engaged, and no more rubbing cast steel on soft aluminum. But the final relief was getting my brittle old self out of that hole. After cleanup and repacking the lazarette, Sarah went back to bed, and I went looking for an ice pack. Just another chapter in the continuing saga of fixing your boat in the dark in exotic places.

Footnote: I've been down in that hole twice more since first writing this. Once to replace the same bolt broke in half, and once to retighten the nuts I had already installed as tight as I possibly can. Both times very near 5:00 am. I need more suitable hardware.

Sent from Iridium Mail & Web.

Setting off to the Marquesas

After the usual prep frenzy and "what have we forgot" concerns, we hauled anchor and began motoring out of Puerto Ayora, Santa Cruz Island at 7:05 AM. With last glances back to the dark green shore, we weaved between the many live aboard charter boats, around the many shallows and out into open water. Sarah set up the new waypoints on our recently updated chartplotter, and announced only 3019 nm to go.

We saw the bottom few hundred feet of the island slipping away in our wake as the typically overcast morning sky obscured 90 percent of the volcanic peaks. Course set, WSW at 6-7 knots. Wind on the nose, of course. We will bear a bit south of our rhumb line in hopes of picking up the very favorable trade winds sooner. Good to be underway. You can't begin to get there until you leave.

Motor sailed until 4:30 PM with 7-9 knots. Winds now shifted to 140 degrees behind us. Brought out the genoa as winds picked up to 10..11 plus until 9PM. The winds calmed, and were very inconsistent, and the sails flapped a lot, so... rolled up the genoa and began motor sailing again. Sarah's up after some, unusual for her, early evening sleep. First try at off watch sleep-on-demand for me a dismal failure, so I read and write.

Sent from Iridium Mail & Web.

Moving on

 The time has come to move to another place. There is still so much to share about the Galapagos, stories and pictures, but it will have to wait. I will post them when we return to the world of the internet. We are on our way to French Polynesia, specifically the Marquesas. This will be our longest passage yet, by far, 3000 nautical miles from the Galapagos to our next landfall in Nuku Hiva. 

That's a lot of blue! 

Yes, No, Yes. No, Maybe So...

This has been the response to our question "Can we go to French Polynesia now?"

I have been waiting to write this blog until we had a definitive answer to that question, but since it has been over five months since we first asked I thought I would fill you in on our convoluted quest to sail west from Panama.