5/25/2012 Tatiannas' Motu
We met Tatianna while walking down a street in Ngarumoava the one small village on Rangoria atoll. Bill and I and Ann of Blue Rodeo had been wandering the two streets of the village when we saw and heard a woman calling us from the doorway of her home "come on in, come visit." Her huge smile and happy gesturing lead us into a yard full of barking and through the front door of Tatiannas' home and store. Tatianna and her family own the only store on the island and also own and operate a black pearl farm along with several other family members. Tatianna loves people! She once worked for Air Tahiti and then spent years shepherding tourists on island excursions, later she became involved in the black pearl industry and traveled as a wholesaler representing the local black pearl farms. She and her husband Regis are the only people in Rangoria who speak English and boy does she like to talk. She proudly shows off her pearls, sell them when she can and loves to visit with the cruisers. Regis likes visitors too but he loves his wife and knows that if there are cruisers on the island he's probably going to find them sitting in his house.
When Regis returned from cutting lumber for the new garage -Raroia has only a handful of cars, ATV's and scooters but sports two beautiful 1/4 mile long smooth flat roads, a handsome airstrip and an airport for it's 150 people- there we were. Tatianna had already introduced us to her daughter, shown off her pearls -hundreds of them- explained pearl farming for us in detail, sold us cold drinks and invited us and our friends on Buena Vista back for a potluck dinner so off we went to arrange our potluck contributions. We returned at the designated time and shared cheese and crackers, chicken chow mien with rice, pulled pork on fresh bread, a veggie salad and in honor of my 51st Birthday two chocolate cakes! We talked and laughed and listened to music and Tatianna decided we should all go to her families' motu for a picnic in the morning.
Promptly at 7:30am(8:05 atoll time) she and Regis, their daughter, the family dog plus one puppy arrived alongside Island Bound to pick us up. We filled the boat with snorkel gear, spear guns, sun block and picnic goodies along with what looked like half of Tatiannas' kitchen. With quick stops at Buena Vista and BLue Rodeo we were quickly racing across the lagoon. Regis knows the lagoon well which was good because he loves to drive the family pearl farm boat at warp speed. Years of practice made picking our way through the reef bits and pearl buoys look easy and in just a few minutes our little group was safely across the lagoon and beached at Kon Tiki Island.
In 1947 Thor Heyerdals' Kon Tiki Expedition came to an end on a motu at Raroia. There is a monument and plaque commemorating the event though I don't think Heyerdals' group looked at it as a celebration. When they "landed" if there were people anywhere on the atoll they weren't likely to be of much help to the Kon Tiki other than possibly helping them not completely starve to death. The bit of sand and coconut treed ground the disappointed group dried off on lies on the eastern edge of the atoll on a motu that is not much larger than a city lot. It is covered with palms and brush, beautiful soaring white birds and the sound of the breaking ocean swell. There was a timeless feeling to the place, an eon's old rhythm of rising tide and drying reef circling again into crashing waves. The Tuamotu Islands are without a doubt extremely remote even now so Thor's group must have felt like they been deposited at the end of the world. Today you and I look around and see a tropical paradise and dream of hammocks,rum punch and romantic vacations Thor's' group would have been a bit more desperate.
From Kon Tiki Islands' pink sands we powered our way to Tatiannas' family Motu. Their own personal bit of privacy sits almost directly across the lagoon from the main village. It is co-owned by roughly 150 family members who now live scattered across French Polynesia. Tatianna and her family come for picnics and camp over's and have left a table and benches, a fire barrel and bits and pieces of kitchen gear. We dropped the anchor and stepped over the side into crystal clear water to ferry our gear ashore. The boys were off spear guns in hand to hunt for lunch and the ladies fell into step behind Tatianna for a walk around the motu to the reefs outer edge.
Out the beach, around the corner and over the drying reef. The tidal pools were full of life: tiny snails of every description, small fish, an octopus, bigger fish, sea cucumbers and silvery grey eels ranging from a eight or so inches long up to a writhing rope of a pair who were making baby eels. The big male was was nearly four feet long and as big around as my forearm. Sheltering in the tide pools the eels generally run when they can but will hold their ground and gape their mouths at you if they think it might scare you off. The distracted couple paid us no mind until we were nearly on top of them before the male turned to run and the female slithered into the nearest rocky nook. I have only known them as underwater creatures to watching them in the tide pools was amazing. They move along in mere inches of water at an alarming rate and when the water runs out they dart across long stretches of bare reef looking for the sea.
After crossing over the reef gap between Tatiannas motu and it's neighbor we made our way out to the outer reefs edge. There we walked the tide pools and hunted down food careful to keep and eye on the sea just beyond. With help we searched the reef for sea snails and took in all the life around us. Tatianna carried along her hammer and a chisel along with a couple of large bags for our harvest. We steadily picked snails while she told stories and instructed us in staying safe on the reef. "If a wave hits always keep your knees bent," "always keep one eye on the water, never turn your back on the waves." Tips that here are as common to them as "look both ways before you cross the street."
We scattered eels and brightly colored fish, picked up garbage, discovered a wayward weather buoy from South America and finally headed back to our picnic. On our way back Tatianna daughter spotted an octopus. Before anyone could speak she and her mom were bashing it to death with a hammer as it rolled and twisted and tried to get away. It was carried back to camp clinging to the hammer head while daughter kept hold of the handle in two fingers held out away from her body. Half way home she stopped to bash some more and finally still the last curling tentacles. It lay in a plastic tub at camp for the afternoon destined for Tatiannas' pressure cooker and dinner.
They look at things differently here. They have to, their context is entirely different from ours. The octopus was unsettling to the foreigners. All of us would have preferred encountering the puss while we were snorkeling or diving. We would have loved an opportunity to watch him in his natural environment and to maybe have the opportunity to play. They are known for their occasional interaction with humans and are purported to have the intelligence of a two year old. The octopus was already under attack before any of the three of us could even react. In their world it was dinner.
Food is food and life is life here. A supply ship comes once every six weeks to the atoll, electricity is still a relatively new arrival (solar power recently replaced a single village generator, cell phones arrived six years ago and internet one) and land is difficult at best to cultivate the life of the islanders revolves around finding enough food. The dog and puppy that accompanied us were another clear example: mama dog and Puna one of her nine pups are pets but four of Punas' siblings were sold for food to other villagers and four were put into a sack filled with rocks and drowned. Mama is well mannered and Puna is cuddled and watched after but if push came to shove there isn't much question. So we gathered and shelled snails, stoked a fire, opened oysters and clams, cracked urchin shells and tried everything raw -toes in the water heels in the sand. Tatianna coached us along and showed us the best bits to eat and the right stuff to throw away. The groupers were charred whole over a grate and served without utensils and everyone tried a bit of everything. The leftover birthday cake got a better reception.
At the end of the afternoon Tatiannas' daughter gave us a command performance of a routine she has taken to a celebration in Tahiti two years in a row. She was chosen to represent their atoll and flew with her father to perform in front of a crowd of French dignitaries and military, members of the Tourism Board and families from all over French Polynesia. She performed beautifully sharing in the language of her birth a story of strength, power and community, nature, commitment to the land and its people and of continued traditions of the people living in her islands. It was beautiful and we loved watching as her father made an instant costume out of palm frond's. One curled around her forehead a Statue of Liberty like crown and another a grass skirt. Mama watched with eyes full of love and pride. And we got it on tape! Full of grouper and cake, exhausted and really really hot from all the sun we stowed everything back in the pearl boat and headed for the village and the shade of our boats. A truly lovely afternoon, we will definitely tell our friends they need to stop and say hello to Tatianna and Regis and if they are lucky hitch a ride to her motu.
Kat
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Sunday, May 27, 2012
5/24/2012 Raroia Atoll, Tuamotu Islands
5/24/2012 Raroia Atoll, Tuamotu Islands
We arrived at Raroia Atoll and dropped our anchor in the lagoon just off the village. It was our first reef pass entry and my bits of worry and concern disappeared under Bills piloting. Reef passes like the rapids in BC and Alaska tend to unnerve people. There is generally a great deal of planning and studying of tides and charts, careful checking for adjustments for daylight savings time or lack of and corrections for time zones. The quest is to transit during the slack tide or just after preferably as the tide begins to push against your direction of travel. This way you have your sails and engine power against no or slight current against you. Contrary to common logic you don't want to go with the flow if there is any because it can push you into something whereas having it slightly against you gives you maneuvering power.
For my non boating readers the reason reefs and passes unnerve us is that tidal water has huge force. As the tides change the water changes direction and any place where water is pushed through narrow tracts those forces result in strong currents. Some currents can run much faster than a cruising boat engines can go. So if you're trying to go one way and the water wants to send you another way AND you're in a narrow passage way with rocks, reefs, shorelines, sandbars or bridges nearby one can suddenly discover that land is not your friend -with disastrous results. Needless to say anticipation of these passages can be unnerving. To add to any real threat we have made it our mission to read two kinds of books extensively: cruising guides which point out the dangers of every pass, reef and charted rock and Disaster at Sea stories that depict the worst that nature and human error can produce.
I have a theory that explains the discrepancy between the possibilities for disaster the books warn us of and the reality of actually piloting your boat through said hazards. The disaster at sea books most of us devour focus on the danger and heroics -that sells books. So we fill our minds with worst case scenarios and the best that Mother Nature can possibly throw at us. The cruising guides we rely on are often decades old. The authors compile their own experience onto the older experiences and obviously no author would write a book and not tell you about the possibility for danger that was passed on to them. SO the threat is repeated again and again regardless of the fundemental changes in cruising itself.
A simpler way to say it is that today we have big engines and stronger sails and gear. The boats in use when cruising was coming of age often had no axillary engine at all or relied on a small outboard or later had small diesels that were originally designed to be tractor motors or car engines. We have a 75 horse, fuel injected monster that can push our 32,000 pounds at 8 knots! We have GPS, depth sounders, satellite imaging, chart plotters, extensive tide and weather programs, GRIB files, email and sat phones for current weather, VHF and HF radios and Google Earth. Redundancy in the systems we rely on is the norm rather than the exception. The way we cruise today and the boats we do it in are simply better able to handle what was once much more dangerous. The warnings were posted because boats couldn't power through much current or easily measure depths. All of this combines and the lurking dangers are more easily handled and less likely to be a real difficulty at all.
Now I have to tell you that I wouldn't have come to this theory if I hadn't been forced to. You see since our first pass (which we did by the book with all the pre planning and deciphering) we have never once gone through a pass at the suggested "right" time. We always arrive too early and then look around and decide it doesn't look that bad. Or rather captain Bill looks around and decided it doesn't look too bad. Once or twice we have arrived late whereas Bill takes a look and decides it doesn't look too bad and off we go. The first time or three I was sure he was quite out of his mind and was about to kill us both. Didn't the books say we ~should~ only transit at specific times? But each time we had no problem. Nothing, nada. With all the warnings and caveats read and considered in the end our big 44 foot 32,000 pound boat with our big healthy engine putts right through.
I should say a couple of other things. First a disclaimer: this may not be your experience and if you end up dashed upon the rocks do not blame me. Second and more importantly Bill has in fact done all the homework, checked all the tables, double checked the time zones, overlaid the satellite image knows where the reef lies and the sand bar curves and has talked to half a dozen other captains and HAS A BACK UP PLAN for getting us out. He always has a back up plan. The key is in the ignition in the on position, the anchor is free to drop, the lines are clear to hoist sail and he's decided already if the pass is wide enough to turn around and abort. He is the first to say hey this doesn't look good but in all truth that has never been the case in a pass of any kind. Second I don't just assume that all the possibilities have been considered. I read everything pertinent, talk to the other sailors, ask questions and am not shy about saying...'umm, Bill? You did read about this in Charlie's Charts didn't you?" ...about the giant lurking rock by the third palm tree....if you ignore it you will sail off the edge of the earth and be eaten by dragons....didn't you?
The anxiety of course can notch up when you realize you are not a 20minute call away from the USCG or Vessel Assist and that if you put a 32,000 pound fiberglass boat onto a coral reef the surf will pound you into fiberglass shards before anyone is going to be around to even attempt to drag you off said reef and that sometimes there is simply no dragging. These days the disasters at sea are not caused by hitting reefs while trying an informed considered transit. Mother nature has to take her share of the catastrophes but more disasters are the direct result of a cascade of problems. "A" leads to "B" leads to "C." Or lastly the one we all dread the most: human error and inattention to some detail. It's the way point entered incorrectly or the reef not seen that falls along your rumb line or the cap not tightened or screw that fell out and bounced soundlessly into the abyss. All of which certainly CAN happen while you are making a chosen transit. That is part of the pre planning and the reason there is a Plan B. Always.
Some of the wives especially get truly unnerved. Me I sort of enjoy the excitement. You get all revved up, the adrenalin pumps, you start in and the bow is pulled into the current, breaking water runs along off to starboard, the sound of rushing water intensifies and you hold on tight. You sort of hold your breath and watch as the world rushes by in a weirdly slow way (you are after all still only going well less than ten miles an hour.) The current grabs you, then you let out your breath as you see once again that your boat is up to the task. Your captain is manning the helm calmly, no bug eyes, no screaming, no white knuckles on the wheel. Then before you know it you're across and past and in this case chugging into an astoundingly beautiful South Pacific lagoon. You let out your breath, look around at the palm trees and the white sand and wonder where your swimsuit is and how soon you can slide into the water.
Kat
----------
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We arrived at Raroia Atoll and dropped our anchor in the lagoon just off the village. It was our first reef pass entry and my bits of worry and concern disappeared under Bills piloting. Reef passes like the rapids in BC and Alaska tend to unnerve people. There is generally a great deal of planning and studying of tides and charts, careful checking for adjustments for daylight savings time or lack of and corrections for time zones. The quest is to transit during the slack tide or just after preferably as the tide begins to push against your direction of travel. This way you have your sails and engine power against no or slight current against you. Contrary to common logic you don't want to go with the flow if there is any because it can push you into something whereas having it slightly against you gives you maneuvering power.
For my non boating readers the reason reefs and passes unnerve us is that tidal water has huge force. As the tides change the water changes direction and any place where water is pushed through narrow tracts those forces result in strong currents. Some currents can run much faster than a cruising boat engines can go. So if you're trying to go one way and the water wants to send you another way AND you're in a narrow passage way with rocks, reefs, shorelines, sandbars or bridges nearby one can suddenly discover that land is not your friend -with disastrous results. Needless to say anticipation of these passages can be unnerving. To add to any real threat we have made it our mission to read two kinds of books extensively: cruising guides which point out the dangers of every pass, reef and charted rock and Disaster at Sea stories that depict the worst that nature and human error can produce.
I have a theory that explains the discrepancy between the possibilities for disaster the books warn us of and the reality of actually piloting your boat through said hazards. The disaster at sea books most of us devour focus on the danger and heroics -that sells books. So we fill our minds with worst case scenarios and the best that Mother Nature can possibly throw at us. The cruising guides we rely on are often decades old. The authors compile their own experience onto the older experiences and obviously no author would write a book and not tell you about the possibility for danger that was passed on to them. SO the threat is repeated again and again regardless of the fundemental changes in cruising itself.
A simpler way to say it is that today we have big engines and stronger sails and gear. The boats in use when cruising was coming of age often had no axillary engine at all or relied on a small outboard or later had small diesels that were originally designed to be tractor motors or car engines. We have a 75 horse, fuel injected monster that can push our 32,000 pounds at 8 knots! We have GPS, depth sounders, satellite imaging, chart plotters, extensive tide and weather programs, GRIB files, email and sat phones for current weather, VHF and HF radios and Google Earth. Redundancy in the systems we rely on is the norm rather than the exception. The way we cruise today and the boats we do it in are simply better able to handle what was once much more dangerous. The warnings were posted because boats couldn't power through much current or easily measure depths. All of this combines and the lurking dangers are more easily handled and less likely to be a real difficulty at all.
Now I have to tell you that I wouldn't have come to this theory if I hadn't been forced to. You see since our first pass (which we did by the book with all the pre planning and deciphering) we have never once gone through a pass at the suggested "right" time. We always arrive too early and then look around and decide it doesn't look that bad. Or rather captain Bill looks around and decided it doesn't look too bad. Once or twice we have arrived late whereas Bill takes a look and decides it doesn't look too bad and off we go. The first time or three I was sure he was quite out of his mind and was about to kill us both. Didn't the books say we ~should~ only transit at specific times? But each time we had no problem. Nothing, nada. With all the warnings and caveats read and considered in the end our big 44 foot 32,000 pound boat with our big healthy engine putts right through.
I should say a couple of other things. First a disclaimer: this may not be your experience and if you end up dashed upon the rocks do not blame me. Second and more importantly Bill has in fact done all the homework, checked all the tables, double checked the time zones, overlaid the satellite image knows where the reef lies and the sand bar curves and has talked to half a dozen other captains and HAS A BACK UP PLAN for getting us out. He always has a back up plan. The key is in the ignition in the on position, the anchor is free to drop, the lines are clear to hoist sail and he's decided already if the pass is wide enough to turn around and abort. He is the first to say hey this doesn't look good but in all truth that has never been the case in a pass of any kind. Second I don't just assume that all the possibilities have been considered. I read everything pertinent, talk to the other sailors, ask questions and am not shy about saying...'umm, Bill? You did read about this in Charlie's Charts didn't you?" ...about the giant lurking rock by the third palm tree....if you ignore it you will sail off the edge of the earth and be eaten by dragons....didn't you?
The anxiety of course can notch up when you realize you are not a 20minute call away from the USCG or Vessel Assist and that if you put a 32,000 pound fiberglass boat onto a coral reef the surf will pound you into fiberglass shards before anyone is going to be around to even attempt to drag you off said reef and that sometimes there is simply no dragging. These days the disasters at sea are not caused by hitting reefs while trying an informed considered transit. Mother nature has to take her share of the catastrophes but more disasters are the direct result of a cascade of problems. "A" leads to "B" leads to "C." Or lastly the one we all dread the most: human error and inattention to some detail. It's the way point entered incorrectly or the reef not seen that falls along your rumb line or the cap not tightened or screw that fell out and bounced soundlessly into the abyss. All of which certainly CAN happen while you are making a chosen transit. That is part of the pre planning and the reason there is a Plan B. Always.
Some of the wives especially get truly unnerved. Me I sort of enjoy the excitement. You get all revved up, the adrenalin pumps, you start in and the bow is pulled into the current, breaking water runs along off to starboard, the sound of rushing water intensifies and you hold on tight. You sort of hold your breath and watch as the world rushes by in a weirdly slow way (you are after all still only going well less than ten miles an hour.) The current grabs you, then you let out your breath as you see once again that your boat is up to the task. Your captain is manning the helm calmly, no bug eyes, no screaming, no white knuckles on the wheel. Then before you know it you're across and past and in this case chugging into an astoundingly beautiful South Pacific lagoon. You let out your breath, look around at the palm trees and the white sand and wonder where your swimsuit is and how soon you can slide into the water.
Kat
----------
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Tuesday, May 22, 2012
5/21/2012 Raroia, Tuomotu Islands, French Polynesia
5/21/2012 Raroia, Tuamotu Islands
We dropped our anchor in front of the small village on Raroia after a 72 hour, 423km passage from the Marquesas. It is my 51st Birthday and arriving at our first atoll is a pretty spectacular way to spend a birthday. Being an atoll means we had to enter through a pass, at slack tide, with the sun behind or directly above us -slack tide so there is no worry about making the gap in the reef without being dashed upon the rock and sun behind us so we could into the clear water well enough to avoid the same. We made such good time on this passage we had put on the brakes for the last 75 miles in order to run the pass at the right time. Our friends Ann and Mark on Blue Rodeo were no more than 20 minutes behind us and as Bill and I were taking down our mainsail they buzzed us singing Happy Birthday!
Our first reef pass turned out to be very much like running the rapids in BC and Alaska- read the charts, pick the right time, have a strong engine, be ready for difficulty and then hold your nose and jump. We closed all the windows, put the storm doors in the companion way, waited and watched the tide slacken and then rode it right through. Yea! Then we picked our way through the channel markers (all of which are backwards and or different from those in North America) and dropped our anchor in 60 feet of beautiful blue water.
The Tuamotu Islands were once known as the "dangerous islands." The islands are in fact atolls -chains of small islets around a lagoon,some with entry passes many without and so are very hard to spot from sea. They are sand and coral desert islands with palm trees that stand roughly 50 feet high. They don't loom out of the clouds from miles away like the Marquesan and Hawaiian islands but instead appear out of nowhere to the doom of many a voyager. They often have no fresh water supply, there is little other vegetation, no mountains or fruit trees or goats and pigs. This atoll has only a handful of residents and most work the black pearl farms. In the days before GPS most cruisers passed by far to the north rather than risk hitting a reef. Raroia is in fact where Thor Heyerdahl ended his Kon Tiki voyage when he hit the reef here. Now with the widespread use of GPS more ane more cruisers come here for the solitude and for the reef diving and coral gardens.
Friends on Buena Vista are due tomorrow and along with Blue Rodeo we will be traveling through the island chain for the next several weeks. For now though it's time for a piece of birthday chocolate and a nap.
Kat
----------
radio email processed by SailMail
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We dropped our anchor in front of the small village on Raroia after a 72 hour, 423km passage from the Marquesas. It is my 51st Birthday and arriving at our first atoll is a pretty spectacular way to spend a birthday. Being an atoll means we had to enter through a pass, at slack tide, with the sun behind or directly above us -slack tide so there is no worry about making the gap in the reef without being dashed upon the rock and sun behind us so we could into the clear water well enough to avoid the same. We made such good time on this passage we had put on the brakes for the last 75 miles in order to run the pass at the right time. Our friends Ann and Mark on Blue Rodeo were no more than 20 minutes behind us and as Bill and I were taking down our mainsail they buzzed us singing Happy Birthday!
Our first reef pass turned out to be very much like running the rapids in BC and Alaska- read the charts, pick the right time, have a strong engine, be ready for difficulty and then hold your nose and jump. We closed all the windows, put the storm doors in the companion way, waited and watched the tide slacken and then rode it right through. Yea! Then we picked our way through the channel markers (all of which are backwards and or different from those in North America) and dropped our anchor in 60 feet of beautiful blue water.
The Tuamotu Islands were once known as the "dangerous islands." The islands are in fact atolls -chains of small islets around a lagoon,some with entry passes many without and so are very hard to spot from sea. They are sand and coral desert islands with palm trees that stand roughly 50 feet high. They don't loom out of the clouds from miles away like the Marquesan and Hawaiian islands but instead appear out of nowhere to the doom of many a voyager. They often have no fresh water supply, there is little other vegetation, no mountains or fruit trees or goats and pigs. This atoll has only a handful of residents and most work the black pearl farms. In the days before GPS most cruisers passed by far to the north rather than risk hitting a reef. Raroia is in fact where Thor Heyerdahl ended his Kon Tiki voyage when he hit the reef here. Now with the widespread use of GPS more ane more cruisers come here for the solitude and for the reef diving and coral gardens.
Friends on Buena Vista are due tomorrow and along with Blue Rodeo we will be traveling through the island chain for the next several weeks. For now though it's time for a piece of birthday chocolate and a nap.
Kat
----------
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5/20/2012 Last Marquesas stop - Ua Poo, then off to the atolls of the Tuamotu.
5/20/21 Last Marquesas stop -Ua Poo, then off to the atolls of the Tuamotu
Our last stop in the Marquesas was the island of Ua Poo. We anchored for several days in the anchorage near the small town of Hakahau and then in a lovely little spot that hasn't made the cruising guides yet. The town stop meant another quick and painless check-in with the French officials, a meal out with friends and our last stop for fruit and veggies before the fruitless atolls of the Tuamotu. We will probably not see anything much for sale besides coconuts and canned meats until we arrive in Papeete. Tahiti sometime near the end of June.
Hakahau had a small town feel and small town friendliness. The locals helped us find the right place to tie up our dinghy and offered us the use of a fisherman's buoy and later in town we were given a ride back to the quay by a local who saw our overfilled bags. There was a beautiful church and cemetery to explore, the aisles of several small stores to peruse and fresh baguettes too. The post office offers internet through a prepay card system but the connection was so sketchy we could never actually get to email or through our other bits of business -I have been away from Google and Gmail now since the end of March!
The town was neat as a pin as is the norm for French Polynesia and every home had yards filled with flower and produce gardens and trees dripping with fruit. There were lots of kids here, even teenagers. The town boasts an elementary and middle school as well as a high school/technical school complete with dormitories making this town the place the kids get shipped too for school instead of shipped from. On our last day in town we discovered that the older kids have Wednesday afternoons off from school. It was easy to tell because when we got back from our town search for veggies there were kids everywhere on the quay.
Three teenage girls strode up and asked us if they could come and see the boat. A bit surprised we said yes and so Bill took me and our groceries out to the boat and then went back to pick up the girls while I made Tang. They were excited to come aboard that was easy to see. We gave a quick tour of the boat and they watched rather wide eyed. It was an interesting exchange while I passed around glasses of Tang and the girls settled into the cockpit to sip and chat. Only one of the gals was willing to try much of her English but as always the lack of a like language doesn't really seem to get in the way. I brought out a camera and took several pictures of them and then passed them the camera. Like in Fatu Hiva the kids loved the camera. They giggled and laughed and went through all the pictures on the disk. They loved looking at themselves and also really enjoyed the pictures of the party in Han Vave. After a few minutes of girl giggles and pantomime they wanted to go up on deck. The interest there became immediately clear when they began waving and calling across the anchorage to their friends left back on the quay.
Eventually the conversation wore out and the giggling dwindled so Bill took them back to shore. The plan was for an afternoon nap but that flew out the door as I saw our dinghy speeding back. At the helm of our little outboard was a teenage Marquesan, dinghy engine full out, Bill holding on and three other boys whooping and flashing the hang ten sign as they flew towards the boat. Turns out that when Bill arrived to drop the ladies off there were a bunch of kids there wanting a visit too. Dozens and dozens. Bill said he could only take three at which point a waterfall of boys all headed for the dink at top speed trying to beat out all the others. Three of the oldest made the leap over the rocks and into our little boat and with huge smiles and lots of shouting they were on their way.
The boys were much more animated though they spoke almost no English -at least to us. The Tang came out again along with a few packages of Mexican cookies which disappeared without a trace amid lots of grins and thank you's. They too took in the tour and the boys were very approving of Bills new six foot long spear gun (imagine a teenage boy version of Tim the Tool Man Taylor's man grunts)and then his guitar. One of the boys especially was very happy about seeing the guitar and with a bit more pantomime it was clear he would love to see it. I drug it out and passed it across and they guy immediately turned and moved back to the cockpit and began strumming. What a thing to see. He strummed and looked at us then turned to one of the other two boys and had a short conversation before the two of them launched into a beautiful song. No music, no practice but each time they ran out of a song they would say a rod or two, hum a bar while the player plucked his way through a couple of notes and off they went with their beautiful voices and amazing guitar playing.
We have read in the past about the Marquesan singing reputation. It is said that all Marquesans have a wonderful voice and several times the cruisers have questioned if that was true or if they just didn't allow the pitchy ones to open their mouths. Well now I think it is the later. Of the three boys only two sang and played. The other boy remained silent but for one song. That one song as they were belting it out was rousing and sounded like a drinking song in its enthusiasm. They allowed him to join in but then on the next selection he again remained silent.
After the music, cookies and Tang the boys also wanted to go on deck. Once there again the waving, yelling, laughing and smiling across the anchorage to a horde of other kids. Eventually it was time to get ready for snack time on S/v Mersolei so reluctantly the boys climbed back into the dinghy. The guitar player was once again at the helm and off they roared. When Bill returned he told me two things: 1. as soon as the boy had the outboard in hand -both trips- he was off headed towards the breaking surf until Bill talked him out of it and 2. once they turned the corner at the quay there were dozens and dozens of kids, more than 100 waiting for their turn! They really wanted a turn and poor Bill had to be pretty forceful in not taking a third batch out but in the end he escaped with his life and our dinghy safe and sound. Too bad we had to leave early the next morning because the guitar player was happily saying he would bring us mangoes, bananas, papaya, limes and pamplemousse as a thank you the next day after school. ~sigh~ We really could have used the fruit for the atolls of the Tuamotu.
Kat
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Our last stop in the Marquesas was the island of Ua Poo. We anchored for several days in the anchorage near the small town of Hakahau and then in a lovely little spot that hasn't made the cruising guides yet. The town stop meant another quick and painless check-in with the French officials, a meal out with friends and our last stop for fruit and veggies before the fruitless atolls of the Tuamotu. We will probably not see anything much for sale besides coconuts and canned meats until we arrive in Papeete. Tahiti sometime near the end of June.
Hakahau had a small town feel and small town friendliness. The locals helped us find the right place to tie up our dinghy and offered us the use of a fisherman's buoy and later in town we were given a ride back to the quay by a local who saw our overfilled bags. There was a beautiful church and cemetery to explore, the aisles of several small stores to peruse and fresh baguettes too. The post office offers internet through a prepay card system but the connection was so sketchy we could never actually get to email or through our other bits of business -I have been away from Google and Gmail now since the end of March!
The town was neat as a pin as is the norm for French Polynesia and every home had yards filled with flower and produce gardens and trees dripping with fruit. There were lots of kids here, even teenagers. The town boasts an elementary and middle school as well as a high school/technical school complete with dormitories making this town the place the kids get shipped too for school instead of shipped from. On our last day in town we discovered that the older kids have Wednesday afternoons off from school. It was easy to tell because when we got back from our town search for veggies there were kids everywhere on the quay.
Three teenage girls strode up and asked us if they could come and see the boat. A bit surprised we said yes and so Bill took me and our groceries out to the boat and then went back to pick up the girls while I made Tang. They were excited to come aboard that was easy to see. We gave a quick tour of the boat and they watched rather wide eyed. It was an interesting exchange while I passed around glasses of Tang and the girls settled into the cockpit to sip and chat. Only one of the gals was willing to try much of her English but as always the lack of a like language doesn't really seem to get in the way. I brought out a camera and took several pictures of them and then passed them the camera. Like in Fatu Hiva the kids loved the camera. They giggled and laughed and went through all the pictures on the disk. They loved looking at themselves and also really enjoyed the pictures of the party in Han Vave. After a few minutes of girl giggles and pantomime they wanted to go up on deck. The interest there became immediately clear when they began waving and calling across the anchorage to their friends left back on the quay.
Eventually the conversation wore out and the giggling dwindled so Bill took them back to shore. The plan was for an afternoon nap but that flew out the door as I saw our dinghy speeding back. At the helm of our little outboard was a teenage Marquesan, dinghy engine full out, Bill holding on and three other boys whooping and flashing the hang ten sign as they flew towards the boat. Turns out that when Bill arrived to drop the ladies off there were a bunch of kids there wanting a visit too. Dozens and dozens. Bill said he could only take three at which point a waterfall of boys all headed for the dink at top speed trying to beat out all the others. Three of the oldest made the leap over the rocks and into our little boat and with huge smiles and lots of shouting they were on their way.
The boys were much more animated though they spoke almost no English -at least to us. The Tang came out again along with a few packages of Mexican cookies which disappeared without a trace amid lots of grins and thank you's. They too took in the tour and the boys were very approving of Bills new six foot long spear gun (imagine a teenage boy version of Tim the Tool Man Taylor's man grunts)and then his guitar. One of the boys especially was very happy about seeing the guitar and with a bit more pantomime it was clear he would love to see it. I drug it out and passed it across and they guy immediately turned and moved back to the cockpit and began strumming. What a thing to see. He strummed and looked at us then turned to one of the other two boys and had a short conversation before the two of them launched into a beautiful song. No music, no practice but each time they ran out of a song they would say a rod or two, hum a bar while the player plucked his way through a couple of notes and off they went with their beautiful voices and amazing guitar playing.
We have read in the past about the Marquesan singing reputation. It is said that all Marquesans have a wonderful voice and several times the cruisers have questioned if that was true or if they just didn't allow the pitchy ones to open their mouths. Well now I think it is the later. Of the three boys only two sang and played. The other boy remained silent but for one song. That one song as they were belting it out was rousing and sounded like a drinking song in its enthusiasm. They allowed him to join in but then on the next selection he again remained silent.
After the music, cookies and Tang the boys also wanted to go on deck. Once there again the waving, yelling, laughing and smiling across the anchorage to a horde of other kids. Eventually it was time to get ready for snack time on S/v Mersolei so reluctantly the boys climbed back into the dinghy. The guitar player was once again at the helm and off they roared. When Bill returned he told me two things: 1. as soon as the boy had the outboard in hand -both trips- he was off headed towards the breaking surf until Bill talked him out of it and 2. once they turned the corner at the quay there were dozens and dozens of kids, more than 100 waiting for their turn! They really wanted a turn and poor Bill had to be pretty forceful in not taking a third batch out but in the end he escaped with his life and our dinghy safe and sound. Too bad we had to leave early the next morning because the guitar player was happily saying he would bring us mangoes, bananas, papaya, limes and pamplemousse as a thank you the next day after school. ~sigh~ We really could have used the fruit for the atolls of the Tuamotu.
Kat
----------
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Monday, May 14, 2012
5/12/2012 Swimming with the Manta Rays
5/12/2012 Hanamoenoa Bay, Tahuata Island, Marquesas
I don't know how old I was, six or seven maybe the first time I went snorkeling but I definitely remember it. We were at Octopus Point on Hood Canal. My dad had commandeered the Terri II, grandpa's 16 ft runabout and we had zipped across "the canal" headed to wherever dad's childhood memories might take us. The snorkel gear was new and fascinating and the water was cold.
I know my whole family must have been there but all I remember was being astounded by the life under the surface. Octopus Point, which might actually be name dad made up, is rocky and remote. As the tide came in I hovered over the rocks watching little crabs scurry about, tiny fish dart back and forth in the tide and bits of sea grass float by and I was enthralled. It certainly made deep impression on me because I have loved to snorkel and now dive from that day on.
Now, living full time aboard our boat gives me plenty of opportunities to get in the water and in fact that has always been one of the draws to this lifestyle. I swam with the Whale Sharks in Bahia Concepcion and with an entire sea lion rookery in Bahia Refugio. Yesterday morning we slid off the side of our boat into water filled with Manta Rays!
Watching them from so close a distance, actually being able to reach out and touch one was an experience I will never forget. The Manta's were all roughly five feet from wingtip to wingtip. They have a long tail like a sting ray but no stinger to do you harm. They are plankton eaters so you don't have to worry about one deciding you would make a nice dinner and they are purported to have the brain capacity of a two year old.
They are amazing creatures to watch because they shift and change under you gaze. The shape of their mouths change shape and function when they feed vs when they are just hanging out. Their underside is bright white and also changes shape with feeding. When not feeding it is a big flat expanse that looks something like the bottom of a halibut or a sand dab. When they are feeding the whole body expands to accept the thousands of gallons of water they filter every day for food. The cut of the gills open up with the expansion and the gills make it look eerily like a human chest with prominent rib bones. They often swim along right at the surface with their great wing tips just barely peeking out on the upstroke so you can easily spot them. They really look like they should be flying in the sky, their graceful strokes so strong that when they pass you can feel the press of the displaced water roll over you.
When we first entered the water they stood off away from us but continued to feed. A few minutes later they seemed to have decided we weren't a threat and came much closer. As one came very close, shifting his path a smidge to glide under me I stretched out my arm and ran a single finger the length of his back. He didn't even flinch. Their body feels completely different from a fish. The skin is sandpaper rough but underneath is a layer of softness that gives until your pressing against muscle. If you have ever taken a CPR course with a Resusci-Annie doll, well a Manta Ray body feels like a live Resusci-Annie.
There are numerous accounts amongst the cruisers of Manta's allowing divers to ride on their backs and even more amazingly of playing little games of Mimicry. The human rolls over the Manta rolls over, the human does a pirouette the Manta does a pirouette. There have also been some fascinating studies set up to try and test their level of intelligence and why they seem to attach to some humans who present themselves in the Manta's home turf but not to others.
In Mexico the divers around San Benedicto noticed that a few of the giant Manta Rays seemed to pick out a single diver and then stick with them, even following them back to their boats or even coming to the boat early in the morning to say hello. To try and figure this out they put several divers in the water with distinctly different colored dive gear. One of the Mantas was definitely attached to one person over the rest. So, they pulled all the divers out of the water and had them switch dive gear. The Manta without hesitation returned to the same diver as soon as he was in the water. This in spite of a different colored face mask, large dive vest, and different colored air tank, fins and wet suits. Our Mantas were feeding and didn't stay to play but regardless it was a wonderful experience and one that I will look for again.
All the cruisers keep talking about sharks and where is safe and where it isn't safe to get in the water. Everyone seems to have differing opinion on which sharks are dangerous and which can be ignored and everyone seems to have at least one shark story to tell -none of which ever seem to have a truly happy ending. So I'll take Manta Rays any day and will continue to look for every opportunity to slide into the water to experience more wonders of the ocean-preferably the ones without big teeth.
Kat
----------
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I don't know how old I was, six or seven maybe the first time I went snorkeling but I definitely remember it. We were at Octopus Point on Hood Canal. My dad had commandeered the Terri II, grandpa's 16 ft runabout and we had zipped across "the canal" headed to wherever dad's childhood memories might take us. The snorkel gear was new and fascinating and the water was cold.
I know my whole family must have been there but all I remember was being astounded by the life under the surface. Octopus Point, which might actually be name dad made up, is rocky and remote. As the tide came in I hovered over the rocks watching little crabs scurry about, tiny fish dart back and forth in the tide and bits of sea grass float by and I was enthralled. It certainly made deep impression on me because I have loved to snorkel and now dive from that day on.
Now, living full time aboard our boat gives me plenty of opportunities to get in the water and in fact that has always been one of the draws to this lifestyle. I swam with the Whale Sharks in Bahia Concepcion and with an entire sea lion rookery in Bahia Refugio. Yesterday morning we slid off the side of our boat into water filled with Manta Rays!
Watching them from so close a distance, actually being able to reach out and touch one was an experience I will never forget. The Manta's were all roughly five feet from wingtip to wingtip. They have a long tail like a sting ray but no stinger to do you harm. They are plankton eaters so you don't have to worry about one deciding you would make a nice dinner and they are purported to have the brain capacity of a two year old.
They are amazing creatures to watch because they shift and change under you gaze. The shape of their mouths change shape and function when they feed vs when they are just hanging out. Their underside is bright white and also changes shape with feeding. When not feeding it is a big flat expanse that looks something like the bottom of a halibut or a sand dab. When they are feeding the whole body expands to accept the thousands of gallons of water they filter every day for food. The cut of the gills open up with the expansion and the gills make it look eerily like a human chest with prominent rib bones. They often swim along right at the surface with their great wing tips just barely peeking out on the upstroke so you can easily spot them. They really look like they should be flying in the sky, their graceful strokes so strong that when they pass you can feel the press of the displaced water roll over you.
When we first entered the water they stood off away from us but continued to feed. A few minutes later they seemed to have decided we weren't a threat and came much closer. As one came very close, shifting his path a smidge to glide under me I stretched out my arm and ran a single finger the length of his back. He didn't even flinch. Their body feels completely different from a fish. The skin is sandpaper rough but underneath is a layer of softness that gives until your pressing against muscle. If you have ever taken a CPR course with a Resusci-Annie doll, well a Manta Ray body feels like a live Resusci-Annie.
There are numerous accounts amongst the cruisers of Manta's allowing divers to ride on their backs and even more amazingly of playing little games of Mimicry. The human rolls over the Manta rolls over, the human does a pirouette the Manta does a pirouette. There have also been some fascinating studies set up to try and test their level of intelligence and why they seem to attach to some humans who present themselves in the Manta's home turf but not to others.
In Mexico the divers around San Benedicto noticed that a few of the giant Manta Rays seemed to pick out a single diver and then stick with them, even following them back to their boats or even coming to the boat early in the morning to say hello. To try and figure this out they put several divers in the water with distinctly different colored dive gear. One of the Mantas was definitely attached to one person over the rest. So, they pulled all the divers out of the water and had them switch dive gear. The Manta without hesitation returned to the same diver as soon as he was in the water. This in spite of a different colored face mask, large dive vest, and different colored air tank, fins and wet suits. Our Mantas were feeding and didn't stay to play but regardless it was a wonderful experience and one that I will look for again.
All the cruisers keep talking about sharks and where is safe and where it isn't safe to get in the water. Everyone seems to have differing opinion on which sharks are dangerous and which can be ignored and everyone seems to have at least one shark story to tell -none of which ever seem to have a truly happy ending. So I'll take Manta Rays any day and will continue to look for every opportunity to slide into the water to experience more wonders of the ocean-preferably the ones without big teeth.
Kat
----------
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Thursday, May 10, 2012
5/7/2012 Cooking Lessons and Chief Kaati's Family Feast
5/7/2012 Cooking Lessons and Chief Kaati's Family Feast
Imagine answering a knock on your front door and finding two or four or ten foreigners standing on your front porch. They are barely able to speak your language but ask to come look at the paintings you do, the bookcase you're making, the jewelry you create or the sweater your knitting. You'd be gracious and friendly while they traipsed around your yard and garage asking questions and taking pictures of your pets and once they exclaimed over your apple tree you would fill their arms with fruit. Then offer to throw them a party and cook up oh, eight or ten of your best down home American dishes -for a small fee. What would you cook? Apple pie? Pizza? Hot dogs? Maybe an entire Thanksgiving meal? Well, that's one of the few way the Marquesans have to earn your tourist dollars and somehow we hit the jackpot when we met Chief Kaati.
We had already been to a pig roast in Hiva Oa with a swarm of cruisers and the family who cooked for us didn't share our meal and a another here in Fatu Hiva with another family who also didn't sit down to eat or interact with us really at all so when Chief Kaati "not a big chief just a little chief" made her offer none of our group of ten was terribly interested. Then Ann on Charisma had a brilliant idea: would Kaati teach us how to cook a few of the local dishes? That sounded much more interesting and we all really liked Kaati and her family. Conversation, negotiation, logistics and menu ensued but then we discovered that the only day all of us would be able to attend would be the next night and that was her 8 year old grand daughters birthday. No problem she said, Ok....sounds fun.
The next day at two o'clock myself, Anne, Ann, John, Lisa and Pat arrived at the carving shed (the others would join us later for the eating) ready to learn how to cook breadfruit, bananas, Poisson cru, banana leaf baked fish, coconut chicken, roasted chicken and green papaya salad. But first a walk across town to Kaati's new house while her husband, brother and son drive on ahead with a the pickup loaded down with wood for fires, pots, pans and buckets full of the half prepared dishes. The house at the carving shed turned out to be Kaati's old house her new house befitting the village Chief was across town. We had noticed it a previous day and it stood out looking very prosperous and official. It was very new construction with wood siding and tile floors, a flat screen TV, large kitchen and a big cement floored covered outdoor gathering area.
We arrived with a flurry of activity. The tables were set up, benches brought in, pots and pans unloaded and carted to tables or kitchen and fires started in both a pit and a grill. The kids were running around and through and everyone was chatting and talking and taking pictures. A few of the cruisers had brought small things along with them for the birthday and it wasn't long before the kids were the center of attention- the cooking was going to have to take a back seat. Pat on The Rose had a pocketful of balloons and the kids swarmed like bees. Each of the kids got a balloon or two and soon the walls were decorated for the celebration.
Then of course the cameras came out to take the requisite vacation photos but every child wanted to learn how to work a digital camera and soon the yard and house were filled with directors for the day. Literally hundreds of photos were taken by the kids -every battery eventually went dead- as the children posed and grouped, giggled and gawked taking picture after picture after picture. Out the window went the vacation pictures of chicks and pigs, breadfruit fires and coconut making. The kids loved taking pictures of each other and us. One little girl using my point and shoot came running back to me intent on taking my photo with her sister -upside down!
As guests, several of us had brought gifts for the birthday girl. I brought along a giant bubble wand we had picked up in Mexico so while the cooking began in earnest the gaggle of little girls whirled around us blowing bubbles, taking pictures and batting balloons back and forth.
The next few hours flew by in a blur of food and children and the scents and sounds of a happy family. It was the Marquesan version of pre-holiday preparations at Grandmas house and we had been invited in like family. The brother and son brought out a guitar and a ukulele which then was picked up every time there was a lull in the cooking business. The yard was filled with crowing roosters and chickens with chicks and there was a big pink pig snuffling and snorting and hoping to get a bite of what we were preparing.
Finally everything was ready and the guests had straggled in: Bill, Mark, Bob, John and Craig walked up from the anchorage to join us and handful of neighborhood kids appeared for the birthday party. The end of the main table quickly filled with kids as the rest of us sat down to eat. Surprisingly Kaati and the rest of the grown ups left us there at the table to eat alone -turns out it was voting day and they had to cast their vote by 6:00pm.-leaving us there to mind the kids and the food.
When they returned and their meals were through it was time for music. The kids all sang along with guitar and ukulele and boy do they like to sing. The grown ups took turns on the instruments and more and more kids joined in from around the neighborhood. The singing was loud and happy and all in Marquesan save for one round of Cumbiya' thrown in for the Americans. Then a pause in the music and out came the birthday cake lit with candles just like home. Everyone sang a round of what must have been Happy Birthday before the birthday girl blew out the candles and glowed in the attention.
Once the cake was passed around the birthday girl stepped into the limelight. She began to dance and was clearly having a wonderful time. Several of the smaller girls danced off behind her in the shadows but the spotlight was all hers. At eight she was already an accomplished dancer and her family glowed with pride while she danced. Her fluttery skirt had definitely been chosen for just this moment and she loved the spotlight. Grandma sat quietly off in a corner with a beaming smile on her face enjoying the moment and obviously filled with pride for the Birthday Girl and her whole family.
The evening began to wind down as the neighborhood kids headed home with their balloons and cake. We had been there for nearly six hours and it was time to get back to our boats. All of us were totally blown away by the experience and couldn't stop smiling as Kaati and her son loaded us up with leftovers -just like Grandma's house back home! As we walked through the village back to our boats we couldn't stop talking about how much fun we had and how we had felt pulled right up into the middle of this wonderful family. We couldn't have asked for a better last night on Fatu Hiva and for the record I really did learn how to prepare a Marquesan feast.
Breadfruit: This volley ball sized bumpy green fruit has a significant stickiness when picked. The whole breadfruit is first soaked in water for a day then cooked in coals in an open pit. Once they are burned black on the outside you grab one with a wet leaf and using a knife cut the thick outer skin off leaving the white starchy meat inside steaming hot and tasting like mashed potatoes. (This is the starch staple of French Polynesia and the plant that sent Captain Cook though the islands for his second expedition and ultimately his death. )
Backed Chicken: Kaati used legs and thighs plopped into a large pan. She poured oyster sauce then soy sauce and fresh lemon before baking in the oven for about an hour.
Green Papaya Salad: Peel the green papaya and then finely grate. Serve with a simple vinaigrette -oil, vinegar, sugar, mustard and a bit of lemon.
Coconut Milk: For this we were off to the back yard with the boys. They made the first step easy by using their handy dandy Popeal coconut shredder which marvelously made confetti out of ten coconuts. Then for the milk we poured plain hot water over the shredded coconut and let it sit for a bit. Then we pulled big heaping hands full out of the mush then splooshing it down in the middle of a tangle of coconut husk fibers. The fibers where then wrung out like a dishtowel into a large pot. The wrung out nut meat was set aside to take back to the new mama pig at the carving shed and the pot of milk was poured a cup or two at a time through the husks to strain out any bits and pieces of shell.
Banana Leaf Grilled Fish: First send someone out to catch you some fresh fish. Wrap the pieces in banana leaves that have been soaked in water and then wrap in tin foil before setting on the grill.
Poisson Cru: Cut fresh caught tuna into bite sized pieces. Pick twenty limes off the tree in your back yard. Slice them and then juice them into a bowl removing the seeds. Just before serving!!!! put about 6 cups of fish into a serving bowl and spoon three tablespoons of the fresh lime juice over the top followed by about a cup of your coconut milk. This dish is similar to ceviche but the fish is left in the lime juice for a very short period of time. Kaati's Poisson Cru was simply fish, lime juice and coconut milk but many people add cucumber, tomatoes, green onion, celery or what have you to the mix. (This dish is a staple and signature dish of French Polynesia and is usually made out of tuna. It is quite similar to ceviche.)
Chicken with Coconut and Papaya: First steam big pieces of thinly sliced green papaya for about 3 minutes. Then lay the steamed papaya over already cooked chicken pieces. Pour coconut milk over the top and simmer over the stove for 30 or 40 minutes. Pour a fresh bit of coconut milk over the top just before serving.
Baked Bananas: Cook the bananas in their peel along the edges of your breadfruit cooking pit. Peel and serve alone or in a bowl with a wash of fresh coconut milk.
Finally: For the whole effect finish your meal with Birthday Cake for the whole neighborhood!
Kat
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Imagine answering a knock on your front door and finding two or four or ten foreigners standing on your front porch. They are barely able to speak your language but ask to come look at the paintings you do, the bookcase you're making, the jewelry you create or the sweater your knitting. You'd be gracious and friendly while they traipsed around your yard and garage asking questions and taking pictures of your pets and once they exclaimed over your apple tree you would fill their arms with fruit. Then offer to throw them a party and cook up oh, eight or ten of your best down home American dishes -for a small fee. What would you cook? Apple pie? Pizza? Hot dogs? Maybe an entire Thanksgiving meal? Well, that's one of the few way the Marquesans have to earn your tourist dollars and somehow we hit the jackpot when we met Chief Kaati.
We had already been to a pig roast in Hiva Oa with a swarm of cruisers and the family who cooked for us didn't share our meal and a another here in Fatu Hiva with another family who also didn't sit down to eat or interact with us really at all so when Chief Kaati "not a big chief just a little chief" made her offer none of our group of ten was terribly interested. Then Ann on Charisma had a brilliant idea: would Kaati teach us how to cook a few of the local dishes? That sounded much more interesting and we all really liked Kaati and her family. Conversation, negotiation, logistics and menu ensued but then we discovered that the only day all of us would be able to attend would be the next night and that was her 8 year old grand daughters birthday. No problem she said, Ok....sounds fun.
The next day at two o'clock myself, Anne, Ann, John, Lisa and Pat arrived at the carving shed (the others would join us later for the eating) ready to learn how to cook breadfruit, bananas, Poisson cru, banana leaf baked fish, coconut chicken, roasted chicken and green papaya salad. But first a walk across town to Kaati's new house while her husband, brother and son drive on ahead with a the pickup loaded down with wood for fires, pots, pans and buckets full of the half prepared dishes. The house at the carving shed turned out to be Kaati's old house her new house befitting the village Chief was across town. We had noticed it a previous day and it stood out looking very prosperous and official. It was very new construction with wood siding and tile floors, a flat screen TV, large kitchen and a big cement floored covered outdoor gathering area.
We arrived with a flurry of activity. The tables were set up, benches brought in, pots and pans unloaded and carted to tables or kitchen and fires started in both a pit and a grill. The kids were running around and through and everyone was chatting and talking and taking pictures. A few of the cruisers had brought small things along with them for the birthday and it wasn't long before the kids were the center of attention- the cooking was going to have to take a back seat. Pat on The Rose had a pocketful of balloons and the kids swarmed like bees. Each of the kids got a balloon or two and soon the walls were decorated for the celebration.
Then of course the cameras came out to take the requisite vacation photos but every child wanted to learn how to work a digital camera and soon the yard and house were filled with directors for the day. Literally hundreds of photos were taken by the kids -every battery eventually went dead- as the children posed and grouped, giggled and gawked taking picture after picture after picture. Out the window went the vacation pictures of chicks and pigs, breadfruit fires and coconut making. The kids loved taking pictures of each other and us. One little girl using my point and shoot came running back to me intent on taking my photo with her sister -upside down!
As guests, several of us had brought gifts for the birthday girl. I brought along a giant bubble wand we had picked up in Mexico so while the cooking began in earnest the gaggle of little girls whirled around us blowing bubbles, taking pictures and batting balloons back and forth.
The next few hours flew by in a blur of food and children and the scents and sounds of a happy family. It was the Marquesan version of pre-holiday preparations at Grandmas house and we had been invited in like family. The brother and son brought out a guitar and a ukulele which then was picked up every time there was a lull in the cooking business. The yard was filled with crowing roosters and chickens with chicks and there was a big pink pig snuffling and snorting and hoping to get a bite of what we were preparing.
Finally everything was ready and the guests had straggled in: Bill, Mark, Bob, John and Craig walked up from the anchorage to join us and handful of neighborhood kids appeared for the birthday party. The end of the main table quickly filled with kids as the rest of us sat down to eat. Surprisingly Kaati and the rest of the grown ups left us there at the table to eat alone -turns out it was voting day and they had to cast their vote by 6:00pm.-leaving us there to mind the kids and the food.
When they returned and their meals were through it was time for music. The kids all sang along with guitar and ukulele and boy do they like to sing. The grown ups took turns on the instruments and more and more kids joined in from around the neighborhood. The singing was loud and happy and all in Marquesan save for one round of Cumbiya' thrown in for the Americans. Then a pause in the music and out came the birthday cake lit with candles just like home. Everyone sang a round of what must have been Happy Birthday before the birthday girl blew out the candles and glowed in the attention.
Once the cake was passed around the birthday girl stepped into the limelight. She began to dance and was clearly having a wonderful time. Several of the smaller girls danced off behind her in the shadows but the spotlight was all hers. At eight she was already an accomplished dancer and her family glowed with pride while she danced. Her fluttery skirt had definitely been chosen for just this moment and she loved the spotlight. Grandma sat quietly off in a corner with a beaming smile on her face enjoying the moment and obviously filled with pride for the Birthday Girl and her whole family.
The evening began to wind down as the neighborhood kids headed home with their balloons and cake. We had been there for nearly six hours and it was time to get back to our boats. All of us were totally blown away by the experience and couldn't stop smiling as Kaati and her son loaded us up with leftovers -just like Grandma's house back home! As we walked through the village back to our boats we couldn't stop talking about how much fun we had and how we had felt pulled right up into the middle of this wonderful family. We couldn't have asked for a better last night on Fatu Hiva and for the record I really did learn how to prepare a Marquesan feast.
Breadfruit: This volley ball sized bumpy green fruit has a significant stickiness when picked. The whole breadfruit is first soaked in water for a day then cooked in coals in an open pit. Once they are burned black on the outside you grab one with a wet leaf and using a knife cut the thick outer skin off leaving the white starchy meat inside steaming hot and tasting like mashed potatoes. (This is the starch staple of French Polynesia and the plant that sent Captain Cook though the islands for his second expedition and ultimately his death. )
Backed Chicken: Kaati used legs and thighs plopped into a large pan. She poured oyster sauce then soy sauce and fresh lemon before baking in the oven for about an hour.
Green Papaya Salad: Peel the green papaya and then finely grate. Serve with a simple vinaigrette -oil, vinegar, sugar, mustard and a bit of lemon.
Coconut Milk: For this we were off to the back yard with the boys. They made the first step easy by using their handy dandy Popeal coconut shredder which marvelously made confetti out of ten coconuts. Then for the milk we poured plain hot water over the shredded coconut and let it sit for a bit. Then we pulled big heaping hands full out of the mush then splooshing it down in the middle of a tangle of coconut husk fibers. The fibers where then wrung out like a dishtowel into a large pot. The wrung out nut meat was set aside to take back to the new mama pig at the carving shed and the pot of milk was poured a cup or two at a time through the husks to strain out any bits and pieces of shell.
Banana Leaf Grilled Fish: First send someone out to catch you some fresh fish. Wrap the pieces in banana leaves that have been soaked in water and then wrap in tin foil before setting on the grill.
Poisson Cru: Cut fresh caught tuna into bite sized pieces. Pick twenty limes off the tree in your back yard. Slice them and then juice them into a bowl removing the seeds. Just before serving!!!! put about 6 cups of fish into a serving bowl and spoon three tablespoons of the fresh lime juice over the top followed by about a cup of your coconut milk. This dish is similar to ceviche but the fish is left in the lime juice for a very short period of time. Kaati's Poisson Cru was simply fish, lime juice and coconut milk but many people add cucumber, tomatoes, green onion, celery or what have you to the mix. (This dish is a staple and signature dish of French Polynesia and is usually made out of tuna. It is quite similar to ceviche.)
Chicken with Coconut and Papaya: First steam big pieces of thinly sliced green papaya for about 3 minutes. Then lay the steamed papaya over already cooked chicken pieces. Pour coconut milk over the top and simmer over the stove for 30 or 40 minutes. Pour a fresh bit of coconut milk over the top just before serving.
Baked Bananas: Cook the bananas in their peel along the edges of your breadfruit cooking pit. Peel and serve alone or in a bowl with a wash of fresh coconut milk.
Finally: For the whole effect finish your meal with Birthday Cake for the whole neighborhood!
Kat
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5/6/2012 Tiki Shopping in Hana Vave
5/6/2012 Tiki SHopping in Hana Vave
Our second day in town our goal was to be invited in to see either the work of a traditional carver or to see the women making Tapa cloth. So armed with my Marquesan hello "ka OH ha" we set off into town. We stopped again at the community store and eventually hit on the magic word: Tiki. Soon we were following a smiling man along a winding lane not quite sure what were would find. Evidently we were at the right place at the right time because we ended up at the Chiefs home where she employs three men (all relatives) to work full time in her carving shed. They carve traditional figures out of native hardwoods. We spent probably forty five minutes there though we didn't buy anything. The men were eager to talk and even more eager to show off their beautifully sculpted objects.
There were definitely beautiful tiki's but they also began pulling out carved manta rays, turtles, traditional masks, bowls, platters, ceremonial paddles and war clubs from first a trunk and then fro all over their home. One carver was working on a sort of free form three dimensional piece: a flowing wood seascape with a separate manta ray. WOW.
After leaving them we were met along the lane by another family. They had carvings, jewelry and dried bananas for sale. We bought bananas but passed on the art and headed farther into town. Next came a woman just out it seemed for a stroll and trying to act uninterested but as we closed in she smiled at our "ka OH ha" and then said shyly, Tiki? We'd been found out. The whole island seemed to open for us. Every carver, tapa cloth maker, jewelry maker, carvers momma and tapa grandma was happy to show us to their work shed.
The people here work all year making their art and then once a year it is loaded up on a ship and sent to the Expo in Papeete, Tahiti for sale to collectors and importers from all over the world. They ship dried bananas by the gross, tons of carvings and stack after stack of Tapa cloth. Other than the one small store which must only employ a worker or two the local arts are the only game in town. Carving, making tapa, offering traditional dinners to visitors, fishing and Noni plantation workers (Noni is a plant cultivated for it's medicinal properties) are the only income producers for the entire island. Accordingly nearly every household has a carving shed or a place where the women pound out the Tapa cloth from the bark of three local trees. We followed brothers, mothers and cousins up and down almost every little lane in town and no one seemed bothered by our one noun one verb conversations. Eventually we bought a carved turtle and a rosewood mask and later a serving tray. We made friends everywhere we went and every families was welcoming regardless of whether or not we decided to buy something. Definitely a great way to kick start our South Pacific adventure. Thanks Fatu Hiva.
Kat
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Our second day in town our goal was to be invited in to see either the work of a traditional carver or to see the women making Tapa cloth. So armed with my Marquesan hello "ka OH ha" we set off into town. We stopped again at the community store and eventually hit on the magic word: Tiki. Soon we were following a smiling man along a winding lane not quite sure what were would find. Evidently we were at the right place at the right time because we ended up at the Chiefs home where she employs three men (all relatives) to work full time in her carving shed. They carve traditional figures out of native hardwoods. We spent probably forty five minutes there though we didn't buy anything. The men were eager to talk and even more eager to show off their beautifully sculpted objects.
There were definitely beautiful tiki's but they also began pulling out carved manta rays, turtles, traditional masks, bowls, platters, ceremonial paddles and war clubs from first a trunk and then fro all over their home. One carver was working on a sort of free form three dimensional piece: a flowing wood seascape with a separate manta ray. WOW.
After leaving them we were met along the lane by another family. They had carvings, jewelry and dried bananas for sale. We bought bananas but passed on the art and headed farther into town. Next came a woman just out it seemed for a stroll and trying to act uninterested but as we closed in she smiled at our "ka OH ha" and then said shyly, Tiki? We'd been found out. The whole island seemed to open for us. Every carver, tapa cloth maker, jewelry maker, carvers momma and tapa grandma was happy to show us to their work shed.
The people here work all year making their art and then once a year it is loaded up on a ship and sent to the Expo in Papeete, Tahiti for sale to collectors and importers from all over the world. They ship dried bananas by the gross, tons of carvings and stack after stack of Tapa cloth. Other than the one small store which must only employ a worker or two the local arts are the only game in town. Carving, making tapa, offering traditional dinners to visitors, fishing and Noni plantation workers (Noni is a plant cultivated for it's medicinal properties) are the only income producers for the entire island. Accordingly nearly every household has a carving shed or a place where the women pound out the Tapa cloth from the bark of three local trees. We followed brothers, mothers and cousins up and down almost every little lane in town and no one seemed bothered by our one noun one verb conversations. Eventually we bought a carved turtle and a rosewood mask and later a serving tray. We made friends everywhere we went and every families was welcoming regardless of whether or not we decided to buy something. Definitely a great way to kick start our South Pacific adventure. Thanks Fatu Hiva.
Kat
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5/5/2012 Fatu Hiva
5/5/2012 Fatu Hiva, Marquesas Archipligo
Tucked far out of the way to the south west makes visiting Fatu Hiva a bit of a commitment. Cruising boats are required to check-in at either Hiva Oa or Nuka Hiva before visiting any other islands so the 50 mile backtrack upwind after the long passage it took to get here looks like a lot of work. Consequently many cruisers don't bother with this tiny little gem in favor of following the flow on eastward. Missing this island though amounts to visiting Paris and not seeing the Louvre.
I am sorry I am unable to download pictures for you but if you have a free minute to Google Fatu Hiva it's definitely worth the click. The pictures you are most likely to see will be of the Bay of Virgins named for the thrusting rock formations that are prominent around the village of Hana Vive. The bay was originally called the Bay of Penises but in the quest to save souls the missionaries decided that was entirely too savage and needed to be changed. The islanders didn't really embrace the new name and the rocks of course kept their shape so its sort of becomes a mute point.
Like Hiva Oa this island was formed when a volcano erupted in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. Eventually the volcanoes' cone cracked leaving one narrow slice of the crater wall a ragged and rocky break open to the sea. Time then turned the barren rock to a lush tropical island. There are only two small villages with a 15 kilometer road connecting them, no airstrip, or hospital, no cruise ship dock and no French Gendarmes.
The valley that climbs quickly from the quay at bays head up into the crater of the long dead volcano is home to the village of Hana Vave. Nearly all the villagers who live on the island were born here and many have never been out of the Marquesas, some have never left the island. There are 42 homes in the village. The houses are modest but neat with tidy yard filled with flowers, vegetable gardens, fruit trees, chickens and commonly pigs. There is one small store in town, a post office, grade school and a church. Small lanes tie everything together around the river and the two roads out of town merge up and over the crater wall northward to Omoa the only other village on the island.
Our first day on the island we walked through the village and valley like tourists: mouths agape, head tilted upwards oohing and aahhing our way up as we went. I had learned the Marquesan word for hello "ka OH ha" and decided to try that with a smile on the locals. The single word of hello -actively and ardently corrected- instantly began opening the island to us.
The little yellow store was open so we stepped inside: 20 x 20, two sides bracketed with half empty shelves, one drink cooler-3/4 empty, two deep freezers and a small counter. We bought a couple of cold drinks and armed with our tiny vocabulary of French and our single Marquesan word we tried out our communication skills. Eventually with plenty of arm flapping, finger pointing and Spanglish speaking mime we managed a dialog of sorts.
The clerk behind the counter stayed silent and wary but an older gentleman named Daniel honed in with a request. He fingered and pointed at a key lanyard around his neck and offering fruit from his property if we might have one to trade. Surprisingly on the boat I had several tucked away with the thought that I might use the bits of webbing so I promised I would look and come back for a trade the next day. Figuring we were all on a roll we kept up the conversation and Daniel segued into an obvious inside joke. He mimed shooting a gun and pointing to the hills with a wicked grin then stepped around the corner out of sight of the clerks and put his finger to his lips in an exaggerated :shhhhhhhhhh." He took great joy in the exchange and later we watched as he played it out with numerous other cruisers.
We could never quite tell if he truly wanted to know if we carried a gun, or perhaps had bullets to trade or was offering to take us goat hunting. Or was he making a joke about the incident last year when a local man offered to take a Dutch cruiser goat hunting. That was the last the man was seen alive and his bones were found in a smoldering campfire. All anxiously reported as the first incident of cannibalism in the Marquesas in decades. We declined the offer but chose to accept it as a friendly cross cultural exchange.
From there we set off up the valley on a road that wound along a small river. The road slowly gained steepness as we walked through the break in the crater wall. In less than a mile we were surrounded on all sides by the bowl of the massive crater. It was a stunning vision looking up around us knowing that at one time this was a glowing, steaming, fire belching, lava flowing monster. The black rock stands out from the indescribable shades of green and everywhere you look there is nothing but up. We never found the waterfall mentioned in the guidebook that we had set off to see but the view was worth the walk. The craters ridge seemed to never get closer and eventually the heat and the switchbacks made us turn back.
Once back on the boat I sat in the cockpit staring at the beauty surrounding our little boat and couldn't help but think about the lives they live here. Fatu Hiva is often referred to as the most beautiful island on earth so if you were born and raised here would you're mind have a hard time imagining that not everyone in the world lives in a place of beauty? Imagine flying to say East L.A.! If you traveled off the island would the rest of the world disappoint you?
Kat
(I learned later that most of the young men from these islands spend a stint in the French Military and most end up serving in Afghanistan. It boggles my mind just thinking about that.)
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Tucked far out of the way to the south west makes visiting Fatu Hiva a bit of a commitment. Cruising boats are required to check-in at either Hiva Oa or Nuka Hiva before visiting any other islands so the 50 mile backtrack upwind after the long passage it took to get here looks like a lot of work. Consequently many cruisers don't bother with this tiny little gem in favor of following the flow on eastward. Missing this island though amounts to visiting Paris and not seeing the Louvre.
I am sorry I am unable to download pictures for you but if you have a free minute to Google Fatu Hiva it's definitely worth the click. The pictures you are most likely to see will be of the Bay of Virgins named for the thrusting rock formations that are prominent around the village of Hana Vive. The bay was originally called the Bay of Penises but in the quest to save souls the missionaries decided that was entirely too savage and needed to be changed. The islanders didn't really embrace the new name and the rocks of course kept their shape so its sort of becomes a mute point.
Like Hiva Oa this island was formed when a volcano erupted in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. Eventually the volcanoes' cone cracked leaving one narrow slice of the crater wall a ragged and rocky break open to the sea. Time then turned the barren rock to a lush tropical island. There are only two small villages with a 15 kilometer road connecting them, no airstrip, or hospital, no cruise ship dock and no French Gendarmes.
The valley that climbs quickly from the quay at bays head up into the crater of the long dead volcano is home to the village of Hana Vave. Nearly all the villagers who live on the island were born here and many have never been out of the Marquesas, some have never left the island. There are 42 homes in the village. The houses are modest but neat with tidy yard filled with flowers, vegetable gardens, fruit trees, chickens and commonly pigs. There is one small store in town, a post office, grade school and a church. Small lanes tie everything together around the river and the two roads out of town merge up and over the crater wall northward to Omoa the only other village on the island.
Our first day on the island we walked through the village and valley like tourists: mouths agape, head tilted upwards oohing and aahhing our way up as we went. I had learned the Marquesan word for hello "ka OH ha" and decided to try that with a smile on the locals. The single word of hello -actively and ardently corrected- instantly began opening the island to us.
The little yellow store was open so we stepped inside: 20 x 20, two sides bracketed with half empty shelves, one drink cooler-3/4 empty, two deep freezers and a small counter. We bought a couple of cold drinks and armed with our tiny vocabulary of French and our single Marquesan word we tried out our communication skills. Eventually with plenty of arm flapping, finger pointing and Spanglish speaking mime we managed a dialog of sorts.
The clerk behind the counter stayed silent and wary but an older gentleman named Daniel honed in with a request. He fingered and pointed at a key lanyard around his neck and offering fruit from his property if we might have one to trade. Surprisingly on the boat I had several tucked away with the thought that I might use the bits of webbing so I promised I would look and come back for a trade the next day. Figuring we were all on a roll we kept up the conversation and Daniel segued into an obvious inside joke. He mimed shooting a gun and pointing to the hills with a wicked grin then stepped around the corner out of sight of the clerks and put his finger to his lips in an exaggerated :shhhhhhhhhh." He took great joy in the exchange and later we watched as he played it out with numerous other cruisers.
We could never quite tell if he truly wanted to know if we carried a gun, or perhaps had bullets to trade or was offering to take us goat hunting. Or was he making a joke about the incident last year when a local man offered to take a Dutch cruiser goat hunting. That was the last the man was seen alive and his bones were found in a smoldering campfire. All anxiously reported as the first incident of cannibalism in the Marquesas in decades. We declined the offer but chose to accept it as a friendly cross cultural exchange.
From there we set off up the valley on a road that wound along a small river. The road slowly gained steepness as we walked through the break in the crater wall. In less than a mile we were surrounded on all sides by the bowl of the massive crater. It was a stunning vision looking up around us knowing that at one time this was a glowing, steaming, fire belching, lava flowing monster. The black rock stands out from the indescribable shades of green and everywhere you look there is nothing but up. We never found the waterfall mentioned in the guidebook that we had set off to see but the view was worth the walk. The craters ridge seemed to never get closer and eventually the heat and the switchbacks made us turn back.
Once back on the boat I sat in the cockpit staring at the beauty surrounding our little boat and couldn't help but think about the lives they live here. Fatu Hiva is often referred to as the most beautiful island on earth so if you were born and raised here would you're mind have a hard time imagining that not everyone in the world lives in a place of beauty? Imagine flying to say East L.A.! If you traveled off the island would the rest of the world disappoint you?
Kat
(I learned later that most of the young men from these islands spend a stint in the French Military and most end up serving in Afghanistan. It boggles my mind just thinking about that.)
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Thursday, May 3, 2012
Hiva Oa Marquesas Islands
4/27/2012 Hiva Oa, Marquesas Archipelago
Close your eyes and conjure up the image you had as a kid of a tropical paradise: high lush mountains, rushing waterfalls, bananas and coconuts growing wild, mangoes dripping from trees, papaya ripening in the sun and pigs running wild in the woods. Now throw in dark haired women with Frangipani flowers tucked behind an ear, big brawny men covered with tattoos and smiling giggling children -that's the Marquesas, our first landfall after 23 days at sea.
The dark of night robbed us of our "Land Ho" moment but waking up as the sun rose, drenched in the scent of land with the dark silhouette of Hiva Oa peaking through the cloud cover was still a moment to treasure. The scent is amazing after so many days at sea: a rich intense combination of dark earth, jungle dampness, hints of flowers and smoke all layered over the clean scent of the sea. The scent changes subtly every time the island is washed with tropical showers -which happen often- or when you step from mid day sun into the comfort of deep shade. The smell is simply luscious. I wish I could bottle it up and keep it with me so then whenever I opened the stopper I would have my fix and be transported instantly back to these islands.
We motored in as the sun rolled its way up and had the quarantine flag up and the hook dropped by nine. We just missed a ride to the Gendarmerie and expected to be confined to quarters for a day but our agent Sandra said we should grab a ride into town and find a fresh croissant before we took a much earned nap. Twist my arm!
We are anchored in Taahuka Bay, nestled at the base of a stunningly beautiful valley. The town of Atuona, the larger of the two villages on Hiva Oa is a two mile walk or hitch away. There is a melody of roosters from the moment the sun begins to rise and beautiful turtle doves flitting from the branches. Horses stand in the street and goats and pigs hide in the underbrush. There really are small groups of locals playing ukulele and singing in the shade during the afternoons and most evenings bring paddling practice to the anchorage -the brightly colored plastic outriggers flying over the water with a cadence shouted from the aft seat. Town essentially closes down tight from 12:30 to 2:30 every day except for the "Snack Snack" where you can get a cold drink, a very expensive snack and a short lesson in French and Marquesan.
The town of Atuona is surprisingly modern. There are three or four grocery stores, one restaurant, a cemetery where the French artist Paul Gauguin is buried, a patisserie, a post office, bank and hardware store. Wi-Fi comes if you sit on a bench in front of the store across the street from the post office. There is no bus service so the 2 mile trip into town is by foot or by thumb. Our first trip ashore we were caught in an island shower and were soaked to the skin in a blink. We must have looked pretty pathetic because when we decided to try hitchhiking we were picked up right away but on our way back to the boat in the sunshine no one answered the call of our thumbs. Since then we have learned the tricks to hitching: you must be thoroughly committed and enthusiastic to hitchhike here. Just sticking out your thumb as you trudge along gets no result but if you turn around to face the oncoming vehicle and fling your arm out and smile like an idiot you are soon whisked up the hill in a very French silence.
Speaking of which, we really miss being able to speak the language. It's clear now that we were relatively proficient with our Spanish and equally clear that we know next to no French and no Marquesan. Our tiny vocabulary of words: hello, goodbye, thank you, please, yes, no, ham, cheese, baguette, tattoo, taboo and idiot don't allow for much of a conversation. Worse, the day we arrived we could barely come up with bon jour. Neither of us took French in school so we don't even have a rudimentary grasp of the pronunciation. The French quietly sneer at our attempts but the Marquesans seem pleased to help us with our tries and it never fails to get a grin or a giggle out of them.
The tourist season here is almost nonexistent. For reason unknown Tahiti is the only port of entry into all of French Polynesia. Travel to all other islands in French Polynesia requires a trip to Tahiti and then a second ticket to your destination. The inter-island fares are very high and the Marquesas are at the farthest reaches. A ticket here will cost you as much as your original airfare from the US and flights are heavily booked and often unavailable. The only alternative is an inner island cargo boat or sailboats like ours.
Every spring for a few short weeks a small fleet literally drifts in from Mexico, Panama and California on their way through to other destinations. The Marquesas don't even draw any of the lucrative business of international divers because the islands have little in the way of reefs or coral and as a bonus the waters are full of sharks. All this has left these islands and her people virtually untouched by the business of tourism.
We wanted to meet the locals and hopefully experience a bit of island life so Bill asked our agent Sandra if there was anything going on in town that we could attend. She was perplexed but then came up with two ideas: we could meet her at quarter of two at the dinghy dock and she would take us to see her daughter dance group and the next night her husband who makes guitars would be meeting with some friends to play music and we could tag along with him if we wanted to.
The dance group turned out to be a dance class. Twenty or so gals age 6 to 40 who meet weekly at the community activity center. They were a mix of French and Marquesan and they performed in groups mostly divided by age. They seemed surprised that we were there but basically ignored us and went about their business. The instructor would cue up a song from a computer and a group would dance then sit down and let the next group perform. Between dances the younger girls practiced a game that I could never quite understand. It was played with a single strand length of elastic band that was held by two girls like a jump rope. The girls would take turns running to it as if they were about to do a jump rope routine but then would jump over and grab the elastic with their foot in a sort of toes version of cat's cradle.
I did make one interesting observation at dance class: the French don't have the hips for dance that the Polynesian's do. Even the littlest girl with long dark hair and liquid brown eyes had a jiggle in her wiggle that doesn't seem possible to duplicate. About half of the gals were French and even the ones who were otherwise great dancers simply are not in the same league with the Polynesian's. Our small glimpses whet our appetite for the summer Fete (party) in Bora Bora we hope to attend. There, every year for a couple of weeks the best of the best from islands all over FP go to sing, dance and paddle in competitions that are highly competitive. It's definitely a don't miss celebration.
The music with Sandra's husband David turned out to be interesting. We invited several other boats to come with us telling them that David makes guitars and meets with friends to play music every week. We expected island music and ukulele and guitar. What they were playing was rock-n-roll; electric guitars, amps, drum kit and electric keyboard. It was good don't get me wrong it just wasn't at all what we expected. Like the dance class they had a talent for moving along with their evening as if we weren't there at all. David picked us up and drove us to the community center then no one spoke to us or said "you should sit over there" or anything at all. We slipped off our shoes and grabbed some chairs and listened politely but eventually it turned into a cruiser gab fest with a little dancing thrown in for fun. The dance class gals and David I think didn't really know what to do with us. Oh well ever onward and you never know if you don't ask.
Friday night we attended our first pig roast. A local came down to the anchorage and said if we could gather together at least ten of us he would roast a pig for us at his house -twenty five yachties signed on. We were picked up in batches and ferried to John and Mary Jo's house. Were they served us pit roasted pig and goat, breadfruit, roasted bananas, bananas in coconut milk, dumplings, baguettes and "Poisson Cru"( the FP version of ceviche.) After dinner their daughter danced for us and did the expected grabbing of the uncoordinated old white folks and dragging them in to dance. It was fun and interesting to taste the local food and we met some boats we hadn't had time to yet but it wasn't a chance to experience a real fete. Hopefully we will be able to wrangle an invitation to some local celebration once we are out of the "city."
After meeting John and Mary Jo we decided to take one of Mary Jo's cross island tours. It was an all day van trip along with friends from two other boats from the anchorage. Our first stop was at the Taaoa mare on the south side of the island. One of two on the island it is a ceremonial site that was carved out of the earth and built with the local volcanic black rock. The mare's were for people of high class and rank only - no women allowed. The remains of the complex is scattered over a few acres of land high in the hills. There are specific places to worship, to make sacrifices, to eat, to gather and to sleep. According to Mary Jo the only people who were eaten were enemy warriors and it was for both ceremonial purposes and as food. The Chief decided who was eaten and who wasn't and there was something akin to power that was transferred with the sacrifice of an enemy. She explained too that the act of cannibalism in the islands was never a harvesting- the hunters weren't coming home from a good hunt. The cannibalism was a byproduct of war in which only those of high rank would participate (no women allowed.) Though to those being sacrificed and eaten the ceremony and exactly who was going to eat them probably didn't really matter.
After the mare at Taaoa we drove across the island to Puamau the only other town on the island and the sight of the other significant mare. It took several hours to reach and Mary Jo stopped often for breath taking views and presentations of various plants and fruits. We gathered and nibbled on breadfruit, giant grapefruit, limes, bananas and coconuts, drank green coconut water, and saw hundreds of trees dripping with mangos, jackfruit, papaya and several others I can't name. We drove along paved roads, gravel roads, dirt roads and then amazingly fir trees. We topped out into the clouds unable to see even a glimpse of the water. We careened around steep corners and putted up switchbacks watching the goats scamper up the sheer rock face. The birds' song was amazing in the woods and there were wild horses all through the hills.
The mare in Puamau is the biggest in the island and dates back at least 2000 years. It is similar to the mare in Taaoa but has the lofty distinction of being home to the largest tiki west of Easter Island. There were several standing tiki's there as well as the organized outline of the original spaces for worship, celebration and sacrifice. The grounds are so lush and beautiful. The islanders leave them tended but as nature has left them but to my eyes they looked almost landscaped. There were more shades of green there than I knew existed. For the islanders the words to describe the shades of green must be like the words for snow for Eskimos. There is just no way to describe the colors. The black volcanic rock is a sharp contrast against the vines and leaves. Every imaginable color is represented in the variegated leaves and the multitude of flowers all towered over by fifty foot fruit trees.
Tomorrow we are off to the island of Fatu Hiva an 8 hour passage to the southwest. Yep, despite the illusion that we have all the time in the world to explore the South Pacific as US citizens we are only allowed 90 days in all of French Polynesia: which means a whirlwind tour of the Marquesas, the Tuomotus and the Society Islands that will keep us on the move through the end of July. After having Hiva Oa as our destination for so long it feels a little empty to know we will probably never come this way again. The only way back really is to go all the way to Hawaii across to the States and back down the coast -again- to California or Mexico, then another long passage.
But then again....who knows? kat
P.S. Sorry I can't add pictures via our Hamm radio so for pictures you will have to try our Face Book page. You can find us at Face Book by searching my email sailingkat@gmail.com or under 'BillandKat Russell'
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Close your eyes and conjure up the image you had as a kid of a tropical paradise: high lush mountains, rushing waterfalls, bananas and coconuts growing wild, mangoes dripping from trees, papaya ripening in the sun and pigs running wild in the woods. Now throw in dark haired women with Frangipani flowers tucked behind an ear, big brawny men covered with tattoos and smiling giggling children -that's the Marquesas, our first landfall after 23 days at sea.
The dark of night robbed us of our "Land Ho" moment but waking up as the sun rose, drenched in the scent of land with the dark silhouette of Hiva Oa peaking through the cloud cover was still a moment to treasure. The scent is amazing after so many days at sea: a rich intense combination of dark earth, jungle dampness, hints of flowers and smoke all layered over the clean scent of the sea. The scent changes subtly every time the island is washed with tropical showers -which happen often- or when you step from mid day sun into the comfort of deep shade. The smell is simply luscious. I wish I could bottle it up and keep it with me so then whenever I opened the stopper I would have my fix and be transported instantly back to these islands.
We motored in as the sun rolled its way up and had the quarantine flag up and the hook dropped by nine. We just missed a ride to the Gendarmerie and expected to be confined to quarters for a day but our agent Sandra said we should grab a ride into town and find a fresh croissant before we took a much earned nap. Twist my arm!
We are anchored in Taahuka Bay, nestled at the base of a stunningly beautiful valley. The town of Atuona, the larger of the two villages on Hiva Oa is a two mile walk or hitch away. There is a melody of roosters from the moment the sun begins to rise and beautiful turtle doves flitting from the branches. Horses stand in the street and goats and pigs hide in the underbrush. There really are small groups of locals playing ukulele and singing in the shade during the afternoons and most evenings bring paddling practice to the anchorage -the brightly colored plastic outriggers flying over the water with a cadence shouted from the aft seat. Town essentially closes down tight from 12:30 to 2:30 every day except for the "Snack Snack" where you can get a cold drink, a very expensive snack and a short lesson in French and Marquesan.
The town of Atuona is surprisingly modern. There are three or four grocery stores, one restaurant, a cemetery where the French artist Paul Gauguin is buried, a patisserie, a post office, bank and hardware store. Wi-Fi comes if you sit on a bench in front of the store across the street from the post office. There is no bus service so the 2 mile trip into town is by foot or by thumb. Our first trip ashore we were caught in an island shower and were soaked to the skin in a blink. We must have looked pretty pathetic because when we decided to try hitchhiking we were picked up right away but on our way back to the boat in the sunshine no one answered the call of our thumbs. Since then we have learned the tricks to hitching: you must be thoroughly committed and enthusiastic to hitchhike here. Just sticking out your thumb as you trudge along gets no result but if you turn around to face the oncoming vehicle and fling your arm out and smile like an idiot you are soon whisked up the hill in a very French silence.
Speaking of which, we really miss being able to speak the language. It's clear now that we were relatively proficient with our Spanish and equally clear that we know next to no French and no Marquesan. Our tiny vocabulary of words: hello, goodbye, thank you, please, yes, no, ham, cheese, baguette, tattoo, taboo and idiot don't allow for much of a conversation. Worse, the day we arrived we could barely come up with bon jour. Neither of us took French in school so we don't even have a rudimentary grasp of the pronunciation. The French quietly sneer at our attempts but the Marquesans seem pleased to help us with our tries and it never fails to get a grin or a giggle out of them.
The tourist season here is almost nonexistent. For reason unknown Tahiti is the only port of entry into all of French Polynesia. Travel to all other islands in French Polynesia requires a trip to Tahiti and then a second ticket to your destination. The inter-island fares are very high and the Marquesas are at the farthest reaches. A ticket here will cost you as much as your original airfare from the US and flights are heavily booked and often unavailable. The only alternative is an inner island cargo boat or sailboats like ours.
Every spring for a few short weeks a small fleet literally drifts in from Mexico, Panama and California on their way through to other destinations. The Marquesas don't even draw any of the lucrative business of international divers because the islands have little in the way of reefs or coral and as a bonus the waters are full of sharks. All this has left these islands and her people virtually untouched by the business of tourism.
We wanted to meet the locals and hopefully experience a bit of island life so Bill asked our agent Sandra if there was anything going on in town that we could attend. She was perplexed but then came up with two ideas: we could meet her at quarter of two at the dinghy dock and she would take us to see her daughter dance group and the next night her husband who makes guitars would be meeting with some friends to play music and we could tag along with him if we wanted to.
The dance group turned out to be a dance class. Twenty or so gals age 6 to 40 who meet weekly at the community activity center. They were a mix of French and Marquesan and they performed in groups mostly divided by age. They seemed surprised that we were there but basically ignored us and went about their business. The instructor would cue up a song from a computer and a group would dance then sit down and let the next group perform. Between dances the younger girls practiced a game that I could never quite understand. It was played with a single strand length of elastic band that was held by two girls like a jump rope. The girls would take turns running to it as if they were about to do a jump rope routine but then would jump over and grab the elastic with their foot in a sort of toes version of cat's cradle.
I did make one interesting observation at dance class: the French don't have the hips for dance that the Polynesian's do. Even the littlest girl with long dark hair and liquid brown eyes had a jiggle in her wiggle that doesn't seem possible to duplicate. About half of the gals were French and even the ones who were otherwise great dancers simply are not in the same league with the Polynesian's. Our small glimpses whet our appetite for the summer Fete (party) in Bora Bora we hope to attend. There, every year for a couple of weeks the best of the best from islands all over FP go to sing, dance and paddle in competitions that are highly competitive. It's definitely a don't miss celebration.
The music with Sandra's husband David turned out to be interesting. We invited several other boats to come with us telling them that David makes guitars and meets with friends to play music every week. We expected island music and ukulele and guitar. What they were playing was rock-n-roll; electric guitars, amps, drum kit and electric keyboard. It was good don't get me wrong it just wasn't at all what we expected. Like the dance class they had a talent for moving along with their evening as if we weren't there at all. David picked us up and drove us to the community center then no one spoke to us or said "you should sit over there" or anything at all. We slipped off our shoes and grabbed some chairs and listened politely but eventually it turned into a cruiser gab fest with a little dancing thrown in for fun. The dance class gals and David I think didn't really know what to do with us. Oh well ever onward and you never know if you don't ask.
Friday night we attended our first pig roast. A local came down to the anchorage and said if we could gather together at least ten of us he would roast a pig for us at his house -twenty five yachties signed on. We were picked up in batches and ferried to John and Mary Jo's house. Were they served us pit roasted pig and goat, breadfruit, roasted bananas, bananas in coconut milk, dumplings, baguettes and "Poisson Cru"( the FP version of ceviche.) After dinner their daughter danced for us and did the expected grabbing of the uncoordinated old white folks and dragging them in to dance. It was fun and interesting to taste the local food and we met some boats we hadn't had time to yet but it wasn't a chance to experience a real fete. Hopefully we will be able to wrangle an invitation to some local celebration once we are out of the "city."
After meeting John and Mary Jo we decided to take one of Mary Jo's cross island tours. It was an all day van trip along with friends from two other boats from the anchorage. Our first stop was at the Taaoa mare on the south side of the island. One of two on the island it is a ceremonial site that was carved out of the earth and built with the local volcanic black rock. The mare's were for people of high class and rank only - no women allowed. The remains of the complex is scattered over a few acres of land high in the hills. There are specific places to worship, to make sacrifices, to eat, to gather and to sleep. According to Mary Jo the only people who were eaten were enemy warriors and it was for both ceremonial purposes and as food. The Chief decided who was eaten and who wasn't and there was something akin to power that was transferred with the sacrifice of an enemy. She explained too that the act of cannibalism in the islands was never a harvesting- the hunters weren't coming home from a good hunt. The cannibalism was a byproduct of war in which only those of high rank would participate (no women allowed.) Though to those being sacrificed and eaten the ceremony and exactly who was going to eat them probably didn't really matter.
After the mare at Taaoa we drove across the island to Puamau the only other town on the island and the sight of the other significant mare. It took several hours to reach and Mary Jo stopped often for breath taking views and presentations of various plants and fruits. We gathered and nibbled on breadfruit, giant grapefruit, limes, bananas and coconuts, drank green coconut water, and saw hundreds of trees dripping with mangos, jackfruit, papaya and several others I can't name. We drove along paved roads, gravel roads, dirt roads and then amazingly fir trees. We topped out into the clouds unable to see even a glimpse of the water. We careened around steep corners and putted up switchbacks watching the goats scamper up the sheer rock face. The birds' song was amazing in the woods and there were wild horses all through the hills.
The mare in Puamau is the biggest in the island and dates back at least 2000 years. It is similar to the mare in Taaoa but has the lofty distinction of being home to the largest tiki west of Easter Island. There were several standing tiki's there as well as the organized outline of the original spaces for worship, celebration and sacrifice. The grounds are so lush and beautiful. The islanders leave them tended but as nature has left them but to my eyes they looked almost landscaped. There were more shades of green there than I knew existed. For the islanders the words to describe the shades of green must be like the words for snow for Eskimos. There is just no way to describe the colors. The black volcanic rock is a sharp contrast against the vines and leaves. Every imaginable color is represented in the variegated leaves and the multitude of flowers all towered over by fifty foot fruit trees.
Tomorrow we are off to the island of Fatu Hiva an 8 hour passage to the southwest. Yep, despite the illusion that we have all the time in the world to explore the South Pacific as US citizens we are only allowed 90 days in all of French Polynesia: which means a whirlwind tour of the Marquesas, the Tuomotus and the Society Islands that will keep us on the move through the end of July. After having Hiva Oa as our destination for so long it feels a little empty to know we will probably never come this way again. The only way back really is to go all the way to Hawaii across to the States and back down the coast -again- to California or Mexico, then another long passage.
But then again....who knows? kat
P.S. Sorry I can't add pictures via our Hamm radio so for pictures you will have to try our Face Book page. You can find us at Face Book by searching my email sailingkat@gmail.com or under 'BillandKat Russell'
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Monday, April 23, 2012
4/22/2012 Almost there
We are making great time and the miles are rolling by. We have just under 250 miles to go so if the winds hold we will be arriving at Hiva Oa by early morning Tuesday. In fact if we don't slow down a little bit we will arrive in the middle of the night and will have to heave to and wait for daylight. Hiva Oa doesn't have a terribly difficult approach but it's never wise to enter an unknown anchorage at night. So, two more night watches tonight, two tomorrow and a wake up. WoooooHoooo.
It seems a little unreal to be so close but I am sure it will all fall into place once we are checked in. The plan for now is to complete our official check in and then work our way clockwise around Hiva Oa before making a day passage to Fata Hiva were some of the best cultural sights remain. I will take advantage of the sunshine and flat water to get the laundry done and the boat put back in order and Bill will be busy fixing a handful of small problems. All in all it was a fine passage, few problems and the sleep deficit stayed at a minumum. Several boats had much more serious equipment failures so a lost halyard, a leaky diesel tank and leaky watermaker along with it being too bumpy to serve much in the way of gourmet meals is a small price to pay for arriving in French Polynesia aboard our own boat. I do have to admit though I can't wait to sleep through an entire night in a dry clean bed. Kat
It seems a little unreal to be so close but I am sure it will all fall into place once we are checked in. The plan for now is to complete our official check in and then work our way clockwise around Hiva Oa before making a day passage to Fata Hiva were some of the best cultural sights remain. I will take advantage of the sunshine and flat water to get the laundry done and the boat put back in order and Bill will be busy fixing a handful of small problems. All in all it was a fine passage, few problems and the sleep deficit stayed at a minumum. Several boats had much more serious equipment failures so a lost halyard, a leaky diesel tank and leaky watermaker along with it being too bumpy to serve much in the way of gourmet meals is a small price to pay for arriving in French Polynesia aboard our own boat. I do have to admit though I can't wait to sleep through an entire night in a dry clean bed. Kat
Saturday, April 21, 2012
4/19/2012 Day 18 at Sea
Day 18 at Sea
Yesterday we crossed the equator into the southern hemisphere officially transforming us from Tadpoles into Shellbacks. We crossed over in the late morning with pictures of the chart plotter reading 00 00 001 South, a bottle of sparkling apple cider and bacon cheeseburgers. We had considered stopping the boat and taking a swim as many do as part of their celebration but I have a tiny phobia of swimming in very deep waters. All I could imagine in my head were thoughts of Great White's patrolling the equatorial line every spring waiting for their free dinner to arrive. How easy it would be to pick off the cruisers one by one as they plunged into the depths to celebrate with King Neptune.
Our days have flowed into hours of rhythms: getting up, going to bed, taking watch, passing watch, grabbing something quick for breakfast and sharing dinner our one sit down meal together. The incessant rocking and rolling has been replaced by hours running from squalls and trying to combat the hot muggy equatorial weather. The squalls are part and parcel for traveling through the ICTZ. They are the counterbalance to the normal lights winds usually found here. So our hours are spent trying to keep the sails filled and set with whatever wisp of air comes our way or frantically taking in canvas as the squalls blow through. Thank God for radar. During the daytime hours it is fairly easy to spot and track the micro storms as they build and flow but at night they are impossible to see or anticipate. The radar gives advance warning so we can avoid them all together and also lets us use them to our advantage by tucking in and taking a hold of the winds to help us on our way. They squalls bring high winds and torrential rains. The rains keep the decks cleaned which I love but also adds to the humidity and forces us to keep the hatches and ports closed to try and keep it dry down below.
The rhythm is an almost palpable thing and the term is what always seems to come forth when you talk to sailors who make long passages. On the one hand the day seems so long and at the same time the days are shortened too. You might think there would be lots of time to do projects or watch movies or work on a hobby but that doesn't seem to be true. The days flow into each other until you have no idea what day of the week it is and the hours are hard to follow as we pass through one time zone after another. The only real things in life are sleep, food, watch and more sleep. Oh and reading. I have read 12 books so far. Each sunset slides into sunrise and a kiss good morning morph's into a kiss good night as you pass in the hallway headed for a still warm bunk.
We should be reaching Hiva Oa in a week or less. Till then...kat
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Yesterday we crossed the equator into the southern hemisphere officially transforming us from Tadpoles into Shellbacks. We crossed over in the late morning with pictures of the chart plotter reading 00 00 001 South, a bottle of sparkling apple cider and bacon cheeseburgers. We had considered stopping the boat and taking a swim as many do as part of their celebration but I have a tiny phobia of swimming in very deep waters. All I could imagine in my head were thoughts of Great White's patrolling the equatorial line every spring waiting for their free dinner to arrive. How easy it would be to pick off the cruisers one by one as they plunged into the depths to celebrate with King Neptune.
Our days have flowed into hours of rhythms: getting up, going to bed, taking watch, passing watch, grabbing something quick for breakfast and sharing dinner our one sit down meal together. The incessant rocking and rolling has been replaced by hours running from squalls and trying to combat the hot muggy equatorial weather. The squalls are part and parcel for traveling through the ICTZ. They are the counterbalance to the normal lights winds usually found here. So our hours are spent trying to keep the sails filled and set with whatever wisp of air comes our way or frantically taking in canvas as the squalls blow through. Thank God for radar. During the daytime hours it is fairly easy to spot and track the micro storms as they build and flow but at night they are impossible to see or anticipate. The radar gives advance warning so we can avoid them all together and also lets us use them to our advantage by tucking in and taking a hold of the winds to help us on our way. They squalls bring high winds and torrential rains. The rains keep the decks cleaned which I love but also adds to the humidity and forces us to keep the hatches and ports closed to try and keep it dry down below.
The rhythm is an almost palpable thing and the term is what always seems to come forth when you talk to sailors who make long passages. On the one hand the day seems so long and at the same time the days are shortened too. You might think there would be lots of time to do projects or watch movies or work on a hobby but that doesn't seem to be true. The days flow into each other until you have no idea what day of the week it is and the hours are hard to follow as we pass through one time zone after another. The only real things in life are sleep, food, watch and more sleep. Oh and reading. I have read 12 books so far. Each sunset slides into sunrise and a kiss good morning morph's into a kiss good night as you pass in the hallway headed for a still warm bunk.
We should be reaching Hiva Oa in a week or less. Till then...kat
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Saturday, April 14, 2012
4/12/2012 Day 12 at Sea
4/13/2012 Pacific Crossing Day 12
Sailors everywhere know the disappointment of the whims of the wind. In the Pacific Northwest if you don't motor sail you don't sail. No matter where you're headed it seems that the winds are on your nose until that is you turn around to go home and then they shift and are on your nose for the return trip too. The Pacific trade winds are usually an exception to the rule yet once again the winds are not cooperating.
First the winds were too light and for days our sails were banging and popping as they filled and dumped the bursts of air. They also evidently only wanted to send us anywhere except west. Then they began to fill in, lots of wind free for the taking but now they blow from directly behind us and with our broken whisker pole and the lost halyard we can't go directly downwind. For every inch of west we could scrape out we had to accept the penalty of also moving north.
Then as the winds built so did the swells. Because of a high pressure ridge to the north of us and another system to the south though the winds are from the north east we have two sets of swell one from the NE and another from the SE. Let me explain what that means: hours on end of sailing merrily along while being pushed around first from the NW and then from the SW. The boat rocks back and forth steadily until it doesn't quite know which way it wants to throw our 32,000 pounds. It is immensely uncomfortable. It makes it difficult and sometimes impossible to move around, sleep, stand up, sit down, climb the companion way, make a cup of tea or put anything even close to a real meal together. One wrong move and the effects of gravity and motion take over. Thankfully no real injuries but the constant pin-ball effect is defiantly leaving bruises.
Now at least we are moving which is great except we are still going in the wrong direction. The winds have now ramped up and the washing machines like seas are close together, unorganized and 6 to 8 feet high. Speed is no longer the issue. In fact we are doing all we can to slow the boat down. Trying for control we are sailing along with just our head sail or stay'sl and a reefed main.
Each night I sit my watch in the cockpit and watch the "windicator" rise: 12mph, 14mph, 17mph, 22mph - last night to 30- I lock my eyes on the chart plotter and watch our speed ratchet up. The normal speeds when it comes to sailing are relatively slow. Our hull speed is 8.4 knots. We travel under power at around 6.5 knots and are pleased to average 5 to 6 knots while under sail. The wind and waves has us surfing down the wave crests at over 10 knots. Speed is not your friend.
In the middle of the night your perceptions change. You can't see the swells coming but all around you they crash and swoosh, hitting the side of the boat, sometimes slapping spray into the cockpit or across the dodger windows and occasionally we take one hard across the stern. The wind whistles in your ears and the boat groans and creeks as it rocks off a swell. There is constant noise from down below as the contents of lockers rattle and clank and occasionally some item reaches its limit and goes crashing across the cabin, somewhere. It's eerie and a bit scary as you're true speed gets very distorted. It sounds a lot like you are rocketing along on a freight train.
Now for four days now we have been sailing along with nothing but a little bit of a hankie sail in order to keep our boat speed down and add some level of comfort. In the mean time the swell gives us the added benefit of crashing into Island Bound and sending cascades of water every which way. Yesterday afternoon Bill asked if all the cabin hatches were dogged down so I scurried down to check. Sure enough the one over our bed and the one in the main cabin were closed but not locked. So I locked them. Later while I was trying to catch a little nap we took a big wave which instantly informed me that the hatch over our bed was not dogged down but rather was in the one inch open but locked mode. Saltwater poured in soaking pillows, bed spread, blanket, sheets and mattress.
We have had water in the boat before but this is the most we have ever had and the absolute worst timing. The salt water doesn't dry it just leaves a sort of sticky dampness which spreads to anything it touches. In order to set things right I will have to rinse everything multiple times and then hang to dry. But I can barely walk the cabin so my bucket washing system is out of the question. Where would I hang wet laundry to dry? Not outside where the salts spray is still raging. Don't forget, the next laundry mat we see will be months from now.
So, let me honest with you here. This put me into a bit of a tizzy. The aft cabin is my refuge. I bought lovely sheets, made black out curtains so I can sleep on my off watch even when the sun is out and filled it with down pillows. The bunk is designed so that no matter which tack we are on I have a wall to scrunch up against. There aren't many rules in our house but there are rules about this bed on passages….no daytime clothes in the bed, no dirty feet in the bed, no icky sticky, just- gutted-a-fish on the back deck hands and feet, and of course everyone takes a shower on clean sheet day, no matter what. I'm really not neurotic I just have always been a little particular on this point.
So, here I am coming up on ½ way to Hiva Oa. Yes only half way! I've had no more than 3 ½ hours of sleep at any one time in the last 11 days and ever movement in the last 6 days has needed to be choreographer. I tore out a chunk of my toenail, bashed my head on the roofline above my bed, tried to tear out a piece of flesh on the companion way hasp, haven't really cook much of anything for days now and, AND my bed is full of salt water! I didn't really take it well, and worse yet it was all my fault.
Today was better. I got over the wet bed thing. I didn't have a choice really: nothing to do but strip the bed and pile everything together on the floor of the head to keep it out of the way and move on. The saltwater has migrated throughout the boat making everything it's touched a little sticky. We are doing only that which has to be done. Everything else goes to the end of the line. Last night the roll got so bad that when I went to relieve Bill for watch we discussed simply heaving to and getting some sleep. Heaving to is a sort of survival move, you backwind your headsail and your main and it stops your forward progress. When done right you simply stay in place or slowly move downwind. Screw forward progress.
We looked around into the darkness: 12 foot waves rolling and crashing by, no moon, slick decks, tired to beat all. But and the main sail was down. Our boat doesn't heave to without having the main up. To risky to go forward and raise the main in 30 knot winds so Bill went to get some sleep and I sat in the cockpit in the rain, on wet cushions, under a soggy wool blanket and waited for the sun to rise.
Today looks better, a little. We put up the main, triple reefed just in case. Good to keep our options open.
Kat
4/10/2012 Fishing has been fabulous
4/10/ 2012 Fishing had been fabulous!
We caught two very nice yellow fin tuna our first day out and caught a nice ahi tuna a few days ago. The other morning I went to check the lures and one was gone and the other had no hook, both signs of BIG fish. So I dug through the tackle box and came up with a white glow in the dark hootchie with big squidy eyes and a silver and blue feather that was nice and new and sparkly.
Fishing off a sailboat is a little different than what most people think of as fishing. We don't' use a rod and reel. We are strictly meat fishermen so it's not really a sport. We just want to get them on the boat and try to lose as few lures as possible. We drag thick 300 to 600 pound test lines with wire leaders from our back cleats. They have a bungee cord set up so when the big fish bite they don't just tear the hooks out. It's not uncommon to haul in your line and find the lure gone or hooks straightened out, or even occasionally just the head of a fish. Fish bites lure, gets drug along in the water in the dark and then something with a very large mouth comes along and enjoys a free meal leaving nothing but the head and the hook for us.
There is a great deal to timing too. They like to bite right as the sun is setting so you have to take care of them in the dark, or right as the watch changes so everyone gets to stay up to take care of the fresh meat, or just as you are headed into an anchorage, or right as the winds kick up and you are trying to reef. It's not sport but it is fun.
Two days ago my lure picks had already brought in two nice ahi tuna and then a five foot long Wahoo, our first. Bill was down below getting the weather off the Ham radio when I heard a noise. I looked back and could tell we had a fish and could tell it was very big. "Fish on, a bigggg one Bill." We were screaming along at 7 knots and this fish was skating off to the side like a water-skier -back and forth, back and forth the line making a very cool zinging noise as he tried to get away.
Wahoo are known for their big teeth. Lots of fish are lost because they bit through the leaders but this guy was hooked. He's not on a rod and reel so Bill has to bring him in by hand. Once up to the boat we could see what we had and he looked very unhappy. I ran for the gaff and Bill took a swing then moved to fling him over the life lines. Five feet long and perhaps 50 pounds and he wasn't going to simply be flung over the lifelines. Oof…..and a thud and gnashing teeth. Blood everywhere, I swear it looked like we were slaughtering pigs back there.
Our freezer is filled to the brim. Bill is pouting (a little) because the hooks are put away until we have room to store more fish. I'm too tired to deal with fish anyway and for that matter, I think I'll pass on anything over 20 pounds.
kat
Sunday, April 8, 2012
4/6/2012 Equipment Malfunction, User Error and Bugs
Days five and six
We have settled into our watches and Island Bound is performing well but the winds are awful. We decided not make our island dive stop because the winds were supposed to be excellent for making tracks towards the trades and there was a predicted swell that would have made the anchorage untenable. Friends on three other boats are there now diving with the Manta Rays and we sit becalmed with out sails banging and popping under the lightest of winds which worse yet keep clocking around us in a circle. So much for our great weather window.
The winds are the worse so far today but the past two days have not been much better. Yesterday we decided to hoist our light wind sail so set off to rig it up. Bill wanted to try a slightly different configuration and set up so fresh off four hours of sleep and still groggy we moved to the foredeck. For those who don't know Bill is an engineer and.......I'm not. I have learned loads of things in order to be out here on this big ocean but being able to quickly envision mechanical workings in my head is not one of them. I have a decidedly empty place in my brain where there should be an ability to work through spatial issues. Bill on the other hand simply see's things a different way and then sometimes expects me to have followed his thought processes (perhaps by osmosis)and sometimes never the two shall meet.
He had the pole -a fifteen foot, carbon fiber, telescoping whisker pole -in his hands and wanted me to be working the thin red lines while he lengthened the length of the pole from some 15 feet to 25 feet. First he wanted me to ........then he wanted me to ........then no grab that one and go forward......then...Oh Sh!t! I stood holding two of the red lines in my hands while the third line which HAS to be tied down (it holds the pole up) had come loose and was now half way up the mast jammed in a pulley while the end of the whisker pole was falling, falling, falling until it's tip was two feet underwater with four knots of wake trying to tear it off the boat. We managed together to push the pole forward out of the water and get it back on deck but no one was very happy and everyone was suddenly mad. Eventually cooler minds prevailed and in a surprisingly short period of time everything was back on track and we were soon scudding along in the light winds with our beautiful brightly colored asymmetrical pulling us along.
A very short time later I was down below when I heard another howl. I rushed topside and discovered our asymmetrical was now hanging along the port side of the boat completely in the water. Bill was hauling hand over hand and shouting at me to turn the helm into the wind in order to reduce the drag as much as possible. It turns out that the halyard for the spinnaker had parted/chafed/untied -who knows, its stuck at the top of the mast- letting the sail and our brand new chute fall overboard. Again we had things quickly under control. Nothing worse the wear but we are now unable to use our light air sail for the remainder of the passage. Unless of course someone goes to the top of the mast, a thing nobody likes to do and is even less inviting while wallowing around with fluky winds and a 8' swell rolling under the boat. I guess only time will tell how desperate we get for a light wind sail!
Today dawned warm and calm, again. Everyone is well rested and settled in to pass the time with books and IPods. We polled out our Yankee and are making a whopping 2.5 knots as we roll and bang around. So I decided it was a good day to cook a grand meal -sliced, chilled tuna on a big Caesar salad: make some croutons, wash the romaine, grab the Ponzu sauce to season the tuna, brush off the bugs, Bugs!!! A cupboard full of little brown bugs. So much for settling in to read. Does anyone remember which locker the bug spray us in?
Kat
P.S. The bugs at least seem to have been contained to a single locker -the flour and baking supplies are safe as are the brownie mixes. Disaster averted.
It was an instant crisis but one which we had fixed
Saturday, April 7, 2012
Day 4 at Sea
4/4/2012 Day Four at Sea (1/6th of the way there)
In the end our departure was a fizzle and spurt instead of the big bang of an occasion I suppose I expected it to be. We receive news that there was a favorable weather window opening up in four or five days. We were far enough along in our preparations to catch it's start but then found out that in two days Semana Santa would begin -Mexico's huge Easter week celebration- and with it all the official offices would have curtailed hours or be closed completely. In the past cruisers have been allowed 48 hours to leave the country after checking out but this year for reasons unknown it had changed to immediately. All the boats who had already checked out had actually left but of those remaining suddenly everyone was talking about risking problems with immigration and checking by weeks end but staying to complete their preparations. It would be impossible to leave until the weekend because we had a new VHF radio coming in as baggage with friends on Saturday but we also didn't want to miss the window. We decided to beat the rush and left the next morning to begin the checkout process.
All went well and no one actually said we needed to leave immediately so Zarpe in hand we snuck back into the anchorage at La Cruz. Other boats who had checked out were merrily going about their business, talking on the radio, doing final banking and sitting around in the local gathering spots. Bill being more skeptical than most insisted that we stay off the radio and fly under the radar so we finished our preparations but remained pretty much isolated from the rest of the cruisers for several days.
The entire final day I felt disconnected and on edge. We were ready but stalled. Everything stowed, cupboards brimming, minutes ticking by. I wanted to say goodbye to friends but felt stuck on the boat saturated in energy and emotion, stressed, nervous, exhausted and excited.
As the sun was setting we decided to join a group of friends at the Sky Bar for cokes and goodbyes. The rooftop bar was filling with cruisers come to say goodbye and there were several other boat crews there who also were planning on leaving by sunset.
I was thrilled at the unexpecxted last minute gathering. It was a great way to let off some of the steam and help run out the final minutes of waiting. We all sat around laughing and talking and taking pictures it was reassuring to me to hear that to a one every Puddle Jump wife present was bone tired, stressed out, exited and ready to strangle their captain husbands. Everyone had been working so hard on final preparations (Captains too, don't get me wrong)and the tension was high. As the cameras clicked I looked around and watched as one wife mimed strangling her hubby, another was barely speaking to hers and another threw a mock roundhouse punch as the shutter clicked. It was good to know we weren't the only couple bickering: stress and tension full blown! Finally we got the call that the VHF had arrived so one last round of hugs and a tear or two and we were climbing into the dink headed out to the anchorage. Absolutely nothing left to do but stow the outboard, tie the dingy on deck and lift the anchor.
There was of course one last glitch, there always is. As I stood at the bow hauling the anchor aboard I heard an exclamation from the cockpit followed by a very stressed sounding..."wait." Suddenly we had no reverse! Captain Bill is a whiz though and within five minutes we were motoring out of the anchorage while the last bits of light crept out of the sky. Disaster averted, bye bye La Cruz.
We've been at sea now for four days. All our energies have been directed at getting our sea legs and establish our watch routine. We caught two beautiful yellow fin tuna in the first twelve hours which topped off the last bits of space in the new freezer. The winds have been fluky but we have managed to sail every mile since we raised anchor -no sense using up our stored diesel in the first few days. We have four hundred miles behind us and all is well. The watch schedule is letting us both get adequate sleep and today I even had enough energy to pop some brownies in the oven and make bread to have with seared tuna we'll have for dinner.
Expectedly but still disconcerting is that there is so little visible life around us . Other than the tuna the only wildlife we have been seeing are the birds circling above us. Last night I had porpoises during the end of my watch which made for nice company but all in all life right now is just an empty sea. I am surprised that the emptiness is making such an impact on me since. In fact I have explained to plenty of folks that though we are part of the Pacific Puddle Jump once we left La Cruz, even if we left at the same exact time as another boat we would probably not see them again for the entire trip. That reality is pretty big. Three to four weeks of it coming my way. We left at dark, a couple of boats right ahead of us and another right behind us and another that had left a few hours earlier -we haven't seen another sailboat in 400 miles! We haven't even been able to raise anyone on the VHF. We are miles away from any other boats checking in on the Pacific Puddle Jump Net. In fact even with our AIS to give us a heads up we have only seen three fishing boats off in the distance. 64 million square miles makes for one really empty ocean. Kat
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Wednesday, March 28, 2012
The Big Jump
3/28/ 2012 The Big Jump
After years of planning and hard work we've been full time cruisers now for two years. We have logged over 10,000 miles and completed a near total refit of our 35 year old boat. Now , after all of the work, the planning and hours on end of dreaming we're teetering on the brink of what inspired us when all of this began. This next passage has been firmly in the someday realm for so long that it feels a bit unreal. Finally in a few short days we will un-tie the dock lines and store them away with the fenders and the outboard and set off on our biggest adventure yet; the great Pacific Ocean and its 25,000 islands scattered over more than 64 million square miles.
There is plenty of work to do before a big passage but at least the butterflies are familiar. This jump feels very much like our last few months in Seattle and the days spent in San Diego before leaving the United States for Mexico. Each day is filled anticipation and excitement as well as bits of tension and stress. It's not all smiles and bon voyage parties though. We're human and so between the work, the heat and the clock ticking loudly sometimes those bits of stress and tension build and bubble up into big bits of emotion. It all must be normal though because every Puddle Jumper I've spoken with has shared stories of their own melt downs as they work through the lists and piles and jobs to be done.
On a boat, any boat there is always a well worn to do list. We simply seem to move things around on the list and add new ones as we go. There are also the inevitable hard hits on the bank account to pay for all those gotta have items. Eventually the momentum builds until finally the whole process takes complete control of your lives. Someone at dinner said I looked more relaxed than most of the others at the table so maybe that means I'm getting more comfortable with the cruising life. Not pulling my hair out is a simple reflection of having done this often enough to realize that there really are only to important lists: the jobs that will keep the boat from sinking and everything else.
We've loved Mexico and will definitely miss this place we have called home for so long. We're still very happy that we decided to stretch out our stay through these seventeen months and it turned out to be a great primer. We call it "cruising light" because the weather was near perfect, the cruising was easy, provisioning was a snap and we always managed to find a way to get the things we needed along the way. Each new problem from finding someone to "mule" down boat parts and pieces to trying to stutter out a new language was a part of the experience and ultimately pretty easy and simple.
In just a few days we'll set sail across the biggest ocean in the world and with that cover more miles in one jump than we are unlikely to attempt again. We are aiming for Hiva Oa in the Marquesan Archipelago -a tiny dot 2700 miles away (2700 miles at 5 mph = roughly 22days.)
The South Pacific will be very different. We will need to learn to speak at least a little French, Marquesan, Tahitian and Pigeon and I am pretty sure that I'll still be trying to roll my r's for months to come. When we finally sail out at the other end wherever that may be I suspect we will be able to put this big step in the same light as every other big step we've taken: not nearly as difficult as all the hoopla would warrant.
Right now though all I can see are the miles and the remoteness. We will be on our own for three to four weeks and then we will spend the next three months marching from island group to island group where everything we consume beside fruit and coconuts has to be either stored away in the boat or brought in by supply ships at great cost. To that end we have been provisioning like never before.
How many rolls of toilet paper do you think you would need for 4 months? My educated guess is 40 rolls. How many eggs do you think you would buy if they cost $12 a dozen? I'm packing six dozen AND bought a can of powdered eggs that equals 80 eggs. They were a last light bulb idea and cost me $24 and a valuable spot in one friend's carry-on bag- so I hope they work out. When will the next opportunity be to wash down the boat with fresh water? I have no idea but I'm counting on the tropical rain between now and the six months to a year before we see a dock and a hose. When will we see a boat yard with a travel lift big enough to haul Island Bound? Four months from now in Raittea, Society Islands but we've planned and prepared for no haul-out for at least two years. When will we reach a port where we can have things shipped in if we need repair parts or pieces? Four months from now in Tahiti but anything coming in will come with a very hefty fee so that leaves American Samoa, a stop that is so far away though that it's out of the realm of planning.
Another question is how much do we need to bring to trade? And what should we bring? Who knows! We bought dozens of fish hooks and extra fishing gear to trade along with a few bags of lightly used clothing and canned food (Spam and Mexican seasoned meats) some sewing supplies and fabric which we hope will be popular. We won't carry cigarettes or alcohol though we are told they are highly prized items; we're just not willing to leave addiction and bad health in our wake. Sorry guys! We do have piles of crayons for the island kids, bubble wands, popcorn and powdered drink mix for sharing if the kids come to the boat. I have also stashed away a fairy wand and a tiny etch-a-sketch to give away along with notebooks and pencils and extra aspirin and basic medicines to share along the way. A side note, the only thing the Mexican Pangeros ever asked me for was aspirin!
OK, the question many of you want to ask is am I nervous and afraid? Well, no not really. Island Bound is made for this and can take most anything the seas can dish out. We've become pretty competent sailors over the miles and have a tried and true plan for getting plenty of sleep which is the one big danger we could face. Bill is an excellent captain and our sailing tends to lean towards the conservative. Early on we learned the truth about reefing: by the time Kat says it's time to reef it's usually to late. So we reef often and reef early. I trust Bill's leadership and I know our goal is to never be in a position where we have to use any of our emergency gear.
Here in La Cruz one by one the Puddle Jump boats are leaving the marina and starting their crossings and as each one leaves the excitement builds. In one big step each of us will be entering a whole new world. Our marine single sideband radio will allow us to stay in contact with each other and our families and will even let us email in our blog updates -sorry no pictures for awhile. The internet, Google and Google Maps, Skype and cheap flights back to the states will be a thing of the past along with our days in marinas, dinners out at cheap taco stands and 80 cent bags of tortillas.
From here on out we'll be rolling alone. We will roughly follow what is called the "coconut milk run" across the pacific. The ocean is so vast and the islands so small in comparison that running into friends will be a real luxury. It's hard to imagine but even if we leave at the same time on the same day as another Jumper by mid day we may not see them again during the entire crossing.
There are really no impulse decisions in timing for cruisers. There are usually choices in direction to be made but no wild changes to the established seasonal routes. Those who cross go between mid march and the end of May. Period. If something happens to delay your departure (as happened last year with our friends on Buena Vista) you simply have to wait out another year.
We follow in the wake of centuries of sailors pacing along their same routes to take advantage of the best the winds have to offer. The biggest worry is the ITCZ where it is possible to experience squalls -rain, high winds and lightning- or the complete opposite the dreaded doldrums. Once across the ITCZ we are pretty much home free! Once across, like all the sailors before us we will grab hold of the fabled trade winds and be steadily pushed across the miles to our first landing at Hiva Oa.
Once through French Polynesia our plan is to favor a northern route while most of the fleet will be making a slow bee-line for Australia or New Zealand. Around the first of November when most of the fleet flees southward for the coming cyclone season we expect to turn north for the safety of the equator and winter over in Micronesia: more countries, more languages and more experiences to write home about in the fall. Oh and I almost forgot, once we depart you can follow along with our progress if you'd like by going to www.pangolin.co.nz/yotreps/tracker.php?ident=wdf2704 In the meantime I will keep striking things off our lists and somehow manage to find just one more place for just one more grocery run. So far it's been a great ride. Kat.
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