Hapatoni, Tahuata

Not wanting to crash the Aranui 3 BBQ lunch at Hapatoni, we ate our own lunch on Nakia and then took the dinghy to the concrete quay (where there is no fresh water faucet). In spite of the slippery launch ramp we pulled the dinghy out of the water, but for subsequent visits we brought a stern line and tied it off to the quay. We were pleased to find tables of handicrafts lined up along the road in front of the BBQ site. The work here is quite different, with not only wood carving but also bone, and combinations of wood and sword fish bills. They are also noted for combination wood and stone carvings, but we saw none of these on display. The work is all very similar, but one young man's items stood out from the rest and we asked his name and the location of his house in order to pay him a visit the next day. We took a short walk down the road to visit the small church and the archeological site above the cemetery. I enjoyed gawking at the tourists since we don't see many other Westerner's with all the cruiser's being out ahead of us.

We are actually anchored in a smaller lobe of the bay to the north of Hapatoni called Hanatefau, just off a small shack above the beach. We dropped in 50' on a sandy bottom and other than a couple of wickedly gusty first nights, we're enjoying this anchorage. It's the first place we haven't had to put out the rocker stopper, and we're the only ones here (all the inhabited houses are down in the village about half a mile away). When we first got in the water to snorkel it seemed very boring until we found the big rock. This proved very interesting with many fish and urchins. John always goes in for a closer look than I do and when he finally figured out where to look for cowries, we started seeing them everywhere. It's like an Easter egg hunt and makes things more interesting. He's only been able to find one empty shell intact (at Hanamoenoa), and we still can't bring ourselves to take a live one. I spotted a small octopus, but only because I saw it free swimming before it plastered itself against the rock and became nearly invisible. Yesterday John pointed out a stone fish glued under a ledge, looking just like part of the rock. He reminded me to be very careful where I put my hands if I want to hold on to the rock anywhere (As if! I try to make a point of not touching anything!). Minutes later he motioned me over to see our first ever lion fish, one of the most poisonous spiny reef fish. Boy, that got my adrenalin going. It too was hiding under a ledge, but when we made a later pass of the area it had swum out, still against the rock, and was in its head down, spines pointed out towards us, defense posture. It clearly didn't like us being in the area and we were happy to leave it alone. We continue to be surprised by new and colorful reef fish, and there's even a small sea turtle popping up in the anchorage occasionally.

We visited the village Monday morning with all our trading gear to look for our favorite carver. But it turned out he was away at the other village for the day so we were out of luck. There were two older men carving small, decorative, wood paddles outside and we stopped to admire their work. We decided to take another look at other people's work and were shown various items, but we still didn't see anything that we had to have. As beautifully executed as the work is here, personally I prefer the more colorful crafts of Mexico and South America. But we're staying here for awhile so we may have another opportunity to find something we like.

Yesterday morning we took a three hour round trip hike on the rocky dirt road between Hapatoni and Vaitahu. We got as far as a ridge to the north of our anchorage from which we could see the descent down into the valley to Vaitahu. It was nice to get out and stretch our legs and we enjoyed looking at all the trees and plants, and a very few birds (including wild chickens). For this shore excursion we took the dinghy to the boulder beach and set it out with a stern anchor. We thought it was going to be a difficult landing but somehow everything went well and no one got soaked or hurt, which always makes for a successful trip.

The geocities web site is shutting down soon so we're not sure our location link is still working. If is it is still coming up, I made a mistake in the last blog and entered our current location instead of the anchorage at Vaitahu.

Linda and John

Vaitahu, Tahuata

We spent three nights anchored at Vaitahu, the largest village on Tahuata. It's nice to look at from the boat but the two potential dinghy landings pose their individual problems. The concrete quay requires a stern anchor with a lot of rode and a long bow line to tie off to a creosote lamp post. (Clean looking water is available from two faucets on the quay.) Or there's a tiny bit of sandy beach where a stream runs into the center of the bay. If you have good dinghy wheels you can make it over some rocks and up the steep cement launch ramp there. Both landings are difficult if there's any swell running into the bay, and good timing is important. We used each method once and, though we didn't have any problems, there are easier places to visit.

The best part of our decision to leave the beautiful beach at Hanamoenoa for Vaitahu on Thursday was the surprising arrival of the Aranui 3 just before sunset. We had read about the original Aranui in our edition of the Lonely Planet guide, which briefly mentions this sister ship launched in 2002. It's a combination cargo/cruise ship and puts the Galapagos cargo rust buckets to shame. Immediately after dropping anchor the two cranes on the foredeck went into action lowering flat boats with twin outboards to ferry cargo to the concrete quay. To our amazement the first item onto a boat was a brand new Toyota Hilux truck. When the barge got to the quay a front loader pressed its shovel down on the barge to hold it steady. A man got in the truck, we could see tail lights go on, and it inched forward out of it's open container. After a few swells went by one of the hard-hat crew shouted at the driver to go for it, and other shouts rose up from the crowd which had gathered on the quay to watch the proceedings (I counted 20 4-wheel drive vehicles which appeared above the quay after the Aranui 3 set its anchor). The truck made it safely to shore and the proud new owner drove it away. Next we saw a small sport fisher come around the point headed for the ship. It waited until a crane was free and then it hooked up four points of a chain hoist and was lifted up onto the foredeck of the ship! The rest of the evening's cargo was building materials which were unloaded by the front loader and set on the quay. On the ship itself we could see several well-dressed tourists taking photos from the upper balconies, but no one went ashore. The next morning the Aranui 3 was gone.

We went for a walk on shore to see if anyone wanted to do some trading. The only person who approached us was Jean, who was happy to walk us around the yards of his extended family to find some fruit. We really only wanted pamplemousse but he didn't have much that was ripe so he also gave us a couple each of green mangoes, green avocado, oranges, something that looks like a persimmon, bananas, and something that looks like a bright red, shiny little apple which tastes more like a pear. I found out that he is married with two daughters so I brought out my little bag of cosmetics which was all we'd happened to bring with us. He didn't want the little mirror, the mascara, or the nail polish, but he took all three of my sample perfumes (my last ones!), and ran back to his house to get us three drumstick and thigh hunks of frozen chicken (which were too big to be locally raised) and two heads of something like chard, even though we had been protesting well before then that he had already given us enough. As we made our goodbyes he asked if we would be returning next year, and suggested that perhaps we might like to bring him a bottle of whiskey in exchange for his generosity.

We tried snorkeling the wall by the quay but it was a steep drop off to the deep bottom with not much of interest. It rained both Thursday and Friday nights and Saturday it rained off and on the entire day. We entertained ourselves with episodes of Battlestar Gallactica, movies, and reading, but it was a long day and I had made up my mind I wanted to leave on Sunday. Well it pays to stay flexible because what should reappear at dawn on Sunday but the Aranui 3! We immediately realized that this time the tourists would likely go ashore for services at the big Catholic church, and that tourists ashore would probably also mean handicrafts displayed for sale. So we kept a sharp eye on the ship's activity and when we saw people lining up on deck to board one of the landing barges at 0730 we threw on our church-going duds and jumped in the dinghy to hurry ashore. John made an expert landing on the beach and we hauled the dink up on the grass above the launch ramp. We blended pretty well into the crowd as they made their way to the church for services at 0800. As per any Catholic service there was an hour and 10 minutes of standing and sitting for both French and Marquesan prayers, readings, and sermon, interspersed with lovely singing by the predominantly female choir. The building itself is unique, built out of old ship's ballast stones with an open air wood ceiling. The rising sun back lit a large stained glass above the altar and I especially enjoyed the flower scented breezes and the sight of the cliffs and trees in the large gaps between the roof and the tops of the walls.

After the service we chatted with a New Zealand couple and a man from Idaho. They were loving the two-week cruise and said that although accommodations were basic, the food was fabulous, and they liked having a fixed itinerary where all shore excursions and activities were included (although obviously the sport fishing expeditions were extra). The only drawback is that their visits to each island are brief and it didn't sound as if they'd had much opportunity for swimming or snorkeling. We followed them to the crafts display but we weren't much interested in what was mostly jewelry. The tourists had mentioned that they were headed to Hapatoni next and, since that's where we'd intended to go too, we hurried back to Nakia to sail two miles along the coast to the next small village.

Linda and John

http://www.geocities.com/svnakia/map_app.htm09,57.745,S,139,07.152,W,Hanatefau,

Living off the land

Many cruisers take pride in being able to feed themselves from the bounty of the sea. Some take to the sea with a spear gun after fish, others look for shellfish and the most serious hunt lobster in among the rocks.

We here on NAKIA have taken this activity to the next level. Fish, clams and lobster being available and relatively inexpensive in local stores we've decided to hunt for things that are either unavailable or very expensive.

Yesterday we had success! Searching along the shallow water near the beach I spotted a familiar green shape among the rocks. Usually these tubular shaped shells are already evacuated, but this time the contents seemed undisturbed. I gathered my breath for the dive and swam into the depths, holding on the jagged rocks with my gloved left hand to steady myself in the serge I reached in to pull out a full bottle of heiniken! Imagine my joy at finding the cap still in place on this most valuable find (they are over $8 each in local stores).

The next challenge was to return to NAKIA with the catch. These things are quite slippery and sink like a rock so one false move on the part of the diver and the elusive prey will head back to the bottom. This is precisely what happened a few feet from NAKIA. When removing my gloves I lost track of the bottle for a second and it slipped out of my grasp!

NAKIA has become the home base to many fish, including one a very large snapper who checks out anything that happens to fall in the water for edibility. Imagine my horror as I watched the snapper stalk my prize and try to swallow it. Like I said, it's a BIG snapper. Thankfully he did not find the bottle to his taste and spit it back out.

Calling for my dive weights from the crew, I dove again to retrieve the bottle. This time I had to make it 25 feet to the bottom, rather then the 6 ft of water over the rock where it was originally found, but made the trip without incident and placed the catch securely in the refrigerator.

We await this evenings happy hour to test the spoils of our efforts.

P.S. for those of you wondering why I don't just bait a hook and throw it our for the snapper. The Marquesas are home ciguatera, a poison that builds up in large coral dwelling fish and can be deadly. Not knowing what is safe to eat and where its safe to fish we are not eating anything from the sea unless we find it encased in glass.

John and Linda

Tahuata

We've been enjoying our stay here at Hanamoenoa even though the weather has steadily deteriorated a bit. This anchorage is on the leeward side of the island with golden grass on the hills and much drier and warmer air. I woke the first night to the scent of dry grasses instead of the lush foliage of Atuona. In fact when we entered the bay at Atuona at sunset last Friday there was a definite chill in the air, probably from the small river running down the valley into the bay. The warmth here makes for a nice change but our night time cabin temps don't get much below 78 F and we're up to around 84 F during the day. Our first day here was calm and clear but we've had successively cloudier and breezier days, culminating in brief, heavy showers and lots of gusty wind beginning at sunset last night with no sign of letting up this morning.

Which is disappointing because the snorkeling here is fabulous. We definitely need to get a new fish book because, other than a few old friends like the sargent majors, moorish idols, golden puffers, parrot fish, and black spiny urchins, everywhere we turn there is a fish we don't recognize. Not to mention all the different kinds of coral, sponges, and what I think must be a sea star that looks like a small throw pillow and comes in at least a couple of color variations. It could be a sponge, but you can just make out the five points on the pillow and the edges are smooth and even, not irregular like a sponge. Everything is absolutely beautiful, even the duller colored fish. On two of our swims back to the boat from the reefs we've spotted an enormous stingray with maybe a four foot wing span hunkered down on the sandy bottom. We've snorkeled every day, both sides of the bay and it's better than anything we've ever seen. But with the windier and wetter weather the water clarity has dropped and we haven't had as much sunlight through the clouds to help cut through the murk. We're anchored over sand but it must not be very deep over the rock because the anchor hasn't completely buried itself. But even on a somewhat short scope (125' in 25' of water) to avoid scraping our chain on a nearby exposed rock we haven't budged an inch.

We took a long dinghy ride on Saturday to explore the nearby bays. There are a couple of nice blow holes but we didn't find any anchorage that we liked better than this one. We went as far as the village at Vaitahu to check out the landing possibilities there. The large swell makes the shore landing at the launch ramp in the middle of the bay look dicey. Over on the northern side of the bay the swell doesn't seem as extreme at the concrete wharf with steps carved into the side. We'll take Nakia over there during the next calm weather window to see if we can do some trading for carvings. We inventoried our rum supply and think we can part with one of our big bottles of Abuela if we can find a carver who's willing to make a trade.

I mentioned before that we haven't had any problems with bugs yet. It's true we haven't seen anything biting except for a few mosquitos at the cascade in Fatu Hiva, and a lot of mosquitos at the ti'i site in Hiva Oa. But everywhere we go we are investigated by some kind of large yellow/orange wasp. They occasionally fly into the cabin and are easily encouraged back outside without getting agressive. Having had a bad sting under his chin in his first encounter with something similar in Mexico, Ziggy stays out of their way and I've even seen him take cover in the cockpit well to avoid one.

Wind Weaver moved to another anchorage on Sunday to be replaced by a French family yesterday, but that boat left this morning and now we have the anchorage to ourselves again. Other than glimpses of a few goats and even a horse on the ridge, we haven't seen anyone on shore. A small boat stopped to load the copra drying in the building above the beach(that's all it turned out to be), and the scent still lingers in the air as you walk by it. There are a few lime trees accessible but no pamplemousse or bananas. As beautiful as this beach is we were surprised that no families arrived over the weekend to enjoy it, as they surely would have in Mexico or Panama. We found evidence of beach fire rings on shore and several pencil urchins appear to have been harvested for a meal, but those could have been taken by cruisers as much as by locals. A friend told us this joke about French cruisers, "When the tide is out, the table is set!"

Linda and John

Out of Atuona

We finally extricated ourselves from the bright lights and fresh baguettes of Hiva Oa today by making a short hop (10 nm) to an anchorage on neighboring Ile Tahuata. We're now at an unoccupied (except for our friends on Wind Weaver) small bay with a steep white sand beach backed by palm trees, a barbed wire fence, and a blue sign with "Propriete Prive - Tabu" (I can't type the accents over the "e"s) in white letters at the entrance to the buildings. It will take a walk on the beach to see exactly what the buildings are for, but they look a little primitive through the binoculars. The water is a beautiful blue green, and John could see the anchor lay over on the sand in 25'. I can't wait to go snorkeling. There's a nice breeze blowing and a little swell rolling in, but not enough to put out the rocker stopper yet.

On Tuesday we made a follow up trip into town to fax our paperwork for the new main sail to FedEx in Papeete. We were shocked that the cost of a four page fax was 980 CFP when it only cost around 475 CFP to airmail a CD to an address in Australia. We made the obligatory visit to the Gauguin and Brel grave sites in the local cemetery, but balked at the 600 CFP per person charge to enter the Gauguin exhibit at the Cultural Center (plus another 500 CFP to see the Brel exhibit) in town. Instead we spent our francs on brie, baguettes, beignets, and croissants and had a picnic lunch in the big square (tohua). We walked back to the short-cut trail down to the beach where we'd left the dinghy this time, making the walk into town half as long as it is to leave from the wharf.

We met Ed and Neela on the catamaran Quixotic and exchanged happy hours first on their boat Tuesday and then on Nakia Wednesday evening. We agreed to share a half day rental of a four-wheel drive Suzuki Samurai ($80 USD) on Thursday to visit the Iipona ti'i (tiki) site at Puamau, a two hour road trip which puts both Lombard St. and the Hana Highway to shame. Most of the road is unpaved switchbacks with several ongoing improvement projects (including a snazzy European style cement roundabout). Ed gave us an E ticket ride with lots of stops for pictures, and we really enjoyed the open air experience of the Samurai. With the top off the back seat I could look up at the amazing trees and smell the change from tropical jungle to pine forest as we gained altitude. By 2 PM when we arrived in Puamau the magasin was closed but four ladies were playing cards at the snack shop where we stopped for a Coke and to ask directions. We payed our 300 CFP per person entrance fee and continued on up the road to the site.

This was our first visit to an archeological site and it's sure to have spoiled us for others since, according to our Lonely Planet guide, this is one of the finest to be found "in the Marquesas, if not all of French Polynesia." It was multi-levels of grass and stone with a grouping of the five most important figures on the top platforms. The landscaping surrounding the site and in between the levels was lovely and we took many pictures which will eventually make it on to our Picasa link. Puamau also boasts a big sandy beach and is another charming village, all the more so for being in such a remote location.

We made it back to Atuona with time to spare on the car rental and decided to take the turn into the Tehueto Petroglyph site. This turned out to be an overgrown jungle version of a "road" including muddy spots and green plants brushing the sides of the car. After passing a house with a barking dog, we came to a fork in the road and took the direction with the most recent tire tracks visible (left), but finally called it quits before having to cross some seriously deep water. The papaya trees along the way were loaded with fruit but we resisted temptation, and headed back out to the paved road to get home before sunset.

Linda and John

http://www.geocities.com/svnakia/map_app.htm09,54.478,S,139,06.252,W,Hanamoenoa,

Atuona, Hiva Oa

This morning, after learning that a taxi for four people would cost 300CFP per person, we made the 45 minute walk into town from the anchorage with Eric and Daphne from Wind Weaver. They stopped at the post office to do some internet while we went straight to the gendarmerie to complete our check-in formalities. We gave the English speaking policeman copies of our bond exemption letters from Latitude 38 and filled out two forms, and he gave us back the original Customs Declaration form for us to mail to Tahiti. No money changed hands and John is still shaking his head at how simple and completely painless it was. We owe a debt of gratitude to Andy Turpin of Latitude 38 and Michel Alcon, Director of the Tahiti Yacht Club, for arranging the bond exemption for all pre-registered Puddle Jump boats. This saved us the huge headache of setting aside funds (up to $2,000 per person) to cover the normal cost of airfare back to your home country in the event that the French need to kick you out of Polynesia. We are now officially in the country and have only to show our copy of the Customs Declaration form to the local gendarme at each island we visit.

Then we were off to the bank to get some CFPs to pay for the stamp to mail the form. The ATM issued my 10,000 CFP withdrawal in one 10,000 CFP note and when we went inside the bank to change it to smaller denominations there was a huge long line with no telling where it began or ended (people were just lining the walls). So we headed off to the magasins (tiendas) in the off chance that they would break our big bill on a small purchase. We carefully selected two 454 g. tins of New Zealand butter (223 CFP ea.), two 1 Kg. boxes of flour (136 CFP ea.), two chocolate croissants (130 CFP ea.), two chocolate beignets (145 CFP ea.), and two 29" baguettes (64 CFP ea.). The clerk rang it all up and didn't bat an eye when I handed him the 10,000 note! That would never happen in Latin America. We met up with again with Eric and Daphne who said, oh, that wasn't the biggest store with the most selection, so we decided to try breaking another big bill which John had pulled from the ATM. This time we bought garlic and packets of crackers and cookies for a grand total of 1,274 CFP, and the clerk broke another 10,000 CFP note. This is a great country!

By this time we were starving and after scarfing down the croissants and beignets, they were so good I had to go back and get more for tomorrow's breakfast. Then we stopped at one of the vegetable trucks we'd passed on the street and finally hit sticker shock. 1,400 CFP for two cabbages, six tomatoes, and six green peppers. We don't know what the breakdown was so maybe there's something we'll have to avoid (the tomatoes?) next time. And forget about buying fruit anywhere - they all have it growing on trees in their yards.

Our last stop was the post office to buy the stamp to mail the Customs form to Papeete but, it being a Monday, there was another huge long indeterminate line. Since we were loaded down with purchases we decided to return tomorrow to complete that chore and do some sightseeing. The walk back to the anchorage seemed much longer with all the stuff we were carrying in shopping bags. Not having planned to do so much shopping we hadn't brought a backpack with us. And apparently there's a new rule/law that either prohibits picking up hitchhikers and/or carrying people in the bed of a truck, because no one stopped to offer us a ride in either direction. By the time we got back to the boat we were so hungry that we ate an entire baguette with two of our new tomatoes and some cheese!

I've been very impressed by how well dressed the locals are. I noticed in Fatu Hiva that the men and boys were mostly wearing nice board shorts, and some of the women dancers were wearing expensive looking workout tops. I don't feel we stand out here like we did in Latin America where there is so much extreme poverty. Except for the kids asking for candy and pens in Hana Vave we haven't been approached by anyone asking for anything, even out on the boat which is especially nice. And we are still loving the warm days and cool nights. Last night we had a good boat wash and even collected a few liters of rain water. So far we haven't been bothered by any bugs other than the orange wasps that like to explore the boat, but even Ziggy knows to stay away from those now.

Linda and John

At rest in Hiva Oa

I was in such a hurry to write about everything that had been keeping us busy that I completely forgot to describe our surroundings. Of course it's absolutely stunning! I'm sure all you have to do is Google Fatu Hiva and you'll see pictures. We haven't been to Kauai in years but it reminds us of the Na Pali coast there. Green, green, green, and steep cliffs with deep gorges. It was always a shock to look up from the boat at the anchorage in Hana Vave and see the gorgeous rock formations and the cliff sides which are kept well manicured by dozens of free range goats. I don't think we've woken up to the sound of goats bleating since Agua Verde in Baja. There was a beautiful "window" between the rocks of a view way back into a golden colored valley well beyond the village. From the boat we could see the soccer field, the one room health center, and the rip-rap breakwater protecting the concrete wharf and launch ramp. The rest of the village is set up along both sides of a road which parallels a small river leading up a hill and into the valley.

The houses are surrounded by trees, shrubs and flowers, and you see pamplemousse (like an oversized grapefruit), bananas, mango (the trees were loaded with unripe fruit) and citron (they get yellow like lemons, but they're exactly like Mexican limes) everywhere. Curiously we didn't notice any breadfruit trees until we went to Omoa where they were plentiful. No-ni bushes are cultivated as a crop (the fruit is harvested for some medicinal purpose), and we saw (and smelled) coconut being dried on racks for export as copra. I also saw a few bushes with cute baby pineapples the size of pears growing on them.

Our friends on Matajusi (the first two letters of his four children's names) instructed us about all the meat eating opportunities that were available to us. Silvio traded with the locals for a leg of goat and a leg of pig. They also fished for fresh-water shrimp at the waterfall using a large piece of fabric. They lured the shrimp on top of the fabric with coconut meat and then scooped them out of the water. Finally, Silvio bought a live rooster off of some kids who'd been hanging around during the tiki trading session with John (which as it turns out might have been stolen property since another group of kids told us it didn't belong to the kids who sold it). He carried it back to the boat in a plastic grocery bag where it was dispatched, plucked, gutted, and put into the dinner pot. We declined their invitation to dinner, not so much because we didn't want to eat rooster, but more because dinner didn't get started until well after 8 PM. I always find it interesting that most cruisers are so into the hunter gatherer thing because, other than catching the occasional fish, we're perfectly happy with the food we've stocked on the boat, and are practically vegetarians without all the soy and tofu!

As John wrote, we had a fabulous sail from Fatu Hiva to Hiva Oa in spite of having to leave in such a hurry. We motored the first hour and then had a great breeze and a lot of favorable current to get here before sunset. There are only four other cruising boats in the anchorage, including Gabian, who came the same day as us from Fatu Hiva, and Wind Weaver, who we last saw in the Galapagos. The unknown boats are the only ones with stern anchors out. The swell hasn't been too bad, but John finally put the rocker stopper out today to help cut down the roll a bit. Since technically we're in "quarantine" until we get checked in with Immigration and the rest of the officials, we've confined ourselves to the boat and only make short trips to the wharf area to do laundry and take showers. There's an easy stone and mud launch ramp by the outrigger canoe club that we use to wheel the dinghy out of the water. There's an open shower right there, and across from the "visitor's center" (which is rarely open according to our friends) is an enclosed shower with a tiled outdoor counter with a faucet (for fish cleaning?) with plenty of (only slight muddy) fresh running water where we've done two buckets of laundry each day. We shower on shore because the water in the anchorage is a little muddy looking, and because it's nice to get under lots of free fresh water when we have the chance!

Tomorrow we'll take care of the business of checking in and see what the town has to offer. This is still a small place with only a couple of thousand people so we're not looking for much in the way of entertainment or shopping. I'm looking forward to trying the local bread and maybe some cheese. We aren't in love with eating pamplemousse yet (I was expecting something like a sweet grapefruit, but they're like big mild lemons) - maybe we just haven't gotten a really good one. Once we get checked in and do some internet, weather permitting, we'll probably take off for a prettier place, though this has been a nice opportunity to sit tight and catch our breath.

Linda and John

http://www.geocities.com/svnakia/map_app.htm09,48.222,S,139,01.904,W,Hiva%20Oa,

The (French) tribe has spoken

We got booted out of paradise yesterday. When we went in to rinse some laundry at the faucet by the boat ramp the local cop was at the dock. He immediately asked or our passports and when we couldn't produce them (they were on NAKIA) he asked if we'd arrived directly from California or if we'd been to Atuona.

We said we'd come from the Galapagos and that we had not been to Atuona, but that we have visas which we received in Panama. He said arriving in Fatu Hiva without going first to Atuona a was 'no good' and that we needed to leave, now. Linda quickly finished our laundry while I went back to the boat to get a cable which I'd hoped would help the family with the broken computers. I took the cable past the cop to make sure it was ok to take to the family (also to make sure he knew that we're not a total drain on the village) before I walked up the road to try. Unfortunately the cable didn't do the trick, but I handed it over to the girl anyway using my other two words of French; "Por vous" and then high tailing it back to NAKIA so we could set sail for Atuona.

Luckily we had a fast run and arrived just before dark.

Now we get to experience some of the city life in the Marquesas, unfortunately town is a 2.5 mile walk from the anchorage.

John and Linda

Fatu Hiva

C'est superb!! Just as I thought, we've been running practically non-stop since our arrival Monday morning and we collapse at the end of the day with something to eat and maybe a DVD to relax with. We spent our first day making the transition from being at sea to being at anchor, switching things from one berth to another, and cleaning things that hadn't been touched in three weeks. After a quick afternoon nap we jumped in the water to scrub the hull which was coated in slime from the boot stripe to within a foot of the bulwarks. The water is a fabulous 81 degrees, silky smooth, and still the deep blue color of the sea. Big puffer fish came to investigate the gooseneck barnacles John liberated from the hull, and we've seen parrot fish from the boat.

Tuesday we made the obligatory hike to a nearby waterfall to swim in the deep large pool below what is now barely a splashing cascade down a sheer wall of rock. We ate a quick lunch and walked back to the last house on the road before it turns into a dirt track to the falls. We had admired the lemon trees there and thought maybe we could trade something of ours for un sac des citrons. The grandmother didn't want the nail polish I'd carried with us and asked for parfum instead. We ended by agreeing to take the lemons with us that day and returning with perfume and lipstick the next day.

But Wednesday morning, after John finished defrosting the freezer, Chantal swam over to ask if we wanted to go to Omoa for the day on their big catamaran. We dropped everything to go with them since the Omoa anchorage is not suitable for overnight, and is not a place we'd be comfortable taking Nakia. It only took half an hour to motor the three miles, and Etienne set the anchor in sand in nine meters of water. What wind there was came from the west into the bay and pushed the boat back into the swell rolling to the beach instead of holding it out more offshore. But after making sure the boat wasn't going to go anywhere we took the dinghy to the brand new concrete landing behind a new breakwater at the opposite side of the bay from the old landing where the swell breaks on the steps. Then it was into town for a walk around. Chantal and Etienne had heard of a restaurant in town so we went off in search of Pension Chez Lionel all the while stopping to chat with the locals. Lionel wasn't set up to serve food without prior arrangements but he sat us down with a bottle of water and had a long chat with Chantal. I understood that he's lived there for 36 years but the French was too fast for me and I soon zoned out to watch the thin cats and dogs instead. On our way back to the boat Chantal hunted down the woman with the key to the museum so we could see their collection of wood carvings. I think I understood that the really valuable things are kept elsewhere but we saw some lovely pieces. People were working on the big grassy area between the museum and the bay preparing for a festival in December. It had been a long day by now but as we were almost back to the wharf we heard a hammering sound and Chantal went to investigate with us tagging along behind her. At the back of a house a woman was beating bark to make tapa cloth. She had some already out drying and she brought out finished pieces for us to see. Starting at 5,000 CFP (about $50) and more they were too expensive for us, and besides we didn't have any local currency yet. But Chantal found one she liked enough to buy, and we appreciated having the opportunity to see the work in progress. We arrived back in Hana Vave in time for a sunset swim, exhausted but happy to have been able to see the much larger village at Omoa.

We spent a couple of hours watching a pair of humpback whales right in the anchorage Thursday morning. At first we thought there was just one big whale which would spout 3-4 times before submerging without fluking. But then Big Momma emerged and we realized that the big whale must be an older calf because mom was huge. She only did a couple of spouts to every two spouting periods of the smaller whale so we didn't get to see as much of her, but she was quite impressive. No one was up yet on the other two boats to see when the calf swam right down the side of Nakia but we were shocked at the sight of the white underside of the whale gliding by beneath the surface of the water! At this point John decided you only live once and grabbed his snorkeling gear to get in the water. He was prudent enough to stay by Nakia and not try to swim out to them, and he was richly rewarded when both of them swam close enough behind Nakia for him to see them go by him. They exited the bay soon afterwards and we were thrilled to have had an opportunity for such an up close and personal experience.

By this time Silvio and Lilia on Matajusi (from Brazil) were up and gave us a call on the radio to say that the drums we heard on shore meant that a dance rehearsal was in progress and it would be worthwhile for us to go in and watch. So we dropped everything to go ashore with the camera for a wonderful treat. A group of men playing drums of various sizes accompanied (mostly young) men and women rehearsing traditional dances. Even as they laughed at their mistakes, it was thrilling for us to have this first glimpse of local culture being handed down to the next generation.

We returned to the boat to gather up our trade goods determined to "purchase" tapa and tikis. Silvio had told us that only there in Hana Vave would we be able to trade for handicrafts, because people in the larger villages everywhere else wanted cash. While John went off with Silvio and Lilia I hiked back up the long hill to pay for our lemons. I gave the grandmother a couple of half empty cologne samples and let her choose one old lipstick out of three. When I asked which one she wanted she indicated all three, but I limited it to one and she chose the one with the shiny silver case even though it had the least amount of lipstick remaining in the tube. I was hoping she'd throw in some more lemons since I'd kept my promise and trudged all the way back out to her house, but she was a more shrewd bargainer than I was. (In Omoa a man gave us pamplemousse, lemons, and bananas just as part of stopping to chat with him and his family.)

On my way back to find John I searched for Teresa, a woman who sold tapa to friends of ours during their visit. At the second "house with a big hedge" I found her and she invited me in to see her work. It was not the same high quality as the woman in Omoa, but Teresa was willing to exchange for it and we began the long process of deciding what it was worth. Unfortunately I don't have what most of the women seem to want which is perfume (full sized preferred), scented lotions, blue or green mascara, and lipstick (not gloss). She ended up choosing two DVDs (her teenage son had a say in those), one old lipstick, one new nail polish (dark blue), and two new tubes of Chapstick (strawberry and cherry flavored). I have no idea what the actual price of the tapa was but I selected a medium sized turtle on a reddish brown cloth. I wasn't so much interested in the tapa as in the experience of trading for it, especially if we won't have many opportunities for this in other places. I hooked up with John who had made out like a bandit. He walked away with three carved wood tikis in exchange for some old rope. Again, I'm not sure what we'll do with them, but he had a great time making the trade.

A man stopped to ask us for help with his broken laptops. John took a look and found one that booted up with no video (after the daughter had sprayed it with WD-40) and another one that wouldn't respond at all. He reseated a couple of the cable connections of the first one but no luck. The man will have to take them to Papeete for further testing. On our way back to the dinghy we arranged for a trade of pamplemousse for bonbons with two boys. While John went back to the boat to drop off the tikis and get some water I waited at the wharf for the boys to return with the fruit. When they finally came into view it looked like they were empty handed but they told me to follow them back to the church. I felt like I was connecting with my "dealer" when they pulled the bag of fruit out from behind a corner of the stone wall surrounding the church yard, and it was only then that I realized they had probably not picked these from trees belonging to their families, and that they didn't want to be seen bringing them to me in front of all the people who gathered by the water in the late afternoons to swim and hang out. They didn't recognize the M&Ms I gave them, but once they started eating them they gave me the universal thumbs up sign of approval.

We returned with Silvio and Lilia to a house with wood carvings native to Tahuata. As we watched Silvio pulling out his trade goods we realized that the pieces were way out of our "price" range unless we were willing to give up a large bottle of rum (what they all ask for first). Silvio ended up getting the best wood and bone carving for a large bottle of wine, a new pair of $100 sunglasses, and a $100 bill. We thought that was a pretty high price to pay, but then the artist wasn't really interested in the wine or the sunglasses in the first place.

We returned to the boat drop dead tired after another long day in paradise, hoping to spend a couple of more days unwinding before heading off to Hiva Oa for our official check-in. The weather has been fabulous with sunny days and cool nights (74 F). After being at sea we don't notice the minimal swell in the anchorage at all, but the weather has also been especially calm after our first day which was very gusty. We are thrilled to be here and are enjoying every minute!

Linda and John

At anchor, Fatu Hiva

We dropped anchor this morning in the very scenic Bay of Virgins at the island of Fatu Hiva, Marquesas.

Here are some statistics:

Total distance sailed: 3026
Total distance as routed: 3012
Time: 21 days 23 hours (551 hours)
Average speed 5.49 knots.
Engine hours logged 4 (1.5 motoring, 2.5 charging batteries)
Sea water temperature range: 74.7o F in San Cristobal to 81.3o F in Fatu Hiva
Fish caught: 1, female Dorado

We didn't have any real failures, other then the self-steering line chafing through and some chafe on the jib sheets where the pole rubs on them. The self-steering line hardly counts, considering I've had a replacement line on hand since 2004 and have been waiting for it to fail before I replaced it.

One of my first thoughts this morning as we approached the anchorage: "That really wasn't that hard". I guess now I have something with which to compare other voyages.

http://www.geocities.com/svnakia/map_app.htm10,27.850,S,138,40.070,W,Bay%20of%20Virgins,

http://www.pangolin.co.nz/yotreps/tracker.php?ident=KE6HUA

John

Passage Notes

Since we'll probably hit the ground running when we make landfall tomorrow I'd better send off some final thoughts on the passage before we get too busy.

The weather this past week has been mostly sunny with varying degrees of white fluffy clouds. No more of the very gray days that we had off and on during the first two weeks, and no sight of rain from any of the clouds. I think it's very unusual that we never had a downpour, but maybe that's a factor in leaving later in the season. Except for the potentially high winds, we would love to have a good boat wash from a rain squall at this point. We never tire of gazing at the brilliant blue ocean waves but it will be nice to smell something green again (Ziggy's grass is completely dead now, but he still enjoys laying on the dirt - with a mesh screen over it to keep him clean). We've been surprised by how irregular the swell patterns have been on this trip. Or more accurately, by all the different directions they come from. It's certainly not been the big smooth rolling seas that I imagined. Instead it seems choppy and sharp, and all over the place. But since we weren't headed into it, I'm not complaining!

We have been incredibly fortunate to have made excellent progress with consistent wind the entire way. Yes, John was kept busy reefing and unreefing more than he would have liked, but we always had a good sailing breeze. Our Cape Horn wind vane did a wonderful job steering for us, and we never had to use the auto-pilot. We were also lucky to have escaped major gear failures during the passage. After the horror stories about equipment failures we've heard from other people I was prepared for the worst even though I don't know how I would have dealt with it!

Oh, and that shark we saw yesterday? John was being facetious about not being able to identify it because he didn't catch it. It was so close that the dorsal and tail fins clearly broke the surface of the water, and it was a white-tipped shark. Again I had to ask myself, what were the chances of us both being on deck to see that go by?!

Our long term plans at this point are to cruise the Marquesas, and perhaps the Tuamotus until October/November; spend this year's southern hemisphere cyclone season in Hawaii; return to French Polynesia in March; and cruise the islands next year leading to spending the 2010 cyclone season in the Marshall Islands. That's as long term as we can get for the moment, and of course it's all subject to change depending on how we like things down here. Everyone assures us we will love it, and I hope they're right!

Linda

Day 21

127 nm made good, all sailing. 105 miles to go.

The last two tomatoes went bad yesterday. They probably should have lasted longer but they were in a bowl that was also used to hold coffee cups (to keep them from flying all over the place, the cups and the tomatoes). The theory is that the cups damaged the tomatoes and hastened their rot.

Yesterday afternoon Linda and I were both on deck and saw a shark swim by about 20 feet from NAKIA. We estimate it was about 5 feet in length. We didn't have any fishing gear out at the moment so there was no chance of catching it to make a positive identification.

We've had to slow down a little, target speed is 5.0 knots, to get in right at sunrise tomorrow morning. We'll see.

http://www.geocities.com/svnakia/map_app.htm10,18,S,137,6,W,Day%20Twenty%20One,

http://www.pangolin.co.nz/yotreps/tracker.php?ident=KE6HUA

Day 20

134 nm made good, all sailing. 232 miles to go.

As I said yesterday the wind had gone light and we were sailing with full main and jib. Later yesterday afternoon the wind was even lighter and the mainsail was really banging. I was trying to sleep so I got the bright idea to put up the drifter in its 'double headsail' configuration. This is where there are two headsails set on the furler. It's a great light air downwind rig.

So I got out the sheet for the drifter, the drifter itself, put both reefs back in the main (a full main will blanket the drifter because its set behind the main), rigged the sheet and halyard on the drifter and hoisted it on up. Cool, we're doing 5 knots in less then 10 knots of wind and no more banging. The best thing was it only took 20 minutes to finish everything off.

I went to sleep only to be woken up two and a half hours later by the sound of water flying by outside. The wind was back up and we were going about 6.5 knots. Back out on deck and take down the drifter, then reef the jib. So much for a nice light air finish to this passage...

http://www.geocities.com/svnakia/map_app.htm9,47,S,135,1,W,Day%20Twenty,

http://www.pangolin.co.nz/yotreps/tracker.php?ident=KE6HUA

Day 19

129 nm made good, all sailing. 365 miles to go.

The wind has gone light and into the East-North-East so we're running dead downwind with the jib poled out to weather. I shook out all the reefs this morning, this is the first time during the trip we've sailed with a full main. Our position at 9 degrees South latitude seems to be giving us more wind then boats further North. They reported less then 10 knots of breeze this morning and sailing at only 3.5 knots, where as we had over 12 knots of breeze and were sailing at 5.5 knots.

More Frigate birds sighted and a new kind of Petrel that we didn't get a very good look at.

http://www.geocities.com/svnakia/map_app.htm9,17,S,132,48,W,Day%20Nineteen,

http://www.pangolin.co.nz/yotreps/tracker.php?ident=KE6HUA

Day 18

134 nm made good, all sailing. 495 miles to go.

Much wind shifting. After sunset last night the wind came into the SE I had to take the pole down and we set out on a broad reach. Then about 0300 the wind backed into the East and I had to put the pole back up.

I keep waiting for the part where we don't have to touch a thing for days on end. Before we left I read about a boat that sailed from the Galapagos to Marquesas and didn't change sail for 11 days. I think the most I've gotten is 36 hours.

Oh well, at least I have something to do...

http://www.geocities.com/svnakia/map_app.htm8,39,S,130,3242,W,Day%20Eighteen,

http://www.pangolin.co.nz/yotreps/tracker.php?ident=KE6HUA

Day 17

135 nm made good, all sailing. 628 miles to go.

The wind shifted into the East early this morning so we poled the jib out to the weather side. It's called Wing-on-Wing and is giving us a much nicer ride than having the jib poled out to leeward (turbo mode). I wish we could have done this before, but we'd have ended up going due West, instead of West South West.

We had 7 small flying fish on board this morning. All were from one to three inches in length. That's not much of a record though. Tara III an Australian boat had 33 one-inch flying fish on deck yesterday morning. I suggested they could deep fry them and eat them like French Fries but it was too late, they'd already thrown them back into the sea.

http://www.geocities.com/svnakia/map_app.htm8,6,S,128,32,W,Day%20Seventeen,

http://www.pangolin.co.nz/yotreps/tracker.php?ident=KE6HUA

Passage Notes

As John already wrote, it's been a little rough lately. Nothing terrible, but just enough bouncing around to make life more difficult than it already is. There are two wave/swell trains. The one from behind us is fine because it simply lifts up the stern and we go surfing down with it. But every once in awhile there's one that comes from our port side that really slews us around, and things below go bang and crash. And sometimes a wave slips up the port stern quarter and splashes into that side of the cockpit.

Two weeks of this is plenty and we're ready to finish it up. Maybe we're a little antsy knowing that we're (with any luck) down to our last week, or maybe it's hearing other boats making landfall that has us wishing we were there too. Antipodes was the first boat in our little group to drop off the radio net after arriving in Hiva Oa Friday night after a fast 20 day passage. Spica decided to stop today at an anchorage before Nuku Hiva, ending their 25 day passage (with five and seven year old children - my hat goes off to them!). Next should be Tara III this Thursday, with Mud Skipper, Chautauqua, and Nakia bringing up the rear.

The night watches lately have reminded me of one of the reasons I hated baby-sitting as a teenager - trying to stay awake late at night. Hard as I tried to stay awake, inevitably the parents would arrive home to find me asleep on their couch, and I'd wake up groggy and embarrassed to be caught napping on the job. I guess it would have helped then to be wearing a watch with a continuous 15 minute timer going off to keep me awake.

I've sure been wishing for a water maker lately. The thought of arriving in a place where water is going to be difficult to get is a downer after a long passage like this. It's going to take us a week just to get laundry hand washed and salt wiped off every surface of the boat. Makes you appreciate places like Mexico where you can pull into a marina for a day or two just to get cleaned up again. At least we've managed to keep all the dead things off the boat. Today Tara III reported a record "catch" of 33 flying fish, none of which were longer than one inch. They have been regularly cooking up their (larger) flying fish and squid deck catch, but I believe they said they were out of olive oil for this batch...

Forecast is for more of the same weather and seas so this is all for now. Oh, and as much as I am finding "The Bone People" to be a great read, I realized that I'd better warn people that the subject matter isn't for the faint of heart. By "magical" I didn't mean Tinkerbell, feel good, but more like eerie and transcendent. It's a disturbing story, but I was immediately drawn in by the characters and the unusual style of writing. As much as one hopes for a happy outcome, I'm sure it's not to be (I haven't quite finished it yet), but I'm reconciled to that. This is a rare book that I find myself thinking about often even when I'm not reading it.

Linda

Oops

Arrival should be August 2nd or 3rd.

Day 16

137 nm made good, all sailing. 764 miles to go.

It finally calmed down a little late last night and early this morning. Both Linda and I (and Ziggy too) are pretty tired. It's tough to sleep when the sea is rough. Too bad we couldn't start out with this crap and end up with the beautiful sailing we had in the middle!

http://www.geocities.com/svnakia/map_app.htm7,34,S,126,18,W,Day%20Sixteen,

http://www.pangolin.co.nz/yotreps/tracker.php?ident=KE6HUA

Day 15

137 nm made good, all sailing. 901 miles to go.

Breezy the last 24 hours. 18-22 knots. No big seas from the South but the wind chop is pretty rough.

We've been trying to slow down so we can get in on the morning of the 22nd but have given up on that. The more we slow down, the more we roll. So now we're trying to go fast so we can get in before dark on the 21st. This way if the wind dies we'll still get there on the morning of the 22nd. Hopefully we wont end up getting there in the middle of the night. Then we have to heave-to and wait for daylight.

http://www.geocities.com/svnakia/map_app.htm7,6,S,124,3,W,Day%20Fifteen,

http://www.pangolin.co.nz/yotreps/tracker.php?ident=KE6HUA

Day 14

136 nm made good, all sailing. 1038 miles to go.

Not much to report.

We had some more Rough-Toothed Dolphin around the boat yesterday afternoon.

We opened the second can of the trip. Dinty Moore Beef Stew. I bought 12 cans in Panama thinking it would be good when it was too rough to cook anything else. It was, though we added rice to extend it and that made it more complicated to make (when the boat is really rolling its hard enough to open a can and dump the contents into the pan, much less measure water and rice).

http://www.geocities.com/svnakia/map_app.htm6,34,S,121,48,W,Day%20Fourteen,

http://www.pangolin.co.nz/yotreps/tracker.php?ident=KE6HUA

Day 13

138 nm made good, all sailing. 1174 miles to go.

A bit rough this morning, maybe 18 kts of wind. We pulled down the second reef again. Pulling down a reef is something which should normally take about 45 seconds but now because I'm so paranoid about tearing the sail again it takes me over five minutes.

We went along with the double reef main and reefed jib until around 1000 when it calmed down a little and I shook the reef our of the jib. It's just amazing what a little extra power will do. One minute we're rolling like crazy. So much so that the weather rail of the cockpit actually scooped up a wave and tossed it around, nearly soaking me (I only had to stand up to avoid the worst, only my shoes got wet). I looked around and noticed it wasn't really blowing that hard so I let out the rest of the jib. We immediately picked up speed and stopped the worst of the rolling. Go figure.

I was a little blue yesterday. One of the boats we've been keeping touch with arrived in Hiva Oa. This was the first boat to make landfall since we'd left Galapagos. Something about knowing that someone else had arrived but we still have almost half way to go got me down. That and I miss our pilot whales.

http://www.geocities.com/svnakia/map_app.htm5,52,S,117,15,W,Day%20Thirteen,

http://www.pangolin.co.nz/yotreps/tracker.php?ident=KE6HUA

Passage Notes

I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop because so far this passage has been nothing short of spectacular. We are traveling at average speeds beyond our wildest expectations, the weather has been fine, and to top it off Mother Nature put us in our own National Geographic wildlife show at the halfway point of our ocean crossing! Not only did the surfing pilot whales accompany us for over 24 hours, but they were joined occasionally by a dolphin we identified as the rough-toothed dolphin. And the day before the pilot whales appeared, before we saw the whale right next to the boat, I also saw a huge whale going in the opposite direction some distance away. From the length between the head and the dorsal fin, which is the only part of the body I could see, I want to say it was a blue whale but I can't be sure. Whatever it was, it was impressive and probably just as well that it took no interest in us. Chippy, our pilot whale, made me nervous because she swam so close to the aft quarter of the boat that I was afraid of one wrong move and she'd knock the self-steering paddle off the wind vane. It has a safety line to keep it attached to the boat, but what a pain it would be to get that back on again. Oh, and finally, after talking to my friend, Ruth on Mud Skipper, about whales on the radio yesterday afternoon, I came up on deck just in time to have John point out a sea turtle. What are the odds of us: a) passing right by a turtle out in the middle of the ocean, and b) being up on deck at precisely the right moment in which to see it?!!

Well, it wasn't "A Fish Flew Through the Porthole" (the title of a book about a crossing from San Francisco to the Marquesas by a friend of my mother's), but it could have been titled "A Fish Flew Down the Companionway Hatch" or "Night of the Flying Fish." The same night we were accompanied by pilot whales we were still sailing dead downwind with the jib poled out to port on the whisker pole, as we'd been doing all day. John was staking out his usual star gazing spot in the cockpit when he heard a loud bang and something went whizzing right by his head. His first thought was, "Holy sh*t, what just broke? Did a line part?" But he soon realized it was a flying fish flopping around next to him, and he tossed it overboard since it was too big to give to Ziggy. Soon after I came on watch at 10 PM I was staking out my usual spot on the settee down below and listening to an old broadcast of "60 Minutes" on the iPod when I heard a loud bang and something crashed to the floor at the bottom of the companionway steps. Ziggy was immediately on the flopping fish but I too threw that one overboard before cleaning up the slimy mess of scales on the wood floor. Not much later a third flying fish landed right in the cockpit again! This is the first time we've ever had them land on the boat while sailing down wind. I suspect Chippy thought we weren't getting enough to eat at the blistering pace we'd been setting, and so she sent some snacks our way.

I don't know where the time goes but it never seems like we have enough of it to do the things we want to. I concentrate most of my off watch time catching up on sleep and getting something to eat. Then there are the daily chores like sweeping the floors and cleaning the litter box for me, and wiping down the cockpit and walking the decks checking for signs of wear and tear for John. On odd numbered days of the month ("he's an odd egg" is how I remember it) I turn the egg crates over to keep the yolks from sticking to the shells. Most mornings I try to give Ziggy a good hour of play time now that he's up to it. He's a pretty young cat (two years old) to have so few outlets for letting off steam, so we run him around down below with his toys. I noticed a few days ago that the whiskers on one side of his face have started breaking off at the ends. We don't know if that's from stress or if he's sleeping on that side so much that they're getting damaged. There's coffee/tea to be made each morning; a breakfast of granola bars or hard-boiled egg or PBJ sandwiches; John usually cooks a hot meal in the middle of the day or we have sandwiches; and fruit, cheese and crackers or sandwiches or leftovers later in the day. John still has three radio nets taking up his time: the informal morning one with the boats out in front of us, the Pacific Passage net late in the afternoon (same group of boats plus any that might join us from the Galapagos), and the formal Pacific Seafarer's HAM net in the evening.

With any luck there's time left over to read during daylight hours (it's too hard for me to read by red lights - to protect our night vision - at night anymore) and listen to podcasts (we downloaded from the internet before leaving) at night. Speaking of reading, John's reaction to practically every book he reads (Me: "What did you think of it?") is, "It was okay." For the first time in ages he said (unsolicited), "This is a great book!" regarding the D'Orso Galapagos book I mentioned in a previous post. As for me, I can't bear to tear myself away from "The Bone People" by Keri Hulme which my mother gave me years ago and which I'm finally getting around to reading. This is a magical, mysterious, and moving book. It's probably a good thing I'm being forced to savor it in small bites because otherwise I'd sit down and devour it whole. So now you know why it's taken me this long to write a blog when I'd rather be reading!

Linda

Day 12, Galapagos to Marquesas

146 nm made good, all sailing. 1312 miles to go.

No more pilot whales. We slowed down for a few hours yesterday afternoon when the wind went light and I guess they didn't like going slow.

We opened the first can of the trip yesterday; a canned ham for sandwiches to use up our store bought bread before it goes bad.

We set our clocks back too, so now we're in the same time zone as the Pacific Coast of the US. Except we don't follow daylight savings time so it's not really the same time.

An interesting note about yesterday's halfway point. You could say we were literally in the middle of nowhere:

1500 miles from the Marquesas
1600 miles from the coast of Mexico
1500 miles from the Galapagos
2800 miles from Hawaii
1300 miles to the other nearest island, Pitcairn

http://www.geocities.com/svnakia/map_app.htm5,52,S,117,15,W,Day%20Twelve,

http://www.pangolin.co.nz/yotreps/tracker.php?ident=KE6HUA

Day 11, Half Way!

137 nm made good, all sailing. 1462 miles to go.

We broke the half way mark early this morning. Our pilot whales are still with us, almost 36 hours non-stop. I wonder when they sleep.

We ate the last of our Galapagos Oranges yesterday. We probably threw out six or seven that had gone bad but if we'd bought more we would still be able to eat them.

http://www.geocities.com/svnakia/map_app.htm5,30,S,114,44,W,Day%20Eleven,

http://www.pangolin.co.nz/yotreps/tracker.php?ident=KE6HUA

Day 10, Big Tuesday

148 nm made good, all sailing. 1602 miles to go.

What was that surfer movie in the '70s? Big Wednesday? Well yesterday was Big Tuesday on NAKIA.

To start off with, a boat ahead of us reported a large swell rolling in from the South, and sure enough about 3 in the afternoon we found ourselves going up and over some pretty big waves. The weather files said they we 4.3 meters (about 17 feet) and I figure that's about right. As I said they were coming from the South, and our course of South West put us riding into/across them. They're not a big deal, just very impressive.

Then, about 5 in the afternoon I was lying in bed, I heard a whale blow. I didn't think much of it and went back to snoozing. Then about 10 minutes later Linda, who'd been sweeping the floor, went up to empty the dust pan and yelled 'Oh Sh*t, John a whale!'. I came shooting out of bed thinking this had to be something good and when I got up on deck I did what I normally do for whales, start looking out towards the horizon. I asked 'which direction?' and Linda said, 'No. Right there!' pointing down to a grey shape cruising under the surface 20 feet off the port quarter. Huh. That's close. It stayed with us 20 minutes or so, just swimming along side, the spray from it's exhalation crossing the deck in front of us. Although once it went down and under the keel, coming up right in front of the boat with it's back just a few feet from the bob-stay. Now that was close. His curiosity satisfied, he left us to find something more interesting without coming any closer. We've come to the conclusion that it was a 30 foot long Bryde's whale.

The other big thing happened this (Wednesday) morning. At about 0400 some very strange dolphin showed up. They made a huge splash when the surfaced to breath. It wasn't until the sun came up that we could see they are Pilot Whales. About a dozen. They've been with us all day and one particularly curious fellow, nicknamed 'Chip' because of the notch in his dorsal fin, has been staying very close to NAKIA. At times only 3 feet off either quarter.

http://www.geocities.com/svnakia/map_app.htm5,27,S,112,24,W,Day%20Ten,

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Day 9

146 nm made good, all sailing. 1752 miles to go.

I have a few thoughts to share on Flying Fish. As an adaptation for evading predators the ability of these small fish to take to the air is a huge waste. After watching a thousand or so glide away from NAKIA I've come to the conclusion that if a more intelligent animal had this ability it would be far more entertaining. First lets take a look at what the fish does. As some scary menace approaches, the fish jumps out of the water at a shallow angle and spreads its wing-like fins. Depending on how much speed the fish had on departing the water it could go a few feet to as far as 30 yards. In order to keep in the air, the fish can 'tail' the water using the lower lobe of it's tail which is longer then the upper lobe. This can extend the flight another 30 yards or so. During the flight, the fish exhibits a kind of terrain following ability (probably based on ground affect) that allows the fish to pop up to avoid oncoming waves and then back down to low level flight. Now imagine what it would be like if this ability we present in a higher level animal who might do this kind of thing just for the fun of it. Like a dolphin. Since they're mammals, there's no need for them to go back into the water to breath, so they could take to the air and skim across the surface or a mile or more. Who wouldn't want to do that? Instead we have a 6 in fish who only thinks of this ability after it has been frightened out of its wits.

http://www.geocities.com/svnakia/map_app.htm4,44,S,110,5,W,Day%20Nine,

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Day 8

143 nm made good, all sailing. 1898 miles to go. (Over 1/3 of the way there!)

We've had the pole on the jib for a couple days now. Last night when I reefed the jib for a small squall I noticed some fraying on the rope where it goes thru the pole. After looking at it this morning I came to the conclusion that something needed to be done so we spent 2 hours on deck moving lines and adding chafe protection on the rope. The problem is 2 things, 1) the pole is too long for this jib and 2) the ropes (called sheets) are old. These two things almost cut the sheet in half in two days. I'm going to change to some new sheets with better chafe protection tomorrow. One more thing to fix in Hawaii.

http://www.geocities.com/svnakia/map_app.htm4,16,S,107,42,W,Day%20Eight,

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Day 7

138 nm made good, all sailing. 2041 miles to go. (almost 1/3 of the way there)

Nothing new to report, a little bumpy last night again. I'm not sure why but every night without the wind increasing more then 3 knots or so it gets really choppy for a while then calms down after an hour or two. Usually this happens on my (John) off watch.

http://www.geocities.com/svnakia/map_app.htm4,04,S,105,18,W,Day%20Seven,

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Day 6

137 nm made good, all sailing. 2179 miles to go.

We finally shook the second reef out of the main this morning. The wind has gotten a little lighter and we're sailing further off the wind so I'm not as worried about it. The line that pulls in the second reef is pretty badly chafed, something is not set up right. Good thing I had a backup line on it incase it chafed thru.

A new record for flying fish on deck last night; 8 fish, 2 squid. Z ate one each.

http://www.geocities.com/svnakia/map_app.htm3,52,S,102,59,W,Day%20Six,

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Passage Notes

I'm sure it's strange to people sitting safely in a chair at home reading this, but so far (knock on wood) there's nothing about this passage that feels different from any other passage we've made. We've often been out of sight from land before (even if it's just obscured by marine layer) so we're used to not seeing anything but sky and ocean. And since John does all the navigating, I rarely look at a chart to see exactly where we are in the middle of all this blue. There really should be sea monsters or something out here to tell a person, "you're out in the middle of nowhere, you silly twit!"

In addition to forgetting to enter our position in the Google Earth link for Day 4's blog, John neglected to write in Day 5's entry that we took showers! Just like during our previous passage, John got out the salt water hose for our sea water wash down with soap on the leeward side deck, and the sun shower for a fresh water rinse off in the cockpit. John turns the boat downwind for a smoother and slower ride until we're finished. No, we don't wear harnesses when we do this, but we do spot for each other to make sure we both stay on board.

John's been cooking up some excellent meals on this passage. On our first night out we ate light snacks and sandwiches, but since then he's made a great rice pot with fresh veggies, vegetable omelets, dorado sandwiches, baked potatoes, dorado with sautéed onion and peppers, and more grilled dorado for the fridge. His goal is to only eat the fresh foods (as opposed to anything canned or frozen) before they have a chance to spoil. It makes cooking more of a challenge for him (all that slicing and dicing with things wanting to roll this way and that), but at least we have good weather for it at the moment. We'll save the Dinty Moore stew for rougher conditions!

Ziggy's finally acclimated, and conditions were calm enough, that he got a good hour of play time in this morning. He has an accumulation of toys that he likes chasing, and he had a lot of pent up energy to spazz out with. He hasn't "caught" any flying fish or squid in the past two nights but John makes up for it with dorado snacks whenever he cooks some for us.

John's been slogging through Stephen Hawking's "A Brief History of Time" and I'm almost finished with "Plundering Paradise: The Hand of Man on the Galapagos Islands" by Michael D'Orso. This is a must read for anyone who's spent time in Ecuador or the Galapagos. It's a series of portraits of the people living in the islands in 1999-2001, and it really nails Ecuadorian bureaucracy on the head. The government neglect (and abuse!) of those phenomenal islands is an absolute crime against nature and humanity. I take exception to his description of yachties as "millionaires" but other than that it's a fine book!

Linda

Day 5

154 nm made good, all sailing. 2316 miles to go.

We set the clocks back yesterday, we have to do that a few times going from the Galapagos to the Marquesas or else the sun comes up at three in the morning. It looks a little strange in the logbook, there are two entries for 1200 hrs.

We ran the engine (out of gear) for an hour yesterday just to make sure it still runs.

Not much else to report. Very nice weather the last 24 hours. We've both caught up on sleep and are feeling much better than the first couple days.

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Day 4, Galapagos to Marquesas

141 nm made good, all sailing. 2477 miles to go.

Other than a ship off in the distance and two fishing boats we haven't seen anything out here but sea and sky. One of the fishing boats came to within 1/4 mile - to get a good look at us we guess. We weren't comfortable with how close they were getting so John furled the jib and we sort of hove to. As they crossed our bow we could see every member of the crew lined up on deck to wave at us! Quite a heartwarming sight, but they still gave us an anxious moment. We've lost VHF radio contact with the other two boats closest to us, but one of them has SSB radio and we can monitor their position during the two nets. We'll be losing the Panama Pacific morning net shortly as we get out of range of most of the net controllers who are in Costa Rica, Panama, and Bahia de Caraquez. But John continues to run the Pacific Passage net every evening for the handful of boats who are still making this run. One single hander who left Panama around the beginning of May (Nick on the vessel Val) is finally about to make landfall in the Marquesas. He had a horribly slow time getting south of Panama, just drifting in the light winds and foul current. Since he wasn't making a fuel stop in the Galapagos, he wasn't motoring at all. We'll be happy to see him finally get in safely to port. John joined the roll call of the Pacific Seafarer's net last night. This is a HAM net run by land based people all over the Pacific and the U.S. to keep track of underway vessels. It allows us to talk to people who are very far away from us, and John had nice chats with Carina and South Moon.

In my last post I neglected to explain to the non-boaters out there that normally our quarter berth (and this is true of most boats we know) is used as our "garage/attic" area for storage. But our sleeping berth (a pullman style bed mid-ship on the port side) is too large and open for sleeping underway so we have to move things from the quarter berth to the pullman, and throw all our pillows in the quarter berth where we won't get tossed around as much (especially on port tack, which we are).

Ziggy seems to appreciate the difference between John's style of night watch versus mine. When John is on from 1800-2200 Ziggy knows it's open season on flying fish and squid. If it lands on deck, John usually lets him eat it. So Ziggy spends most of that watch out in the cockpit with John. When I come on at 2200 we have a little look around from the cockpit but then he knows it's time to go below and go to bed. He remains alert to the slightest noise, and I know he's not really sleeping, but he will mostly stay in bed even when I go outside for visual scans of the horizon at 15 minute intervals. If he does hear something land on deck, he's up at attention and headed for the open companionway. If it's a flying fish, I've already heard it too and can catch up to him to attach the leash to his harness. I swear he knows to wait there for the leash, and he also moves a bit more slowly when he's in the harness as it acts as a bit of a hobble. If John has already let him "catch" anything to eat, then I usually try to get the flying fish to go out the scupper. I was using the fishing gaff for this but then I had John open up a wire coat hanger for me instead. It's less cumbersome, less valuable (if I should lose it overboard), and it has a longer reach. While still tethered to the cockpit (me, as well as Z.) I can reach up the side deck with the hanger to guide the fish as the water slides it towards me, and gently slide it out the scupper. (If there's enough water on the side deck to land a fish, than there's enough water left to send it back into the ocean.) Ziggy is perplexed for awhile but eventually he accepts the fact that his fish has disappeared and I can coax him below again.

Our weather changes by the hour and regularly goes from clear and sunny to completely overcast with occasional (very) short bursts of drizzle. So we sometimes have blue sky and dark blue seas, but mostly it's been gray sky and darker gray seas. Which is nice for staying cool during the day, but I miss seeing the stars at night. We've had a couple of night time visits from dolphins, but now we only see petrels and a shearwater occasionally during the day. We have seen no more swallow tail gulls in spite of all the flying fish and squid available. We're very happy to be making excellent progress and are keeping our fingers crossed to keep this pace up most of the way.

Linda and John

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Day 3

127 nm made good, all sailing. 2618 miles to go. We changed our route, so it looks like we went much further, but in fact we're just going to sail a more direct route. Originally I thought we'd sail southwest until we got to 4S and then go west. This would take maximum advantage of a favorable current along 4S. This would also have added another 60 miles to our trip, but I figured the current would make up for it. The thing I failed to realize is that we'll be sailing in the current most of the time on the direct route anyway, so why add the distance.

We're keeping two log books, one for the hourly positions we take off the GPS, another for the more important events that we don't want to get lost in the mess of lat/long. Here's the 'important' stuff for the last couple days:

1445: AIS alarm for NW bound ship, range 8 nm*
1655: Fish boat off port bow; 1715 had to toll
up the jib to let him go by; all of their
crew lined up on the rail to wave to us
0515: John got up to furl jib, very bouncy, 95%
overcast morning; still seeing occasional
petrels and shearwater; 1415 masked booby
1200: noon position, distance made good, water
temp 74.3 degrees F
1830: Fishing boat to starboard, 8 miles
2200: Ziggy ate a flying fish
2355: Linda threw a flying fish back so Ziggy
wouldn't eat it
2440: furled jib; later John let some back out
0630: dropped staysail because it was blanketing
jib; let out some more jib
1030: Caught a 20 lb Dorado (mahi-mahi), found old
squid on deck when cleaning fish.
1200: noon position, distance made good, water
temp 75.2 degrees F

That's about it, our tomatoes are starting to go off after less then a week. We'll be eating them madly for the next few days to try to stay ahead of the rot. Oh and lots of fish too.

John and Linda

*AIS is an automated system that big ships use to announce their location. We have a receiver, I installed it last year in Ecuador, and it sets off an alarm if anything gets closer then 8 nm. The display is like a radar and shows all the ships that the device can receive. Along with the ship's position, the ship also broadcasts it's name so if you think you might be on a collision course you can call the ship on the radio and ask him if he wouldn't mind turning. We've only had to do this once. In fact the ship was already turning when we called, I don't think it was because of us, it was along the Ecuadorian coast and I think he had just arrived at a waypoint and was changing course to go to the next waypoint. In any case he answered our call and I thanked him.

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Goodbye Galapagos!

We finished up our stay at San Cristobal with two more trips out to La Loberia, and a lot of shopping and readying for our July 12 departure.

I never thought I would find myself putting petroleum jelly on fresh eggs, but on the strong recommendations of two highly respected friends (Georgie and Ruth, who swore they will last for 2-3 months unrefrigerated!) we bought 90 eggs in paper egg crates. After covering the shells with vaseline we taped the crates shut again and stowed them in the pullman berth. Ziggy has already walked on them, but the shells are tough and I don't think he broke any. We paid .15/egg for them so John says that at $1/egg in French Polynesia we only have to eat five out of each 30 to come out ahead!

We decided to provision before the traditional Saturday market day since the supply ships had finished unloading by Thursday and nothing new would be arriving from the mainland until the next Tuesday. We were happy to have made that decision when we walked by a store on Saturday afternoon and saw that they only had one loaf of good wheat bread left. And it was also nice to have all the food on board and stowed so that we could relax and enjoy our last full day in the Galapagos.

Low tide on Saturday was at 11 AM which is exactly when we walked into the water with our snorkel gear for one final close encounter with the sea turtles at La Loberia. This time we counted at least nine of them and recognized the biggest female by the damage to the right side of her shell. She was probably struck by a boat since she has a dent behind her front flipper and a crack on the aft edge of her shell. This time there was a curious and playful sea lion which came almost nose to nose with my face mask. That's a bit closer than I would wish for with a wild animal, but at least I never saw its teeth.

The previous Sunday we walked out to La Loberia without our snorkel gear to explore the narrower path off to the right. To our surprise we discovered that this is where the majority of the marine iguanas are to be found. There were a few large groups communing in the sun on the warm lava rocks and we got some great pictures that day. John got a little too close to one group and a small iguana expelled the excess salt from its nose (like a big salty sneeze) which is what they do in preparation for running away from threats.

I made another double batch of granola and some more bran muffins because the first rounds of each were already eaten or given away to friends. We sent everything I could think of to the laundry since we won't be seeing anything as inexpensive as $1/kilo again. John went up the mast to the spreaders to fix a flag halyard that had parted. We had 100 gallons of water delivered to Nakia at $3 per five gallon jug from our agent, Bolivar. We stowed all the bits and pieces that invariably make their way out of cupboards and drawers while at anchor, and tried to anticipate and cushion the items that were most likely to bang or knock underway.

After a last pizza at Miconia with Don and Priscilla Saturday night we thought we were pretty set to go, but Sunday morning we were still busy. Sail covers came off; we moved gear from the quarter berth to the pullman berth to make our sea berth; Ziggy's litter box and the carpets got a good cleaning; John ran the Sunday SSB net; Bronwyn and the La Barca kids came over for a chat and to return the Galapagos wildlife book I had loaned them; we tied the dinghy on deck; John scrubbed the rocker stopper and the anchor chain when we jumped in the water for a final swim/bathe; I washed the breakfast dishes, and by that time we were hungry for lunch! But with a long toot on John's cow horn and CSN's "Southern Cross" playing on the stereo, we finally raised anchor, shut off the engine, and sailed out of the anchorage at 12:30 PM.

We based our departure date on being at San Cristobal for the maximum allowable 20 day stay and by total coincidence three boats arriving there after us also decided to depart for the Marquesas on the same day. We were the first boat out of the anchorage followed an hour later by Valiam (home ported in Mooloolaba, Australia). Bill and Linda soon appeared on our stern and we attempted to take some pictures as they went flying by us. I'm sure they will make landfall in less than 20 days. The next two boats to leave were Chautauqua (Don and Priscilla) and Taisho (with Bob single handing). They are the only other American boats we've seen since leaving Bahia. Amazingly enough our speeds have matched well enough to maintain VHF radio contact with them (but not visual contact) and we check in with each other a few times throughout the day and night.

We're getting bounced around quite a bit, but we're happy to be making good speed over the ground for a change. So no complaints about that! You can follow our progress at:

http://www.pangolin.co.nz/yotreps/tracker.php?ident=KE6HUA

Linda and John

Day 2

126 nm made good, all sailing. 2806 miles to go. Weather a little bumpy, South East wind 20 kts.

Ziggy ate two of the many squid that landed on deck last night. We're not sure how he knows they are there but as soon as one arrives he's up and ready to get them. It must be the smell, all we can smell is ourselves.

John and Linda

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We're off

Well it seemed like it took forever to get the boat ready. But finally around 1200 local we determined that we had no more excuses for not leaving so we hauled the anchor and sailed out of Wreck Bay in a nice sunny Sunday afternoon. The first day went fine, though we haven't seen the sun since 10 miles out of the anchorage.

Ziggy is kind of put off, but the rest of the crew is doing fine. The GPS says we have 2949 miles left to go to Atuona.

John and Linda

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More Galapagos

I meant to correct my first comment about the water taxis here at San Cristobal. The taxis aren't the fancy inflatables that we initially noticed running back and forth to the dinghy dock. Those belong to all the small cruise/tour boats. The water taxis are pangas with biminis, and have names like Sea Baby, Pio-Pio, and Petrel. We can either call "Taxi Aquatico" on VHF 14, or usually we just stand out on deck and wave one down. Sea Baby is our favorite because he's a very personable guy with a distinctive, more African, look, and Pio-Pio is the only one that has lights for running at night (but that doesn't stop the others from running until 11 PM!).

This past week we went for another snorkel at La Loberia. By the time we got there the sky was beginning to cloud up so we didn't have as much color (and it didn't feel as warm), but the turtles were all still there! We mostly hung out with them and watched one that was eating sea grass off the rocks. She got so close that John could have easily reached out and touched her (but didn't). I say "she", because we ran into Jorge (our land tour guide) and the folks off Valiam (accent over the "i"), and he told us that sea turtles are the opposite of the land tortoises regarding their size. With the sea turtles, the males are smaller than the females so as not to drown the female when they mate in the ocean. Isn't Nature thoughtful that way.

On Thursday we snorkeled in the cove below Frigatebird Hill, just off one of the trails at the Interpretive Center, so an easy walk from the anchorage. This is a little deeper water encircled by lava rock with some interesting nooks and crannies. No sea turtles there, but sea lions to swim with, and we each managed to spot an eel just before we were ready to get out of the cold water. The latter were hiding in rock crevices with only about six inches showing, and we haven't gotten the book out to try to identify them yet. There were also a couple of large schools of sardines and another small fish, and a smaller school of baby barracuda. I have to laugh when I think of how blase I've become about sharing the water with sea lions since just hearing about friends who did it years ago used to frighten me. I couldn't imagine getting in the water with anything that big, but it hasn't been scary at all. Of course we haven't been to places with alpha bulls, and the Galapagos sea lions in general seem smaller than the California sea lions. They seem to do nothing but sleep and play. I can't imagine when they find the time to go out for a meal. Maybe they do all their hunting at night, but it seems like even then all they do is blow raspberries on Nakia's hull and play with our rocker stopper (waking us up at 4 AM). Oh yes, we finally put out the rocker stopper to combat the swell that sometimes wraps in here.

Last night we went in after the 5 PM HF radio net to have a beer and watch the sun set. We ran into Peter and Ruth from Mud Skipper, invited them to join us at a balcony table at Miconia (the nicest restaurant in town, in our view), and ended up staying for dinner. Then we had a $1 soft serve ice cream cone and walked down to watch the festivities on the malecon. It looked like the whole city had turned out for music and speeches celebrating Ecuador's independence day. We're hoping they continue the activities through the weekend so we can pretend it's all for the Fourth of July in Los Estados Unidos de Norte America!

Happy Fourth everyone - have some BBQ'd salmon and strawberry shortcake for me, and cauliflower, shrimp, rice salad for John (that's tough to duplicate since it's a family recipe)!

Linda and John

Some pics, click to enlarge

A sailing fisherman at Bahia de Caraquez

Blue Bottle crossing the bar at Bahia de Caraquez


A blue footed booby (how can you tell?) on Isla de la Plata.

A masked booby and its chick on Isla de la Plata

Sailing on the equator, in the tropics, this is what you need to wear to get through the night. The cold water of the Humbolt current keeps it pretty cool at night.

Supply day at Isla San Cristobal

Linda hangs out with one of the locals.

A sea lion playing with a sand dollar.

A sea turtle hanging out under our tour boat.