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Events, People, Places

Tonga’s Vava’u Island Group

On Wednesday, September 20, we officially checked into Tonga. We were in the northern island group, Vava’u, which is a paradise for cruisers. The group is made up of multiple islands, higher in elevation than the low-lying atolls of some island groups. There is one large town, Neiafu on the island of Vava’u, and then there are lots of small villages scattered around. There are dozens of places to anchor, either alone or with other boats. The town of Neiafu has much to offer if you have time to explore, and it is a gathering place for ex-pats and cruisers, along with native Tongans.

A main building in Neiafu in front of the small boat marina

That night, we had dinner at Mango, a restaurant on the waterfront that has a good-size dinghy dock. (The folks at Mango get a lot of business from the cruisers and they let us dock our dinghies there even if we aren’t eating there at the moment.) Dinner was with Yvette and Alex on Blue Beryl, but we also talked with Kristina and Chip from Second Set and Craig and Dawn and Jeanie from Russula.

The next day, we went to town again to explore. We started off looking for a bakery we’d heard about, walking away from the main town. Soon, a man stopped in his car and asked us where we were going. He then drove us to the bakery, and after we discovered that their goods were sold out, he drove us to a market that sold bread. It turned out that I had given him some rope the day before, down at the wharf. He repaid that kindness by driving us around.

After doing boat maintenance projects for the rest of the day, we had dinner at Kraken, another waterfront restaurant, with Blue Beryl and Szel and dozens of other boats. It was quiz night, run by the daughter of the owners, and everyone had lots of fun.

Yvette and Jeanne Socrates at Kraken on Quiz Night

On Friday, we went to town so Tom could shop for gifts. While he and Linda were at the public market, I went to Immigration to get letters for Pat and Johno so they could fly into Tonga without return tickets. I also extended my visa so it wouldn’t run out before our departure from Tonga. We had lunch at a shop that makes custom T-shirts and cooks nice goodies. Back at the boat, Blue Beryl and Szel stopped by to say farewell to Tom and then we took him back to shore to catch a taxi to the airport.

On Saturday, Linda and I went to shore to the public market and bought baskets, then had a late breakfast at Mango. In the afternoon, we went to the small boat marina to catch a shuttle to the boatyard. The owners of the boatyard were hosting the first event of a multi-day festival for the cruisers. We got a tour of the boatyard facilities and were treated to beer and sausages. It was a great time to see some old friends and to meet new people.

Sunday is a special day in Tonga, which is very serious about religion. You are not allowed to work or play. Linda and I stayed on the boat as required, but we did run the storm jib and the trysail up just to check that they were set to use. I have never used either of these sails, but they might be necessary on the upcoming trip to New Zealand. That night Blue Beryl and Szel came over to Aldabra for dinner.

One of the churches in Neiafu

On Monday, Linda and I started the morning at the market, buying baskets. We also did more boat projects before attending the opening dinner for the festival, which was at Mango. The food was good and it was a big social event for all the cruisers, making new acquaintances and renewing old ones.

Opening dinner at Mango

The next day, Linda finished packing for her flight back home. Then we went to the Basque Tavern for a festival-sponsored breakfast. We had just enough time to eat before Linda’s taxi came to take her to the airport. Like Tom, she had made many new friends on this trip and they were all sad to see her leave. After breakfast, representatives from various New Zealand businesses and government agencies briefed us on things we needed to know to enter New Zealand.

I spent the afternoon taking care of laundry, reorganizing the boat and doing a bit of shopping. Alex and Yvette had me over to Blue Beryl for cocktails because they thought I might be lonely. The three of us then went to Kraken for pizza night, another festival event. We got there pretty late so the pizza was almost non-existent. We ordered some food and started planning for the sailboat race scheduled for the next day.

On Wednesday, September 27, Alex and I went to the race committee meeting at Mango at 9:00 a.m. The race was to begin from Mango. Competitors were to run from the restaurant, get in their dinghies and go out to their boats. To speed up our start, one of our crew members, Daisy from the sailboat Traveller, was in her dinghy, waiting for us with the motor running. Alex and I jumped in and Daisy ran us to Blue Beryl, which was quite close to the restaurant. Alex had prepared Blue Beryl by removing the lines from the mooring ball and tethering the boat to the dinghies we had attached to the mooring ball. He just had to attach Daisy’s dinghy, unclip Blue Beryl and we were off. It was a very strategic start.

The race was quite fun. We sailed with Alex, Yvette, Daisy, Kim and her daughter Liz from the sailboat Tranquility, Fred, who would be crewing on Blue Beryl after Yvette flew to New Zealand, and me. We sailed very well and it was a lovely day for racing. We were passed by two or three very fast racing monohulls and a couple of very fast catamarans, but we were pleased with our performance. At the end of the race, we motored to Mango and Fred jumped off and swam to the restaurant to log us in. Later that evening, we attended an after-race dinner at the Basque Tavern, where lots of fun prizes were given. Daisy and I left at a reasonable hour, but a lot of other people made a late night of it.

On Thursday, September 28, the festival activity was an all-day culture event. We were taken in buses from the main town of Neiafu to the other side of the island. There, the Tongan tourist organization had prepared a beach party. We helped prepare some of the food before it went into the Umu, the underground fire. We visited with fellow cruisers and local Tongans, and we were treated to singing and dancing by local children. There were also competitions that the cruisers participated in, such as spear throwing and juggling. The event was a fundraiser for the library, which offers all kinds of activities for the local children. These children performed at the event.

Public library, Neiafu, Tonga

Preparing the Umu

Preparing the food that will be cooked in the Umu

The children at Culture Day

Dancing at Culture Day

Boys dancing, the money being put in their clothes goes to the library

Children singing

The next day, I went to the Falaeu Deli and ordered prepared food for the passage to New Zealand, to be picked up before leaving Neiafu. I then went to a few small markets and found some food provisions before returning to the boat to bake banana bread. That night we attended the closing dinner for the festival, at Kraken, which included a live auction that benefitted two local charities. It was a roaring event with lots of participation.

Wild night at the charity auction

On Saturday, September 30, Alex, Yvette and I went whale watching. The other participants included one cruiser and two couples that were visiting Tonga by land. While out on the boat, we saw many whales spouting and breaching in the distance. And one whale breached right next to the boat. But it wasn’t until later in the afternoon that we got into the water to swim with a mama whale and her baby. We were divided into two groups of four and we each got to get in twice. The experience was magical.

Swimming with a baby whale

That night we had dinner at Mango with Bob and Sarah from Rhapsody, to celebrate Sarah’s birthday. While we were there, Mike and Daisy from Traveller, Craig and Dawn from Russula, and Thomas and Daniel from Saorise stopped by and joined us.

On Sunday, October 1, I left the mooring ball in the Neiafu harbor and followed Blue Beryl outside of that bay and over to Port Maurelle, a bay not too far away. After Alex and Yvette had anchored, Alex came over to Aldabra in his dinghy and helped me drop my anchor. It was nice to get out of town and to be in a more remote bay. That night we had a delicious potluck on the beach with a few of the boats.

The next day, Yvette and I went to shore to explore. We walked to one town and then doubled back to another. We didn’t meet very many people but we did stop by a small resort and talked to the owner and the chef.

Tuesday was a cold and windy day with some rain. I changed the oil and the oil filter in the diesel engine. Alex came over and put a block on the mast for a halyard for the storm jib. Later, Alex and Yvette and I went in their dinghy to see Swallow’s Cave and one other nearby cave. That night we had pizza on Blue Beryl with Bart and Kim and Liz from Tranquility.

On Wednesday, I discovered that my foot switch for my anchor windlass wasn’t working. Alex came over to assess it, and rigged up a toggle switch that bypassed the foot switch. He then helped me pull up the anchor, and both boats left Port Maurelle and went over to anchorage #16. (For convenience, most of the anchorages in the Vava’u group of Tonga are numbered.) It was very windy and rainy there, but that night, a lot of the boats in the anchorage had a progressive get together where they gathered for 30 minutes or so on each boat for cocktails and snacks. I had already planned to cook dinner for Alex and Yvette, so we stayed on Aldabra and had a nice dinner.

On Thursday, we took my dinghy to a beach near the reef, then swam through breakers to get to the outside of the reef. It was a pretty challenging swim and I got winded. I was wearing the wrong fins for pushing through waves and strong current. Once we got to the other side, it was beautiful, but we didn’t stay that long before heading back to the beach. As we were getting ready to head back to Neiafu, the resident of that island came out with some papayas, and then Yvette and Alex went to his house for a visit. After they came back, Alex helped me pull up my anchor. I then drove by his boat and he dived off Aldabra and swam to Blue Beryl while I continued out of the bay. They passed me at one point and I then pulled out my jib and sailed on a broad reach most of the way back to Neiafu. I rolled in the jib when I turned the corner to head to the mooring balls. I followed Blue Beryl until they picked up a mooring. They then called on the radio to let me know that Jamie from Szel was in his dinghy, holding a mooring ball for me. I motored over to him and he helped me attach my lines to the ball.

On Friday, Johno arrived from the airport by taxi in the early evening. We took his luggage back to the boat and then met up with Szel and Blue Beryl for dinner at the Basque Tavern. Johno was tired from traveling so we left around 8:30. Alex and Yvette stayed quite late and had lots of stories for the next day.

On Saturday, October 7, Szel and Blue Beryl left Neiafu, bound for the Ha’apai island group and then south to Tongatapu. Johno and I went to the market, where he bought baskets. (Linda and I have spread our addiction for Tongan baskets to Alex, Yvette, Tom and now Johno.)

Just a small representation of the Tongan baskets that have been acquired

We went to the Falaeu Deli and picked up our order for prepared food. Then we got 120 liters of diesel fuel. We did this by tying the dinghy up to a dock, carrying three jerry cans each up a long, step set of stairs, walking through someone’s yard, and then walking up the road a short way. After the fuel station worker filled up the cans, we went inside to pay. The matriarch of the business was not going to have us walk those jerry cans back to the stairs. She had her son pull the car around and put our jerry cans in. He then drove us back to the house and helped carry the cans down the stairs. What looked to us like a two-hour ordeal took about 20 minutes, thanks to this very kind Tongan man and his mother. This kindness is something that happens more often than not in Tonga. Our last stop for the day was the T-shirt store, where we had lunch.

On Sunday, the day of rest and not walking around town, we cleaned the foot switch for the windlass and Johno reinstalled it. We also changed the watermaker filters. The rest of the day was relaxing and at the end of the day we had sundowners on Rhapsody and then dinner at Mango.

On Monday morning, we joined Sarah and Bob of Rhapsody for a whale watching trip. Also on the trip were Bjorn and Annelie from MaricX and Jim and Perry from Yuva. Our experience was similar to the previous whale watching trip. We motored for hours before finally getting in the water with a mama and baby. The baby seemed delighted to play with us. And the mama would stop and rest and let us entertain her youngster. Another great encounter with migrating whales.

Along with many images in this blog post, Johno shot this video

Although it was spectacular, and we did not seem to harass the whales, I think that will be the last time I participate in this activity. On one hand, the Tongans are very respectful and restrained with the whales. Still, we followed them in a boat for hours before they stopped to play. I have to think that they would be happier if left unmolested. We all had dinner together that night at Kraken.

On Tuesday, October 10, we checked out of the Vava’u island group before trading a couple of bags of dried beans for produce. (New Zealand will make us throw out the beans when we get there, so we wanted to put them in good hands. The woman we traded with was very happy.) Then we went back to the boat, untied Aldabra from the mooring ball, and headed out of the bay. We motored over to Mariner’s Cave where Johno jumped in the water and I stood off with the engine running on Aldabra. Johno swam, looking for the opening to the cave, but the tide may have been wrong and he did not go inside.

We then motored south to anchorage #40. It was in front of a small island with a reef, but very exposed to the high winds. It felt like we were in the middle of nowhere, although another boat came in and shared the spot with us. At 4:00 the next morning, we pulled up the anchor and motored around a rather large reef area before putting up our sails and pointing south toward the Ha’apai island group. It was a good sail, a close reach with wind in the mid teens.

Inland Travel, Passages, People, Places

Huahine/Raiatea/Tahaa/Bora Bora

As we sailed away from Tahiti on Friday, August 11, we weren’t sure where we were headed. We could sail over to Moorea and spend the night. Or we could do an overnight to Huahine. (Yes, we had checked out of French Polynesia, but we planned short visits under the radar to some of the other Society Islands. By checking out in Tahiti, we could have Tahiti Crew take care of the process.)

As we sailed in the vicinity of Moorea, we decided to just keep going to Huahine. The first hours of the passage were in 18-20 knot of wind and big seas. Conditions mellowed out during the second half of the trip.

On Saturday, August 12, we arrived in Huahine around 10:00 a.m.  We were lucky to find a free mooring ball in the anchorage near the pass and close to the town of Fare. Naps were the first order of business. Before that, Sarah and Bob from Rhapsody stopped by and we made plans for dinner. We went ashore around 4:00 p.m. and walked around before meeting Sarah and Bob for dinner at the Huahine Yacht Club. The cocktails and the food were good and it was a fun night. Rhapsody left the next day.

Linda and Trevor enjoying their welcome drinks

Tom took this picture from the Huahine Yacht Club

Huahine Anchorage

On Sunday, we had a lazy day on the boat. Trevor and Linda swam out to the entrance to the pass to see a whale. Blue Beryl came in and anchored near us. We barbequed steak on the boat and played cards that night.

On Monday, we went to shore and made arrangements to rent scooters on Wednesday. Dinner that night was on Blue Beryl. Tuesday was a holiday in French Polynesia and nothing was open. We stayed on the boat all day.

Dinner on Blue Beryl, Linda took the picture

On Wednesday, the crews of Blue Beryl and Aldabra rode scooters around the island. We rode for only three hours but it was a great way to see the whole island.

Sharing a coconut on the scooter ride

Trevor and Linda

Tom

Yvette and Alex

Stopping at a lookout

A view of another bay. That’s the cruise ship Wind Spirit

After lunch at the Huahine Yacht Club, we took the boats (Aldabra and Blue Beryl) halfway down the island to a different anchorage. It was a windy, rainy night and we did only a little bit of exploring the next day before picking up the anchor and going down to the anchorage at the end of the island. There were a lot of boats there. It was really windy. But Trevor and Alex got to kiteboard, and it made them very happy. After they were finished, we pulled up anchor again and went back to an anchorage near town.

Trevor enjoying a dinghy ride

We liked Huahine. The town of Fare had a nice vibe and it would have been easy to stay longer, but we had a lot of ground to cover and none of the crew had unlimited schedules. So, on Saturday, August 19, we left the anchorage at 7:00 a.m. and sailed to Raiatea. The winds were in the mid-teens and we sailed on a broad reach with just the jib. We arrived around noon and picked up a mooring ball across from town, got in the dinghy and headed across the channel to shore.

We got ice cream bars at the grocery store and started a bit of a search for motor oil for my next oil change. I should have bought it in Tahiti, but I forgot. The gas station was closed so we walked down to the operating base for Dream Yacht Charters to see if we could use the mooring ball we were already attached to. At the base, we were told we needed to provide a 6-pack of beer. So we walked back to the grocery store, bought the beer and then took the dinghy to the base. Once we presented the 6-pack to the base manager, we were told that they could no longer allow us to use the mooring ball. He told us that it was prohibited by local authorities. He got on the computer and showed me where we could anchor. I gave him the 6-pack anyway and headed back to the dinghy. We returned to the boat and headed north through the east channel and up to the east side of Tahaa to an anchorage on the reef. Blue Beryl joined us there, as did a few other boats.

On Sunday, we continued north on the east side Tahaa and rounded the island from east to west. Then we headed south down the west side of Tahaa to the Coral Gardens. It was quite windy but we found a decent place to anchor next to the reef. Blue Beryl arrived a bit later and we snorkeled the Coral Gardens in the afternoon.

The Coral Gardens are a small pass between two motus on the outside of Tahaa. You can walk up one motu and then slip into the water and follow the current through the coral. It is quite picturesque. I went down, then swam back against the current to go down again.

On Monday, August 21, Aldabra and Blue Beryl left Tahaa and sailed over to Bora Bora. We left at 7:00 a.m. and arrived in the early afternoon. It was a nice sail, with the spinnaker, until our spinnaker halyard broke and the spinnaker dropped into the water. We gathered it onto the boat and continued on in through the pass. After wandering around a bit, we attached ourselves to mooring balls in front of the Bora Bora Yacht Club.

Aldabra in Bora Bora

The sailboat Szel with Jamie and Fiona was also on a mooring near us. Linda and I took the dinghy over to see them for a visit. Later that evening Aldabra and Blue Beryl had drinks and dinner at the Yacht Club and Jamie and Fiona came later and sat at the table next to us. We chatted a bit before we left and they had their dinner.

Dinner at Bora Bora Yacht Clug: Alex, Tom. Trevor, me, Linda and Yvette

On Tuesday, August 22, Trevor went up the mast to retrieve the halyard that had frayed and broken.

Trevor up the mast

Then we followed Blue Beryl as we motored around to the back side of Bora Bora, through very narrow, shallow channels. Trevor drove and we picked our way through, sometimes within an inch of touching the bottom. In a catamaran, the trip would have been a breeze, but with a deep keel, it was quite nerve wracking. In the end, we arrived at a beautiful anchorage. We explored the motu on foot and in the water, and had a dinner party that night with Blue Beryl on Aldabra.

Crusing around the island

The next day, we had a swimming race between the two boats. Alex represented Blue Beryl and Trevor represented Aldabra. Trevor was handicapped in two ways. He was wearing his snorkeling mask instead of swim goggles. And he was wearing his swim trunks. Alex, with no swim trunks and with swim goggles beat Trevor by a small margin. But they were both completely spent.

After the race, Aldabra headed back around the island, following our track from the day before. After picking up a mooring ball in front of the Yacht Club, we took the dinghy to town to find out about a ferry for Trevor to get to the airport. After sorting that all out, we found a restaurant for lunch and a gas station to buy motor oil. Then we went back to the boat so Trevor could pack. Linda took him back to town later that afternoon so he could take the ferry to catch his flight back to Tahiti. He then spent the night in the Tahiti airport and caught a flight the next morning to San Francisco. (Once home, Trevor began his job search and rather quickly landed a job in his field.)

We had a quiet night on the boat. Then on Thursday, Tom and I went to shore early to hand over our laundry to Julie, a very nice woman who picked it up in her car. Back at the boat, we did some cleaning and reorganizing, along with paperwork to enter the Cook Islands. We had dinner that night at the Bora Bora Yacht Club and retrieved our laundry from Julie while we were there. We also took showers there and dropped off our trash.

On Friday, August 25, Linda and I took the dinghy into town to fill up a jerry can with gasoline and buy 2-stroke oil and some groceries. It was a windy day and we spent the rest of it on the boat, stowing things and otherwise getting ready for a passage. Alex came over and inspected the rigging and gave me a report on areas of concern.

At his suggestion, we connected the inner forestay and the starboard running backstay. We pulled the port running backstay back to a car on the rail because it was getting chafed on the spreader. It was a very windy and rainy night and we stayed on the boat.

On Saturday, August 26, Jamie of Szel and Alex and Yvette of Blue Beryl came over for a weather meeting. We all decided to leave that day for Penryhn Island in the Cook Islands. We were now saying goodbye to French Polynesia.

Passages, People, Places

Fakarava/Aratika/Toau/Moorea

Johno and Trevor arrived in Fakarava on July 3. Johno was on Aldabra last year from the Marquesas to the Tuamotus, along with Trevor’s twin sister, Dana. This was Trevor’s first time on the boat in the South Pacific. He had just graduated from Cal Poly San Luis Obispo and was able to fit this trip in before some serious job hunting in mechanical engineering/robotics. They joined Pat and me on the boat and brought lots of goodies, such as a new wind generator, some new components for the refrigeration system and food treats.

On Tuesday, July 4, we picked up the anchor and went to the fuel dock.

Sitting on the boat at the Fakarava fuel dock with Trevor and Johno

We then sailed down to the Fakarava South Pass. We anchored at about 2:00 p.m. and snorkeled the pass before joining a Fourth of July picnic set up on shore by our friends Bruce and Alene on Migration. It was nice to see Bruce and Alene and to meet some new cruisers. On Wednesday, we sailed over to Hirifa in 25 knot winds and anchored in that more protected anchorage. I baked banana bread while Pat, Johno and Trevor installed the replacement wind generator. (We’d had so much wind since arriving in the Tuamotus that I was constantly aware of how much we were wasting it by not having a working wind generator to charge the batteries.)

Installing the new wind generator

The next day, Trevor and Johno took a really long walk across multiple motus and sand bars to explore a distant motu, three miles away. They did a lot of wading and were quite spent and sunburned when they finally returned.

Trevor on the long walk

While they were away, I was planning the itinerary for the coming weeks in the Tuamotus and measuring the watermaker output, which was way under capacity for no apparent reason. Bruce and Alene from Migration came over for dinner that night and it was great to see them again. We spent the next day cleaning the boat bottom. On Saturday night, we had a nice dinner on shore at Eliza’s, with a few other boats.

On Monday, July 10, we left Hirifa a few minutes before 7:00 a.m. and sailed back to Rotoava, arriving shortly after noon. It was a nice sail with 12-18 knots of wind. We went ashore to drop off a cooking gas tank to be refilled, and we bought some groceries. The next day we rented ebikes and toured around the atoll before having lunch at the snack that Pat, Bill and I had been to previously. After picking up the cooking gas tank, we went back to the boat to endure a windy, rolly night.

Exploring the outer beach of Fakarava during the bike ride

On Wednesday, July 12, we picked up the anchor at 5:00 a.m. and motored over to the north pass of Fakarava. We exited the pass at 6:15 a.m. at slack tide, with very mild current. Outside the reef, we put up the sails with two reefs in the main. We had a fast sail on a beam reach with winds in the high teens. We arrived outside the Aratika pass at noon, right behind Infinite Grace, a boat we hadn’t met yet. Once we were inside the pass, a squall came up and we had white-out conditions while trying to navigate across the lagoon to some mooring balls in front of the village. The visibility soon improved and we got ourselves across and attached to a mooring ball by 1:30 p.m. It was a rainy afternoon and we stayed on the boat.

On Thursday, July 13, we took the dinghy to shore and walked into the village. There we found the town clerk and paid a nominal fee for two night’s mooring. We were in Aratika at the suggestion of Bruce and Alene, who had done a lot of research to find a Tuamotu atoll that wouid be celebrating the annual Heiva festival. Many of the other atolls were sending their community members to Tahiti for the celebration, so they were not celebrating on their home turf. Aratika is a tiny community and we looked forward to meeting people and participating in the celebration. Infinite Grace was there for the same reason and Migration would be following the next day.

We walked around the windward side of the atoll to check out the beaches there, and we talked to Tea, who owned a restaurant that would be serving dinner during the celebration. He told us that the first event would be that night, a Mr. and Mrs. Aratika competition. After spending the rest of the afternoon on the boat, we returned to the town center in the evening, chatting with Jeff and Michelle on Infinite Grace, Bruce and Alene on Migration, and Yves and Marta on Breakaway. Then we watched the 3-hour competition before having a late-night dinner at the restaurant. The competition featured about five women and four men who modeled a variety of outfits, such as traditional, casual and evening wear. The two winners were announced after a rather lengthy and confused deliberation by the judges. It was fun to be there with all the members of the community and to see all the children running around and playing. We got back to the boat around midnight.

The women doing a final pose in their traditional outfits

The men in their final pose in their traditional outfits

The next day, we slept in and did not go into town for the scheduled parade. Instead we repaired a rip in the mainsail and Johno and Trevor snorkeled on the reef. We ate dinner on the boat and then went back to town that evening for the dancing competition, which included just women. Evidently the men were too shy for that. But we really enjoyed the women dancers and the evening was not a long one.

Actually there was one young man in the dancing competition

The singers and musicians

The cruisers visiting Aratika for the festival

The next morning, on Saturday, July 15, we left the mooring ball and exited the pass. We were a couple of hours before slack tide and the current was strong but manageable. It whooshed us out very rapidly.

The current as we left the pass

We sailed west across to the False Pass of Toau on a nice beam reach and were on a mooring ball shortly after 2:00 p.m. We talked to a very nice Dutch couple on Dina Helena. They were on their way to the Marquesas and had come from Patagonia and the Gambier. Johno and Trevor got out snorkeling on the reef near where we were anchored.

On Sunday, we all snorkeled near the southwest side of the anchorage, crossing the reef to look for mantas. It was a calm day and the snorkeling was great.

Johno up the mast in the False Pass

Johno’s view from the top of the mast in Toau

On Monday, we left the mooring ball at 5:30 a.m. and exited the pass, heading to Tikehau. During the day, the winds were in the low teens and we sailed with the spinnaker. We took it down before nightfall, but didn’t tie the sheet off properly. That night, with winds shifting, we needed to jibe to avoid hitting Rangiroa. Later, the winds picked up significantly and we needed to reef. As I pulled in on the furling line, I must have caught the spinnaker sheet, and the spinnaker ended up in the water, being dragged behind the boat and making it nearly impossible for Johno to steer. Trevor and I managed to get the spinnaker back up on the boat and we realized how lucky it was that we didn’t lose it altogether. We finished reefing the main just as the wind started calming down.

The next morning, as we approached the pass to enter the Tikehau atoll, we discovered that our old friends on Blue Beryl were anchored there. As we entered the pass around 11:00 a.m. they approached the anchorage near the pass and we met up in that anchorage. It was pretty windy but we had a nice dinner together that night and got caught up on their lives since we’d last seen them.

The next day, Blue Beryl exited the pass, heading over to Rangiora, and we sailed over to Motu Mauu to see the mantas that frequently hang out there. We anchored in pretty marginal conditions, high winds and very choppy. But we got the dinghy in the water and headed over to some mooring balls near the motu. After snorkeling for a bit, we followed a tour group and indeed got to see a giant manta. People would dive down and try to engage it and it would just hang out, unbothered by the attention. It was quite spectacular.

Trevor with the giant manta in Tikehau

Johno with the giant manta

After that splendid show of nature, we pulled up the anchor and headed over to the anchor near the village, where it was a little bit more protected from the wind and waves. We went ashore and walked around the village We found a pizza place on the other side of the motu and ordered a few pizzas. Then we walked to the airport just to see how far it was. After returning to eat our pizza, we went back to the boat.

Eating pizza in Tikehau

The next day, Thursday, July 20, Pat made omelettes and packed. It was a gloomy, windy day. We went ashore and walked with Pat to the airport, where he flew to Tahiti and then on to Los Angeles. On Friday morning, I went ashore to look for a bakery, but the woman had no baked goods because she had no flour. With the weather making it difficult to enjoy Tikehau, we decided to head over to the anchorage near the pass for a quick getaway the next morning. Once we got there, however, it was so choppy and windy that we decided to just leave that afternoon. We put the dinghy up, had lunch and headed out of the pass. The exit was smooth. We put the sails up and headed for Moorea in 14 knots of wind.

On Saturday morning we had light winds and sunshine for the first time in three days. The swells moderated a bit and we sailed most of the day on a close reach. The winds got even lighter as we approached Moorea. For the last twenty miles we used a motor assist, arriving at the entrance to Cooks Bay around 10:00 p.m. Because I had been in there so many times, I thought it would be easy enough to do at night. But everything is different at night and entering was a bit disorienting. We just followed the charts and the buoys into the bay and then started heading deeper into the bay. It was too dangerous to motor among the boats because we couldn’t really tell what was what among the anchor lights. We ended up dropping the anchor in deeper water, behind the fleet and then celebrating our arrival with a beer. I think we all slept well after our overnight sail.

On Sunday, July 23, we all slept in. I then started taking care of business I needed to attend to and Johno and Trevor went for a walk around the bay. The next morning, we picked up a rental car and drove around the island. We had lunch at the restaurant at the Timpanier Resort.

Enjoying the view in Moorea

The next day, we took the rental car up to the Belvedere and hiked the three coconuts trail.

Hiking in Moorea

Afterwards we had lunch at my favorite taco truck but she had run out of the good food so I was a bit disappointed with the cuisine. On Wednesday we took the car around to the other side of the island, looking for waterfall hikes and an illusive steep hike that Trevor and Johno wanted to do. We found the waterfall hikes but never found the steep hike.

Waterfall hike in Moorea

Afterward, we had lunch at the Polynesia hotel in Cooks Bay and then returned the rental car.

Johno and Trevor enjoying a soak and a beer in Moorea

Gear and Preparation, Passages, Places, People, Places

Tahanea/Fakarava/Toau

I’m sitting in the cockpit of Aldabra on Wednesday, May 31. We’re in the anchorage in front of Rotoava, the town on the atoll of Fakarava, population maybe 2000. The wind is coming from the southwest, bringing choppy waves that build from all the way across the lagoon (15 miles), and sitting on the boat is not very comfortable. It’s been windy and rainy for about twenty-four hours and probably won’t let up until tonight or tomorrow. Despite the conditions, Gabe flies out from here on Friday, so we need to stay put. I’ll be sorry to see him leave but I’m guessing he’s ready to get on with his summer plans. Cruising on a sailboat in the Tuamotus can mean long days of unfavorable weather, yet those are interspersed with moments of adventure on land, dramatic coral in the water and lots of wonderful people to meet. There are also many opportunities to fix things on the boat, especially after it had been sitting for a few months in Tahiti.

The Tuamotus are beautiful low-lying atolls that are made up of reefs that surround a lagoon. A few of these 76 atolls are inhabited with some infrastructure for locals and tourists. Others may have as little as a few subsistence farmers or fisherman. And still others are completely uninhabited. These atolls can be mostly submerged, or they can be made of motus, small islands that support the growth of some vegetation and people’s livelihoods. The people that live here mostly speak French and/or Tahitian, but those that work in stores or in tourism speak enough English to help me get by.

A typical motu viewed from inside the lagoon

Not all the atolls have passes that allow you to safely enter the lagoon. For those that do, one must navigate through the pass when the tides and winds are in your favor, otherwise it can be quite a ride. Once inside the lagoon, you have protection from the open seas, and often you have protection from the wind, but to transit from place to place you must safely navigate the coral heads (called bommies), which could be hidden right below the surface and severely damage the boat. To anchor, you must try to find a sandy patch and then use floats to lift the anchor chain over the bommies on the sea floor. Anchoring itself is quite a challenge and can take multiple attempts to get situated. Gabe has become masterful at diving down to the anchor to reposition it or the chain, in all kinds of adverse conditions.

So, what have we been doing since we left Moorea? Here’s the way-too-detailed recap.

Our first destination was Tahanea, an uninhabited atoll that is a sanctuary for nesting birds, and a well-liked destination for underwater exploration of the three passes that lead into the lagoon. Cruisers also go to Tahanea to kite board.

Our passage to Tahanea was mostly smooth. Having left Moorea on Wednesday, April 12 at 6:30 a.m., we motored-sailed in very light air on the nose for several hours. In the mid-afternoon, the wind came up and very quickly we had a squall with 28-knot winds and rain. With the full main and jib flying, and seas building, I had to hand steer for some of it because the autopilot was overpowered. At one point we just took the main down for a while. In the evening, we put it back up with the first reef in, and had some spells of a nice beam reach in 10-14 knot winds.

For most of the next day we motor sailed in light air. The autopilot got fussy at one point so we used the backup CPT autopilot for several hours. The next day, Friday, April 14, we arrived at the gap between Faaite and Tahanea and turned right to round Tahanea. There was no wind and the seas were glassy. We entered the middle pass shortly after noon with no issues even though it was an hour and a half after high slack tide. (It seems to be the case that the passes are far less challenging when there has been no wind and the seas are calm.)

Tahanea

We anchored just to the west of the middle pass. No boats were there at the time but two came in shortly afterward. It took more than one attempt to set the anchor down in sand instead of coral. We did our best and had a good night’s sleep that night. The next day we spent quite a bit of time trying to re-anchor. We had been rubbing on some coral at night and we wanted to get the anchor down in a better spot and float our chain above the coral heads. After a few attempts, we thought we had it right so we took the dinghy to shore to explore the nearby motu and snorkel a bit. That night we had lightning and rain. A boat from Slovenia, Timy, came in and anchored very close to us.

The next day, Peter and Natalie from Timy dove on their own anchor and then checked ours out. They discovered that we were caught on some coral so Peter helped Gabe get the chain off the coral. It was quite an operation and we were very grateful. They had just come from the Marquesas with one shroud not working to keep up their mast. They had rigged some lines for support but really needed to get to Tahiti to pick up the part they needed. We took over some coffee and chocolate and they gave us the password to their Starlink. Suddenly we were really happy that they were anchored so close to us.

While we were trying to re-anchor, the windlass was having trouble pulling up the chain. Gabe and I took the windlass apart and cleaned debris from it. The anchor chain had sat for several months in Port Phaeton and it had a lot of rust that was flaking off into the windlass. That day we stopped by and met the folks on another nearby boat, Agape, who are from the U.S. but have been in the Tuamotus for a few years. We also met Greg and Robin on Salty Dancer, who are from Oregon.

On Monday, Gabe and I took the dinghy to the west pass to see if we could snorkel in it. It seemed a bit rough so we backtracked and snorkeled east of the pass. While doing so, Gabe got stung by a jelly fish and had a rather severe reaction, which fortunately subsided in a few hours. The winds picked up from the east in the afternoon and we had a windy night.

While we were anchored, I was slowly working on the stuffing box that is connected to the prop shaft. It was dripping a lot and I thought it might be why the bilge was filling with water more than it should. After putting some Gibbs penetrant on it and then later some vinegar, I got the nut to move and then tightened it a bit. While I was doing that, I realized that a part on the water pump had a crack in it and fresh water was spurting out and going into the bilge every time we used the water pump. I replaced that part, which slowed down water entering the bilge.

The next issue to address was that the wind generator was making a strange noise and was vibrating. Plus, the controller box was getting hot. We tied off the wind generator until we could troubleshoot the issue.

On Wednesday, Gabe and I took the dinghy back to the west pass but it was windy and rainy and we aborted the attempt to snorkel. We ran into Greg and Robin on Salty Dancer and invited them over for sundowners for that evening. In the afternoon, we tightened the hex bolts on the wind generator but didn’t fix the problem. I cracked the nose cone trying to put it back on. Fixing the crack with epoxy didn’t help so we were resigned to not using the wind generator until we could get new parts. That afternoon we took the dinghy to a different motu and explored. Then had a nice visit with Greg and Robin that evening.

By Thursday, the wind was out of the north in the mid-teens and the anchorage was uncomfortable. I started taking inventory of issues on the boat. With the wind generator out of commission, we had to run the motor each night to keep up with the refrigeration. Then the nozzle for the stern shower cracked. We tried to fix it without success so we started taking showers using a jug, which has worked pretty well. Then I noticed a slight drip out of the housing for the watermaker’s carbon filter, but I could not unscrew the housing, so the drip is just going to have to persist. I also noticed that the alternator belt started making a screeching sound. There was a lot of black just around the belt so we replaced it easily.

On Friday, we continued our repairs and tried cleaning the boat bottom, but the seas were just too rough to accomplish much and the day was otherwise uneventful.

With the wind and seas still rough, we took the dinghy on Saturday over to the east side of the middle pass and explored that motu, both on land and in the water. On the ocean side, the “land” was a large expanse of dead coral. On the lagoon side, we saw coconut palms and other vegetation. It was a bit of a challenge getting back to the boat in the dinghy as we fought standing waves across the pass. The unfavorable conditions kept us uncomfortably on the boat on Sunday. Finally on Monday the winds let up a bit. We pulled up anchor and headed down to the southeast corner of the atoll. The winds lightened up so much that we motored the whole way and ran the watermaker. We anchored before noon and floated our chain. We were the only boat there and enjoyed snorkeling near shore along a wall of vibrant coral.

It would have been nice to stay where we had successfully anchored, but we wanted to take advantage of a small weather window to go to a famous bird motu on the west side of the atoll. Other cruisers refer to it as the Number 7 anchorage because the reef looks like a 7 from the air. We got there and anchored in front of the motu and snorkeled from the boat to shore. We walked the perimeter of the motu to keep from disturbing the nesting birds. We saw lots of boobies nesting and some terns. We waded across a channel to another motu and met a Tuamotu Sandpiper that was quite friendly. It’s probably why its numbers are diminishing. I was sorry that we weren’t banned from those motus. The last thing those birds need is people hanging around. We snorkeled back to the boat and passed over a really rich coral habitat with lots of fish. Probably the first really good habitat we’d seen since arriving in Tahanea.

These and many of the photos here courtesy of Gabe Ares

That night was windy and choppy and not a good place to remain. So the next morning we pulled up anchor and returned to the southeast corner. When we arrived, there were several boats there and more showing up. It seemed to be a pack of family boats, headed by a large German catamaran called Moin. They shared all kinds of activities and even had their own dedicated radio channel. One night the kids all had a sleepover on the beach without the parents. They called it “Survivor Island.” We never found out how that went. The next night they had a bonfire on the beach and invited the non-kid boats. We went and enjoyed meeting several of their delegation.

While we were at the southeast anchorage, we walked around the motu in front of us. We got a bit lost in the bush and ended up circumnavigating the motu because we couldn’t find a way to cut through the jungle in the center. We also got the kayaks out and kayaked to the motu just to the east. On the way back we stopped by a boat that had just come in, Chip and Kristina on Second Set.

Exploring the motu in Tahanea

Back on the boat we discovered that one of the two feed pumps for the watermaker wasn’t working. Upon closer investigation, we discovered that it was leaking salt water into the bilge. We replaced it with the spare pump and it seems to have solved the problems with water in the bilge.

During this time, a big wave event was occurring in French Polynesia. The water was so high coming toward the atolls that huge waves were crashing on the reefs and several of the passes in the atolls were temporarily closed. The spray from the waves could be seen from miles away. Then, on Tuesday, May 2, we downloaded weather and saw that big winds might be coming from the southeast. It would mean that we might be confined to that anchorage for more than another week. Returning to our first anchorage wasn’t really an option because it would be uncomfortable. We really wanted to snorkel at least one of the passes, but it wouldn’t be feasible for the foreseeable future. Another option was to proceed to Fakarava. We had been without Internet for quite some time. If we were going to be pinned down by winds, at least we would have service in Fakarava.

We thought we might be able to snorkel one pass that day and then exit the pass in the evening and do an overnight sail to Fakarava. But when we got to the side of the atoll with the passes, it was clear that we weren’t going to be able to snorkel a pass. The winds were in the high teens, low twenties. We had to anchor somewhere so we could take the motor off the dinghy and secure it to the big boat. So, we anchored near the northwest pass long enough to do that. Then, instead of waiting for evening, we would exit the pass in the early afternoon and sail to the north Fakarava pass because we would get to the south pass too early. A very large National Geographic exploration ship went out of the pass at slack tide. We should have called them for a report but didn’t. Instead, we followed them out, about 45 minutes later, and had a very lively exit. We were motoring against large standing waves that were crashing over the top of us. The effects of the earlier wave event were still apparent. Once we got out, we had big seas for quite awhile as we headed toward Fakarava, and Gabe was out of seasickness meds.

Fakarava

We sailed with just the jib to the Fakarava north pass. The winds were inconsistent so sometimes we moved along quite well and other times we turned on the motor to help with speed and to charge the batteries that were being drained by the autopilot. We saw sunrise as we were approaching the north side of the atoll and entered the pass about 8:00 a.m., an hour and a half before slack. We were unsure if slack tide was going to come according to the tables anyway because of the unusual wave event. We had significant current against us and it felt like we were just sitting in the pass for an eternity as we made 1-2 knots progress into the atoll. Salty Dancer was just leaving the anchorage as we arrived so we said our goodbyes over the radio. We anchored in front of the town, Rotoava, spending the rest of the day on the Internet and recovering from the high waves during the sail. I ordered a lot of parts that my bother-in-law, Pat, can bring when he comes in June.

On Thursday, May 4, after a good night’s sleep (I stayed up all night on the passage), we got up early and put the dinghy in the water. We went to shore and disposed of our trash and our recycling. We talked to the guy at the fuel dock about hours and bought a couple of groceries. The supply boat had just come in but it didn’t bring any produce. We then headed over to Fakarava Yacht Services to drop off a butane tank for a refill, along with a couple of bags of laundry. Then we went to one more grocery store (for beer) and then headed over to the Havaiki Lodge for lunch – burgers. We then spent a windy afternoon on the boat.

Gabe enjoying coconut water before lunch at Havaiki Lodge

The next day we went to the pearl farm tour at the Havaiki Lodge, where Gabe bought an oyster with a pearl.

Lunch spot at the Havaiki Lodge
Dock at the Havaiki Lodge

Then we got 4 jerry cans filled with diesel and headed over to the Rotoava Grill for lunch. We met Kaitlin and Tommy from Southern Cross while at lunch. They are from Tennessee, which was fun for Gabe.

Looking out at the boats from our favorite lunch spot, the Rotoava Grill

On Saturday, May 6, we picked up our laundry and butane tank from Fakarava Yacht Services. We then went back to the boat, put the dinghy up, pulled up the anchor and headed halfway down the atoll to a deserted anchorage near a reef. We spent the night, snorkeled the next morning and then continued traveling to the south pass anchorage. We picked up an available mooring ball in the early afternoon and then snorkeled near the boat.

The south pass area of Fakarava is amazing. The water is crystal clear and there are large swaths of healthy coral on the lagoon side of the pass and in the pass. On Monday, we snorkeled on the lagoon side of the pass and then inside the pass itself before having lunch at the restaurant of a local dive hostel. In the afternoon, Gabe worked on cleaning Aldabra’s prop.

Crystal clear water at the south pass of Fakarava

In terms of issues, the Internet went down for a few days and we noticed that the fridge was having trouble getting cold. We transferred frozen food from the Engels to the freezer and put important cold food in the Engels.

On Tuesday, we snorkeled in the south pass in the morning and then headed over to the southeast Fakarava anchorage, Hirifa. We wanted to get there in anticipation of significant wind expected from the southeast. That night, as we sat on the boat, several giant manta rays would circle the boat upside down, then do a somersault. They stayed at the boat for a few hours while we watched.

Wednesday, May 10, started out calm. We took the dinghy over to say hello to Chip and Kristina on Second Set and then went ashore to explore. While we were ashore, a squall came up and we headed back to the boat. Over the course of the afternoon and night, the wind and rain kept building. At about 3:00 in the morning we both heard a big sound, as if the anchor had popped and hit coral. At first we just monitored the situation from the cockpit. The winds were between 40 and 60 knots and the lightning was exploding all around us. We noticed that we were near another boat and thought they had dragged their anchor. But in truth, we had dragged and we were dangerously close to them. We turned on the motor and used it to keep away from the other boat – Pura Vida. But every time we had a lull in the wind, Gabe would go up to the bow to first take the snubber off and then slowly pull up the chain. It took a while but he eventually got the anchor up. We then went outside of the anchorage and motored around in circles until dawn, about an hour and a half. Then we went back and re-anchored.

We had a quiet, uneventful Thursday. Then, on Friday morning, the wind shifted from southeast to northwest. Now we had waves building as we faced away from the shore. We didn’t realize that all the hobby horsing made the snubber come off the chain. As a result (because the windlass clutch had come loose), we had about 100-150 feet of chain pay out, and now we were too close to other boats once again. We didn’t know that the clutch was loose, all we knew was that the windlass wasn’t picking up the chain. So we were using a halyard and the snubber, alternately, to pull up the chain. Peter from Pura Vida came over to help. He drove the boat while I pulled up chain and Gabe was in the water directing us around coral hazards. We finally got enough chain up to stay in place. A short while later, Greg from Escape Velocity, who had watched us try to pull up the chain without the windlass, came over and asked if he could look at our windlass. He tightened the clutch and helped us replace the broken spring and everything worked! What a relief. My back was rather sore for a few days but I was so grateful that the windlass was operational.

On Sunday, we put the dinghy on the boat and headed back to Rotoava, motoring against medium winds all the way. Once we anchored, Chip and Kristina paid us a visit so we could compare notes on all that happened during the storm. (Lots of boats had issues that night and one went up on the reef.) Then, we made phone calls. It was Mother’s Day and my mother’s birthday.

The next day we put dock lines and fenders on the boat and headed over to the fuel dock to fill up with diesel and gasoline. Our anchor spot was taken while we were away so we picked up a mooring ball and then went to the Havaiki Lodge for lunch. We met Glenn and Oana from Cloudy Bay there and had a chat. When we returned, we got kicked off our mooring ball and then searched for a new place to anchor, which was becoming more difficult because the anchorage was filling up in anticipation of the supply boat’s arrival.

On Tuesday, Gabe and I rented bikes and rode to the north end of the atoll and then back south. We had lunch at the Havaiki Lodge again and saw Cloudy Bay along with another boat we had seen in Hirifa. We later met Katie and Bill on Flite Deck, a boat I had seen in San Diego.

Stopping during the bike ride, admiring all the pearl farm floats that decorate this small resort
Pause during bike ride

On Wednesday, we had lunch at the Rotoava Grill with Chip and Kristina and saw Katie and Bill there as well. Then on Thursday the supply boat came in. We thought we would go to the stores in the afternoon, after the shelves had been restocked. But we decided to go in early to see if they had any eggs, which are sourced locally. As soon as we got to one store, we learned that they were just about to bring out the produce. So we were there to start grabbing apples and oranges and potatoes. I left Gabe there and walked up to the store at the fuel station. There was a huge crowd of people waiting to get in, many who had been waiting at the door for three hours. I joined them and about an hour later the doors opened and there was a mad rush. Gabe was there by then as well and we managed to get some limes, onions, tomatoes, oranges and apples. We were not aggressive enough to get cucumbers. It was a crazy melee but we felt successful. We capped the morning off with another lunch at the Rotoava Grill.

Toau

On Friday, May 19, we pulled up anchor and exited the Fakarava north pass around 9:00 a.m. without incident. Outside the pass, we put up the main and the jib and made our way on a reach in rather light air. We arrived at the Otugi pass on Toau in the mid-afternoon. We turned left and followed Moin to the southeast anchorage, picking up one of five mooring balls. Second Set was there anchored. And Moin anchored over near Auryn, a friend of theirs.

It was a very quiet night except for the happy voices of children playing on shore. Toau is an inhabited island but with very few families living there. The next day, Gabe and I took the dinghy over to a nearby motu. We snorkeled and walked around the motu and met the family on Auryn.

We would have liked to stay longer at this anchorage. But in looking at the weather, we had only a brief window to go up to the north anchorage, referred to as the false pass. We had read that it had great snorkeling and a very nice family to visit. So on Sunday, we got up early and motored to the Otugi pass. It was a tiny bit challenging getting out, but we exited and motored up and around to the top of the atoll. The entrance was easy and we picked up a mooring ball. Moin was there and hailed us on the radio. We put the dinghy in the water and went ashore to meet a couple who owned the motu, Valentine and Gaston. It was Sunday, so their day of rest, but we arranged for Aldabra and Moin to have lunch there the next day. Then Gabe bought a couple of pearls from Valentine and we went back to the boat to go snorkeling.

Before lunch on Monday, Gabe and I took the dinghy deeper inside the little bay and snorkeled. Then we headed to shore. Valentine and Gaston are very nice people and we enjoyed getting to know them, along with the family from Moin. They had a very engaging cat that several of us played with. And perhaps there are fleas because of the pets. I came away with dozens of bites, from head to toe.

Mindful of weather, Gabe and I got up early on Tuesday morning and left the anchorage at 5:30 a.m.  We motored clockwise around the atoll. Once we cleared Toau and were between Toau and Fakarava, we got enough wind to sail for a couple of hours. We were early to enter the Fakarava north pass so we just sailed slowly, until the waves were too much for the light wind. At that point we started motoring again, arriving early at the pass with no ill effects. We went back to the Rotoava anchorage and anchored, but weren’t happy with our position relative to coral heads.

The supply boat was in on Wednesday so we went into town for groceries, without the mad rush of the week before. On the way back, we stopped and met Don and Gloria from Windswept, a Monterey boat that I have been in email contact with for the last couple of years. Then we went back to the boat and re-anchored, taking a lot of care to get it right because it will be in the same spot for more than a week, as Gabe prepares to fly out and I wait for Pat and Bill to arrive.

Early on Thursday morning, both our refrigerator and freezer went off at the same time. Not wanting food to spoil, Gabe and I got to troubleshooting with a sense of urgency. We called my friend Chris in Santa Cruz for advice and spoke to him multiple times as we investigated the failure. Eventually we found a blown 15 amp fuse and when we replaced it, both units started up. But the fuse holder was hot and charred, so we thought we should replace it. In doing so, I messed up the new fuse holder and we didn’t have another spare. So we tried to splice in a different kind of fuse holder. Unfortunately, nothing we did after that produced a positive result. Thinking it might be the splice, we redid it twice. Finally, Bill from Flite Deck came over and determined that the issue was with the wire that connected the fuse holder we were trying to use. Because that couldn’t be used, he took the fuse holder that I messed up and rehabilitated it well enough that it could be used temporarily. He then reconnected all the wires we had removed in our troubleshooting. By now it was early evening but we ended the day with cocktails and dinner on Bill and Katie’s boat.

On Friday morning, we went to shore to see if any of the stores had fuse holders. They didn’t, so I ordered some from West Marine that Pat can bring with him. Then we had lunch at the Rotoava Grill with Bill and Katie before starting to put the boat back together. (For any project, like one that takes place in the battery compartment, I have to take several bins out of their normal storage locations and put them in the cockpit or somewhere in the salon. I then have to take out various bags of tools. When a project is underway, you can’t walk anywhere on the boat.)

We finished putting bins back in place on Saturday morning and said goodbye to Flite Deck as they headed to Toau. The rest of Saturday was spent reading on the boat. The expected wind had come up and the anchorage was rolly and uncomfortable. Plus, we seemed to have run out of Internet data. Saturday night was quite windy although it was dropping off by Sunday morning.

On Sunday morning, we went to church and the singing was lovely. Then we came back to the boat for a lazy day of reading and writing, after replacing one of the head pumps, which was leaking, perhaps with a crack.

Monday was a holiday, but we did go to the Havaiki Lodge to inquire about a boat tour to the other side of the lagoon. We also met Scott and Tammy on Animal Cracker and Chris on Lightspeed. He is from Santa Cruz. Tuesday, yesterday, is when the wind and rain started, so we have been confined to the boat except for lunches on shore. The only thing I accomplished was to fix the dinghy pump, which we use daily. One of the air chambers on the dinghy has a hole in it. I need to work on that when we can be without the dinghy for a couple of days.

Post script. Gabe and I had been trying to go on a tour of the “Green Lagoon” on Fakarava but they weren’t running them because of weather. Finally, on the morning Gabe was leaving, we got to go on the tour. The first stop was the Green Lagoon, which was on the northwest side of the atoll between the out reef and the main lagoon.

Looking from the motu at the Green Lagoon to the main lagoon on Fakarava
Standing on the motu next to the Green Lagoon

It is so nice to meet local people and to meet the other cruisers. I have mentioned some of those we’ve met, but not all. And there are so many more in each anchorage that we see and don’t meet. But even with the folks that we do become acquainted with, we spend very little time getting to know each other before we go our separate ways. I hope to see some people somewhere down the line, but we’re all on our individual journeys with varying timelines, so many of the acquaintances will be sadly fleeting.

One boat that we met last year in Fatu Hiva showed up quite surprisingly in Fakarava. We have a special place in our hearts for Alex and Yvette on Blue Beryl. Alex and his dad are on their way from Hiva Oa to Tahiti to install a new mast and rigging, and it was great to spend a bit of time with them, especially on Alex’s birthday. This should be the last time we see Blue Beryl with this modified mast and rig, which has been just enough to get them from the Marquesas to Tahiti. We look forward to seeing them back in the Tuamotus soon!

Gear and Preparation, Passages, Places, People, Places

French Polynesia 2023 Begins

After nice visits with family and friends from November through January, I returned to Tahiti with brother-in-law Pat on February 1 to get Aldabra ready for another sailing season. We stayed in a house on the Port Phaeton lagoon and kayaked to the boat each day to work. We started work very early in the morning and were usually done before noon, in time to shower before hanging out on the deck with small projects or reading. During Pat’s two-week stay, this is what got done:

  • Lots of laundry
  • Interior and exterior boat cleaning
  • Rebuild of 3 head pumps
  • Removal of tricolor light from the top of the mast
  • Shorten boom topping lift at a chafe point
  • Rewire a solar panel connector
  • Patch bottom of dinghy
  • Install new hatch above salon
  • Patch crack on cockpit table
  • Repair of two jibs by local sailmaker
  • Replacement of spring in windlass
  • Disassembly of windlass, inspection and re-greasing
  • Servicing of five winches
  • Remove and dry out the items stored in the most forward compartment
  • Replace foam in a few of the cockpit cushions
  • Turn seacocks
  • Install new light for compass
  • Install new braided ground strap for SSB radio
  • Remove, clean and replace bolts for the rudder
  • Remove filter housing for watermaker, replace with new filter
  • Unstick a variety of zippers
View from the Port Phaeton house to the lagoon

After Pat left, I completed a bunch of sewing projects. I made new straps for the cockpit cushions and fixed mosquito netting screens. I also cleaned and sorted. A week later, my mom and my sister arrived. They hauled me up the mast so I could install the new tricolor they brought. I also replaced a seal on one of the hatches. And we picked up the two repaired jibs and brought them out to the boat in the kayak. After a few days, we closed up the boat in preparation for leaving it for a few more weeks. We then moved houses and spent the rest of our stay touring around Tahiti. We flew back to California on March 8th.

Looking out at Moorea from our second house in Tahiti
My mom and Wendy as we toured around Tahiti
Went to Moorea for the day, this is looking out at the Cook’s Bay Anchorage

After spending three weeks acquiring more boat parts and visiting with my family, I got on another flight. This one was bound for San Francisco, where I met up with my new crew, Gabe Ares, before heading back to Tahiti.

Upon arrival in Tahiti, we picked up a rental car and an Internet box and headed to Port Phaeton. Marc, our boat caretaker gave us a ride to Aldabra. We then put the dinghy in the water, put the motor on the dinghy and ferried our luggage from the car to the boat.

That began the long, hot, process of putting the boat back in sailing condition. We accomplished a little bit each day:

  • Prepared the cabins for sleeping by removing all the gear that belongs above deck – jerry cans, cockpit cushions, blocks and lines, sails, etc.
  • Turned the galley from a workshop into a food-prep area and restarted refrigeration
  • Unpickled the watermaker and filled the water tank
  • Got the boat bottom cleaned by a local man, Tanui
  • Installed the lines and blocks for the davits
  • Provisioned and stowed all the provisions
  • Organized
  • Tested systems
  • Refueled
  • Did final laundry

In the middle of all these chores, we took the boat from Port Phaeton to the anchorage near Marina Taina. We did two runs to the grocery store. For one run we each pushed a cart from the store to the marina dock. The anchoring situation there was dicey, so as soon as we could, we took the boat over to Moorea, which is where we are now. We’re waiting for a weather window to head to Tahanea in the Tuamotus, which may begin on Wednesday, April 12. Once we leave here, we will be out of cell-phone and Internet range for a number of weeks because the islands we are targeting are mostly uninhabited.

Gabe enjoying the waterfalls in Tahiti
Loaded up with bananas and ready to leave
Passages, Places, People, Places

Sailing to Tahiti

On Sunday, September 11, we pulled up the anchor around 8:30 a.m. and sailed on the jib alone across the Tikehau lagoon, using the OpenCPN satellite images to navigate around bommies. We exited the pass a little after 11:00 a.m. and it was uneventful. Once outside the pass, we put up the main with the first reef in, pulled out the jib and headed toward Moorea. It was sunny and windy at first but eventually became rainy and windy, with big seas. The whole passage was like that. Big seas, wind and then some intense squalls with rain. One of us had to stay at the helm at all times because the wind shifted so much that big surprises occurred if we weren’t attending to the course at all times. Neither of us enjoyed it. Linda did get a little sleep during the night but I didn’t.

Leaving Tikehau on the way to Tahiti
Enroute to Tahiti
The skies were stormy

We were grateful when the sun came up on Monday morning but we still had twelve more hours of our little hell. As we approached Tetiroa, the Marlon Brando island, we decided to head to Tahiti instead of Moorea. It seemed about an hour shorter in distance and we knew we were going to run out of daylight. We got to the Papeete pass at 5:00 p.m. and made our way to the anchorage in front of the airport. We dropped anchor at 6:00 p.m., just as it was getting dark. We were so grateful to be in flat water and no wind. Both of us slept very well that night.

Arriving just before dark at airport anchorage in Tahiti, Moorea in background

The next morning, Tuesday, we woke up to realize that the boats had all swung around significantly and we were too close to another boat. We pulled up anchor right away and proceeded farther along the channel, requesting permission from Port Control to cross at the end of the runway. After searching among zillions of boats, we finally found a place to drop the anchor. We lowered the dinghy and went to shore to Marina Taina and left the dinghy at their dock.

Walking along dock at Marina Taina

After dropping off our trash and recycling, we checked in with my agents, Tahiti Crew. They had been holding my Carte du Sejour for me, so I got that. It is the document that lets me stay in French Polynesia for a year or more (if I renew). After a nice lunch at La Casa Bianca, we returned to the boat, only to be visited by a marina authority who told us we could not anchor where we were. We pulled up anchor and moved across the channel to the low-rent district and finally found a spot that was safe for anchoring.

Legally anchored between the Intercontinental Hotel and Marina Taina

After a quiet night, we went back to Marina Taina with the dinghy and went grocery shopping. We also stopped by Tahiti Crew again and rented a wifi box that allows us to get Internet access on the boat, which is why I am able to make blog posts for the first time in a long time.

After returning to the boat, we saw Antje come in and anchor nearby. Antje is the boat we hit in Omoa in Fatu Hiva. I had been able to pay online for the spare parts that they needed to fix the steering vane, but we got in the dinghy to visit so I could give him something more to compensate somewhat for the inconvenience I had caused them. While we were talking to Jorge about his plans for the boat and his family, we realized that the visitors he had onboard for a day sail were Dana’s friends from high school. They were shocked to see Linda. It is such a small world.

We also noticed that Waveriders had anchored near us so we took the boat over to find them. They weren’t home, but shortly after we returned to Aldabra, Andrew and Liane stopped by on their water bikes for a bit of a visit. It was nice to catch up with them.

Passages, Places, People, Places

Visitors on Rangiroa

On August 14, my sister Debbie and my niece Julia arrived on Rangiroa by plane. They brought some treats and provisions and some parts I needed.

Unfortunately for them, the weather did not cooperate with their visit. We had many days of high winds and rain. We were able to eat a nice lunch a couple of times at Relais Josephine and watch the activity in the pass.

Looking out from the restaurant at Relais Josephine at the Tiputa Pass
The walk to Relais Josephine
Watching the activity in the pass

At one point we had a nice sail over to the other side of the atoll, to the Blue Lagoon. When we go there, however, it was too rough to stay, so we pulled up anchor and motored back to the Kia Ora anchorage, arriving just before dark and anchoring quickly, without being able to see where the anchor landed.

Looking from the boat toward shore at the Kia Ora Hotel Anchorage

We waited out the weather again, and a few days later sailed back to the Blue Lagoon. We had a nice day there and a couple of nice nights with flat seas and no wind. Early on one morning, before the tourist boats arrived, Julia and I snorkeled on the reef outside the entrance to the Blue Lagoon and saw lots of sharks and fish.

Quiet moments at the Blue Lagoon, Pasito is the boat in the shot
Wading in the Blue Lagoon

We next went down to Motu Fama and anchored for the night. It was beautiful there but that night a big squall came in from the south and our anchor may have dragged. We monitored the situation until the squall subsided and then Julia and I put out more chain. I did an anchor watch until 1 a.m. and when all seemed stable, I went to sleep.

Anchored in front of Motu Fama
Another View at Motu Fama
Aldabra in front of Motu Fama

The next day, the wind was building sooner than I expected, so we pulled up anchor and sailed back across the lagoon and then turned into the wind and motored back to the Kia Oro anchorage with enough time to anchor before dark. That was the end of our adventuring on Rangiroa. The lagoon is so big that the seas really build on the other side. So we stayed put and snorkeled at the Aquarium, which can be really good snorkeling. We also went over to Tiputa on the last Sunday of their visit to attend church. The Catholic service involves lots of beautiful music.

Bike Riding on the windward side of Rangiroa
Another beautiful sunset on Rangiroa

Debbie and Julia left at the end of August and I took a couple of days to get the laundry done and clean a bit. Then my friend Linda Moore arrived. After taking a couple of days for Linda to settle in, we did some dives outside the Tiputa pass, followed by lunch at Snack Puna one day and Relais Josephine on another.

dLunch in front of Tiputa Pass after a dive

We also snorkeled at the Aquarium, which Linda liked better than the dives. Seeing the dolphins up close is fun, but the diving can get boring as you wait out in the blue water away from the reef for them to show up. The last dive was probably the best because we went more slowly and could see more fish on the reef. We were joined by two divers from California and it was fun to talk to them.

Looking at the weather predictions, we thought we would be pinned down in Rangiroa for multiple more days during strong winds. I was anxious to move on, so we found a weather window on Tuesday morning, leaving the Avatoru Pass at 7:00 a.m. uneventfully and sailing over to Tikehau. The sail over was very nice. We went around the top of the atoll and were protected from the seas, so they were flat.

Sailing to Tikehau
Events, Passages, Places, People

Arriving in the Tuamotus

Heading for the Tuamotus, we left the Omoa anchorage on Fatu Hiva on Saturday night, July 9 at 10:30 p.m.  We set our sails as soon as we cleared the island and then put a reef in the main. The winds were in the mid-teens and we moved along nicely above 7 knots. The moon was out and it was lovely. Sunday was nice, with winds between 9 and 12 knots, always on the beam. And Sunday night was a calm, pleasant sailing night. Monday brought about the same light winds and more sunshine. A pod of dolphins joined us briefly. It’s nice to have an uneventful, comfortable passage.

On Tuesday, the winds kept getting lighter. After trying the spinnaker, we sailed on the jib alone. Finally, in the gap between Raroia and Takume, we pulled in the jib and motored. Once we got near the pass at Raroia, we turned off the motor and bobbed for the rest of the night and into the morning, waiting for the right time to enter the pass. As I later figured out, I was reading the current tables wrong so we entered the pass at the wrong time. For our first entry into an atoll pass, it was a bit intense but otherwise fine.

Once we entered the pass, we went over and anchored in front of the village. It took us 2-3 hours to anchor because we were floating our chain for the first time. We had to find a sandy place for the anchor and then attach fenders to the chain to keep it from touching the coral on the sea floor.

As we were coming in, an armada of dinghies passed us on their way to drift snorkel the pass. Bob and Sarah from Rhapsody were among them. That night we met the rest of the armada. We went over for sundowners to Womble, a beautiful Seawind 1600 from the U.K, owned by Dale and Katrina with crew Jack and Etta. We also met Lance and Amy on Lorien, and Kate and Jim on Polaris. It was a very nice evening with good people. We had a little mini-emergency because Marshall fainted. But Dana, Dale and Katrina tended to his medical needs.

The next day was Bastille Day and on many islands in French Polynesia they celebrate. Raroia was not among them. It was a very windy day in the anchorage and some of us had to re-anchor in those conditions. We stayed on the boat. Rala also joined the rest of us, having come from the other side of the atoll.

The next day, Friday, July 15, most of the boats were headed to Makemo but we headed over to the other side of the atoll, first to the Kon Tiki monument and then to a beautiful, quiet anchorage on the northeast end. We explored on land a bit and otherwise hung out. The weather went from still to rain to wind.

Raroia: Introduction to the Tuamotus

On Monday, July 18, we left the northeast anchorage at 8:00 a.m. and headed out of the pass. I still handn’t figured out that I was reading the current tables wrong, so we didn’t exit during slack tide, but it wasn’t too bad. We put the jib up and ran on a broad reach to Makemo. Dana caught a very large tuna and cleaned it with guidance from Johno. We arrived at 5:00 a.m. and waited until 6:30 a.m. to enter the pass, again at the wrong time, but it was fine. We anchored in front of the village, floating our chain. It took about an hour.

We went ashore and bought provisions, got money at the ATM and answered emails because we had a cell signal for the first time in many days. We had Dana’s tasty fish for dinner. The boats in the anchorage included Womble, Polaris, Rhapsody, Lorien, Rala and now Candine and Black Moon (who had been in Fatu Hiva with us). It felt like quite a community although of course we would all head off in different directions.

While we were in Raroia, Johno and Marshall had colds. We tested them for Covid and they were positive. It sort of explained why Marshall had fainted. I went around to as many of the boats as I could to let them know that we had exposed them. By the time we got to Makemo, some of the cruisers were symptomatic.

On Thursday, July 21, we motored to the Punaruku anchorage. It was a calm day inside the lagoon but there was a big south swell outside and you could see the waves breaking on the reef. We had a nice snorkel on the reef and a nice evening. After a gorgeous sunrise on Friday, we motored to the anchorage near the west pass, which we would not have done if it weren’t for OpenCPN and the satellite images that are integrated into the charts. We could see each bit of coral as we navigated into the anchorage. It was a fun place to snorkel for the day and a nice quiet night.

Makemo Sunrise

On Saturday, July 23, we left Makemo via the west pass (still at the wrong time) at 6:25 a.m. We sailed on a beam reach with 10-12 knots of wind from the north. It was a nice day of sailing. In the evening, the wind came up and we put two reefs in the main. We had 13-15 knots of wind and we were still going too fast to reach Fakarava. We arrived at the pass at 10:00 p.m., took down the sails and motored for four hours. Then we shut off the motor and floated around until sunrise. After that, we put the jib up and sailed around, killing time. We entered the south pass at 9:25 a.m., at the wrong time, and it was a bit hairy. There were a bunch of dive boats in the pass and they were yelling at us. I’m not sure what they were saying but I think they were chastising us. As we headed to the anchorage near the pass, it was really windy and it seemed imprudent to pick up a mooring ball there. We kept on going (which meant passing up the opportunity to snorkel the pass) and went to Hirifa.

For kite boarders, Hirifa is the spot. The wind seemed perfect and lots of boats had people kiting around the anchorage. For me it was just an overnight spot. We pulled up the anchor the next morning and headed toward the north side of the island, stopping for the night in an anchorage by ourselves. We had a nice snorkel and a quiet night.

The next day we proceeded to the village of Rotoava and anchored. Rala was there at anchor and Rhapsody was tied up at the wharf because their windlass had broken. We spent a week in that anchorage. Partly it was due to multiple days expected of high winds. We also were dropping Marshall off there so he could fly out. And it was a decent place to provision, ride bikes, eat at restaurants and tour a pearl farm. We hung out with Ian and Laura on Rala and saw Bob and Sarah on Rhapsody before they left for Tahiti. There wasn’t that much to do on Fakarava during super windy days, but Fakarava Yacht Services was a godsend to cruisers. We could get laundry done, use wifi, get cooking gas fill-ups and rent bikes. I discovered that I couldn’t take Marshall off the crew list in Fakarava so that would have to wait until Rangiroa.

On Monday, August 1, Rala and Aldabra went over to the anchorage near the north pass so we could get an early start going out of the pass the next morning. (I had finally figured out how to use the current tables properly.) We each picked up mooring balls but it was really windy, the seas were huge and choppy and the balls were very close to shore. If a ball had broken, we would have only seconds to start the motor and keep the boat off the shore. And the motor would be working very hard against the wind and seas. Both boats elected to go back to the village and anchor. We each had a somewhat peaceful night before an early morning departure back to the pass.

On Tuesday, August 2, Rala and Aldabra pulled up anchor at 6:00 a.m. and sailed to the pass. Because I finally had the timing right, it was very smooth. Outside the pass, the swell was a bit big and the winds were in the high teens. Headed for Rangiroa, we sailed on the jib alone on a broad reach, jibing every so often. Rala was sailing downwind so they had a much better angle and stayed ahead of us the whole time. At one point we ran the motor for an hour and a half to charge the batteries and they didn’t charge. Johno found a loose wire and reconnected it to the alternator and charging resumed. Whew!

To arrive at the pass in time, we motored for the last few hours and went through the pass as soon as we got there at 8:00 a.m., just behind Rala. We anchored in front of the Kia Ora hotel with several other boats, none of whom we knew. Rangiroa was to be the last stop for Dana and Johno, who were flying out on August 7.

As soon as we anchored, we went ashore to walk around. We ran into Ian and Laura at the pass, where people were watching dolphins surf the waves. They took us to a great little restaurant at the pension Relais Josephine where we could eat while watching the dolphins. We had a nice lunch before heading back to the boats for naps. Ian and Laura came over to Aldabra that night for sundowners.

I needed to get to the gendarmerie to take Marshall off the crew list. Google Maps said it was in the village of Avatoru. So the next morning, Dana and Johno and I took the dinghy the four miles to the village and beached it. It was a windy, wet ride and I was soaked from head to toe. We couldn’t find the gendarmerie and there was confusion among the locals about its location. We stopped by the mayor’s office to pay our cruiser’s tax and a very nice man explained where it was. We could walk 5 kilometers or take the dinghy. We elected to take the dinghy and found a little pass to tie up before walking a short distance to the gendarmerie.

We found it, but I don’t speak French and the staff didn’t speak English. We spent a lot of time on forms that I was pretty sure were not right. At the end, the woman sent me away without anything in hand. I asked if I should be signing something and she assured me that everything would go to Papeete and be just fine. But later that day I got an email from her saying that I needed to come back and sign a form.

After we left the gendarmerie, we ran into Ian and Laura, who were taking a bike ride. We stopped at a magasin before going back to the dinghy, and then we took the wet ride back to the boat, something I would rather not repeat.

Dana and Johno banished me to the cockpit during the middle of the day so they could bake a birthday cake. Later, with Ian, we attempted to snorkel the pass by pulling our dinghies along with us as we drifted. But we were working against a current so we abandoned that and went over to the aquarium at the motu near the pass. The snorkeling was good there so we spent a bit of time before heading back to the boats to rinse off before dinner. The five of us had a nice birthday dinner at Snack Puna, which included a chocolate torte with trick candles that didn’t blow out.

Trick birthday candles

The next day, Friday, Dana and I joined Ian and Laura for two dives with Rangiroa Diving Centre. The first dive was a reef dive outside the pass on the east side. The second dive took us into the pass from the outside. We were hoping to see dolphins, which is a highlight of the dives here, but they didn’t appear. The second dive was a sunset dive and we did see a lot of fish, which had all come out of their holes in the reef to feed. When we got back to the boat, we were freezing and cold. Johno kindly whipped up a meal.

On Saturday, Johno and Dana and I went to shore in search of bikes, but the place was closed. We ended up taking the dinghy across the pass to explore the Tiputa village. We found a working ATM at the post office but not much else. Later we went snorkeling at the aquarium and then joined Ian and Laura at the Snack Puna for a last-night dinner. 

On Sunday, Dana and Johno’s last day, we rode bikes to the Avatoru village and happened to find the gendarmerie open. I stopped in to sign the paper, which turned out not to be the right form. I finally got a form, officially stamped, that probably isn’t correct, but at least it shows I tried to sort it out. At the end of the motu, we checked out the Avatoru pass, which is wide and looked very tame. After spending the rest of the afternoon on the boat, I took the two of them to shore at 5:00 p.m. to catch their taxi to the airport. Sitting on that boat that evening, I could tell that no plane had come to whisk them away, but finally, a couple of hours late, it arrived and they took off.

With Dana and Johno’s departure, I was alone on the boat for the first time since April. I was ready to do some serious cleaning. But first, I got one more day of scuba diving in with Ian and Laura. We did two dives, basically in the same place as before, but we saw dolphins. They came and swam around us. We also saw a turtle that didn’t dart away. It let us gawk at it. And we saw lots of sharks and some big pelagic fish, along with beautiful reef fish. That night I had a lovely dinner on Rala with Ian and Laura.

On Tuesday, the taxi driver, Gilbert, took me to the gas station where I could buy gasoline and oil for the dinghy. I was also able to drop of my laundry at Addison’s house. I spent the rest of the afternoon cleaning.

On Wednesday morning, amidst much rain, Ian and Laura stopped by to tell me that one of the magasins had some fresh produce. So I hopped into the dinghy and went there to find some mangos and avocados. (I’d had only one avocado since arriving in French Polynesia.) Later that day I went back to get the laundry from Addison, who had managed to dry everything even during a big rainstorm. (It had rained so much the night before that the dinghy was completely filled while hanging on the davits. Had it been in the water, it probably would have sunk.)

Sadly, Ian and Laura left on Rala on Wednesday afternoon, headed for Moorea and then parts west and south. I’m not sure I will see them again anytime soon. But I really value the friendship.

Rala Leaving for the Societies

Alone on the boat and without anyone I know in the anchorage, I just puttered away on the boat, defrosting the freezer and fridge and cleaning the galley, cleaning the heads, the floors, the rugs. I re-glued a seal on one of the hatches, changed out the watermaker filters, cleaned the cockpit. Mixing the chores up with a bit of reading and writing, I’ll be ready when my sister and niece arrive in a few days.

People

Tribute to Jim Foley

Jim on his 80th Birthday

You’ll recall from the early days of this blog that Jim Foley was the person most instrumental in preparing Aldabra and me to go cruising. He coached me on the purchase of the boat, he did most of the work in refitting her, and he taught me how to work on her. He was an invaluable resource. And now I have to say goodbye. Jim died on April 5, 2021 just shy of his 81st birthday, after a stoic battle with cancer. He leaves his wife Linda, four children, many grandchildren, his sister and many nieces and nephews. Jim also leaves a California surfing and sailing community that benefitted so much from his friendship and ingenuity.

You can read others’ insights about how Jim was the Northern California pioneer of surfing’s shortboard, and about the various sailboats that Jim designed and built for racing and then later cruising. He also went through a long phase of passion for windsurfing. There probably wasn’t any aspect of being a waterman that Jim didn’t embody, including swimming, scuba and lifesaving. But design and invention didn’t stop at water-related activities, he also designed and built parts of his homes, refit cars and designed at least one famous logo (O’Neil). But I knew Jim as a long-time friend and mentor.

My story with Jim goes back to my college days in the mid-1970s. I was part of the UC Santa Cruz woman’s sailing team and Jim’s first wife joined us in regattas. The two of them took these young college students under their wing, inviting us to BBQs at their house in Ben Lomond and including us in Santa Cruz Yacht Club events. That was during the time that Jim was racing his iconic Third Reef, and I think we sailed on it. I know we spent the night on it once in Moss Landing after a regatta.

Years later, Jim married my close friend Linda, who was the person who initially brought me onto the university sailing team. Jim and Linda finished building their cruising boat, Dana, and set off around the world for six years. By then, I was pretty immersed in my career in Silicon Valley, spending very little time on the water, but I joined them as crew when I could.

In Tonga, Jim tried to teach me how to do water starts on his windsurfer. I ended up with bloody knees and gave up. I think it was in Tonga that they had me getting up at midnight to go diving for lobster. I was no help. I think I was just befuddled as they darted around to locate and nab their prey. The three of us had a spectacular time sailing throughout all three of Tonga’s island groups. I’m pretty sure those were my first night watches by myself. And that was my first experience with navigation, which was with one of those original brick-size hand-held GPS devices, a paper chart, parallel rulers and a divider. Weather information was by way of an isobar chart received by fax over the ham radio. Communication with fellow cruisers was with VHF and communication with people in the U.S. was by way of ham radio, letters sent using snailmail or by going to an island-based telephone center to make a long-distance call or send a fax. They had made friends with several other cruisers and that was my introduction to the supportive, congenial bonds that cruisers develop.

My next visit was a magical trip from Vanuatu to the Solomon Islands. I arrived with two large duffels full of parts and goodies that they had requested via fax. Jim commandeered a pickup truck to get the goods from the airport to the dinghy, which almost sank under the load. That trip started out with some urgency as we tried (successfully) to outsail a cyclone. Once we were outside the reach of the storm, we found ourselves ghosting by an active volcano in flat, glassy water that seemed to extend forever. I got spoiled sailing on Dana, because the boat moved in in just a whisper of wind. Built using a Santa Cruz 40 mold, she was light and designed to go fast.

We stopped at a few islands in Vanuatu and the Solomons before arriving at Guadalcanal, which would be my departure point. I think Jim and Linda had decided it was easier to trade for lobster, so they were no longer hunting for that crustacean. But they had become experts at catching and cooking coconut crabs, which we did on one remote island. (These crabs with their pinchers can get pretty scary when they get loose on the boat.) We also hiked into the heart of one of the islands to a native village that seemed untouched by the outside world. On the way back, we rode air-filled floats down the streams that flowed back to the ocean. It was an example of how Jim always looked for a way to turn any occasion into frolicking fun.

The next time I was to meet up with Jim and Linda was in Seychelles. We had been in communication by fax and had a rough plan to meet up around May of whatever year that was. (I don’t have my journals with me.) But weeks went by without any word from them. Not really understanding what their circumstances were (like being in the remote Chagos during a year when ham radio propagation was poor and they had no other means of communication), I just decided to fly to Seychelles and see what would happen. I had taken the time off of work and didn’t want to squander it. After arriving on Mahe and checking into a small inn, I took a bus to the harbor to ask around. As I was standing there, a boat that looked very much like Danaarrived in the harbor. Like a thoughtless landlubber, I asked someone in a skiff to take me out to where Dana was anchoring.

So imagine it from their perspective. They are sleep deprived and not feeling all that well after a two-week passage. They are in the middle of anchoring, the most stressful interaction that any cruising couple goes through. And on their passage, they had completed, with great thought, the list they expected to fax to me of all the things they wanted me to bring. On the passage they had been dreaming about those things. And here I am before them, which means a)I will not be bringing anything on their list and b)they are way too tired to interact. I have never seen a more disappointed look on Jim’s face.

Jim and Linda generously forgave me and I moved onto the boat the next day. We took some time to tour around Mahe, visiting local artists. We attended a big independence celebration. And we reprovisioned the boat. After spending some time on other islands in the group, Praslin and La Digue, I think, we headed west, buddy boating with two or three other boats.

The passage was rough at first. Seas were coming from two different directions. And the winds were intense, probably blowing 30-40 knots over two or three days. Waves were crashing into the cockpit from above and filling it with water, or broadsiding the boat. We were tossed around so much that we gave up on regular watches and pinned ourselves into our berths down below to avoid being thrown all over or hit with projectiles. At one point a wave blew the main into tatters and we had to abandon our nests to change it out. For a respite, we took refuge at a small atoll. We didn’t have permission to land, but all the boats anchored for a spell to fix damage and rest from the wind and seas. From there we sailed to Aldabra, to visit the giant tortoises and to dive in the lagoon, which is the largest of any coral atoll in the world.

At that time, in the mid-1990s, Aldabra was inhabited by a small staff of people at a research station. We arranged with them to take us all in a couple of skiffs to the mouth of the lagoon. We were dropped off just as the water was gushing into the lagoon. Through a series of mishaps, we were mostly separated from one another, but we all held onto our masks and road the current into the center of the lagoon along with all kinds of sea creatures. Each of us surfaced when we ran out of air and the boats found and retrieved us. One guy was lost for a couple of hours but we eventually found him alive. We spent those two hours wondering what we would do in the worst-case scenario. Fortunately, it didn’t come to that.

From Aldabra, we set off west again, not knowing exactly where the winds and seas would take us. But we ended up at the island of Mayotte, off the east coast of Africa. I flew from there back to Seychelles and onto France, before flying back to the U.S.

Jim and Linda continued around the southern tip of Africa after they explored the continent by land. They then crossed the Atlantic and explored the Caribbean and eastern side of Central America and the Gulf of Mexico before trucking Dana overland to Oakland. The next time I met up with them on the boat, I took a ferry from Tiberon and spend a couple days with them on Angel Island before they sailed Dana back to their home port of Santa Cruz.

That began their next adventure. They brought twins Trevor and Dana into the world and had a lot of fun raising them. I was with them on a boating trip in British Columbia when the twins were about eighteen months old. We had five adults to keep an eye on two toddlers, which is what it takes when you’re walking along docks. On their boat, which was a MacGregor 26, Jim had installed car seats to keep them safe in the cockpit. When they weren’t trucking the MacGregor around the country or to Mexico, they might be paddling or sailing the canoe that Jim built, or helping coach the kids’ sailing classes or exposing them to some other water or sports activity. Jim took delight in any of the twins’ science or art projects, and Linda was a wellspring of interesting educational or creative projects or outings. They were both fulltime, hands-on parents that passed on their curiosity and boundless energy to their children.

I had always planned to buy a cruising boat when I retired and in 2008 Jim had a slip in the Santa Cruz harbor if I could put a boat in it. So he helped me buy and fix up Aldabra. We were partners in the boat until I took off down the coast to Mexico to begin my cruising adventure. Those roughly eight years of working with Jim on the boat were just plain fun, and I learned a lot. He did projects on the boat during the week while I was working. And I would join in during the weekends when I wasn’t traveling. He did several projects without me (replacing the entire fresh water system, replacing the engine), but would save parts of each project so I could learn. He guided me on what tools I needed, how to maintain each system on the boat, and how to prepare for long passages to remote places.

Jim was always anticipating what could go wrong and helping me prepare for each catastrophe. He would say, “It’s not if things go wrong, it’s about what you do when they go wrong.” Jim was a master at both anticipation and inventing a fix for anything that broke. That was a mindset that I had to learn. I just wanted to put all new parts on the boat and expect that everything would survive, but of course that wasn’t going to be the case. As Jim had explained multiple times, and I of course discovered first hand, owning and journeying on a boat is an endless process of maintenance, repairs and improvements. But the joy you get from making new friends, sharing with old friends, traveling to remote countries and sailing along in a good breeze with the engine off makes it all worthwhile.

I had always hoped that Jim and Linda and the kids would join me at points during my cruising adventure. Jim was aboard when we set off from Santa Cruz to Southern California. And Dana was part of the crew that sailed from Puerto Vallarta to San Diego on a trip that was supposed to be to the Marquesas. And I hold out hope that Linda, Trevor and Dana will still be joining me once the COVID restrictions are lifted. But Jim’s last time on the boat was several weeks ago when he and Linda visited in San Diego and I showed him the modifications I had done in Mexico and San Diego.

Jim on Aldabra as we brought the boat down the coast of California

He was his usual enthusiastic, supportive self. In all the years I’ve known Jim, he was always supportive. I’m sure he worried about all the things I didn’t know and all the challenges I was likely to encounter. He probably worried about his daughter sailing to the South Pacific with me. But He never voiced any doubts. He just made lists of everything he could impart. I’m so grateful to have had such a friend. I miss him and it pains me that his family has lost him.  

Jim and Linda on the beach in Carmel
The Foley family at Trevor’s and Dana’s high school graduation
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Tribute to Dr. David Rose

If you’ve followed Aldabra’s journey through this blog, you’ll have read about Dr. David Rose. He and his wife Susan crewed on Aldabra for the Baja Ha Ha in 2016. They also visited while I was in the Sea of Cortez. And David was headed to French Polynesia with us when we had to detour to San Diego. Susan was going to meet us in the Marquesas.

Because of the quarantine, I hadn’t seen David since we arrived in San Diego in April. We spoke on the phone in July and closed the conversation with an expectation that he would come down to the boat at some point in the near future.

But that wasn’t to be. David passed away unexpectedly in early August. David was a very close friend and has been my sailing partner for years. Every time I make certain improvements to the boat, I think about whether David would approve, even now.

Having David on the boat was alway reassuring to me. We had very complementary styles, underscored by trust and mutual respect. We developed strategies collaboratively and never argued. He loved to sail and he loved to tinker, with electronics and with anything he noticed that could be improved. David was very smart and very thoughtful. I always paid attention when he challenged my approach to something. And he was always a great partner when it came time for a repair. He was also great company for everyone on board, with his quiet humor and easy-going nature.

David’s and my sailing partnership began in 1997. He had a small day sailor in the Santa Cruz harbor and he furthered his interest in sailing with an ASA course that prepared him to charter bigger boats. Shortly after he completed his course, he proposed that I join his family on a charter to the BVIs, and invited one of my nieces (Halley) along. She was between his two oldest kids in age.

We chartered a monohull and had a wonderful time. I think Halley was only about eleven years old at the time, and it was hard for her to be away from home. But Susan took Halley under her wing while David and I were probably quite occupied with the business of sailing the boat.

That began a tradition of chartering a sailboat in some part of the world every other year. There were a couple of times when I wasn’t able to participate, but David and Susan and their kids (Jessica, Ben and Samantha) always got their charter trip in. I loved the preparatory meetings for the trips, the trips themselves, and the post-trip recap gatherings. And through those experiences, I grew close to the Rose family and was honored to participate in many of their family celebrations.

For the trip after the BVIs, David wanted to charter a catamaran. Neither of us had any experience with one, so we signed up for a two-day class at Club Nautique in Alameda. We would be learning on a PDQ, which was identical to a boat we planned to charter in the Bahamas.

We did learn about the differences between a monohull and a catamaran, so the class prepared us well for the charter. But the class also bonded us in a life-and-death experience. Due to a freak accident, our instructor was strangled by a jib sheet and lost consciousness. He wasn’t breathing, and it was up to David to bring him back to life. As a surgeon, he certainly knew how to perform CPR in theory, but he didn’t have any experience in a setting outside the OR and without competent staff to assist. But he did save the instructor’s life. The whole emergency of keeping the guy alive, making our way back to the dock and working with the Coast Guard was a bit traumatic and very memorable. But it was not the last of Dr. Rose providing emergency medical assistance during a sailing trip.

Our uneventful catamaran charter in the Bahamas was followed four years later by a trip to Tonga. (The Rose family had chartered in Greece in the interim, but I had not been able to go.) In Tonga, we chartered two boats so we could include more of our friends. I brought my niece, Lizzie, along with two other families. There was also a third boat with our friend Pete and his family. It was strange not being on the same boat as the Rose family. But every day, David, Pete and I had skippers’ meetings to plan our navigation for that day. And in the evenings the crews of all three boats gathered on one of the boats to party after dinner. Playing the card game Hearts figured prominently in the evenings’ activities. And true to form, David responded when a local citizen put out a call on the radio for medical assistance. David met with him and provided consultation.

Two years later, we chartered in St. Vincent and the Grenadines, again on two separate boats. We had some of the same friends, and this time I brought my sister Ann and her daughters, Emily and Hannah. Our friends Vicki and Bruce and their son Griffin were now experienced crew, having been on the Tonga trip. And our friend Mark was also a repeat participant. The trip had lots of drama, including the effects of an approaching hurricane (that never really messed with us very much). And once again, there were medical emergencies that David needed to address. Beyond that, however, he became a casualty himself, with a couple of broken ribs. Fortunately, his daughter Jessica, who went on to become a doctor, was able to help David out.

The next trip was to Croatia. This time we chartered one boat, a 50-ft monohull. The trip included the Rose family, their good friend Karen and my nieces Rachel and Julia. It was fun to have everyone together on the same boat, but it was a very different kind of trip. Rather than sailing among remote tropical islands, we were in civilization. It involved dressing up to go to restaurants and even a visit to an exclusive night club. Uncharacteristically, we had no medical emergencies that I can recall.

Next, we chartered in Belize. This time David and I each captained a catamaran and out friend Mark captained a monohull. My boat included Vicki and Bruce and Griffin along with Marty and Katie and Gabe, who had been on the Tonga trip.

Two years later, the Roses chartered in New Zealand and I was not able to go. So our next trip together was a return to the BVIs. We had three boats. The Rose party was on one boat. My boat included my mother, my friends Pete and Cookie and my friends Jim and Linda and their twins, Dana and Trevor. The third boat included Mark’s brother and family and mother. We all joined together for a Thanksgiving dinner at a restaurant on shore. The only medical emergency I remember from that trip was Pete’s excruciatingly painful toothache, which David successfully treated with antibiotics.

Our final charter trip together was in 2015 out of Raiatea in the Society Islands. We were on one catamaran together, with my sister Wendy and her husband Pat, David and Susan, Karen and Jessica. We sailed around Raiatea, Huahine, Taha’a and Bora Bora. We bought pearls at a pearl farm and had a great time snorkeling, especially through one pass between two islands that swept us rapidly through narrow channels with coral heads everywhere. After we dropped off the boat, we stayed a few days in Tahiti, visiting the market in Papeete and touring the island in a rental car.

I found out a bit after we returned that David had contracted Dengue fever while we were there and suffered multiple complications from it. It was very much on our minds as we planned the trip to the Marquesas, because it was imperative for him to avoid getting it again.

David, Susan, Wendy and Pat were all on the Baja Ha Ha trip the next year, on Aldabra, where David once again came to the rescue, this time for a sailor who had dislocated his shoulder.

As I anticipate the possibility that Aldabra may get to leave for French Polynesia in 2021, it’s hard to imagine the voyage without David. I hope Susan will still want to join us in the Marquesas. And I hope that sometime in the not-too-distant future, we’ll get the chartering gang back for another catamaran trip in David’s honor.

David somewhere in the Society Islands