September 13, 2004: Dancyn prances north. More like bucking our way north. We are about a week out of the Tuamotus in French Polynesia enroute to Hawaii. Of course we know we are going the wrong way. And on purpose, too. But the kitty could use a little freshening up and we scored some jobs in Hawaii that will keep us in Polynesia and out of Alaska. We were hoping to grab a hold of some of the nice light fluffy southeast wind we had for about two weeks in the anchorage before we left. But Neptune had other plans for us, and we have been dealing with strong winds up our nose, sometimes up near gale force--30+, plenty of squalls, and plenty of motion for this ol' pony. But the stick is pretty solid and has taken the beating like a champ. Better than we have of course. HT's seasickness coma has subsided some so that she's actually able to type on the computer a bit, and John hopped on the menu-making, perhaps dismayed of days and days of only bananas, plain rice, and buttered pasta. Ahhh, bananas. Some locals gave us a huge hand of them before we left and the little suckers are so damn tasty but they all go at once. Little fat guys, easy to pop 5-6 at a time, but after awhile, there can only be so much one can take. HT's hands have broken out into itchy little blisters. An allergy perhaps? Perhaps an allergy to passages. Where's the damn chopper? But we both admit that the bananas were a far superior option to the fatty canned venison of New Caldonia that some friends gave us before we left.
We are about 100 miles south of the equator. After that, we'll contend with light and variable winds characteristic of the equatorial belt, some squalls and perhaps thunderstorms as we pass through the Intertropic Convergence Zone, that space between the southeast trades of the southern hemisphere and the northeast trades of the northern hemisphere, hang a left and hopefully sleigh ride the rest of the 1500 miles to the tropicana madness of Honolulu. The Marquesas were unreal, but the Tuamotus were beyond imagining. We lived like fishes, suckled off coconuts, chopped it up with the locals, slaughtered French, and spent less money there than in the cheap burros of Central America. Perhaps the friendliest people we have met so far. They must be used to making quick friends by now in the wake of Cook, Bligh and all the other great white terrorizing high-seas adventurers that come from the land of many things just beyond the horizon. Amazing how those with less share more openly. We Americans, people, Citizens of the Planet, have benefited greatly from such encounters. Of course, the islanders have what we like to refer to as stuff envy. They want stuff, even if they don't need it. They all have satellite t.v. and dvd players, yet live in rough-hewn houses with too many kids popping out everywhere. Everyone seems well provided for though. The sea and coconut trees give plenty. And the French keep things rather first world, as it should be since that territory costs the French taxpayer quite a bundle. We being on a 32 foot sailboat don't have much stuff, but we were able to round up some things to trade for everything from bananas and tough goat meat to pearls and lobster feasts. Living is good.
Not much to keep us company out here these days though, 'cept for the lone bird and the occasional gecko sighting. We hijacked some geckos before we left to deal with our exploding fruit fly colony. We found one guy out on the bimini in the cockpit today. Poor guy was probably trying to commit suicide. Can't say I blame him. Boat life is wearisome at times, but all worth it in the long run. During times like these, all that really matters is that at the end of the day we are still on the boat. We hated to leave, but the idea of spending the next several months tied up to marina, scoping out the mai-tai deals and sneaking into hotels for a dip in the hot tub is not all that bad either.
September 15, 2004: Another equator crossing. We crossed that invisible line separating the two hemispheres yesterday. Strange. This place looks awfully familiar. We are thankful for a day of calm, light winds. We are now in that range of light air that wraps itself around the planet along the equator. We have over 500 miles until we hit the northeast trade winds at around 13 degrees north, after which we'll hook a left to Hawaii. For now, we are sailing due north, slowly inching our way to the east as the winds lighten up, cutting across the wind more to maintain speed. Cursed by the sailors and whalers and traders sailing these seas centuries ago, this light air is perfect for our light performance ping-pong ball. So we cranked up the ac/dc, popped open a bottle of wine some folks had given us as we were leaving the Tuamotus, and celebrated another successful equator crossing. Thank you, Neptune. Having fully recovered from my seasickness coma, I whipped up some vegetarian thai spring rolls accompanied by a coconut-peanut butter satay sauce. Somebody slap my mama. We actually have vegetables on board! We were only able to afford carrots and radishes at the store since tomatoes, green beans, cucumbers and what not were like $5-$9/kilo. Someone gave us a cucumber and a head of cabbage--bless them--as another parting gift and I was able to score fish sauce--a.k.a. poopoo sauce, rice paper wrappers, and bean noodles at the store in the Marquesas. We invited the whole neighborhood to ratchet it us with us...."too many women, too many pills." A couple of sooty terns and masked boobies showed up, but that was about it.
No fish. It was too rough to fish at first--and you know it must be rough if Johnnie ain't fishin', and then John cut his hand pretty bad a couple of days ago and just hasn't felt like playing a fish. I just want to eat 'em, so we threw in a hand line yesterday with the understanding that I'll clean the sucker. I'm getting my pot ready.
We sadly parted ways with the Tuamotus. It will have been exactly one year of not working for the man once we return to work on October 4th. French Polynesia was definitely the most expensive place we have been to, but thanks to the consumer heaven of Panama, we stocked the boat well, rum included, and spent well under $500 in four months of cruising. In many places, there just wasn't any spot to spend our money. We spent 2 weeks in the atoll of Toau, where we basically moved in with Teapiri and Rose and their bundle of chitlins, one of 4 families living on the motu. They spoke excellent english and made their living from the sea. They have these interesting fish traps set up on the reef that herd fish into chicken-wire pens as the tide moves in and out of the lagoon. Its an awesome way to see all kinds of magnificent fish. We got in a couple of times to pick out some fish for dinner. Teapiri and his sons do a lot of spearfishing for weekly boats that come in to buy fish for Tahiti. John went out with them one day and spent most of his time pushing off sharks that were trying to get at the speared fish. Black-tipped and gray reef sharks. They are not too aggressive, more like hungry dogs. Still, it was unnerving. We sadly said goodbye to the Estrela sea fairies and the Whatever, whom we had been with for almost 3 months. After they left, we were the only boat in the anchorage for over a week and spent almost every meal with Rose and Teapiri. I think we might have cooked dinner twice on Dancyn in all that time. Once because sea turtle was on the menu and that was our way of protesting their illegal catch which they are fully aware of. We were disappointed that they would take a sea turtle since there was obviously no shortage of food: fish, fish, fish, octopus, clams, oysters, snails, lobster, slipper crabs, green crabs, coconut crabs, varo--lobster-like animal, and of course the blessed coconut. But they said it was like red meat and very tasty. The other time we cooked dinner was for Teapiri's birthday since Rose had a bad case of hemorrhoids so volunteered us to cook the meal. Poor woman. I gave her some ibroprofin and she was so impressed with it. The next day she told me that she gave it to Mana when he complained of a sore shoulder, to Teapiri for his hurt wrists, and to Violette, her daughter, who was having leg pains. I wonder if they just weren't complaining just to try some of the "good medicine." I just about fell over when Rose told me they even gave a little to their sick kitten. He did get better oddly enough. French Polynesia definitely has the feel of first world money. I wouldn't say that they are rich, but they have access to many consumer goods in Tahiti, and things are well-maintained by the French. How they afford anything is beyond me. But they definitely suffer from the stuff phenomenon. They just want stuff even if they don't need it. Perhaps centuries of being stuck on islands while people stream by from distant lands past the horizon has got them hankering for stuff. Because the standard of living is high, people have new Land Rovers, the Catholic Church has a strong presence, we had at first forgotten that these islands are still remote and attached to their roots in many ways. One day while we were walking past a plant that had been kicked over, Violette reached down to fix it, but was stopped quickly by Rose who yelled sharply, "don't touch, you're malade." Violette was having her period, her "malade", and her mom informed her that she could kill the plant if she touched it during that time. On the atoll of Apataki, there is a rock, a tiki, that people still pay homage to by bringing garlands of shells and nuts because they believe a spirit lives there that could cause ill luck, even though all of these people dutifully go to church every week. Guess rocks in the Tuamotus are few and far between. Many things are still taboo, like being out after dark. If you have to go out, never leave home without a flash light, even if there is ample light to see by. Glad to see the world hasn't completely homogenized. And of course, "good medicine" is still impressing the natives. Unfortunately most of that good medicine has been to cope with the bad diseases brought in by foreigners.
We spent a week tied up to the wharf off the village in Apataki, the first time the boat has been tied up since Mexico. A fair-sized town of 400 people, it is fueled by the numerous black pearl farms scattered throughout the atoll. Everyday at 6 a.m., folks load into boats that take them out to the farms for the day, finishing the day at 5 or 6 p.m. Yuck. Our first place where people actually had 9-5 jobs. Of course, many people catch fish and harvest copra to sell to Tahiti. We were sorta of the town's pet for the week we were there. People were constantly inviting us over for coffee or a meal or a dip of water from the cistern to rise the salt off. And they were constantly stopping by to peer into our floating world. It was a frustrating, busy week. A boat problem has a way of opening up a can of worms. John spent hours up the stick trying to replace the metal pin that holds the forestay up only to discover one of the fittings were loose, the other pin up there was even uglier than the first, and so forth and so forth. Normally, we would have been happy not knowing these things, but we were facing a 3-week beat to weather, so we needed the insurance. The rig was about to encounter conditions that it hadn't had to face for days and days on end. We hacked and sawed and drilled and glued and just ran nonstop for a week. Of course, we were also busy squeezing in some socializing. We had this one man over for coffee one day who had half of his face tattooed. Come to find out, he was from the Marquesas and did tattoos out of his home. Of course, I couldn't resist getting a big tiki face on my butt cheek. The first day we were there, John and I crashed this little rocket ship of a sailboat, a 3.80, for 3.80 meters long. A small, two-person jobbie, its light, fast and an accident waiting to happen. The collision with the coral head cost us some time repairing that, but it did make us fast friends with the French couple who was living there, Paul and Fanny. They had just sold that boat to a local so we fixed it at their house. They had arrived 5 years ago on a small, steel sailboat and had been living there ever since working on pearl farms. They were young dorkie biologists like us with a washing machine, shower, ice, and loads of scuba equipment along with a compressor to fill tanks. A cruiser's dream come true! I dove once, John twice--I had my tattoo then and couldn't get in the ocean. They plan on setting sail soon and making underwater documentaries. We became good friends with Atanas, Moerna, and their 8 monkey children who liked to hang all over the boat when school was out and we were neck deep in projects. Atanas and Moerna paid us nightly visits to swap some talk and walk away with a dvd to borrow. Every night they did this. They brought us coconuts, bananas, shell necklaces and gave us a beautiful wooden paddle before we left. Atanas and his beautiful long-haired children are big surfers and John won big by giving Atanas a bunch of polyester resin and fixing some of his surf boards. Not sure what the paddle was all about. But should the shit hit the fan and we have to ditch it into our pseudo-life raft, we'll have a sturdy paddle. The wharf was a mixed bag. We were able to take apart everything and spread out on terra firma, yet the two nights we were kicked off the wharf in the middle of the night by cargo ships--one was expected, one was not, were incidents shy of heart attacks. The first time, we were able to squeeze into one small nook of the wharf--rebarb and broken cement slabs included, but slept little with the bow of the boat less than one meter from our stern. There was no other option the next night when we woke up to a horn and spot light of a huge cargo boat that forced us to look for a mooring ball that we had heard was in the pass. Fortunately, there was no wind and it was slack tide. Unfortunately, there was no mooring, so we tied up to a fishing net that was within spitting distance of the reef for 4 hours until the boat left.
Dodging bullets, making fast friends, dealing with tricky weather, but having the time of our lives. We really are bummed about going back to work. Even more bummed about being tossed around like a ping-pong ball sailing the wrong direction up to Hawaii. But such eye blinks are well worth it. I had a dream last night that Bush won the election. Frightening. Hope Americans aren't silly enough to vote in a leader that has cost us jobs, money and innocent lives, both domestic and overseas. We have applied for our absentee ballot. Don't forget to vote!