Toast Floats

Take Time to Express Yourself

2012-01-18T01:22:00.000-08:00

You get the government you work for. Congress is starting to listen on the issue of SOPA and PIPA. If you have not yet taken time to educate yourself, there is still a chance to make your voice heard, your concerns understood. Today, this blog is brought to you because there is no government who can tell me not to publish and no efficient technical mechanism to prevent its distribution. If SOPA and PIPA passes, that might not always be the case. Freedom, like happiness, requires maintenance.

Learn more: Stop American Censorship and let President Obama know your sentiments as well: Petition the President

Opportunity Costs

2012-01-14T22:57:00.001-08:00

My Teeth Are DONE

toastfloats on Flickr

I am sitting in the orthodontist's office as the kind, competent staff install hardware in my eldest daughter's mouth which will cost us roughly the same as a new main sail. We do not sail the high seas any longer. In fact, it may be six months before we even consider taking the boat out for a harbor cruise. Nevertheless, I would really prefer a new main sail.

I suspect Jaime would also prefer a new main sail. Idly I ask, "Jaime. If you had $7,000 to spend on the boat, what would you buy?"

"A car."

I blink. Even the dentist blinks. He looks at me, so I say it again, "On the boat?"

"Oh. Ahh boh…" There are now hands in her mouth. She thinks for awhile. "Uh caw."

Okay, still the car. "The Boat."

Fine. Jaime grimaces. It could be something the dentist did. Alternatively, it could be my persistence. The hands leave her mouth long enough for her to blurt out, "New galley. Top to bottom."

She has a bit of a lisp at the moment, but I can understand. Yes, if I had a lot of money, the galley would probably come before the sail. It would definitely come before a car. An oven that works without using elastic and a knife to jam the solenoid would be lovely. A stove that actually browns meat would be even better. I nod in agreement, "Good thinking, Jaime."

"Whai?" The mouth is wide open, ablaze with light, and looking rather sparkly with the new bits getting glued to the upper jaw.

"That's how much this is costing us."

We both sit grimly, silently, as the dentist installs our new countertop and sink. As he finishes, we both sigh at the lost opportunity. I try to look on the bright side, "With those blue elastic bands, you match the boat."

Her tongue probes the edges of her new mouth, "Huh." She doesn't sound mollified. "It hurts."

Thinking of the coming winter sans galley upgrade, new sails, or a functioning heater since we now can't afford to replace that either, I hug her quietly. "Priorities, my love. Priorities. We can do this." Her unexpected return squeeze and quiet, "You'll be okay, Mom," cements the deal.

Elephantine Musings

2012-01-02T22:24:00.000-08:00

The Girls Contemplate Our New Home
Uploaded by toastfloats

At times I am convinced that the Fates are determined to prevent me from successfully reentering the work force full time. I swear it is not merely an elaborate form of laziness which over the years has pulled me out of the employment market. Homeschooling, cruising, extended stays in foreign countries, all these are arguably my fault but I OWN them. I fully admit that life distracted me. I did it on purpose with a purpose.

Now, however, I want to work. Okay, world? I want to work. I work hard. I'm good at what I do. Let me work.

Except not for the last two months while I sorted our immigration paperwork, got DrC all spiffied up and off to work himself, and scrapped nearly 8 months of indescribably icky goo off our bodies and out of the boat.

And not this month while my Mommy is in town.

And apparently not next month while I have a good chunk of my face reassembled.

It turns out that the little bump on my nose which initially appeared like the world's most persistent and slow forming zit is actually not a zit at all. It's a zebra case of a tumor which is going to just keep growing until I either cut it off or I can't see past it and run my car off a cliff. The medical definition of a zebra is a disease or condition that is so uncommon that a doctor only learns of it because medical schools engage in a form institutionalized hazing which in any other context would be declared a felony. Any given zebra only shows up in the average medical practice once or twice in a doctor's entire career, if that. Such cases are shared with colleagues over a slice at lunch or at the annual Christmas party after a few drinks. Professors make presentations about zebras, others make a living doing research on them and publishing the results in esoteric journals.

This zebra tumor has -- as is usual in such cases -- an unpronounceable, unspellable name which I promptly forgot but which DrC rattles off with élan whenever the topic arises. It apparently has been there for years and years… maybe even since childhood! … just waiting till the perfect moment when lack of ready cash, a high deductible insurance plan, and extraordinarily pent up demand to get back to work combine to make this the worst possible moment to erupt into sight. Now that it's growing, however, the thing is on a roll. Depending on my mood, the girls either refer to me as The Two Nosed Witch or Rudolph, the Double-Nosed Reindeer. It just gets bigger from here. Fortunately, there is just about zero chance it means death to Toast unless I am foolish enough to allow it to grow so large as to block my ability to eat.

Unfortunately, getting rid of it is fraught with all sorts of horribleness. It'll be expensive. It'll leave a really nasty scar. And, I am not shitting you, I am going to spend three weeks with an "elephant trunk made out of skin" stuck gobsmack in the middle of my face. Explaining how this works may require a diagram. The idea is the plastics doc cuts a strip of my forehead, backs it with a chunk of belly fat, then without detaching it, twists it over and down and attaches it to my nose where the dermatologist has left a great gaping hole after cutting out the tumor. Then we let the thing sit there for nearly a month while the skin grafts together after which we "trim the tusk off". You're damn right you are going to trim that off.

Climbing Out
Uploaded by toastfloats

On the upside, I told you I didn't need all those 'get rid of belly fat' Facebook adverts. I have my own creative ways to reduce that flab. On the downside, I'm not entirely clear how I'm supposed to go on a job interview with a skin trunk curling up from my nose. I'm going to look like a Star Trek character, and I don't mean that in a good way. I know I should be happy that I'm not cast as a Red Shirt in this drama, but I just keep thinking that no one really ever thought the Ferengi were doable, no matter how lovable Quark got towards the end.

Tonight, I'm glib about this, able to tell jokes and contemplate the whole thing with some degree of distance and equanimity. I have to be honest, however. After leaving the plastics consult, I just sat down for awhile and cried. I don't want to do this. It's expensive, painful, and scary. I have no real hope I'll look like Nicole Kidman after my surgery is complete. I'll probably look like someone who has been through a far worse experience like a car crash or the collapse of a building in an earthquake. It'll take a long time to heal and might require several additional surgeries before I don't look like someone grafted a piece of my ass on to my face. I had a real zit on the other side of my nose this morning which almost sent me into hysterics. I want to be brave and strong and reasonable, but my inner me appears to just want to scream and jump up and down and bitch about the unfairness of it all. Fairness, of course, has nothing to do with it. Our own troubles touch us more profoundly than the most terrible trials of others, because they are our own. That doesn't make my trouble less to me, the thought does help me with the reasonableness of it all. It's a benign tumor. While I can't see how it could possibly make me stronger, it isn't going to kill me. I am not a great beauty to begin with and this isn't going to make me less so.

Getting down to brass tacks, what I really need is some work to do for the month of February that does not involve seeing people. Reasonable or not, I don't think I can shake hands with a client and keep a straight face when my face isn't.

My Facebook Rant

2011-12-29T23:15:00.000-08:00

[EXPLICIT] This post includes explicit language. I was in a Mood.

Mom's Scoping the Business
Uploaded by toastfloats

I am not a great fan of Facebook. Its user interface lacks elegance, and Zuckerberg's machiavellian approach to privacy is profoundly annoying. It is, however, the AOL of its time. All the people we want to know, all the people with whom we are interact, they live on Facebook. We are, in a word, stuck.

Stuck with the fat ads. Those assholes. I have never in my life clicked an ad for botox, a fad diet, or magical ways to get rid of belly fat. Nevertheless, the pricks that wrote the algorithm on Facebook insist that because I am a woman of a certain age with children, these are my Must See adverts. I imagine a pimply faced, sun-deprived graduate of the Stanford comp sci department sitting in a cubicle in Silicon Valley tweaking the selection algorithm to prioritize diet ads above every other possible option for all self-avowed females who also admit that they eat. I have down-voted these ads countless times. In vain, I once attempted to up-vote a series of "Have Sex with this Russian Beauty" ads that somehow slipped through Facebook's no-porn policy. I figure if I'm having sex with Russian beauties with enormous tits, I am clearly comfortable with my extra tonnage and don't need any further assistance. My next foray will be to up-vote anything having to do with a penis. Penile implant surgery on my non-existent manly appendage would be vastly more appealing to me than a magically surprising way involving eggs and a tire to resize the waistline.

Stuck with the crazy as chick who I vaguely remember from high school who posts semi-nude photos of herself, the one probably also clicking those belly fat ads. How the hell do these make it into my feed, anyway? I mean, yeah… at one point I was stupid enough to agree to join the group devoted exclusively to my fellow high school alumni. I was a problem child. As I had zero social life in high school, loathed most of those people at the time, and abandoned my hometown with no regrets nearly 20 years ago never to return, I'm not sure what the hell I was thinking. I just spent the last 5 years utterly sabotaging the usual geek's revenge of owning the companies where my former class mates work as well as sporting a better hair cut, gorgeous eye candy husband, and fantastically higher standard of income. I suspect that no one 'back home' is going to be impressed with the fact that DrC and I dropped out as it rings eerily familiar to so many of them. I have no interest in their lives or their children, and I am utterly convinced that the feeling is profoundly mutual. So I unsubscribed or declicked or unchecked or something which was another completely pointless exercise. Once a relationship lives on Facebook it is like a stain on a white fiberglass boat deck and remains forever to remind you of the error of your ways.

Stuck with requests to take this or that poll, join this or that cause, or participate in this or that quiz. I believe that Facebook proves we are all monkeys banging away at the keyboard attempting to produce Shakespeare and instead generating enough demographic data to keep a football stadium full of marketing executives cumming in their boots till they all pass out in brand awareness nirvana. What these clicks do not do is make a damn bit of difference in the greater scheme of things. There are ways that social media is a force for change. Facebook is not a participant in any of them.

That Steep, Really...
Uploaded by toastfloats

I think the only thing more annoying than a Facebook friend who plays Farmville, participates in every poll, and feels compelled to Share every link in their feed, is a relative who insists that Facebook is the anti-christ, refuses to check their pages, and then whines that they have no idea what's going on in your life because you "don't write any more." Wake up and smell the bits, people. The letter is dead. Frankly, so is the phone. If you want to know what I had for lunch, by all means look it up. I have absolutely no privacy any more, but don't expect me to spoon feed you. This is a pull economy. If you want it, pull it down; I will never send it to you again. You should be thanking me for not filling your life with a monthly, landfill-worthy missive detailing the size of the growth on my nose and the length of the seaweed on Don Quixote's transom. It is so much easier to avoid my drivel now than it ever was before. Just get Facebook to stop displaying it. Oh wait… good luck with that.

Techies know Facebook is crap, hate the cascading absurdity of Facebook's privacy setting changes, and would like to put a gun to head of every Zynga developer and executive while forcibly requiring them to grow strawberries on a real farm surrounded in singing and dancing middle school students dressed as badly drawn mange characters. Nevertheless, it is foolish for us to believe it is going to go away or that we can convince our family and friends of the superiority of any other social network. What we need is time. In the list of great where are they now social sites, we have Orbit, LiveJournal, AOL, and -- perhaps most memorably -- MySpace whose decline and fall signals in my opinion one of the greater triumphs of form and function over sheer numeric dominance. Like Rome, the British Empire, and American Hegemony, Facebook will ultimately fail to be replaced by something even yet more inane and intrusive.

As long as it includes a heads up display and lets me down vote the bitch who cut me off on the highway this morning, I'll be there.

School Just Isn't

2011-12-27T12:34:00.000-08:00

Mera Goes to High School
Uploaded by toastfloats

It is time to close the Don Quixote Academy. Homeschool for the Conger family is over. There are two major reasons for making this move: social and financial. While we have met many great homeschooled teenagers, there are definitely some advantages to socializing your children with the great unwashed in the soup which is public high school. Every bit of frustration and mediocrity and pettiness they experience in a big institution will go towards thickening the skin in preparation for leaving home and heading out into the much more challenging working environment. Also, good high schools have opportunities for sport, performance, and hands on science which are almost impossible to replicate in the homeschool environment.

Then there are the financial and professional motivations. We have drained the cruising kitty bone dry. College and/or trade schools loom on the near horizon with almost literally nothing in the bank to fund them. Don Quixote herself needs some expensive upgrades and maintenance. While DrC’s salary is good and we live simply and small, saving is slow with one income. Two would be considerably faster. Moreover, I want to work. I’ve been on sabbatical for a very long time. Even with the contracting, getting back into the professional world will be a difficult and slow process. Women who off-ramp to raise children are inevitably penalized, professional careers damaged sometimes beyond repair. The longer I go without full time work, the less likely I will ever be able to obtain the kinds of responsible management positions which are my favourite way to earn a living.

So, long ago we made the decision to close our homeschool and send the girls to public school on returning to New Zealand. On our arrival, we immediately went to the local schools to enrol the girls only to come up against a number of obstacles. First, it is near the end of the school year. For kids Jaime’s age, exams were about to start. No one saw any point in Jaime attending school for a week and then stopping. Second, the intermediate school refused to enrol Aeron. They said she was too young and must attend primary. Aeron just isn’t primary school material – she’s bigger, more mature, and academically near mid-high school.

This leaves us with only Mera. Mera started school two weeks ago. She attends Takapuna Grammar School as a Year 9 student. Year 9 in New Zealand is roughly equivalent to 8th Grade in the United States except kids in Year 9 attend with all the high school kids. Secondary school as a result is 5 years long – Y9 to Y13. Takapuna Grammar is a high decile school which basically says that we live in a posh neighbourhood with a lot of families who are well-educated and send their kids to university.

While it isn’t a sure bet, high decile schools in New Zealand are generally thought to provide a better quality education as well. Active, engaged, educated, and wealthy parents are highly correlated with good schools. Apocryphally, there are statistics, damn statistics, and reality. While Takapuna is a high decile school, it is still a public high school. There are a lot of children, few teachers, and an insane amount of aerosolized human hormone. While there are lots of really smart kids and probably some fantastic teachers, the pill sorter process which dumped Mera into classes during the final weeks of the school year has ensured that my daughter doesn’t get to see these academic pearls. Mainstreamed into the general school horde, Mera is largely unimpressed.

Part of the problem is that we run a rather strict homeschool. When it is time to study, we try to keep quiet, listen to each other, focus on our work. In the classes Mera attends, students speak out of turn, the teachers yell to little affect, and there appears to be a complete and utter disregard for the learning process. Another issue is the incredibly poor quality of the course materials. Mera mastered the subjects covered in her year 9 textbooks years ago. In fact, the entire tone and level of the books seems grossly dumbed down. I would swear we’ve been using age appropriate texts to teach the girls, but you would never know it comparing the materials used in Don Quixote Academy with those used at Takapuna Grammar. I would be hard pressed to find a lesson in either the science or math books that Aeron has not already mastered long ago, let alone Mera.

Yet, Mera insists that the best thing is to remain at the school in the mainstream classes. Tests for accelerate courses are given later this year, and she has already spoken with the dean to ensure her opportunity to take the placement exams. During the short time before school adjourns for summer, Mera intends to concentrate on learning about the school and making friends. She believes that were she to transfer classes, her efforts to fit in would be seriously hampered.

Rescuing Discovery -- Again
Uploaded by toastfloats

Fair enough. Mera’s probably correct. We don’t really care if she learns much academically during this next month or two anyway. While she may be light years ahead in history, social science and English, she still hasn’t grasped even the basics of being a teenager. Example? Jaime nearly despaired of Mera ever passing Cell Phone 101 after we discovered that my middle daughter had left the thing in the car on a trip to the mall. So it is a very constructive use of her time just meeting people and figuring out how such strange and perverse creatures as high school teens function. For Mera it is an immersive, foreign language experience.

After all these years of worrying if we were “keeping up with the Jones,” it is clear that we drastically overshot the mark. Yet, it doesn’t feel that way. The girls don’t seem abnormally smart or clever. They are bright, healthy kids with reasonably good study habits. It makes sticking to our “close homeschool” plan extremely difficult. It is hard to know if we are doing them any favours enroling them in schools which hardly appear capable of understanding my girls, let alone educating them. Can any amount of socialization balance the fact that they will effectively be treading water intellectually for years until their peer group catches up? There really is no way of knowing.

I do know that I never thought when we started homeschooling that one of the hardest bits would be stopping.

*Update: Another article written during the November push for NaNoWriMo (which again I completely failed to get anywhere near 50K). Mera is out for the summer, accepted into the Y10 accelerate classes for next year. We'll see.

French Class

2011-12-12T09:26:00.000-08:00

Our Little Girls
Uploaded by toastfloats

Aeron and I walk hand and hand down the street past a bake house, dollar stores, and hair cutteries. We have many errands to run. The priority is to get new printer cartridges so that we can print our passport photos, but it would also be nice if we could swing by the hardware store for a bunch DrC requests, the little art shop for felt, and into a dollar store for fold up umbrellas.

However, we are both brought to a halt by a glorious odor wafting across the street. Noses go up, eyes brighten, tails wag. The Conger girls have the scent.

Aeron is the first on point, “Over there!” Arm up, finger out, the baying begins.

“Bread!”

“Cake!”

“Cookies!”

Getting closer, the tone of the call changes, “Pastry!!!”

“Ooo…. French pastry. It’s FRENCH!”

Now we are both on point, every fibre of our bodies vibrating in tune to the scent. This isn’t just any bread shop. This is advertising itself as an Authentic French Patisserie. Aeron and I stand quivering on the threshold. We are not allowed in. The rules are that we are not allowed in. The Rules say that we can find places like this but to both reduce expenditure and the probability that we both balloon into fin whales, we are to refrain from patronizing stores of this sort unless the entire family is out on parade together.

So now the rationalization begins. It is an authentic French pastry shop. I spot the signs in front of the pastries. “Aeron, c’est une patisserie.”

Aeron is wise to my ways. She looks up and nods thoughtfully. “Wee, mam on. Ill yah dez bag its.”

I repeat correctly, “Oui, il ya des baguettes.”

Aeron tugs my hands. She doesn’t like to speak French in front of people. It’s obvious, however, that she wants to practice her French in the shop.

I ask, “Aeron, parlez-vous francaise?”

She frowns, “Oui. Je parle francaise.”

Heh, now we have a path to yes. I allow her to drag me into the shop. Pointing to the placard in front of one of the glorious pastries I tell her the New Rules, “Translate the names of these pastries, and we can have one. Translate at least three.”

She starts with the obvious, “Éclair is an éclair.” Of course, it is.

“Bien!” I’ll take it. At this point, I will take anything. The aroma in the shop is an intoxicating blend of fresh bread, sweet French pastry, and newly ground coffee.

Aeron peers at another – the pasty in question looks like a double-decker cream puff drizzled in fudge – and sounds it out, “Rel-ig-eh-ah-sit-ee choclat.” She ponders this for a moment before the light dawns, “Religious chocolate!”

We both laugh in delight. She has not only translated a second placard taking us that much closer to heaven, but we might also have found our treat. What could possibly taste better than religious chocolate?

Now comes the moment of truth, the challenge which actually makes this lesson a true educational experience. “Mille feuilles,” I say. It’s hard. It’s really hard. On the up side, she studied numbers last week and today we had read a short story about Clouchette (Tinkerbell) making a net out of feuilles cerne (oak leaves) and tigues bamboo (bamboo twigs). It’s possible she’ll get it.

Drinking Junk
Uploaded by toastfloats

Frowns, sighs, and frustrated little looks, however, throw doubt on the question. Aeron doesn’t look like she remembers any of the morning’s story. In the meantime, I am salivating, eyes glazing over as a Napoleon and mocha head off towards the back table. I can’t stand it and a hint pops out, “Mille is a number, remember?”

Aeron rapidly runs through all the easy number, “Un deux trois” then forges into the more challenging ones “vinght, trente…” before stumbling desperately. I intervene before disaster can strike, “Math… remember your math!!!” Please remember… And “Cent mille” trips off her tongue.

We are both hopping a little in place now. We can both feel it, victory just out of reach. The tension is high, the stakes higher. One word. One word! “I don’t know this one do I?” she asks me.

“You do,” I assure her. “You learned it this morning!”

A light dawns, her clever little wheels spin greased by the hint, “Not a twig. Not a net. Not a fish. Not a rock. It’s a leaf!... Leaves! Thousand leaves!”

Even, the ladies behind the counter cheer as I order our café au lait and religeuse chocolat. They speak French themselves and were delightfully aware of our bumbling attempts to justify our presence. The marchande leans across the counter as I pay and suggests, “Maybe she could write us a letter next time…”

Introducing Rugby to the Congers

2011-12-09T12:09:00.000-08:00

Time to Become Kiwis
Uploaded by Toastfloats

Rugby is the national sport of New Zealand. Sure, they play many sports here. In fact, New Zealand as a country produces world class athletes in any number of sports, not to mention the fact that if a sport is bat shit crazy, it was probably invented here (e.g. bungee jumping, zorbing, jet boating, and jogging). But if you ask the average Kiwi, “What is the national sport?” I suspect most would say rugby.

Prior to coming here, my impression of rugby was a rough and tumble sport played by strapping young men in Ivy League prep schools on green fields in the Northeast. Like polo or lacrosse, it felt distant, not a sport for real people but rather something celebrated amongst old money families in tony locations not accessible to the rest of us. Of the rules or method of play, I knew next to nothing. If I thought about it, I might have speculated that the sport was something like a cross between soccer and smear the queer – a game whose offensively politically incorrect name provides the all the insight necessary into the basic rules. I liked the shirts, though. I remember my favourite purchase from the college clothing shop at Berkeley was a blue and gold rugby shirt emblazoned with a Cal Bear. That thing wore like iron and lasted forever.

Real rugby, the rugby played by everyone outside the United States, is nothing like what I thought. It’s something like proto-football crossed with soccer and spiced with a bit of WWF. The players are HUGE, incredibly fast, strong, and indestructible. The play is rapid and exciting. The rules are utterly baffling when they are not simply amusing: “Penalty: Not removing hand during maul.” Perhaps most importantly, many of the guys are drop-dead gorgeous and without all the padding of American football, you can actually see them.

Watching rugby requires first that you learn an entirely new vocabulary. Scrum, maul, lineout, knock on, ruck, sevens, try, set piece.,, There are so many terms that English as a Second Language sites often include a separate rugby word list. For Americans, it also requires a willing suspension of disbelief. In this case, you must accept that no lawyers are ever going to have an opportunity to bring a suit in any court regarding any aspect of the game. Ever.

Because if the lawyers got involved, the game would cease to exist. Basically, you take a lot of very large, very muscular, very fast men, hand them an oblong ball, and say, “Go. Just… GO.” You can throw the ball (which is done a lot in underhanded tosses which look very odd to devotees of basketball or American football), run with the ball, or kick the ball (a risky manoeuvre due to its peculiar shape). You can jump on an opposing team member trip him, slam into him, and even grab him by the balls and twist hard (as long as no one is looking). Basically, the only thing you can’t do to the other guy is throw him in the air. The rules book is long, complicated, and even the most experienced commentators and players frequently look at the referees in blank incomprehension when a call is made.

For those just getting started, the two basic plays are “lateral the ball until you can find a break in the opposing line” followed by “slam into the other guy and then all pile on top of one another.” There is something like a drop kick which is used frequently to move the ball down to the other end of the field and something like a punt which somehow sometimes inexplicably results in a score. They also have this bizarre bit where the “don’t throw the other guy in the air” rule is suspended while players throw their own team members into the air to catch the ball coming into the field in what looks like a variation on a basketball jump ball.

Kau Laka! [Let's Parade!]
Uploaded by tokisioamerica

Never mind the rules, rugby is seriously fun to watch. We are completely hooked. DrC and I watched a few games during our first year in New Zealand, but we became real fans during the 2011 Rugby World Cup. On our arrival to Tonga, we were greeted by a sea of red and white clad cheering Tongan fans. Tonga played New Zealand for the opening game… in Auckland. With New Zealand hosting the World Cup this year, we were torn: root for our future home or for our present anchorage. This decision was made quickly when we discovered that the entire country essentially shut down for the day to decorate the streets, parade around, and hold massive, noisy parties absolutely everywhere. Prudence dictated that we wear the red and white of Tonga for the night. We watched the game with a bursting crowd of screaming Tongas, ex-pat Kiwis, and bewildered American cruisers at a bar on the water front where we drank beer and took in the Opening Ceremony. Tongans were so proud of their team yet so gracious as the All Blacks inevitably beat the crap out of the Tongan team.

After that, it was all rugby all the time. We caught the USA vs. Russia game during which we handed the Ruski’s their heads. Oh, yes… we too were surprised that the U.S. even fields a rugby team, let alone one capable of qualifying for the World Cup. We watched Tonga beat Canada and then were absolutely delighted to watch Tonga go on to beat France. Everyone should have a chance to beat the French at something. It’s good for morale. Not so good for our spirits was the depressing Australia vs. USA game during which we were reminded that all the big guys in the States gravitate to football leaving the rugby team about half the size of their Oz opponents.

We arrived in Auckland the day before the final game: New Zealand vs France. You have no idea how horrible it would have been for New Zealand to lose that game. The entire country has been in a fever of All Blacks All the Time for over a year, the tension building to an intensity that bordered on a psychosis. The game was a nail-biter, and in all honesty; The French won. They played better. The score, however, was in the All Blacks favour so the entire country stopped biting our nails, sat back, drank another Tui, and started arguing over whether or not Richie McCaw deserves a knighthood.

Now we have to pick a home team. Like everything else with rugby, we’re completely bewildered. There are rugby teams and leagues all over everywhere. Hard to know where to start, but I suspect we’ll try to find the AA version of rugby where we can afford the tickets and don’t have to go to far to watch a game. My Kiwi friends tell me it’s a better game when you can see what’s going on away from the cameras. And you can smell the blood…

Guessing is Good

2011-12-06T11:14:00.000-08:00

Wild Aeron
Uploaded by toastfloats

"The answer is two," Aeron informs me.

"Really?" I peer at the problem. "Are you sure? How do you know?"

"I guessed."

Aeron can appear the most guileless creature on earth. She widens her eyes, smiles at me, and hands me the mathematics book to sign off. She is ready to burst out of the room and into the spring sunshine.

Today is typical of this brief interlude in Bayswater between our arrival as cruisers and our future as liveaboards. By February, the entire family will be fully engaged in work or school. Right now, however, we were divided in our lifestyles. DrC is already hard at work doctoring, Jaime is in her first real job scrubbing the deck of a mega yacht, while Mera attends high school for a few weeks. Only Aeron remains in the Don Quixote Academy, only I remain as her teacher. After breakfast each morning, we move to the cruiser lounge hoping that the change of scenery and the smell of coffee from the vending machine will put us in the right frame of mind.

The solitude and singularity is hard on my youngest. Aeron is a very social creature. She talks, plays, listens, and sings. She has an extraordinary amount of empathy which extends beyond care of her family and to friends, fellow boaters, and now her new liveaboard neighbors. She wants more than anything else to spend the day with like-minded individuals in a state of sound and constant motion. Instead, I have to pin her down like bug to a board and force-feed her grammar, science, math, and French each morning. She struggles, pouts, and inevitably throws at least one attitude tantrum. These occasional storms of stubborn nastiness, infrequent features of our entire homeschooling life, have become a daily occurrence. My patience is fast vanishing, her love of learning is already gone. We merely tolerate each other these days.

I chew my lip. There are two options here. I agree with her guess or I don't. The first option leads me to the next phase of the day during which Aeron runs around like a wild animal in the parks near the marina while I slog away at boat chores and immigration paperwork. She is happy; I am happy. The second option is going to lead to a ripping argument between my daughter and myself as sure as poop stinks. So. Decisions decisions.

"Let's do the problem together," I say plucking the workbook out of her hands and setting it on the table. "You're probably right, but we need to know why."

"No we don't."

I look up at my daughter. She repeats, "No. We. Don't."

Mama Whale with Baby
Uploaded by toastfloats

Good point. We really don't. The number of marbles required to make a cube translated into the number of bananas is not particularly helpful to anyone at any level. Yes, we are seeing here an outstanding attempt to introduce algebra painlessly to an 11 year old. On the other hand, define painless.

"Are you sure?" I make one last ditch attempt to be a responsible parent and teacher.

Aeron states positively, "I am absolutely sure. Guessing is good."

I nod thoughtfully. There is a time and a place for everything. And here, now, this is not the time or place to learn algebra. "Guessing is good."

Working for the Man

2011-12-02T08:04:00.000-08:00

Ferried Around
Uploaded by Toastfloats

DrC started work last week.* It was a bit of a shock when he gave us all good bye kisses on his way to start the first day. For six months, we’ve rarely see him wear a shirt, let alone all the trappings of civilized society. He smelled delicious… all shaving cream, deodorant, and shampoo. However, he looked so peculiar in his dress shirt and slacks, leather shoes, and combed hair. We hardly recognized him.

The commute for the good doctor is a long one. He walks 100 feet to the ferry dock. There is a 10 minute ferry ride across the harbour to downtown Auckland. There he walks across the street and down the stairs to climb on to a commute train heading south. Unfortunately, this is where things slow down as the train ride is 45 minutes with another 15 minute walk at the other end. The trip takes an hour and a half each way.

I don’t like it. I don’t like that three hours of his day is ‘lost’ to commuting. I hated it when I had to make a similar journey myself, and I can’t imagine he enjoys it any better than I did. On the upside, we’ll have his iPad replaced by end of this week. With wireless available on the train, he should be able to do all his reading, email, and news while on the train. The commute also has the advantage of not requiring his attention at any time, e.g. at least he doesn’t have to drive.

Driving from here to anywhere is horrid. Bayswater and Devonport are on a narrow peninsula jutting south into Waitemata Harbour. The entire area is densely populated, wealthy, and ridiculously posh. It is served by a single narrow road from end to end. The commute hours of 7 – 9 am and 3 – 7 pm are an absolute nightmare along this route. Aeron and I decided during the first week that we run errands between 9 and 3 or we refuse to do them at all.

DrC’s absence has been hard on the SuperClinic. Combined with some illnesses and vacations, the clinic is way way behind. They had our captain doing surgery the first day. Every day since has been absolutely chock-o-block. He comes home looking completely beat by the commute and work day, grim, quiet, and exhausted. The back log at the clinic will clear over time. He will get used to the commute. Working will get easier. Right now, however, the long hours and hard work are hard on him. I sympathize, but inside I am selfishly cowering a bit in dread and fear. That picture of exhaustion will be me in a matter of weeks. After years of sabbatical and contract work, soon I too will be putting in those days, those hours, that effort. Poor me.

I started the job hunt process this week. Either I am looking at the listings differently or there are more opportunities this time. The job boards offer some promising options. I still haven’t completely committed myself to full time permanent or contract. I miss having a regular ‘crew’ of co-workers – colleagues with whom I can develop lasting relationships and staff who I can hire, train, and pass on to bigger and better things. On the other hand, contract work is so much more flexible, the time commitment less and allowing more opportunities for adventures with my girls and husband. It’s still a toss up. I suspect that the decision will have more to do with fate and opportunity. The best option to open up will be the one I leap on, wrassle to the ground, rope up and drag home.

* Actually, it's been several weeks now. NaNoWriMo got me way ahead on my writing.

Where the Hell is the Floor?

2011-11-28T10:48:00.000-08:00

Smug Captain
Uploaded by toastfloats

“I can’t get it,” I irritably inform my husband.

He retorts with some heat, “It’s right in front you!”

“Yes,” I agree with just the right amount of sarcasm, “I can see that it is right in front of me. And between me and the tool you want are 15 boxes, 5 pieces of plywood, a bag of cat litter, a large pile of dirty laundry, a snarl of rope, three fenders, and an unknown number of unmatched shoes.”

Yesterday, we retrieved the trailer from our friend’s house in Pukekohe and unloaded all the precious gear on to the boat. We’ve decided not to keep the trailer. For the cost of a rental space, we could buy the trailer and everything in it twice year. If it doesn’t fit on the boat, we have to get rid of it. Until then, the girls and DrC dumped all the gear into the cockpit for sorting, analysis, storage, and purging.

I question where my head was last February. Did I really think we were going to have any use for a radiant oil heater? Where the hell did I plan on storing not one but two electric whisks? And all these appliances with New Zealand plugs… what moron saves them for 8 months in a trailer to be used on an American boat?

Like a gopher with ADHD, DrC’s head pops up out of the transom and he points, “There. Walk there. You can get it from that angle.”

What is called for here is a yard sale. Challenging at best given that we have no yard, I think I can get rid of the vast majority of this crap by simply leaving it on the dock. There is a bench, in fact, at the gated entrance to our dock which is used as a sort of freecycle repository. Some of the items can no doubt be sold for cash on trademe. Others should just be taken directly to the trash.

“Can I throw away your old shirts?” I ask my husband, apropos of nothing apparently.

His head bounces up. “The needlenose pliers,” he reminds me.

We are combining two households: our accumulation of land-based goods from our year in Chicken House with the remnants of supplies purchased in Mexico to take us across the Pacific. It occurs to me as I pick past the rough ends of the plywood that we may never again need to buy soap, hand lotion, or bug repellent. I am not sure why the hell I ever thought we would wash our hands while sailing across the Pacific. “Big ones or little ones?” I ask, having finally reached the tool box.

“Both.” Smart man. He may not need it, but he knows there is no chance in hell I’m going to go back to the tool box after the first run.

As I retrace my path back to the 1 foot square clear space in the cockpit, I come to a decision, “Dean, we’re going to sell the children to make room for your tools.”

Bayswater -- Our New Home

2011-11-24T10:45:00.000-08:00

Bayswater Marina
This is a file from the Wikimedia Commons.

Bayswater Marina is located across the Waitemata Harbour from Auckland proper. For those familiar with thegreat bays of the western United States, this is equivalent to livingin Sausilito, Berkeley or West Seattle. The view of the city skylineto the south is stunning, the air is crisp and clean, the bay is fullferries, small fishermen, and yachts at nearly all times of day.

The marina itself is a big half circledredged into the surrounding tidal low. It is stuck out on the end ofthe thumb of the Bayswater peninsula. There is no protection fromprevailing wind and very little from large wakes generated by passingferries. This would prove problematic in a more aggressively nastyclimate, but in Auckland it is reasonably comfortable. The marinahosts 7 docks and nearly 1200 boats ranging in size from the enormousfishing trawler Tom to a swarm of small power boats.

Our marina hosts quite a fewliveaboards, including at least two other families with children.Most of us are on docks F and G as these docks support larger craftwith attached water and power. They tell us we are extremelyfortunate to have a liveaboard slip in Bayswater. Unlike Seattle andSan Francisco where increasing NIMBY legal pressure is restrictingliveaboards, the problem here at Bayswater is simply one ofinfrastructure. The shore facilities – laundry, showers, andtoilets – can only support so many liveaboards. The staff herefeels that we are more than a little over capacity, so they arestrictly restricting new boats and families and in fact have a verylong waiting list. We’re allowed only because I put our name on thelist over a year ago.

However tight we might have slid underthe deadline, the folks here have made us feel incredibly welcome.While we are only beginning the process of getting to know our fellowliveaboards, our relationships with the office staff, dock crew, andharbour master are already strong and positive. The whole lot of themare incredibly helpful, friendly, and supportive. Problems disappearwhen I walk in the office and start chatting with Ed or Magdelena orKezia. I really like these people.

Which is good, because without a happydock crew, I fear Don Quixote would not be an easy boat to slide intothis marina. For one thing, we don’t fit. We never quite fit, buthere we really don’t fit. First, they put us in an 18 metercatamaran slip way out at the end of the dock. Fantastically privateand with enough wind to keep us going 24/7 with all the lights on,the computers plugged in and both fridges chugging away, it justwouldn’t suit for the long haul. For one thing, the 10 minute walkfrom deck to shore is fine in the mild spring and summer weather, butI fear it would have been a heinous slog in winter sleet. Moreimportantly, they were charging us an 18 m price for that slip. We’rean 11 m boat. We were almost paying double for the privilege ofprivacy and a freezing walk.

So they kindly moved us all the wayfrom the outermost slip to the innermost slip. This is what happensto catamarans. We get the outside or the inside. Now we arepractically under the dock ramp. This puts us directly undereveryone’s eye, including all the dock crew. Good and bad, right?If we have to stretch, bend, or even break a few dock rules, we’regoing to get caught instantly. For example, technically we are notsupposed to dry our clothes on the boat. But, we want to hang thetowels for an hour or to dry after we use them. On F74, no one wouldsee. On F3, well it’s rather obvious, isn’t it. We look like Po'White Boat Trash. Luckily, the staff is all Kiwi attitude all thetime. At least with drying, it’s hard to imagine why the “no dry”rule was ever set up in the first place. This is a country wheredrier ownership is considerably less than really big, fancy BBQownership. But the best bit on this inner slip is the very shortwalk, and did I mention ½ the cost? Dogz knows that if DQ breaksfree or starts to smoke, the entire marina will be on her in a secondto help.

The only real problem is that we arewedged in so tight into this slip that we literally can not get inand out on our own. We also shouldn’t – potentially even can’t– get out on a low tide. I feel like a dumpy lady trying to fitinto a bridesmaid’s outfit two sizes two small. Maybe once I slidemy fat ass into the satin, I’ll look super good… or maybe I’lljust look like mutton masquerading as lamb. To make matters moreabsurd, the slip next to us has been converted from two slim slipsinto one monster wide for the beauteous, brand new, blindingly clean,14 meter catamaran P’zazz. She’s the bride, and she is dazzling.

If you’re thinking of spending a fewdays or a week here, the facilities are pretty good for mariners.Nice lounge, ferry to Auckland on the same dock as your boat, strong(though moderately pricey) broadband wifi to your boat, super wellkept shower ($1/5 min) and laundry ($4/load wash, $4/20 min dry),24/7 security and gated parking. The downside is that there areabsolutely no services within walking distance to Bayswater. We’reat the end of a suburban desert. You can ferry into town or you cantake a bus, but there is no walking to get groceries. I can drive youaround, if you’d like, but not for too much longer. I really needto get a job.

Speaking of jobs, Jaime immediatelyfound gainful employment with the marina. She is working every dayscrubbing decks and docks, cleaning the parking lot, and doing otherman-about-the-marina labour. Her boss and co-workers appear quitehappy with her work, and she is delighted to finally earn enoughpocket money to keep herself in the electronic and clothing style towhich she would like to become accustomed. It’s all good.

Rough Weather Off the North Island

2011-11-16T10:22:00.001-08:00

Auckland - The City of Sails
Originally uploaded by toastfloats.

Oddly enough to us, practically the first question of every Kiwi on learning that we recently sailed across the Pacific from North America is: “Did you have any really bad weather?” Generally, this isn’t the first question asked by Americans. Americans ask us about pirates, sometimes about banditos and avian bird flu, and memorably once about the availability of Starbucks coffee in Puerto Vallarta.* Experienced cruisers don’t ask either type of question since the answers are well known. Instead, they ask which islands we visited on the crossing and have we yet found a cheap place to do laundry.

Kiwis focus on the weather. This is smart. New Zealand coastal weather is challenging at best. At her worst, New Zealand’s coasts kill boats, boaters, and fishermen with a dreary regularity which provides a steady trickle of articles for page three of the New Zealand Herald. I believe it might even provide enough work to qualify as a journalistic beat. Of course, by far the majority of vessels and individuals lost are very small motor craft and weekend fishers. A well-founded cruising yacht which has already proven herself transiting the world’s oceans with a crew that is alert and on their game is unlikely to come to too much grief. Listen to the regularly broadcast weather reports, pay very close attention to your charts at their most detailed setting as most of the coastline is distressingly shallow and littered with obstacles, and do not get cocky.

Because New Zealand is likely to offer a global sailor some of the worst weather seen since leaving the Pacific Northwest or the Caribbean on the front end of the hurricane season. She certainly served Don Quixote a quick smack in the face translated as roughly, “Wake up you idiots! You’re not in the tropics anymore.” While it is difficult to say with precision since our wind instrument head unit abruptly died in Tonga, we estimate that we saw the highest wind speeds of our entire journey while making the passage from Whangarei to Auckland.

Not surprisingly, we were out in the rough weather because of a calendar. It really can not be said enough times: The most dangerous piece of equipment on a cruising sail boat is the calendar. We were under direct orders from BioSecurity AND Customs to get ourselves down to Auckland by Friday. BioSecurity wanted us to get Dulcinea into quarantine; Customs needed us to import the boat since we were not applying for the temporary import permit used by most vessels entering the country. As a side note, if you are planning to import your yacht into New Zealand and you are going to try to do so under the Work visa personal goods exemption, you must do this in Opua or Auckland. Details details.

It was leave Thursday or not leave until Monday which clearly would not suit New Zealand officialdom, so off we went in spite of rather nasty weather reports. We knew going into it that Thursday would entail very brisk winds from the north sweeping us south at high speed while Friday would clock the wind around 180 degrees and hit us on the nose for the last 20 miles into Auckland. Unlike the vast middle of the planet, the weather reports from Whangarei to Auckland are frequent, broadcast on VHF radio every three hours, and quite accurate out to 3 or 4 days. Trusting the reports, we knew that the trip was going to be unpleasant but completely within our wheelhouse.

The trip was precisely as predicted. On Thursday, we put up our downwind sails wing on wing and sped south roughly 60 NM. We were chased by a truly ominous black cloud virtually the entire time. At one point, we were clocking a steady 10 NM speed over ground. With no swell, virtually no wind waves, pointed downwind with probably 35 knots gusting to 40 behind us, I’m not even certain we could have slowed down if we wanted to. We made the trip in record time. For those keeping score, 10 NM is ridiculously fast for Don Quixote, and we haven’t seen 40 knots since we left the Oregon coast in 2008.

Friday was much much worse. We got up early to make the last bit into Auckland in time to get all our paperwork complete by mid-afternoon. As we rounded the corner into the Whangaparoa Passage, it was clear that the forecast had been depressingly specific and accurate. It was blowing 30, gusts to 35 but now straight on the nose. Rounding the point, it might have been worse as spray was blowing off the tiny wind caps and straight at us. We attempted to tack back and forth for awhile. I stopped looking at the knot meter. Why bother. We suck going upwind. We were making 7 to 8 over ground but our speed towards our destination was virtually negative. Eventually, we gave up, pulled down the sails, and motored into the teeth of gale. Unlike the prior day, the channel in this area caused a seriously nasty tidal current vs. wind wave action so the entire 20 miles was spent in a banging, bashing, smashing slog. We arrived in sunny, breezy Auckland beaten to a pulp and exhausted.

This is normal weather at this time of year off the west coast of New Zealand. It isn’t even particularly exciting to the locals. Yachtsmen here, like in British Columbia, Washington, and Oregon have a wary and respectful relationship with their coastline. High tide swings, shallow seas, and thousands of islands, islets and rocks require experience and caution. I am not at all surprised that New Zealand sailors are some of the best in the world. Just navigating their home waters is an incredible proving ground.

This area is also tremendously beautiful and extremely fun to navigate. There are pocket anchorages all over everywhere. The holding for anchors is mud, mud, and more mud putting us back into gunkholing mode. Little towns dot the coastline complete with parks where a cruiser can land a dinghy and go for a walk-about. Small volcanoes dot the seas and spear up on the horizon, wildlife is abundant, and they tell us that the fish leap on to the hooks. We’ll stick to crabbing and mussels since the only thing we do worse than sailing up wind is catching fish.

But it will all have to wait. The family is united on precisely one thing right now. We do not want to go sailing. We absolutely do NOT want to go to some pristine, quiet anchorage and enjoy each other’s company. Stick a fork in us. We are done.

* Yes, there is a Starbucks in Neuvo Vallarta at the mall outside the marina. However, no… they do not sell whole bean coffee. I am not proud I know this.

Beach Access Arrives in Auckland
Originally uploaded by toastfloats.

Exploring: Whangarei and Marsden Cove Marina, NZ

2011-11-13T11:44:00.001-08:00

The Girls Contemplate Our New Home
Originally uploaded by toastfloats.

The quarantine dock in Whangarei where you can check into New Zealand is located at Marsden Cove Marina. This is found at Marsden Point, near the mouth of the Hatea River. It’s just past the oil refinery and enormous timber yard. The channel both into Hatea River (S35 52.880 E174 32.550) and then into the marina (S35 49.707 E174 28.585) is well marked and well lit allowing for a night approach if you feel compelled to do so, though as usual I would prefer to avoid it if possible.

Before arrival, give Whangarei Maritime Radio a call on VHF 17. If you call them on 16, they’ll make you change to 17 anyway. Just for manners, it helps to pronounce Whangarei at least close to the way the locals do: fon’-gar-eh. Swallow the ‘n’ if you can and give that ‘r’ the tiniest bit of a roll. If you speak with a Texan or New York accent, prepare in advance to spell your boat name several times. “Two countries separated by the same language…” (probably Bernard Shaw)

If checking into New Zealand, make your way directly to the quarantine dock in Marsden Cove Marina. It is clearly marked to the left of the entrance as you come into the marina basin. You do not need to leave your boat. If you’ve called into Maritime Radio, Customs and BioSecurity will arrive in short order. Cruisers including ourselves report the check in process as quick, friendly, and relatively easy, particularly if you are prepared in advance with your paperwork, an inventory of your items, etc. I wrote this up in detail if you’d like more about our own experience. After you check in, you can either head up river to the Town Basin or spend the night in Marsden Cove Marina. The marina graciously offers the first night free, so there really is no point in moving after a long passage from Fiji or Tonga.

The marina has all basic amenities but is well nigh impossible to live in for the long haul unless you have a vehicle. In the small, adjacent retail mall, you will find a nice little café, a liquor store, a tiny chandlery, and a place to get your hair cut but you will not find any place to buy food stuffs to replace your Biosecurity depleted stocks. Make sure that before making the passage, you squirrel away some canned goods that will pass Biosecurity so you’ll have a bite to eat your first night. Showers are $1/min, laundry $4/load, and wireless Internet at the boat with a very strong signal but prices that make Tonga look cheap. A very nice service offered by the marina is a $20/day plus gas rental vehicle. Make arrangements at the office in advance as the vehicle is understandably in high demand. The fuel dock has both diesel and gas and is self-serve requiring an EFTPOS or Visa with pin to use.

Marsden Cove Marina is quite a distance from Whangarei itself. It takes about 20 minutes to drive to town from the marina and one to one and a half hours to make your way by sailboat up the river to the Town Basin. Even so, it is a good place to stop for a few days, maybe even to settle in for the duration if you are more inclined towards quiet and privacy than convenience and boat services. Increasingly, cruisers planning an extended stay in New Zealand move into this marina, buy a car, and live comfortably in the new, well kept, and very peaceful facility.

If we were still in cruising mode, I think I might be more inclined after a few days to move from Marsden Cove into the densely packed urban Whangarei Town Basin. There are several marinas, but if you plan an extended stay it makes good sense to make reservations well in advance. From the Town Basin, all the services of a very active, prosperous community of nearly 50,000 people are within walking distance. Grocery stores, dentist and doctor offices, boat services, every possible type of restaurant and shop, hair cutteries, Internet cafes with cheap broadband… after over six months at anchor, it’s like landing in a little slice of retail heaven. The downtown area of Whangarei displays what I feel are the best characteristics of New Zealand commercial areas. While on the edge you’ll find a few big box stores and large super markets, the inner town is eminently walkable with many small retail outlets, dollar stores, banks, and places to grab a quick bite or a long sit. It is also very Kiwi, very New Zealand. While a bit larger than most, you’ll find precisely this style of town center in nearly every town and village throughout the country. We love spending a day drifting along the streets, poking into toy shops and shoe stores. It is so much better than visiting a mall.

In addition to the advantages of being in town for all the services and shops, the Town Basin is also chock-o-block full of companies catering to the boat trade. I can’t even begin to do just to the long list of services and goods available there, so just go to their web site. We plan to go back in January to get a bunch of work done ourselves. If you’re going to be there, please let us know. Any excuse to get off the boat while it’s on the hard. Really. Any excuse. You could pull my teeth even.

But What About the Cat?

2011-11-08T12:15:00.001-08:00

Nautical Kitty
Originally uploaded by toastfloats.

Getting Dulcinea into New Zealand has proven at least as frustratingly difficult as hysterical reports in the cruising blogosphere made it out to be. Despite (or maybe because of) a recent major overhaul of the process to import a cat or dog into the country, the amount of work we have undertaken to bring our pet on this journey has almost made me wish we had left her in Seattle with our friend Greg permanently.

Disclaimer: I am not an import/export specialist. I am not an employee for New Zealand MAF BioSecurity. Do not take anything I write here as The Word on importing your pet. Go to the web site yourself.

The timeline and requirements provided by MAF BioSecurity are pretty confusing, but you can parse them out if you are very careful. The bottom line is that the animal needs a microchip, rabies and rabies titre test, and all sorts of either less serious shots and tests which owners generally administer in any case. All this work needs to be done before you leave North America. The following are the gotchas that got us:

Microchip Type – New Zealand insists that you use an ISO standard microchip. Unfortunately, this standard is relatively new and still not standard, if you know what I mean. Particularly in the United States, many vets administer microchips that do not follow this precise standard. Wiki has a great article if you want to read about how this nonsense all came about and why many American cats and dogs are now running around with multiple chips in their ass. In short, make sure your pet has a 15-digit microchip number and that the chip is scanned and appears on absolutely every scrape of paper relating to your animal.

USDA Stamp - An American animal needs to be USDA approved… sort of like a chunk of beef. You can have your local vet (or any vet for that matter) actually complete all the work. However, you need to then send your paperwork to the nearest USDA veterinary to get a USDA stamp for the application. This stamps isn’t actually a stamp but more like a notary embossment. If you plan to send your paperwork to MAF via PDF or fax, use a soft pencil to darken the stamp so it appears on copies.

Timing is Everything -- Mexico and probably every Central and South American country are decidedly not on the “good country” list. These countries are either uncontrolled for rabies or New Zealand has no idea and is taking it for granted that rabies is in every dog, cat, squirrel, and toddler. You do not want any of those countries on your itinerary within 6 months of your arrival in New Zealand. If it’s a question of sitting off the coastline in the teeth of a 40 knot gale and 5 metre seas for that critical extra day to make it 6 months, I would suck it up and stay off shore. Do not worry about any of the South Pacific islands as apparently they are all on the “good country” list. Actually, this one didn’t get us, but it could have. We were in Mexico 6 months and 2 days prior to our arrival. As it was, it has still been an issue we have had to explain over and over and over again.

Ship Log -- Even though there is no requirement written ANYWHERE that you must do so, BioSecurity is requesting a ship log for every vessel we have spoken to which includes a record of “every berth since leaving the USA.” Now there are several problems with this request.

1) Did I mention that this is not a requirement? It falls into some vague elastic clause which translates as ‘whatever BioSecurity feels like asking for’.

2) Most ship logs are effectively illegible to anyone but intimate family members since folks write in them at all hours, all sea conditions, and in their own cryptic familial short hand.

3) “every berth” What is a berth in this context? Anchorages? Mooring balls? Docks? I’m not clear that they understand that most boats don’t actually touch land for the 6 months between North America and New Zealand. We were in precisely zero “berths” as I think of them – a dock in a marina.

4) “since leaving the USA” Really? Some boats are arriving here after kicking around the Caribbean for a few years, passing through the Canal, and then heading off. Some of have been up in the South Pacific for years. And the law actually specifies the aforementioned 6 month interest in the pet’s location.

I think that the new rules are causing MAF BioSecurity to develop new policy and procedures for private yachts. That is not a bad thing, obviously, and it will surely settle down and be documented in future years. This year, however, it’s a little awkward. Georgia J actually copied their ship log. I pushed back a bit and delivered a summary of all our country entry and exits as well as the brief times tied up to check in to Tonga or take on fuel. I think all vessels arriving with an animal should just pre-emptively supply this information in as easy to use a format as possible. It makes complete sense that they’ll want to know where the animal could have been exposed to diseases since leaving the vets in North America. It makes no sense for them to be wasting time pouring over our insanely detailed descriptions of location, weather conditions, whale sightings and sail changes.

Worms and Fleas -- First, let me state unequivocally that New Zealand hosts some of the most aggressive fleas on the planet. We have friends whose own pets are testimony to the power of Kiwi fleas. To protect this uniquely nasty and pernicious local population, your own animal must be absolutely flea free on arrival in New Zealand. If it is not, the vet at the quarantine facility will make sure it is by bathing it in a toxic soup. If evidence of fleas are found, the process is repeated 14 days later. Same goes for worms. The 14 days is the kicker. If your animal arrived completely parasite free, there would be only a single treatment and the pet released in 10 days. Since every day in a quarantine facility is buckets of money. It behoves you to try to deworm and de-flea your pet before making landfall… perhaps in your copious free time as you sit at Minerva Reef waiting for a good weather window.

* * *
We still do not have Dulcinea, though we are currently scheduled to pick her up on Saturday.* I’ll believe that we are clear of this process when I can hear her scratching her table post in the middle of the night. On an up side, at appears our marina has a firm “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy on liveaboards with pets. We’ll keep her boat-bound for the first two weeks, after which we’ll start letting her out at night to prowl a bit. We hope to train her to stay on the boat during the day, out in the evenings.

We have friends to thank – Greg and Deb – for helping us through this incredibly challenging process. Had it not been for Greg in particular, I think we would have had to shave her and pretend I had borne a mutant baby somewhere along the trip. He assures me that it will all be worth it when she’s settled back on Don Quixote. The girls and DrC agree. Next time we import a pet, however, I’m going to make them do the paperwork.

Next Post: Exploring: Whangarei and Marsden Cove, NZ
* We picked Dulci up. She's settling into her marina life, purring a lot, spending most of her time curled up on the bed in our room, and has only managed to fall off the dock once. Literally stretched and rolled herself off the dock... backwards.

Yes, We Really Are Married

2011-11-06T15:02:00.001-08:00

Banana Grin, a photo by toastfloats on Flickr.

Strange as it may seems, New Zealand does not accept a marriage certificate as proof of partnership. Instead, we must prove our relationship in other, sometimes odd and convoluted ways. One of the requests is for:

"Letters of support from family, friends, employers, or others who can confirm your relationship. The writer should include name and contact number."

They also want:

"Photos of you together, especially with other family/friends or at significant events."

I thought this might actually be kind of fun. If you want to play, please send me a Facebook message, blog link, email or even *gasp* hard copy with your letter of support. By all means, include photos. The more detail you provide about the "genuine, stable and ongoing relationship" between DrC and myself the more potentially entertaining and useful your contribution. If you want to share your support with more than just NZ Immigration, go ahead and put it somewhere public but please send me your contact information for the authorities.

Thanks everyone!

Hardcopy should go to:
s/v Don Quixote
Bayswater Marina
Bayswater, Auckland, NZ 0622

Clearing Customs and MAF BioSecurity

2011-11-03T21:59:00.001-07:00

That Steep, Really?
toastfloats on Flickr.

It’s been a quiet week here in Lake Waitemata, where all the women are working their buttocks off and all the children are more annoying than average. The long hiatus from blogging, jotting down notes, tweeting, and acting like a civilized creature of the social media age felt good. It felt necessary and proper. However, now I’m ready to get back to work.

When we last left our intrepid heroes, Don Quixote was dodging shipping traffic off the coast of New Zealand inbound to Whangarei. We had been motoring for several days in an effort to zip ahead of a truly nasty looking weather system. I have since learned from experienced Kiwis that our experience was quite common. On the Tonga/Fiji to New Zealand passage, a sailor frequently must choose between converting the vessel into a slow inefficient motor yacht or getting smacked around by an ugly weather system. So my advice to sailors planning that passage is to load a lot of extra fuel. We burned 50 gallons of diesel between La Paz and Nuka’alofa over 6 months. We burned 70 gallons of diesel from Nuka’alofa and Whangarei in less than 10 days. By the time we made landfall, we were running on fumes and wishing we had loaded more of the jerry cans.

As it was, we barely landed before a storm rolled over us. In fact, the wind began to pick up while we were on the quarantine dock. We had to hustle to get shifted into a slip before the wind topped 30 in the marina. I do not want to think of what was happening out in the open seas. The Georgia J following in our wake reported one of their most miserable nights at sea as they headed into Opua about 36 hours after our landfall.

Clearing through Customs and MAF Biosecurity was considerably easier and more rapid than we had been lead to believe. New Zealand’s biosecurity process has a reputation as fiercely protective, an agency whose broad mandate and list of proscribed items reads as “everything including the kitchen sink”. Fair enough, but in practice, what our biosecurity official seemed most concerned about were meats, dairy, and anything that could sprout. Beans, for example, only needed to be thrown away if it were possible to grow more little baby beans. Same with rice, polenta, and flour.

Even in the case of dairy, the rules in the guides read as though anything with a scrape of lactose would be categorically ejected. In practice, dried and canned milk products must be clearly packaged, labelled, and commercial. We had to throw away a few scrapes of opened cheeses, and we emptied the boat of the last of the veggie and fruit bits, freezer burned meats, and skanky snapper before making landfall. BioSecurity took our alfalfa seeds but not the sesame seeds, left us with all our various flours and grains, and checked the oven to make sure we weren’t hiding a half-roasted chicken (something he said he’d found more than once). He only looked in the bilges and lockers we notified him either had held or currently held food products. He looked at all our local crafts, checked for bugs and egg sacs, and then passed them back without comment or concern.

Now, BioSecurity did make clear that they have the right to be considerably more thorough and conservative. In some cases, the team does bring a dog trained to sniff out contraband. What considerably aided our clearance was that I supplied BioSecurity with a complete inventory of all items on the boat – including their location on the vessel – that could remotely be construed as falling under their jurisdictions. Mind you, this list included all diving gear and fishing tackle, hiking boots, snorkels and masks, crab pot, an inventory of native crafts skimmed from the markets in Mexico, French Polynesia and Tonga, and an exhaustive list of every food item we kept. By declaring everything, our agent could quickly and easily determine what needed his attention. It’s a lot of work, but it seems to make the entire experience much less harrowing.

We even declared our “controlled drugs.” It used to be that travelling with a well-stocked medical kit was illegal in most countries. Codeine, morphine, epinephrine, many steroids, and even some antibiotics are controlled drugs virtually everywhere. A sailor would have to attempt to “smuggle drugs” from one country to another and hope that if the narcotics were found embedded as they were in a sea of bandages, salves, and other medical equipment, the local authorities would look the other way.

At least in New Zealand, this is no longer necessary. Declare your medical kit. Supply it for inspection if requested. Do not hide, in other words. While we were clearly importing controlled substances, Customs seemed very understanding of the needs of globe trotting sail boats and not even slightly interested in taking our medications from us, let alone hauling us off to the nearest jail.

Next Post: But What About the Cat?

Boats on the Horizon

2011-10-15T12:02:00.000-07:00

The ocean is starting to get busy. The geography of New Zealand means that the closer you get to Whangarei, the more convergence there is amongst all the possible routes taken by commercial traffic to and from this country. To get to Auckland, you pretty much have to cut through all the shallow small islands at Whangarei and take a wide channel down to the city. If you can imagine all those freighters with Blue Bell chicken chips and Anchor butter, canned corned beef and Wattie's soups off to the Tahiti, the Cook Islands, Niue and Tonga to supply all those scantily stocked and ridiculously expensive dairies, then you can imagine that approaching Whangarei is tantamount to poking your bow into a beehive of commercial boat traffic.

This is one of those moments where I strongly regret that Don Quixote does not carry two items of equipment now seen on the well-stocked cruising boat: AIS Tx/Rx and a SeaMe radar repeater. The Automatic Identification System is essentially 'whois' for boats. Hmmm, only computer geeks probably understood that analogy. Let's try this again. Every boat has a unique identity in the global system of radio communication. With an AIS transceiver (Tx), a boat broadcasts this electronically to every boat within several hundred miles -- and incidentally but totally pointlessly except in certain limited emergencies -- to all airplanes as well. The announcement says important things like your boat name and size, location, heading, speed, and registry. With an AIS receiver (Rx), these signals are detected and then plotted on a heads up display. They are often incorporated into your helm navigation station in boats with newer electronics packages. AIS is internationally mandated for all vessels over a certain size. I do not know the size off hand, but think Big. When Don Quixote was commissioned, AIS Tx was illegal for small craft. I guess the thinking is that we would clutter up the display. We met cruisers in Mexico with AIS Rx which they swore saved them from getting run down like chickens on a Tongan street by freighters and cruise boats. Now it is legal for even small craft to own both send and receive. Next time. I like the notion of being able to call out a boat on the horizon by name.

The SeaMe radar repeater we have only seen once on a boat named s/v Catacaos. Lorraine and Graham are registered out of Jersey (look that one up -- a country, not a state). Graham is a coastie for Jersey, and someone who's nautical acumen I trust deeply. I don't know if I'm spelling this correctly, but they had what sounded like a "SeaMe" radar repeater. What it did was sit there passively doing nothing until it detected someone else's radar signal. Then it lit up and started to broadcast a very loud return. Catacaos was one of the most visible boats ever to appear on our radar with a stronger, more steady return than even the floating islands known as cargo containers. Our radar has trouble detecting land, but it had no difficulty telling us precisely where Catacaos was out to 12 miles. I want one of these. Better than being able to call a boat and get its attention is to be so "loud" electronically that the boat's own navigational systems alert the driver.

For these last few hundred miles of our cruising life, however, we are powerful radar toy-less. We've made it this far, so I am optimistic we'll manage to dodge traffic through our last overnight. We are, however, going to light the boat up like a Christmas tree: nav lights and salon lights. We'll be highly visible in these clear, relatively flat seas. If the wind holds, we have roughly 150 miles to Whangarei where we will first give everything of edible value to customs, then anchor the boat, and then find someplace with Indian take aways. I am so ready for a good curry.

~ Toast
Distance: 130/1155/1347 Vava'u to Auckland Day: 15
33 43.00'S 175 45.61'E - Rhumb line to Whangarei
Oct 15 2011 18:30 UTC

Still Not There

2011-10-14T12:14:00.000-07:00

For no reason I can currently understand or justify, I left my favorite gift of all time with our trailer in New Zealand. Jaime made it for me two years ago. It is a large fleece poncho,blue and tan pattern of indeterminate purpose. She cut a hole in the middle for a head, reinforced the neck line, and cut and tied knots along the edges. It's the world's ugliest poncho. I slept with it over my head and shoulders every night in New Zealand. I deeply, profoundly regret leaving it there. The temperature last night dropped rudely and precipitously to 62. So much for one degree at a time.

We are not running the heater for these last days as originally planned, because we were unexpectedly run down by a ridiculously large high. Yes, after making three days of record time, Don Quixote dropped ourselves into 300 miles of bright, cold sun and flat calm seas. Normally, we'd just sit here and wait for the wind to build again. Not this time. In a few days, this beautiful calm vista -- right here where we are currently squatting -- is going to be run down by a very nasty low bringing with it rain, thunderstorms, 5 meter (that's 15+ feet) swells, and 35 to 45 knot winds.

Needless to say, we are not letting moss grow on the boat. Actually, we are. Seriously, that whole analogy with moss and rocks is a land thing. Turns out the faster you go at sea, the more you feed the barnacles, fungi, and other assorted greens and live things growing on vigorously on the hull. In any case, we fired up the motors and ground away the last 36 hours in a somewhat feverish attempt to get far enough south to slip below the low before it comes in. This is something we haven't done since we left Mexico. Come to think of it, I can't ever remember grinding away continuously for so long. It's wearying in a whole new way, mostly due to vibration and sound. I suspect it would be like taking a 36 hour plane trip. Dull, loud, and it makes your nerves vibrate unpleasantly.

Keep in mind that like many catamarans, Don Quixote has a relatively low fuel capacity. We supplement with jerry cans as well as the 12 gallon separate tank used for the heater. Routinely, we try to carry about 100 hours of fuel and our maximum is only another 25 beyond that. To motor from here to Whangarei is about 20 hours (and 100 NM) more than the balance of our fuel. So obviously the first safety measure is to reserve our heater tank in case we need it. The crew look like a bunch of tanned sausages stuffed into dirty blue and white and grey fleece rolls. We are baking today -- twice. Even the cat is taking extraordinary measures and actually *gasp* slept with a crew member last night.

So it was with relief that DrC and I put out the jib this morning and got us moving under sail. The longer we sail, the sooner the mathematics of passage making and safety will let us turn ont he heater.

~ Toast
Distance: 124/1075/1347 Vava'u to Auckland Day: 14
31 48.78'S 176 59.06'E - Rhumb line to Whangarei
Oct 14 2011 18:30 UTC

Ignorance is Speed

2011-10-10T12:05:00.000-07:00

Distance: 165/453/1347 Vava'u to Auckland Day: 8

Yesterday, we made 165 miles. I may be wrong, but I think that's our single fastest day ever. We averaged roughly 6.8 NM/hour. Now normally, when the boat is rocketing along at 6 to 8 knots, we look at the wind anemometer, get super nervous, and reef ourselves into oblivion. However, the B&G wind transducer gave up the ghost about 2 weeks ago. We have no perfect idea of the wind speed. As a result, we've had to fall back on sailor senses: wind in the face, sound of the wind generator, feel on the helm, white capping and wave heights, riffles on the water. In the absence of scientific, objective evidence that the wind is high, we're looking at the boat and conditions exclusively. Don Quixote looks good. On this beam sea with short period short wind waves, she's happily chugging along at 7. This means that we could have crossed the Pacific in roughly half the time we actually took. So now we know. Don Quixote isn't slow and stupid. Her owners are.

This leaves us with an interesting dilemma, however. We calculated a 10 day passage. At this speed, we'll make landfall in 7 and change. Thing 1) Do not count the wind before it lands on your deck. We probably will not be lucky enough to enjoy these fantastic sailing conditions for five more days. Thing 2) What am I do with all this fresh produce? We can't take any of it into New Zealand. Today, we live on salad and papayas and coconuts. And coconut, papaya salad.

We are now on the magic third day at sea. This is the mythical last day of misery after which the body adjusts to the motion and wonky hours. I believe I have already explained that this is very similar to the mythical forgetfulness of post-partem mothers who blithely reassure their partners that "It didn't hurt... or at least I don't remember it hurting." The best that can be said of passages is that eventually you run out of ocean and into the hard bits on the edges where you finally, blessedly, stop moving. Weather considerations have motivated us to blow right past Minerva Reef and straight on down to New Zealand. This routing might result in us making landfall before boats who left a day or two ahead of us. Oceans are weird that way.

~ Toast
24 19.40'S 178 20.92'W - Rhumb line to Whangarei now
Oct 10 2011 18:00 UTC

Savor the Moment

2011-10-09T11:24:00.000-07:00

Distance: 288/1347 Vava'u to Auckland Day: 7

I remember very clearly the first time I ever sailed on a catamaran. DrC and I had already committed to buying one and sailing away. We had chartered a Fountaine Peujot for day. However in typical Pacific Northwest fashion, the day was bright, beautiful, and utterly windless. So that wasn't the day. No the first day I sailed on a catamaran was on a Lagoon 410 by the name of Sun Baby. It was owned by the Kerns, a family who were in the last stages of their own preparations for a cruising year in Mexico. While we took another year to get out there, this was not our only time on Sun Baby as the second owners cruised with us, and we enjoyed sundowners on her deck several times.

The first sail was perhaps appropriately and a moderately blustery day in Elliott Baby. Dan got the sails up and the boat trimmed on a course for Eagle Harbor and we took off in flat seas at an exhilarating rate. The girls and I donned life jackets and sat on the tramp with the wind our faces. DrC gave me a hug. He didn't say anything. He didn't have to. We were all trying to put ourselves on that tramp in a dreamy but eagerly awaited future. The sail was quick, without swell or wind waves. We went out, we tacked and went back to dock. We had a drink and all smiled at each other somewhat smugly and self-congratulatorily. I think we peed at the beautifully appointed restrooms on the immaculately kept grounds of Elliot Bay Marina on our way out. It was marvelous.

That sail had about as much to do with ocean cruising as an Imax movie has to do with hiking to the bottom of the Grand Canyon.

For some reason, however, the memory of that first sail was delivered sharply on my mental doorstep yesterday afternoon. Maybe it was simply the closure of the experience. The first sail on a Lagoon and perhaps the last truly big sail on this one. It might have been a trick of the light. Or it might simply be in contrast to some of my other musings as I sat at the helm on a close reach with the wind at 12, the sun shining, and nothing to gaze on but the dwindling lump of Tongatapu receding behind us. One thought that occurred to me is that I used somewhat obsessively and compulsively calculate our travel distance in terms of remaining fuel. There was always this thought that if we ran out of fuel, what would we do? As if somehow, we would get stuck by the side of the road in the desert of ocean between Mazatlan and La Paz and have to walk with a jerry can to the nearest gas station. What would we DO? Well, try putting up the sails. Don Quixote is, when all is said and done, a sail boat. She sails. Another thought that wafted through was that Biosecurity better not be too picky about bugs. I think we have dead bugs all over the walls of all three cabins after our visit to Ha'apai and Tongatapu. Little bloody smears it is going to take bleach, elbow grease, and a putty knife to remove. I also calculated the various permutations of meals it is possible for me to assemble using a can of French ham, half a bag of rice, 2 cups of wheat flour, and the 28 eggs remaining in the galley but not permitted into New Zealand.

So much for savoring the experience.

Minerva Reef is roughly 250 miles south and west of Tongatapu. It is very close to the rhumb line for a southbound vessel following the standard pilot recommended target of 30S 175E then due south to your port of entry. The wind blew hot and cold all night running us sometime up to > 7 knots and then moderating till we were creeping along at 4. It looks like we're averaging about 6 and should make the reef sometime tomorrow morning. The question of whether to stop or push on will be decided there. As of now, the weather looks good all the way down, so we might just run it straight through. We might have to in any case. The kids hate canned ham.

~ Toast
22 01.70'S 176 45.53'W En route to Minerva Reef, SSB 6224.0 at 0700 UTC for updates
Oct 9 2011 18:00 UTC

Do Not Check Out of Nuka'alofa

2011-10-07T14:49:00.000-07:00

Distance: 187/1347 Vava'u to Auckland Day: 5

Do not under any circumstances check out of Nuka'alofa.

I can not be any more clear than that. Please everyone cruising TAKE NOTES (and forward to NZ bound friends). Check out of Neiafu. Spend a week or two enjoying Ha'apai. Then go directly to New Zealand. Do not pass Nuka'alofa. Do not collect $200. Just go.

We spent all day ALL DAY in various offices trying to get checked out of Nuka'alofa. For our pains, we spent a ridiculous $235 pa'anga to legally leave the country. This is after the $200 some odd we spent getting into it. The largest expense was a port fee for using the rat invested, muddy, and smelly mooring available in the harbor. They charged us $4.36/pa'anga per gross ton -- which unfortunately for us is 31. Most monohulls will pay considerably less because GRT is based on volume rather than weight which is a legacy of the freighting industry. The price is not dependent on the amount of time you spend, however, so I suppose if you parked there for a month, it's a reasonable fee. The HM Customs guy is almost never in his office, and after three visits, we just parked our stubborn bottoms on their bench until the office workers hunted him down. To get duty free fuel we went to -- and I am not exaggerating... I know I usually do so let there be no mistake here -- six separate offices to get the right paperwork, approvals, stamps, signatures, and blessings.

The town itself is outside of normal walking distance being at least 2 km to the west along the water front. Town is an unavoidable journey since it is there you will find the Immigration office. You can take a taxi for $5 each way. There is no Internet available near the boat, and every cafe in town that advertised wireless services was also fronted by a sign that said their wireless was not functional. There is a Dataline Internet store where you can buy incredibly slow access at $1.50/15 minutes on computers that looked like they were 20 years old and whose keyboards should be put out of their misery via the expedient of bathing them in acid.

There are restaurants along the water front, most of which are on the pricey end of the scale. On an upnote, there is a daily fish market just across from the Med moor line as well as opportunistic local farmers who line the street to sell their wares. The veg and fruits available on the water front as well as those available at the large market downtown are considerably more diverse, better quality, and lower priced than those found in Neiafu. The market downtown also supports a diverse number of artisan and craft sellers whose prices are highly competitive and with whom you can bargain vigorously for a last few trinkets and souvenirs. You can find a marvelous bakery across the street from the downtown market. There are many hardware and a variety of food stores downtown. So provisioning is a bit of a shlep, it is easy enough to find what you need and bail into a cab for the trip back to the boat.

There are few interesting places to anchor in the Tongatapu group. None of them are really viable in a big wind or swell. We are having no difficulty, of course, because as of two days ago, the wind engine delivered an enormous layer of fat, wet clouds and then turned off to leave them sitting pleasantly and helpfully over the watermelon fields of Nuka'alofa. The watermelon is thriving and delicious. Our boat needs to be picked up by a giant hand and wrung out like squigy.

~ Toast
21 05.42'S 175 09.38'W Fao, Tongatapu, Kingdom of Tonga
Oct 7 2011 21:45 UTC

A Long Distance Grind

2011-10-06T16:17:00.000-07:00

Distance: 185/1347 Vava'u to Auckland Day: 4

Yesterday we motored. All day. On the upside, DrC wanted us to burn off the rest of our Mexican diesel. Now I am not saying that we haven't bought fuel since we left Mexico. We have. We just haven't bought a great deal. DrC estimates that we have purchased 50 gallons since we left North America. Until yesterday, we have never been less than half full in the tanks. Now we're down to a fifth in one and a quarter in the other. It is time to fuel up. Tongan diesel from Nuka'alofa is reasonably priced and has a reputation as relatively clean. We'll top up both tanks, the heater, and all the jerry cans and then add preservative to the lot. What we do not use on the trip south, we'll burn over the winter in our heater.

By far, the majority of our fuel has been 'spent' on making water. You could really think of all that diesel as being converted to laundry, pasta, and cocktail ice. Our port engine burns approximately 75/gal/hour during which we can motor at a speed of 4, charge up the batteries (including all the rechargeables and the laptops), and make 30 gallons of water. I figure that given our capacity of 72 gallons, add the 50 we bought, subtract the 17 still in the tanks, and we've burned 105 gallons of fuel, motored 560 miles, made 4200 gallons of water, taken 1000 showers, charged our laptops 500 times, and washed the sheets once.

People ask all the time, "How much fuel do you need to cross the Pacific?" It varies widely. The dependencies are wind, weather, and mood. We know cruisers who sail everywhere. They do not have refrigeration or water makers, they never bathe. They probably burn 10 gallons of fuel to get across used exclusively to anchor and pull anchor. Others turn on the iron genny whenever their speed drops below 5 knots. They have two fridges, make water every day, motor from anchorage to anchorage, run the engines to watch T.V. Heck, some boats out here are *gasp* power boats. They motor everywhere. Don Quixote is somewhere in the middle of these extremes. We try to sail all but the first and last mile. We try to live off our renewable power sources. We get shore water when it is available and the math works so that it costs less than water maker water (e.g. free). Yet, we're not shy about turning on the motors in very light winds. We motored a lot in Vava'u, for example, where the protected waters makes for a Puget Sound-like dearth of usable wind. So to answer this question for your own boat, you must ask yourself about your personal habits, your willingness to bob in the middle of the ocean for a day or two, your standards of cleanliness for both your boat and your bodies.

And then there is the wind... because as obvious as it may sound... you can't sail if there is no wind. Sometimes, like yesterday, you have to go from point A to point B on a schedule and the Wind Gods fail to cooperate. If you are Don Quixote, you turn on the motor and grind the day away. We spent nearly 7 months avoiding such demands on our time. If you don't plan to meet a friend or family member, don't schedule a plane or make a rendezvous with another boat, you can dodge such days completely. Just wait until the wind engine turns back on again, then sail from here to there for free.

But even the most footloose boat will eventually have a schedule to meet. Our visas run out on Friday, October 7. We had no choice but to arrive in Nuka'alofa on Thursday night so that we can spend DrC's birthday dealing with provisioning, customs, immigration, and the bank. After that, our schedule urgency diminishes. While we really want to arrive in Auckland before November 1, we have nearly 3 weeks to travel 1,100 miles. The wind looks super light for the next two days, so we might go around the corner, hide behind an islet and wait till some breeze blows up. Only a low with a squash zone just off the North Island coast is likely to force those motors back on before we arrive in the Auckland Harbor.

~ Toast
21 07.45'S 175 09.80'W Nuka'alofa, Tongatapu, Kingdom of Tonga
Oct 6 2011 18:30 UTC

Don't Bug Me

2011-10-05T12:04:00.000-07:00

Distance: 120/1347 Vava'u to Auckland Day: 3

I really hate mosquitos. They can take an otherwise picture perfect location and make it absolutely miserable. Last night, we were attacked by a swarm of killer blood suckers. These things only attack when the wind is light or non-existent. So everyone was already sweltering in the cabins, slowly dissolving in puddles of sticky sweat. Then muzzzz buzzz whiizzzzz, the sound of an aerial assault triggered frantic door shutting and screen positioning. We then beat the sides of the boat into submission as we smacked roughly five million, blood filled mosquitoes onto the white fibreglass roof of the cabins, there to remain as a Rorschach testimony to our terminal stupidity in parking downwind of an island with a known history of flying insects.

We're leaving Ha'apai today on the edge of a rather squally trough. It's wet and cold and windy. I wish we could have lingered in this chain, and I strongly recommend to those who follow in our wake to plan better. Provision up in Neiafu and spend time in the Ha'apai group. Miscellaneous uncharted low spots notwithstanding, it is really nice down here. No provisions, no bars, and no boats. Just anchorages in every direction where you can drop off the transom and enjoy an afternoon of snorkeling. Every place we've stopped (albeit it was only three), we've been able to dally in a coral forest. I suspect this area is a paradise to divers as well given the many islets and reef walls. So make a point of giving yourself a few weeks down here before you head south to Nuka'alofa.

We did not. So here we are motor sailing to the big city. It's 60 miles downwind from last night's anchorage at an island called Nomoua (don't ask me to pronounce that). Tomorrow will be a flurry of activity as we fuel up, provision, check out, and please pray to all the gods of bureaucrats get the cat's import paperwork. The weather window is perfect for going to New Zealand if we'd left day before yesterday. It's not clear it will continue to hold. It does appear that we're good to go at least to Minerva Reef where we could wait to see what develops.

Is it my imagination or is the water already getting colder?

~ Toast
20 23.03S 174 52.98W
Oct 5 2011 18:30 UTC

Threading a Reef Needle

2011-10-04T12:20:00.000-07:00

Distance: 95/1347 Vava'u to Auckland Day: 2

We had a very pleasant, flat and easy downwind sail on the spinnaker yesterday. The only problem is that we were winding our way through an unconscionable number of rocks, reefs, islands and underwater hazards. Geography is a bitch. Like all Tonga, Ha'apai is along a ridge line which stretches north to south. This ridge towers over the surrounding oceanic valleys, never mind the incredibly deep trench just east of here. Sailing the Ha'apai group is like flying past the tippy tops of a mountain range. This mountain range blocks swell and no small fraction of the wind from the east, but it poses its own hazards. Occasional ridge lines stretch out westwards from the main north south line pushing into our path. It's just part of the entire experience that most of these tops are not actually above sea level. Fortunately, the charts are reasonably accurate and shallow spots can generally be spotted from a distance.

We only had a near miss with the sea bottom once. Needless to say, it was an unnerving experience. We were sailing downwind at about 5 knots in gentle winds. The depth was out of the range of our depth sounder, so easily over 500 feet. There were shallows marked off to the starboard and the port but we were threading between two islets so there was reason to be cautious. I was on the helm at the time, of course. These things always seem to happen when I am on the helm. I think the fates do this to give DrC someone to yell at. Doing a horizon scan, I see just ahead an abrupt change in water color that I swear had not been there a moment before. The angle of the sun can make a huge difference in these situations, and this shallow spot just wasn't visible until we were basically on top of it. I shout to the family, glance down and without transition from "no reading", the depth sounder registered 180, plummeted to 70, then 40. The family scrambled on deck, DrC pointing to the starboard. I turn the wheel over as the depth dropped to 20, then 15, then bottomed out at 6 before heading up again. DrC unnecessarily called, "We're over it."

No shit.

6 on our depth sounder means that there was an uncharted shallow between these islets at a depth of 10 feet. At 10 feet, a coral head can easily grow up into keel grabbing height for our boat, let alone our monohull brethren with their deeper drafts. Jaime patted my back and noted that that was, "Quite a nail biter, Mom." Oh yeah. I was shaking a bit. Turning back, the shallow was obvious for nearly half a mile. Of course. Angle of the sun. For a few moments, I think DrC wanted to tear a strip out of my hide, but then he looked forward and realized the problem. The sea was an unremarkable dark blue in every direction facing forward even though we knew there were additional shallows to port and starboard. It was only looking back that the sea was broken into large puzzle pieces of blues, turquoises, pale greens, and reef tans. Coral heads we had safely passed showed in sharp relief against the shallow sandy bottom while it appeared as though everything ahead was over 600 feet down. By such small graces, I escaped a lecture.

So all I can say is be careful when transiting the Ha'apai group. It is very pretty here, quite remote, and the snorkeling is magnificent. It would also be quite embarrassing for you to get your boat all the way from North and Central America and run the thing aground on the last leg of the journey. We'll try to avoid that little humiliation today for our last hop before heading for Tongatapu. I also think that if the visibility is poor, I'm just going to put DrC on the helm and save myself the stress and bother.

~ Toast
19 56.1S 174 42.8W Haafeva Island, Ha'apai, Kingdom of Tonga
Oct 4 2011 19:00 UTC

Passage Through Ha'apai

2011-10-03T11:06:00.000-07:00

Distance: 67/1347 Vava'u to Auckland Day: 1

Somehow even after all this time I still fail to calculate passage times realistically. We gave ourselves a week through the Ha'apai island chain then we left a day late. What we -- okay I -- failed to count was the following:

* One full day 65 NM day to get to Ha'apai
* Another full 60 NM day to get from Ha'apai to Tongutapu
* At least two sails of > 25 miles to move from place to place within the islands
* We MUST be in Tongatapu by Thursday night if we want to check out Friday

So instead of leisurely visiting some pretty, isolated islands in paradise, we're actually just doing a passage which happens to include a few stops. We have three stops here in Ha'apai, one in Tongatapu, one on Minerva Reef, and then we'll be in New Zealand. The entire trip should take about 3 weeks.

*sigh*

I mean that... not just a relaxed gentle sigh but a major, asterisked and punctuated *sigh*. I should probably even capitalize it.

On the upside, the girls don't do school on passages so they are delighted.

~ Toast
19 45.79S 174 20.75W Foa Island, Ha'apai, Kingdom of Tonga
Oct 3 2011 18:00 UTC (Oct 4 at 7am just to confuse things)

Running Hot or Cold

2011-10-01T11:17:00.000-07:00

Tonga is a beautiful place with amazing coral. It also has lousy weather in September. We are either baking in the sun without a breath of wind, or we are freezing in the overcast and drizzle with too much wind to be in any but the most protected anchorages. There appears to be no middle ground. Yesterday, we baked in Neiafu. Today, we'll move the boat in the brisk breeze down to some of the southern-most islands in the Vava'u group.

For those not familiar with Tongan geography, a very brief primer is in order as we are about to swing through the entire kingdom. The island nation is largely spread north to south in four major island groups: Niuas, Vava'u, Ha'apai, and Tongatapu. The population is roughly 100,000 with most of those living in either Nuka'alofa in Tongatapu or up here in Neiafu in Vava'u. Cruisers can check in and out only in Nuka'alofa and Neiafu. So geography dictates one of two major cruising routes through Tonga. If you are headed for Australia, you come into the Vava'u group and probably never visit any other part of the Kingdom. The Vava'u group features all the cruiser ameneties you need for a nice visit and provisioning stop before you continue on your way to Fiji, Vanuatu, and New Caledonia. If, however, you are New Zealand bound, this is your last country before heading in for the monsoon season. You check in to Neiafu, spend a few weeks tasting the Vava'u anchorages, then you make your way south. If you are hardy and the weather is cooperative, you'll taste the pristine and largely unpopulated anchorages of Ha'apai before you head down to Tongatapu. From there, you'll check out of Nuka'alofa, get duty free fuel but no booze (since you won't have time to drink it before arriving in Opua, Auckland or Whangarei), and then hang out until the weather cooperates for the passage south.

Obviously, we are on a very rapid version of the New Zealand bound trajectory. We've lingered in the Vava'u group because this is where all our friends our. Those headed to Oz had lingered as well enjoying last potlucks, sundowners and rugby games before the fleet splits in two. Those headed south are lingering because honestly, there is no point in heading south until the last possible moment. Who wants to arrive in New Zealand while it is still colder than Santa's butt on Christmas morning? We have put off leaving Vava'u until quite literally the last possible moment. In that time, we have had the pleasure of dinner with Catachaos, drinks with Casulo, and diving with Loose Pointer. There really was no reason to leave. Now there is.

We have a hard stop on our time in Tonga since our visas run out Friday. This is good. We need to go south to New Zealand anyway. The visa deadline is just another motivator. We'll head out today or tomorrow and work our way through Ha'apai and on down to Tongatapu. We'll probably only spend a day or two there. Ideally, our cat import permit will have FINALLY arrived. We'll also provision, fuel up, and get set up with others heading to New Zealand. Then I think we'll go almost immediately to Minerva Reef. I've been monitoring conditions out there, and it seems that Minerva has been experiencing a very steady run of good weather. As long as that holds, its several hundred miles closer to New Zealand and a better place to wait for the window south to Auckland. After that, we hold until we see something in the gribs that gives us reason to be optimistic.

We hear many theories on how to do this passage. They range from Two Amigos: "You're going to get hit, so you might as well just go." To Pelagic: "Head for 30S 175E and then hove to until you see a break in the weather and then motor south." To Hipnautical: "Wait in Nuka'alofa till you see the Kiwis pull their anchors and then leave. Follow them." Kiwis say online and in person that every time they do the trip, it is different. It's never fun, it's rarely horrible. While heinous squash zones -can- form with winds in the 60s and 70s, those are actually predictable and usually avoidable. More likely, there will be a day with 30 on the nose, a day with 30 on the beam, and a few days with no wind at all. Since leaving Mexico, we've seen 30 on the nose and on the beam and from behind, we've spent days in 5 meter seas, and we know what all of that looks like. It's not fun, but it's rarely horrible. We will be okay.

For family, it is time to watch the YOTREPS reports again. I will try to post our position at least once a day from here till we arrive at the dock in Auckland. Everybody please send us positive thoughts for fair winds and following seas... and cross all your tingers and foes for the timely arrival of Dulcinea's paperwork.

Playing in Champagne

2011-09-28T13:31:00.000-07:00

"So here's what you do," explains Aeron, her voice dripping sea water, snot, and enthusiasm. "You swim above daddy and you catch his bubbles."

This is one of those games that children invent that make us wonder whether we were ever children. It is so far outside our ken, that on the face of it we feel we might be a different species. Here I am snorkeling off a coral reef in paradise, and instead of toodling along looking at fish, anemones, and the incredibly abundant and diverse coral, I'm supposed to chase my husband around and pop his exhalations.

I am, however, a really good mother. In theory.

"Are there rules?" I ask my effervescent youngest.

She snorts, miraculously avoiding inhaling ocean, and waves her hand at me, "Nah! Just have fun!!"

I can do that. I line myself with the trajectory of the divers and start kicking to catch up. The reef here is astonishing. Somehow all those statistics of coral death left me with the notion that there is none left. Salty sailors who did this jump years ago bemoan the current sad state of affairs. But today -- here on anchorage #32 in the Vava'u group of the Kingdom of Tonga -- it's easy to forget the global numbers. The coral comes in every color, shape and size. There are leather corals, brain, and fans, soft and hard, small crystalline species and enormous bushes of stag. Everywhere I look there are bright, quickly moving fish. There are iridescent micro jellies and royal blue star fish, spiky purple anemones and the occasional shy octopus.

It is all very distracting as I learn moments later when I feel a sharp tug on my flipper. Surfacing, I am scolded, "Not that way. They dive deeper. Come this way."

Aeron drags me towards deeper water where the coral reef drops from the pleasant snorkeling depths of 5 to 15 first to aqua blue 20s and then darker and darker into the 30s and 40s, then the 50s and 60s. Just to our right, the floor of the ocean drops into oblivion, disappearing in a blue familiar to sailors and divers but otherwise completely indescribable. Little flippers lead the way along the reef and towards the dimly visible, slowly moving yellow rectangles far below, the only visible sign of our three divers is their fluorescent dive tanks. She is in a hurry, and I have to stroke hard, kicking strongly to keep up.

As a result, I am abruptly introduced to the dive bubble spot when I slam into the back of my child. We flounder for a few minutes in a tangle of neoprene clad limbs, plastic snorkels, and bubbles. The bubbles make it hard to sort long Conger limbs into two distinct swimmers. There are little bright balls of air everywhere, far more bubbles than could possibly be generated by our collision. I can clearly hear Aeron's giggle through the water as I try to figure out which direction is up. We bounce up, mask-to-mask, while Aeron clarifies the way to play dive bubbles.

"So you chase the bubbles and then you catch them before they touch the top," is her explanation. I look around at the froth of air fizzing around us, Aeron giggling at me, "No no... not these. The bigger ones."

Resigned to the idea of floating above an indistinguishable blue ocean chasing my daughter, I set off after her again, more slowly this time. A lens of pure bright crystal appears beneath us. It is roughly a foot across, shimmering and moving rapidly upwards. My daughter heads downwards and whaps it sharply on the top. The ocean resounds with a deep >bong< as the bubble shatters into a cascade of tiny spheres which surround Aeron like a cloud of seed pearls. Again, I hear her laughter, clear and crystal as the bubbles themselves.

I want one. I spot a likely candidate and head downwards. When my hand hits the top of the shimmering lens, its shattering resounds through my hand, up my arm, in my ears. The sound is different than Aeron's bubble, higher pitched. Mine was smaller. I speed off to the next stream of large bubbles, a series of distinct glowing lenses, each roughly six inches across. Pop, Pop! POP! It's like playing drums underwater. I have to come up for air. I'm laughing too hard to breathe through my snorkel.

Aeron greets me at the surface, her peels of laughter ringing across the sound of surf on the reef. She nods knowingly. That'll show her no play no fun mommy. "This is -awesome-, right?"

My answer is to speed off to find the divers. We pop big bubbles with deep resounding booms and little bubbles which make sharp sounds which do not carry far. We pass through frothy clouds of bubbles which feel like swimming in a glass of champagne. We swoop down on monster bubbles and stick our faces in them, briefly feeling a waft of air while 10 feet down under. We shoot up on jets of mid-sized bubbles which pop all over our bottoms and make us laugh shamelessly at the tickly sensation, like someone running feathers all over our legs.

We chase bubbles until our tummies hurt from laughing and our fingers turn stiff from the chill water. Then we turn back towards the dinghy, kicking gently over the coral aquarium spread out below in the slower, warmer, brighter reef edge. Aeron rests awhile floating like a whale baby, half draped over mommy back and hugging me tight. Her last tired laugh as we near the boat reminds me that we are the same species, a strange animal which laughs and loves and has opposable thumbs perfect for sticking in large bright dive-tank-generated bubbles.

The Party's Over...

2011-09-20T13:58:00.000-07:00

I woke up this morning with the startling realization that we only have two weeks left, maybe three, before we leave Tonga. While there is more travel ahead and many weeks before we are settled and working in New Zealand, there is really on a very short window of time before the cruising part of our South Pacific voyage is complete.

Two weeks is not very much time.

I often have the sinking feeling that I am missing something. Time passes and I wake up with a start struck nearly breathless with the recognition that everything is passing far too fast, and I am failing to make the most of it. Do not, however, for one minute feel sorry for me, or consider that these deeply unhappy moments serve no purpose. It is this precise sensation that drove DrC and I out of our middle class, type A lives in Seattle, on to the boat, and out to sea in the first place. While unpleasant in the moment, the impetus to look more closely at our lives and periodic carpe diem adjustments is a healthy one for the long term.

Recently, I have failed to take advantage of our cruising lives primarily out of sheer exhaustion. I am tired... profoundly, bone deep tired. I am tired of how hard it is to provision and feed the family. I am tired of dirty clothes and the incredibly taxing process of trying to make those clothes marginally less dirty. I am tired of cat hair and human hair and toe clippings. I am tired of sticky sheets and constantly worrying about the batteries. I am super tired of salt water, and I want to pitch my oven overboard. I am tired of long passages during which I sleep poorly, eat little, and worry constantly about the rigging, other boats, and the basic stupidity of my cat. I think probably I am most tired of yelling at my children whose notions of cleanliness, safety, and diligence are vague, slippery and loose adaptations with very little of the precision I would apply to them myself. I am tired of my husband wanting to have sex even when we haven't bathed in days, and I am tired of listening to the refrigerator cycle endlessly in a vain attempt to make ice for my evening cocktail.

This is trip is so long. It is long physically... stretching over 5,000 nautical miles and 8 months. It is also long mentally. If you are considering this voyage, it is perhaps one of the hardest aspects to prepare for in advance. The puddle jump is a marathon not a sprint. Small irritations which are endurable while cruising the U.S. coastline and Mexico where marinas and docks are widely available and reasonably priced, become long term challenges as you go month after month on the hook. The last time we had access to a water hose was mid-April. The last time we connected to shore power was late March.

In addition to practical considerations of convenience to shore services, endless supplies of high pressure fresh water, and easy connectivity to the Internet, many sailors sleep sounder while docked. It's not a matter of comfort but rather one of vigilence. When you are on the hook -- and even when you are on a mooring line -- you must always be at least peripherally aware of your surroundings. Even were you presumptuous enough to believe that your ground tackle is perfectly adequate and perfectly set, you can never say the same for all your neighbors. A cruiser who sleeps deeply, soundly, and oblivious to the weather, her vessel, and neighboring craft is in the long run a boat that is going to come to harm. We have seen boats come to grief out here repeatedly; we have seen others saved from disaster only due to the light sleeping habits of her crew.

So I am tired and ready to be done while simultaneously regretting every failed opportunity, every missed moment. I already feel a thread of desperate nostalgia for the time spent with girls and for the many times I could have been with them but chose instead to read or to watch a movie or to simply nap. DrC and I have brainstormed ways to change our land-based lives to avoid the helpless rat race of our former suburban existence. And living on Don Quixote will no doubt force a different mind-set just as it forces many changes in life style and consumption patterns.

Yet it will never be the same. We knew coming out here that this was the last trip -- the last trip with all three girls on Don Quixote, probably the last extended trip as a family. Soon, we stop homeschooling the girls, a shifting of the educational burden to the public sector which I dread deeply but also welcome as a huge relief as the work is endless and often thankless. We will stop traveling, a change which today I look forward to eagerly but which I know I will wistfully regret in a mere five months as winter sets in and all our friends sail north for warmer waters. And after nearly six years, I will stop being a housewife, a job I have embraced fully and accomplished with some degree of grace and efficiency but which I also secretly loathe. Jaime will leave us soon, Mera and Aeron not long thereafter. Even if and when DrC and I come out here again, there will be a different boat, a different call sign, and all our patterns will change without the combined burden and pleasure which are the children.

So the Don Quixote party is nearly over. We very much enjoyed the festivities, the wonderful company, the conversation and the snacks. We're sleepy and we have to go to work tomorrow. It's time to put the kids to bed, kick the pets outside, turn out the lights and lock the doors. It's time to be responsible adults again. Is it any wonder we're sitting here lingering over the last of our drinks pretending the morning will never come?

Take a Position

2011-09-18T11:54:00.000-07:00

Gravity works. It even works when you live on a boat over water. The invisible hand of wind moving you over the otherwise non-solid water might delude you into thinking that cruisers are a bit immune to physics. However, I can assure you that there are physical laws which apply to boats which your high school Physics tried to drum into you. One of them is clearly that gravity still works even on boats. Which means that if you drop something over the side of a boat and it weighs more than water and it doesn't have a convenient cup shape and it doesn't land with that cup shape pointing down and the opening towards the top, it sinks.

We have dropped a lot of things overboard this year. Every cruiser drops things overboard. The sea bottoms are an absolute cornucopia of dropped cruiser crap. It is a good rule of thumb that if you drop it anyplace at but at anchor, you must say good bye. A little ceremony of farewell is appropriate if the item is: 1) irreplaceable until you get to NZ or Australia; and/or 2) critical to the functioning of the boat. If the dropped thing is merely really nice, your only clean thing, or totally worthless, then it is customary to just sigh. We do a lot of sighing.

It is, however, theoretically possible to retrieve items dropped at anchor. How, you might ask, do you drop something at anchor? It seems counterintuitive, doesn't it? As boat dwellers, you would think we would all become saavy to the ways of boats moving, wind blowing, and gravity causing things to drop. However, we are not. We drop stuff all the time. Sometimes the things we drop are self-retrieving -- the cat, for example. When the cat drops herself overboard (and I can assure you that we only dropped her deliberately overboard ourselves once ... after which we never attempted it again), she levitates back out again. In fact, it is possible that cats have the capacity to briefly defy physics in the presence of water. On the other hand, Dulci's method for getting the water out of her fur returns to basic physics when she uses centrifugal force to spin it off her body by running around the salon in insanely fast circles. And gravity is also present in the salty, fur laden sea water drips down the windows, off the table and on to the floor.

If something is really important, we send a sacrificial diver in after it. We have actually had rather astonishing lucky retrieving our dropped items. The trick for cruisers taking notes on Don Quixote methodology is to immediately Take A Position. Instantly. Take your GPS coordinates out to the finest level of detail you can. If you have more than one GPS device, take the position on both. I can not overstate the importance of this. You don't drop things during the sunniest part of the day when everyone is sober. You do it at night, generally while you are intoxicated. Crazy facts about boats at anchor -- they move. No way are you going to conveniently be positioned right over the drop zone the next morning.

So a quick inventory of the items Don Quixote has lost and found since leaving La Paz:

* Oar lock - Lost while the dinghy was on someone else's boat in 40 feet.

* Dinghy block - Lost while putting the dinghy system back together in 15 feet of the muckiest gunk ever at the marina in La Paz.

* Dinghy anchor - Lost during a dinghy race and retrieved in a 20 knot norther in the Magote from 25 feet of mud.

* 15 HP outboard motor - Lost in Tahiti when the good doctor forgot to bolt it down in 45 feet with the entire anchorage watching and snickering. In all fairness, this one was probably the easiest to find, albeit the most insanely stupid to drop.

* Keys - Lost at the dock when trying to lock the dinghy.

* Padlock - Lost at Venus Point while unlocking the dinghy in 35 feet.

* Stern anchor chain - Also lost at Venus Point while attempting to lock the dinghy, but retrieved through a bizarre bit of acrobatics from actually going all the way to the bottom.

* Coffee filter - Finally something that has nothing to do with the dinghy. Lost in Tonga when a cruising kid from another boat simply dumped it overboard with the coffee grounds in 65 feet. Found by Loose Pointer in 5 minutes of circling our GPS location.

It appears there is a second lesson to be gleaned from our experience: gravity is stronger for items relating to your dinghy. It is also amazingly potent on laundry, particularly laundry clips. While provisioning, make sure you purchase a large package of wooden laundry clips for each 4 week period you plan to be out here. Do not buy the plastic ones or you will spend the entire trip agonizing about how horrible a person you are for littering the ocean floor with yellow, green, blue, and pink plastic clips.

And don't forget, children float. You can retrieve them as well, but the GPS position you take when they disappear off the back of the boat is only moderately useful. As a rule, they are going to hide under the bridge deck until the dishes are done or hell freezes over. Whichever comes first.

How to Have a Birthday

2011-09-17T14:03:00.001-07:00

Six years ago, my birthday would have been pretty straightforward. Since the birthday was on a Saturday, we would have enough time for a special breakfast of waffles. On the other hand, there would be no party with co-workers, since I seem to remember we celebrated birthdays at work only if they fell on a week day. The girls would have gone shopping with DrC sometime in the prior week and bought something with his/my money, wrapped it up, and put it on the table. While the family did house chores, I would have had the luxury of lazing about, perhaps even walking through the neighborhood to the local Starbucks for me-time. Then a nice dinner at home or more likely at a restaurant during which I would only tell the girls to quiet down 10 or 15 times. I know my mom and mother-in-law would have called, but otherwise, I don't think anyone else in the world would have even known.

A birthday while cruising the South Pacific is a far different event. First, my youngest made sure the salon was neat as a pin to clear the way for DrC to make my favorite Deansome Omelettes. These were especially tasty since we splurged and added bacon. Bacon is hard to find and incredibly expensive, so we haven't eaten much these past six months. Oh, and we found fresh tomatoes and GREEN PEPPERS so breakfast was just a hair short of astonishing. The girls made me cards... all the girls... even our guest Olivia. The cards were all very personal with messages and poetry and funky little stick drawings. We made TWO batches of coffee, and DrC used the last of the caramel sauce to make mine a caramel machiatto. The entire morning felt extravagant and self-indulgent.

A friend from another boat announced my birthday on the morning net. So all day long as we passed other boats there were calls of "Happy Birthday Toast!" "Hoy Don Quixote! Happy BDay!" People hailed us on the radio, waved at us in our dinghy, came up to me at dinner. Discovery made me a monohull cake (totally lopsided due to heeling as they changed anchorages). Rhythm put together the perfect cruiser birthday gift: a bottle of wine wrapped in brand new, unstained, incredibly clean dish towels! Folks made a point to swing by for a chat and a greeting. I felt completely surrounded in people who actually cared that it was my birthday and wanted to help make it a special day.

After spending the day being pampered by the family, we all piled into the dinghy to go to dinner on shore. Dinner was a Tongan feast on the beach. It included probably 15 clever ways to cook and season potatoes and/or taro as well as sweet and sour veg, cabbage salad, and a whole roast pig. The girls splurged and bought me a hair flower decoration, while DrC made a point of getting me the best little bits of pig skin and flank. Everywhere I turned were people I knew smiling, sharing food, and offering best birthday wishes. Even our Tongan hosts shared the inside information and said something with a berzillion vowels which was either directions to the loo or happy birthday. Several folks joined us after dinner on our boat for tea and monohull cake while I opened my gifts. My mom made me a skirt nearly 8 months ago and tucked it into our provisions so that I could open it and dance around in Tonga. DrC found me a lovely pink pearl necklace, Aeron had purchased a t-shirt dress in La Paz, while Mera had found a lovely dolphin necklace and carved wooden owl from my lovely wise owl-child. All the advance planning and thoughtfulness added to the gifts enormously.

Birthdays are different when you live in a community rather than a suburb. It's not about growing a year older or even just surviving another year. A birthday is a day that gives everyone permission to be a bit silly, a bit extravagant, and more than a bit generous with the limited 'things' we have on these tiny floating homes. Birthdays are a day for everyone to say in small ways and large, "You are a part of our lives, and we're pretty damn happy about that."

Well I am pretty damn happy about it, too. Thank you everyone. Best birthday EVER.

One Day and a Banana

2011-09-16T12:57:00.000-07:00

My mom calculated in her emailed birthday greeting today that were I living in California, I would be 23 hours 23 minutes short of 45. As we are in Tonga, however, today is the big day. She then helpfully pointed out that "one day is only important to a banana".

Speaking of bananas, here is a fact of South Pacific cruising life that no one bothers to mention in the cruising guides: all 100 bananas in a stem inevitably ripens simultaneously. You buy a stem on some island between here and there for a small number of strangely shaped coins with tikis and phalluses on one side and a monarch on the other. A stem consists of maybe a dozen hands, each hand representing between 5 to 15 bananas. On the day of purchase, they are all a deep, vivid green. You hang the stem in the cockpit being sure to cross tie it so that the stem doesn't gain too much momentum in a heavy sea. A stem of bananas is incredibly heavy and while green it is incredibly hard with nasty little sharp ends. Do not underestimate the power of a swinging stem to clonk you on the head and knock you out. The theory is the stem should ripen from the bottom to the top over the course of a few days. Instead what happens is that it doesn't ripen at all for a week, sometimes two. Then one day, a member of the crew spots a slightly yellow banana. At this point, brace yourself. Pull out the butter, flour, cinnamon and sugar. Make yogurt. Hide all other forms of fruit so that the crew has no choice whatsoever. This is all in preparation for the following day when at a pace so rapid that you can literally stand in the cockpit and watch it happen, the entire stem ripens. Within 10 hours, you go from fruitless to the proud owner of a metric buttload of sticky sweet, smelly, overripe bananas.

My children have a lot in common with bananas. For years, they were little, green, tart, and hard as rocks. I would hang them in the cockpit to keep them out of the way where they would swing like monkeys until someone got clonked on the head. Suddenly -- at a pace so rapid that we could literally stand in the cockpit and watch it happen -- they grew into ripe, sweet, beautiful women. There are boobs all over everywhere and shapely hips and bottoms. Long legs, flowing hair, big eyes, graceful gestures. In short, the girls are everything their mother never achieved: gorgeous young ladies. Either the Conger genes are kicking in or my mother is getting her karmic vengeance on her tomboy of a daughter. Even Aeron is starting to show signs of the woman she will become. Her face is changing, her body lengthening, her voice dropping just a bit.

The progesterone is starting to get to my husband. He actually disappears in the evenings sometimes to spend time on boy boats. One night he got drunk with other men at a bar while watching a game of rugby! So masculine! So Kiwi!! He has no idea how bad it is going to get, however, when we make landfall. Right now the girls are isolated on a boat in the middle of the ocean. In Auckland, they will be attending high school. With lots of high school boys. After all these years, it might be time for DrC to rethink his position on the right to bear arms. Alternatively, we may spend a lot of time anchored out in the middle of the harbor. There is nothing like a half mile of 40 degree sea water to cool the ardor of prospective suitors.

After 45 years, it is too late for me to be a slim pretty banana, of course. I'm just going to be slim. I am healthier right now than I have been since my 40th having dropped nearly 30 pounds in the past 6 months. Jaime is starting to worry about me, says I don't eat enough. The schools and media are so preachy (and rightfully so!) to teenage girls about the hazards of anorexia that my eldest is convinced I am a candidate for psychological counseling. I'm less worried about how skinny I am then about how I'm going to stay this way in the Land of Cheese, Pie, and Bakehouses. The bread is a problem, too. On the whole, though, it's not so bad being a slim, ripe banana. DrC still thinks I'm tasty despite all the brown spots.

Sure They Eat

2011-09-02T11:53:00.000-07:00

Years ago when I was still a diligent n00bie wannabe cruiser, I used to go to boat shows and attend seminar after seminar, eagerly listening to the gems shared by experienced sailors. There were many useful tips of diesel maintenance, keeping boats warm and dry in the winter, weather, and navigation. One of my favorites was delivered by a cruising author of cookbooks on the topic of provisioning. She was light, humorous, generous with her time and experience. She good-naturedly related arriving on her new husband's boat to find a bilge full of mysterious canned goods whose labels had long since dissolved and bags and bags of rice and beans. This author was delighted to let us know we didn't have to eat that way as cruisers. No need to stock up with all those staples, because she quipped, "People in other countries... they eat!" We all laughed. This was wonderful news, and it made perfect sense. We could travel the world with our favorite spices and sauces, purchasing local produce and meats en route. We'd shop at local markets, purchase locally grown veg and fruit, eat a lot of fresh fish caught by ourselves or by the friendly fishermen in the islands and villages of our travels. Provisioning would be cheaper, fresher, and incidentally we'd be learning more about the places we visit.

In retrospect, I am absolutely positive this woman did not cruise the South Pacific. If so, she would have amended her blithe comment with the sobering realization that while people always eat "duh!", in many places what they eat is either: (1) limited in variety; (2) extremely expensive; and/or (3) dominated by starchy white carbohydrates. Since leaving Mexico, we have seen one (ONE) 1 -one- super market worthy of the name... in Tahiti. We have seen thousands of small magazin/tiendas which carry an extremely limited supply of exorbitantly priced canned and dry goods, potatoes and onions, and a truly eye bogglingly priced freezer of frozen meat which looks like it has been there since WWII (both the freezer and the meat it contains).

One aspect of our Palmerston experience that was very educating was the meals. Each day, our host family served us a delicious and incredibly generous mid-afternoon supper. While I can say without reservation that the food was copious and yummy, a dietician would be quick to point out that it consisted of two food groups: protein and white carbos. Mostly, we were served fish either in sauces or grilled. For variety, there was an occasional chicken or sausage dish. To accompany this every day was an enormous pan of white rice and a stack of white bread buns. We also tasted of pastas and bread fruit, potatoes, and kumara in a varied presentation of baked, stewed, grilled, and fried. In our week there, we never saw a fruit -- fresh or canned. We never ate anything green or crunchy - fresh, frozen or canned. Everything we ate could be made with onions and root vegetables, seasoned with minimum of tomato sauce. And this, quite frankly, is how a good fraction of the South Pacific eats.

Compound the limited diet with even more limited availability. There are no large farms here producing tomatoes, fresh greens, and fruit. Families who do supplement their fish and rice diets with produce, do so by growing it themselves. Throughout the islands, we see homes whose edible landscapes make our mouths water. Everyone has a few banana, papaya, mango, or pamplemousse (only in the Marquesas) trees. They carefully pot garden some tomatoes or squash, beans, bokchoy, or chives. But these efforts are for the family, with only surplus being carried to a local stand or truck market for sale to neighbors and the desperately vitamin deficient passing yachties. You can send the children to particularly prosperous homes, let them stand outside with their mouths watering, and sometimes the owners will generously hand the kids a citrus or banana. You can not as provisioning guru of your boat, however, assume that these cottage gardens are going to become a regular source for your larder.

I am particularly bitter this lovely morning in Niue. In the pre-dawn hours, DrC drove me ashore so I could attend the weekly market. After spending the day driving around the island yesterday, I had high hopes for a successful haul of papayas, watermelon, and tuna. However, all we found were shucked coconuts, bead jewelry, and fried donut balls. So instead, I am going to have to wire my mother and ask her to sell the family silver so that I can visit the market this afternoon to purchase a bag of potatoes, one of onions, and a few bags of frozen mixed stir fry veg. I do not regret a single can of tomatoes, peaches or pears we loaded in Mexico. I applaud my foresight in simply sinking the boat with pimentos, mushrooms, sundried tomatoes, and fresh frozen basil. Were I to do it again, the only thing I would change is to load more peanut butter, maple syrup, and probably about a thousand pounds of dried fruit.

Alternatively, we need to convert Don Quixote into a cottage garden. We'll kick the girls off, turn one of the cabins into a green house, and grow beans and lettuce and alfalfa sprouts from hanging baskets in the cockpit. Sailing the farm is looking better and better. But we really are going to have to catch fish instead of just dragging a line behind the boat across half the planet.

Cruiser News

2011-08-29T12:32:00.000-07:00

Mom sent us a most alarmist email a few days ago about an earthquake in the eastern part of the United States, drought in Texas, flooding from a hurricane hitting the Eastern sea board. She wanted to let us know that, oddly enough, California was doing fine. This comes as a surprise for several reasons. First, California is a natural disaster magnet. It would hardly be unusual to hear that the Golden State was suffering a flood, a fire, and an earthquake all on its own. Simultaneously. Second, we felt absolutely no connection or familiarity to the news.

When we lived in New Zealand, DrC and I regularly kept track of the doings in the United States. I rotated DrC through several RSS readers on his iPad before he settled on Flip as his preferred way to keep abreast of the news of the day. Every morning, he'd sync up his news feeds and then head off for the train. I received my news through my ear buds, downloading podcasts from NPR, BBC, Slate and the New Zealand Herald. Whenever we wanted a bit more detail, we'd head for Google News and start drilling down into the source stories. However, it is true that with time he and I both became less and less interested in U.S. news and devoted increasing amount of time to world news headlines and those for the United States. Even so, we had a basic familiarity with the major stories of the day in the U.S. It's hard to be a good world citizen without knowing what the largest economic and military country in the world is up to. I suspect our perspective and mix of news was growing more typical of folks who live in NZ, Australia, Europe or Canada.

Out here in the middle of the Pacific, our news is all self-referential. We live in small town made up of about 250 families scattered from the Tuamotus to New Caledonia. Despite a square mileage measuring in the millions, our community is very tiny and doesn't really care all that much about the "outside world." Our "paper" consists of maybe one headline with local news and five pages of weather. News like the earth quake on the east coast comes to us late, if at all, and it appears on the second page below the fold. Out here, we like the comics and the puzzles, but we don't care much about the sports page and the financial page is only useful for those who still have money in the market instead of their boats. The only really important topic is the weather. With regular monotony, everyone pulls down weather information and then begins the artistic phase of divination.

Sometimes we share other news. Usually, our stories are of the happy sort. Boats leaving Bora Bora and heading for Aitutaki. Other boats having such a great time in Suvarrow they are having trouble leaving. A friend dropping off a nephew and picking up a son in American Samoa. Loose Pointer getting a new windlass. Sometimes the news is simply awful. Two boats lost on reefs in the past two weeks. Connect 4 rips out a main. Java loses a rudder and engine on reef near Sabu Sabu. It even starts to sound like headlines when you put it like that, but let's be honest. No one cares but us. And the feeling is mutual.

The east coast hurricane was for us a slightly different bit of news. After all, this was not just a weather story, but a weather story at sea. I'm sure Don Quixote was not the only boat taking advantage of our highly developed ability to get detailed information about weather conditions anywhere in the world to learn more about the hurricane's progress. You would be amazed how much a sailor could tell you about that storm just by looking at the GRIBS, weather, and coastal alerts. For example, without reading the headlines (since we can't), I'm betting there is very little wind damage, particularly north of Maryland. That doesn't mean it isn't dangerous. If Australia last year taught us nothing else, it taught us that flooding can be the real danger in storms like these. It looks like significant storm surge, some big waves along the coastline, and a godawful amount of rain. But as a wind storm, Irene just isn't. To put it in context, during Jimena (Cat3/4) in Santa Rosalia, we saw sustained winds in the low 90s while Irene is hovering in the 30s and 40s with gusts in the 50s. That's just a bad day off the New Zealand coastline. Hmm. Well, we'll learn whether we called the GRIBS correctly when Mom sends more news tomorrow.

But on to more salient news... Frank and Gail are finally getting off Palmerston today, en route to Niue with Catacaos. A new flock of boats is leaving Bora Bora now that the wind has moderated over the dangerous middle. The southerly swell caused damage to bungalows and the marina in Tahiti. Duty free fuel is available at the dock in Nieafu. Anyone looking to trade one bottle of Red Label scotch for two bottles of crappy rum, contact Toast on the evening net.

Pinned to the Rock

2011-08-25T17:42:00.000-07:00

If there is a middle of *ing nowhere, this is it. We have finally gone far enough to find it. Google "Cook Islands Palmerston". Prepare to browse their web site as well as numerous glowing reports from visiting cruisers while you learn about one of the more unique sociological experiments conducted in the last two centuries. Give yourself time to process it.

There is a high sitting its big fat ass just south of us reinforcing the trades and dishing out 25 to 30 on the hook and a good 5 to 15 more than that out on the blue. Boats underway are reporting 5 meter seas from two quarters. Watching the waves break on the edge of the reef, I can believe it. So we are pinned here like bugs waiting for the weather to moderate. Don Quixote has two attachment points to the reef, three to those lines, and we're maintaining a round the clock watch on all the boats. We've already had two boats break off moorings and anchors. In fact, just this morning, DrC and Jaime larked off in the dinghy with Graham of Catacaos to chase down a wayward Discovery who -- after yanking out an anchor AND a mooring line -- was hell bent west, next stop Tonga.

Even so, we are all more fortunate than the lost Riri. The winds are blowing from the southeast attempting with every blast to scrape us off this rock and send us winging at high speed towards Australia with nary a pause. Riri fared less well last week when a blast broke her mooring and drove her south and east straight on to the reef. I sit here gazing at the carcass of what was a beautiful, well founded cruising boat with the dread feeling that there but for the grace of all the gods sit we. We all -- every cruiser out here -- have made a mistake that could have resulted in the loss of our lives or the boats we sail on so blithely. Luck only takes you so far. Talking with Riri's captain has been a sobering experience; Helping him get his salvage off the island to somewhere he can put his life back together again is both the right thing to do and a wave at the Fates asking for positive karma points paying forward to our next eventual mistake. Make it small, make it recoverable, thank you Fates for not taking Frank and Gail as well as Riri. Now stay away from my children, bitch.

I am taking the day off, today, staying aboard Don Quixote while the family visits ashore. My political economy, public policy trained brain is absolutely awhirl after three days here, and I desperately need some time to myself. Imagine taking 60 members of your closest family (first imagine having 60 members of your closest family whose relationship to you is not only known but all within first cousin range), put them all in the same office environment, make them work for 2 different governments in 20 administrative capacities, make them all quite Christian, then stick them on an island roughly the size of a city block, drop the island 350 miles from even the next largest stop which is about the size and population of Cicily, Alaska (Northern Exposure). Make a short temper breed true. Run supplies in and out every 3 or 4 months, taking islanders on and off in broad looping multiple year runs to get health care, provisions, and spouses. Then just to make it lively, parade roughly 50 boats with yachties from every country in the world -- renowned for their independence and eclecticism -- past these people every year. Make it a cultural imperative that the islanders offer every possible courtesy and hospitality to these foreingers in exchange for trade goods and services. Then let the whole thing simmer for about 150 years. This is officially the world's largest tempest in the world's smallest teapot.

For now we are quite safe, DrC is busy, and the girls are having an amazingly good time. As a barter for our time on the mooring, DrC is treating the islanders' health care issues in the small clinic. The kids study in the mornings, play all afternoon, spend the night with their new best friends on the island. I try to stay out of trouble. However, I'm sure you can imagine how successful it is to mix Toast in with a strong patriarchal society where we're supposed to relay everything through the men before so much as walking down to the beach. The only reason I'm not in the village center fomenting a feminist revolution is that I'm down to my last two bras and can't afford to burn them.

So probably, it's safer for everybody if I just take anchor watch till we depart. It's okay. The dolphins and I are on a first name basis now, and they promised me that they'd explain to the whales in here yesterday why the mooring lines are not to be used for back scratching. Not sure we can trust the grouper, though. There are two under the boat who have been taunting me since we arrived, "Nyah na, we've got cigueterra. Just eat me. I dare you."

Exploring: Rangiroa

2011-08-18T14:15:00.000-07:00

The "Exploring XYZ…" series is our attempt to remember everything we can about the anchorages and stops we make, mostly to benefit cruisers who follow us in future years. We anticipate folding this information into a wiki or Soggy Paws compendium as soon as possible. In the meantime, please feel free to ask questions; If we can remember, we'll share. GPS marks are for reference only. If you use them for navigation and hit something, it's not my fault.

Rangiroa is the largest atoll in the Tuamotus and the second largest in the world. It stretches a really insane 40 miles west to east and roughly 17 north to south at the widest bit. The atoll is so large, it actually has an atoll within it. There are two main passes into the atoll, both found on the north west corner roughly five miles apart. The atoll is so large that in big weather, fetch and wind can build across the lagoon offering little protection to the boats huddled along the north west edge. However, in even the most reasonable and seasonal weather, there is a good chance you'll find a comfortable spot somewhere.

We arrived at Rangiroa very early in the morning after leaving Ahi the night before. The distance between these two atolls is a bit awkward for many boats. From pass to pass is about 80 miles and both passes absolutely require precision on arrival and departure. So either you can make the 80 miles in the roughly 12 hours you have between tide cycles, or you can't. More probable is that you'll do as we did with Loose Pointer -- leave one evening and find yourself skidding along way too fast during the night. You'll end up either hove to or reefed into oblivion just to keep yourself from running into Rangiroa in the middle of the night.

Entering Rangiroa on anything but a slack tide is not an option for either pass. We went in via the eastern and wider Passe Tiputa (S14 58.051 W147 37.355) at what we figure was slack. Winds and wave had been running high for some time prior to our passage, however, so the pass had an outbound current of about 3 knots even during slack. There were standing waves, leaping dolphins, dive boats, and a nicely well formed whirlpool not to mention the obvious and nasty looking tide rip just outside the entrance. That's the bad news. The good news is that Tiputa is relatively wide, very deep, and other than the waves and current, not particularly difficult. Do make a point of heading all the way in past the little motu to your right before turning to curve into the anchorage. I suppose technically you can cut through, but I wouldn't do it personally.

We anchored in the lee of the motu off the resort in 35' of pure sand, no bombies (S14 57.974 W147 38.411). During our week long stay in Rangiroa, there never appeared to be much wind/wave advantage to anchoring any closer to the small dock which serves the village (S14 58.315 W147 38.063). It is true, however, that most of what we wanted including the services of the small magazin, the dive shop, and the Aquarium were all found closer in. The motu and the pass point do provide some wind and wave protection from the prevailing east and southeasterly winds. I wouldn't want to be in Rangiroa if the wind were blowing from the south or south west. On the other hand, the locals are in the process of building a nice park on the motu to serve boaters. Thus far, there is just a small concrete dock, a fire pit, and a single table, but we have hopes (S14 57.775 W147 38.420). Our understanding is that the somewhat infamous anchorage fee for Rangiroa is in part going to pay for construction of the park.

As for the anchorage fee, it is true. As far as we know, Rangiroa is the only place in Polynesia where you pay to anchor. The gendarmerie make this very easy. They will come out to your boat to collect your fee. It was 150 CFP per person per night. This works about to roughly $1.80. Children are free. For your fees, you can assume that some are going to the park. Other bits must be going to maintain the dinghy mooring balls which are conveniently located adjacent to the best snorkeling spot. Also, the gendarmerie are somewhat indifferent tax collectors. If you're there long enough, they will come out. Some boats pretended they were not at home and never paid their fees. Don Quixote felt the fees were sufficiently small and the comforts of our location sufficiently great, we just paid.

At the dock in Passe Tiputa, you'll find a few dive shops and a snack shop that operates only during the lunch hour. The meal prices are reasonable (for French Polynesia), the beer is cold. The magazin is open mornings and afternoons, not during the day. As with most Polynesian magazins, either get there early or pay for bread the day before if you want fresh baguettes. Otherwise, there isn't much for to see in the village north of the pass.

For more information on the snorkeling, see a previous post entitled "The Aquarium."

Airport - S14 57.379 W147 39.366
Pearl Farms - S14 57.276 W147 40.492
Landing Beach near western town - S14 56.684 W147 42.222
Marina - S14 56.717 W147 42.383
Bank/ATM - S14 56.688 W147 42.493
Air Tahiti - S14 56.688 W147 42.493
Clinic and Pharmacy - S14 56.683 W147 42.529
Church - S14 56.666 W147 42.561
Magazin S14 56.685 W147 42.531
Grand Magazin S14 56.703 W147 42.332
Laundry - S14 56.673 W147 42.170
Restaurant Pizzaria Filippo S14 56.675 W147 42.140
Shell Station S14 41.833 W147 41.833

Exploring Huahine

2011-08-14T10:35:00.000-07:00

Huahine is located in the Society Islands north and west of Tahiti. It's a big blog of an island with barrier reef along around, but easily navigable only on the west side and parts of the southeast. Unfortunately, a combination of weather and a broken outboard pinned Don Quixote to the reef for nearly a week with almost no opportunity to explore. I think this is a shame as the island looks beautiful from the reef. I'm sure we would have had a good time. Really I am.

We anchored in two locations on Huahine, both on the southern side. Our first anchorage was on the reef south of the town of Fare. You can enter the reef at Passe Avamoa (S16 42.597 W151 02.716) with little fanfare. I suppose if you were facing a nasty westerly the pass and it's companion Avapehi a mile to the south would be a little bit interesting. In the standard east south easterly even blowing > 20 knots, we found the entrance easy to find, easy to navigate. Just inside Avamoa and to the north is Fare. Many people anchor just west of the village and literally within rock throwing distance of the pass entrance. The problem is that many people anchor there. We couldn't find a spot where we wouldn't bang into our neighbors, so we kept going. If you continue south into the channel, there are all kinds of spots to drop the hook on the reef. From Fare all the way down to Avea, anchoring on the reef is a question of finding a wide spot out of the channel with a nice patch of sand and few bombies. It's easier to find a place if you have a low draft, but we saw enough deep keeled monohulls out there to know that if you're serious about it, you too can find a hole. Keep in mind that some locations are merely coral over rock. This is not the time to just drop and go. Current and winds will scrape you right off the reef if you don't set the hook well. Ultimately, we ended up between the two passes on the edge of the reef (S16 43.239 W151 02.346), out of the way of passing traffic and in a sweet spot for Internet access using both Ioaranet and WDG-Hotspot.

Our first day on Huahine, we thought we had a motor. So we loaded up our walking gear, piled into the dinghy, and motored into Fare. Fare is a very welcoming place for visiting cruisers. There is a well stocked grocery with a farmers market in the mornings just across the street. A bank, post office, hardware store, and several snack shacks round out the provisioning locker. The town has built a nice dinghy dock for visiting cruisers and charter boats complete with a wooden hut and welcome sign. Remember, however, that people have had dinghies, outboards and fuel tanks stolen by less savory residents from this very dock so lock up when you visit Fare. Just to the west of the dinghy dock is the restaurant ??? (S W). You can get food during the middle of the day, but the real appeal is at happy hour from 1700 to 1800 during which all drinks are half off. This is the one place in all of French Polynesia where a pitched of beer will not require that you pawn the family jewels.

There are quite a few interesting archeological sites within easy biking distance of Fare. You can rent bikes by the half or whole day from one of two locations in the town. Unfortunately, the price for a half day was just a smidge out of Don Quixote's price range at 5000 CFP for 4 hours per person. Ever the optimistic hikers, we set off down the road. The road runs around the island along the coastline, for the most part, dipping inland to run along the edge of the northern lake before getting to the points of archeological interest. It is a very long walk. Just before you hit the sites, you'll pass through the village of Maeva. This is a very good place to get cold drinks and snacks at the magazin on the street. If you don't mind long walks, it's actually a very flat and pleasant journey of about 5 km each way. We stopped for water, snacks, coconut husking, more snacks, and a lot of bitching and complaining… mostly mine as I started to get heat exhaustion. At the end of the day, you could argue the half price pitcher was a medical necessity.

Our next few days were spent trapped on Don Quixote. The wind dialed up to 20, gusting 30 and more off the hills neatly pinning us to the reef. At this point, I'd like to say something about the trade winds in this part of the world. Typically, they blow from east to south east. The average is about 18. This means the one speed you rarely see is 18. In roughly two week cycles, the winds alternate between the 25 to 30 range or the 8 to 15 range. Depending on your idea of perfect sailing conditions, you'll choose either light trades or reinforced trades to move from island to island. When the winds dial up out at sea, you'll find that the leeward side of the islands is not always a protected location. Winds can bend around points, rip through ravines, or drop suddenly down the side of islands peaks and scream through the anchorages. Our wind generator shuts down at 35 and it does did so on several occasions while we waited out the reinforced trades on Huahine.

We didn't want to move the boat, and by this time our dinghy had reported back that the motor was just not going to work for love or money. The water off the transom looked so benign, clear and blue and reflecting back the sandy bottom like a Los Angeles swimming pool. The reef in that part of Huahine is truly nothing to look at so don't bother snorkeling. But the water is so tempting, we spent a lot of time in it despite the howling winds. I can vouch that the Huahine reef is a great place to scrub the bottom of the boat.

A few days later, our buddy boat arrived. We moved about 3 miles south along the reef line. While it meant we were close enough to dinghy back and forth between the boats, it did nothing to improve the wind situation. It was also a complete Internet dead zone. So the next day, we gave up Huahine and sailed over to Raiatea in a brisk beam wind. We have this island marked for "future exploration." We sure did a lousy job of it this time through the islands.

Cooking Tip: Yeast Buns

2011-08-12T10:18:00.000-07:00

If you are going to be traveling far and wide in the middle of an ocean, you can not buy bread. You have to bake it. This makes lunch difficult. In fact, for Don Quixote, lunch is the most annoying meal of the day. DrC and the girls insist on eating something. I don't always have leftovers from the prior day, and without bread we are often left with the rather unpalatable options of crackers and cheese, mac and cheese, or Top Ramen. Lovely.

For this trip, I've fallen into a semi-regular habit of making yeast buns every morning. If you use a very active yeast, you can get the bread made, rise the dough, and bake it all before school is out. Call it about 3 hours total. Because we leave the boat as soon as the rolls are done, the added heat from the oven is not so much of a worry. A few tips when making bread on a boat:

* Buy local yeast - Yeast is a funny beast. It likes a certain set of conditions. Different yeast likes different conditions. Brewers are very familiar with the fact that yeast selection is key to the final flavor of the brew. Some yeasts like cold conditions, others warm. Some like a lot of sugars, others do better in an environment of scarcity. What is true for beer is also true for bread. Our New Zealand yeast hates the warmth of the South Pacific. Our bread absolutely sucked (e.g. it took 36 hours for it to rise) until I bought new yeast in Nuka Hiva. Ever since, it poofs like a balloon in short order with the tiniest bit of honey. So do not "stock up" on yeast. Buy enough for your passage and a little bit more. Then buy more at your destination. Local yeast makes good.

* Use warm water - Don't try to dissolve your yeast and honey in cool or cold water. Yeast likes warmth.

* Watch out for things that slow your yeast down - Yeast likes white flour, it likes a bit of honey. Everything else slows it down. That's not really a problem, but keep it in mind when you are saucing up your dough. All the tasty whole wheat and all grains, corn, rye or oat bran, additional sugars, spices, or chunks of this and that slow down your yeast. Factor that into your planning. If you add too much of these things, you can anticipate super slow rising. I make a truly heavenly cinnamon raisin roll now, but it takes 12 hours to do the two rises. Of course, it's totally worth it. We just have to plan ahead.

Toast's Basic Roll Recipe
Combine -
1 cp very warm but not hot water
1 tbs honey
1 tbs yeast
Stir until honey dissolves and yeast melts into a yellowy smelly goo. Let sit for about 10 minutes until the whole thing looks like a frothy milk shake.

Add -
About 4 cups of flour. I start with 2 cps of the worthless white stuff and then try to mix up the rest with grains that might actually have nutritional value. I know people who go all whole wheat, but I just can't wait that long.

Stir the dough together. You'll have to add more warm water. Just be careful. I probably add about another cup. Use a spoon until you've reached a point that the dough is elasticky and basically sticks together rather than to the bowl. If you add too much water, add more flour. The most important thing about bread is to learn the basic texture that means Happy Dough. If you are not already familiar with Happy Dough, make it with someone who knows this state. They'll show it to you in all it's transitional glory. Then get ready to go crazy if you are into precise measurement because the ratio of water to flour is dependent on the weather, humidity, temperature, yeast, sugars, and the whims of fate and chance. You must simply play with it.

Once your dough is Happy, plunk it on a floured surface and work it for about 5 minutes. You can't really overknead it, so just keep going until your shoulders are a bit sore, and the family is bitching about breakfast. Cut your dough into six to twelve chunks and roll into balls. Roll the balls in an oil, toss them in your final pain, and stick them someplace warm and protected from flying creatures. Wait until they explode and take over the pan, then throw them into your oven until they turn a lovely golden color on top.

* * *

But wait Toast! Those sound singularly dull! Which they are. I don't think basic yeast rolls are very interesting any longer. Sure, you can mess around with flours to make things a bit better, but blah. If we ate those every day, the kids and DrC would probably fire me. Once the dough is about ready to cut, I knead in a bunch of additives. Pretty much everything goes in at the last minute except powdered spices/herbs and sugars. Those should be added while you're still balancing your water and flour mix to make Happy Dough. Basically, you can go two ways with your rolls: sweet or savory.

Sweet Stuff
Add any of the following in any combination you'd like to make a sweet roll:
Sugars - White sugar, brown sugar, honey, molasses, maple syrup, canned fruit "juice", powdered milk, chocolate drink mix
Spices - Cinnamon, vanilla/orange/lemon/almond/hazelnut/etc extracts, all spice, cloves, nutmeg, powdered cocoa
Fruit - Mince fresh or canned anything, dried raisins/blueberries/cranberries/apples/apricots/peaches, dried shredded coconut
Nuts - Walnut, hazelnut, sliced almonds, pine nuts

Don Quixote favorite sweet roll -- Powdered milk to sweeten the dough and a brown sugar, butter, cinnamon raisin swirl with minced walnuts.

Savory Stuff
Add any of the following in any combination you'd like to a savory roll:
Veg - Sun dried tomatoes , olives, mushrooms, frozen or fresh spinach, onion, potato. Anything left over from the night before. Hell anything that isn't super wet. If it's wet, drain it or roll it in a bit of flour before you try to add it to your dough.
Spices - Mixed herbs, basil, garlic, rosemary, oregano, marjoram, thyme. Yeah, again... pretty much anything. My kids didn't like the fajita seasoning, but your mileage may favor. That's the only combo they balked at.
Cheeses - The drier cheeses work better than wetter ones. Again, flour your cheese if it's wet or oily. I like to fold the cheese into the middle where it won't crispy critter while it bakes. On the other hand, that dried Kraft parm cheese adds tremendous flavor just mixed straight into the dough.

Don Quixote favorite savory roll - Provincial herbs, garlic powder, and sun dried tomatoes.

Not Too Hot, Not Too Cold

2011-08-11T13:38:00.000-07:00

We're out here doing a Goldilocks on the weather again. I think most non-sailors assume that the big worry out here is storms, the convergence zones, high winds, big waves. These are all a concern, no question. When the trades get strongly reinforced by a southerly low going by or a nasty front on the leading edge of a trough swings through the region, you can see some rough weather and rougher seas. The crossing from French Polynesia through the Cook Islands and over to Tonga and Fiji is known as the Dangerous Middle for a reason.

On the other hand, sailors experienced with the long haul passages of the big oceans are equally familiar with Don Quixote's current problem which is winds too light to go anywhere. With a very mild high south of here, the usual 15 to 20 knot trade winds are moderated down to almost nothing. This morning on the net we heard report after report of boats motoring around or simply bobbing in the swell. Motoring in these conditions becomes necessary mostly for comfort. With a 2 meter swell from the south and in the absence of a steady wind, a boat tends to move beam to the sea and roll heavily and slowly and nauseatingly. This is discouraging, boring, and incredibly enervating for the crew. Because you are in the middle of the ocean, you must continue to maintain a watch as powered vessels can still run you down if you fail to pay attention. After a day or so of this, many sailors get frustrated and fire up the engine.

Of course, if you are sitting at anchor and the weather report is 5 to 10 from the east for the next five days, you have more options. You can, for example, go diving. Go for a walk on the beach, swim around the boat, do boat chores, get ahead on school, play the guitar, pick lint out of your navel. There are sundowners by the beach camp fire in the evenings, sudoku in the cockpit as the sun rises while sipping a hot cappuchino. Bread to bake, beans to boil, sprouts to start. You can just sit here in Mopelia, in other words, waiting for more favorable conditions.

Unless you are traveling with DrC.

I'm not sure how much longer all this life in paradise thing is going to last with him. He doesn't like being in one spot for too long. This week in Mopelia is proceeded by a week in Bora Bora and prior to that almost a week in Huahine and a week in Tahiti. It's all very frustrating for Mr. Man Of Many Anchorages. Yesterday, I sent him out on the reef to dive with the other boats. Today, we pitched him overboard with his eldest to do pass drift dives. As a side note, the divers are reporting the best conditions since the Tuamotus with outstanding coral formations, diverse sea life, sharks, whales, sting rays, and a ship wreck to investigate. Unfortunately, I am at a complete loss for what to suggest for tomorrow. Even the most optimistic reading of the gribs doesn't give us any wind for at least another three days. That Swiss Family Robinson tree house is beginning to look like a better and better idea.

How Quickly Traditions

2011-08-10T10:41:00.000-07:00

Every evening at 4:30pm (0200 UTC), I grab my laptop to record positions, tune in the SSB, and listen to the net. During the last calls, I make a list of what we'll need for the evening. Then as I prepare the raw materials, DrC and whichever girls I have aboard bag up our possessions and get them shifted to the dinghy. Then we motor ashore.

We learned last night that our passing Night Fly is their own signal. They take their evening shower, gather their own dinner things, and head into shore after us. Usually, by the time Warren and Maria arrive, we have the fire started. It takes longer for the coals to burn down enough to put in the dinner pots.

Dinner is really not very good here on Mopelia. To save propane and because we have almost no fresh food left, we're having a lot of one pot, canned and preserved suppers. Last night, for example, was pasta with a beurre blanc, herb and weird cheese sauce. The French sell a subsidized cheese here that tastes remotely like cheddar, comes in large cheap blocks, and doesn't need to be refrigerated until you open it. Unrefridgerated cheese and canned butter are really helpful to cruisers with limited cool space on long passages. On the other hand, I'm not entirely certain this stuff is actually cheese. For example, it doesn't melt in a hot pot. That's a bit disturbing.

The adults drink their sundowners while the girls play with the fire and cook dinner. Jaime is particularly engaged by the burning dinner process, and she is rapidly developing good fire circle techniques. We eat, we eat a sweet, we chat, we relax as the moon comes up. Then when the growing moon is high enough to see the coral bommies on the return trip, we bundle into the dinghy and head back to the tiny lights on the horizon that mark the boats.

Every night for a week. Last night, there was a slight shift as we moved over to make room for Loose Pointer. Easy peasy adjustment to an already well established routine. Adding Loose Pointer to a Don Quixote tradition is non-issue. I know Kathryn will be over here sometime this morning for fried dough, for example, even though I don't believe we mentioned it. We always make them fried dough when we haven't seen them for awhile. Usually, she wakes her boys, but some mornings we have get her all to ourselves which is awesome. Like DrC, she is a quiet but very interesting woman and a pleasure to spend time wiht. The less people around, the more we get to hear her opinions and ideas. And of course, we would hear a great deal more if I just kept my mouth shut. Jaime insisted I write that, and sadly she is absolutely correct.

Tomorrow weather permitting, we are finally going to leave Mopelia. Mera actually came ashore mid-day having finally run out of things to do to enhance the beach house. DrC has given up trying to catch parrot fish. Jaime is diving into her iPod, and I watched a movie yesterday. We're winding down. Today, however, we'll make the most of our last day here. We'll swim and walk on the beach and gather a million coconuts.

And of course tonight we'll go to the beach to build a large fire and share our evening with our anchorage neighbors.

Stars Scattered Across the Pacific

2011-08-09T11:37:00.000-07:00

Every day -- now twice a day -- Don Quixote warms up the SSB and dials in a frequency to participate in a cruiser net. During the net, boats which are underway call in and report their position, weather conditions, and status of the crew and boat. After the boats underway check in, often boats at anchor will announce their positions and offer information on services and conditions at various anchorages. The net serves as a social connection with other cruisers, source of valuable information about anchorages and weather, as well as a source of safety in the form of getting the news out when a boat is disabled, requiring assistance, or simply lost.

It will surprise no one that very early on we volunteered to be net control for the Pacific Puddle Jump Net. And of course, in this context of chatting up fellow cruisers, "we" actually means Toast. Having said that, DrC takes net controller responsibilities very seriously. When on passage, the net is often during the middle of my off watch so DrC does the net, either reports or control. He is highly competent at the job, and I only wish he would take it more often. I think he puts on his doctor voice; he sounds so firm, confident, and reassuring on the net. In this respect, he's a considerably better net control than I am as his voice is more clear over the radio.

Early on, we got in the habit of adding way point markers on our laptop charting software for the boats we track. During the Puddle Jump when we were net control every night, we tracked the progress of roughly a dozen boats in addition to our buddy Loose Pointer. We use a star marker and the boat name to mark their position each day. During the passage, the boats were strung like a string of Christmas lights from the Marquesas to points along the Mexican coastline. A few started farther north, more came from the direction of Panama or the Galapagos, but by the time the boats reached mid-crossing, the stars formed a clear pattern coelescing on Nuka Hiva and Hiva Oa.

We don't track all the boats on the net any longer. There are simply too many, and I confess that we don't actually care about all of them. Sure we maintain a record of the boat positions when we are on net control to pass on to future nets if there is an emergncy or lost boat. But now our charts are studded with stars only for those boats with whom we have a personal connection. Given the sociability of the girls and myself, it's not surprising that this still amounts to a whole lot of boats. But they are no longer linked in a chain from any clear source or destined for any specific location. Instead it looks like someone up ended a box of jacks over the entire central South Pacific. We have friends stretching from Pago Pago to Roratonga, Bora Bora to Tonga. There are boats on Aitutaki, Suvurrow, and Palmerston. To see them all, we have to zoom out basically from the Tuamotus to Australia.

This scattering trend is only going to continue, our relationships dissolving into the Pacific like blue dye in a glass of water. Some of these boats are the homes of acquaintances with whom we've merely spent an enjoyable day. Others, however, hold in their hulls people we have come to care about deeply. It's both exciting and a little painful hearing them report in from places so very far away. We change their coordinates, check their progress, listen eagerly for details on their activities. After the net, we zoom out and contemplate our celestial landscape whose horoscope changes daily with the winds and whims of the people we love.

Our Latest Excuse

2011-08-08T10:56:00.000-07:00

Loose Pointer is coming! Yeah! Among other things, their imminent arrival provides the perfect excuse to not leave today.

We were supposed to leave today. That was the plan, at least. The weather is perfect for a sail to Palmerston North or Beveridge Reef or maybe even all the way to Tonga. We were going to up anchor, head out the pass, and continue our journey west safe in the knowledge that the low and the trough had passed and a nice moderate high was setting up to the south ensuring standard or slightly reinforced trades for days and days and days.

But Mera and Aeron want to build an extra room on to their fort as well as extend the path all the way to the beach.

And Jaime wants to see if she can improve her fire cooking skills with chicken and dumplings and fruit baffs tonight.

And DrC is contemplating ways to catch parrot fish from the beach.

And I still haven't found a mango tree. I know there must be one here if I can just find it. We've found some really nice aluminum pots perfect for a solar oven and cooking in the fire. If I just keep poking around, I'm sure we'll stumble on fruit trees.

And Loose Pointer is coming. They might have spare propane and vegetables. We've agreed to trade them 80' of high test chain for a bag of bokchoy and a cabbage. From where we are at the moment, that feels like a super good deal.

For us.

Keeps Giving

2011-08-07T11:39:00.000-07:00

Mopelia is the gift that keeps on giving. Yesterday, we enjoyed school on the boat. I'm not being facetious. We actually had a pleasant morning despite chemistry, resolving exponents, and conjugating the verb aller. Daddy made pancakes (yes... Toast is resorting to a "what I had for lunch" post), we enjoyed our daily cappuchinos, and then DrC and I studied the MetService Pack to try to make sense of Bob's words of wisdom on South Pacific weather. Then we bundled about 500 pounds of supplies into the dinghy and went ashore.

When dropping children ashore on a deserted island in the middle of the South Pacific, remember to pack the following:
- sun screen
- copious amounts of fresh water
- machete (sharp... the dull one is not going to cut the coconuts with sufficient speed and enthusiasm)
- swim suits
- ant repellent
- something to feed the hermit crabs
- screw driver
- towels
- shoes (exploring the jungle is really challenging in your bare feet as there are "tons of prickly dudes everywhere")
- food (sandwiches are good, fruit is okay, something salty for mid afternoon is appreciated)
- matches
- dockline
- first aid kit
- deck of cards

The girls built a camp site complete with chairs, tables, and shelves. They also did a fair job of gathering wood for the evening fire. By the time we returned to camp, they had attracted 100s of bright red hermit crabs

While the girls homesteaded, DrC and I explored. There was a village here a decade ago that was swept away during what appears to have been a really nasty hurricane. There are surprisingly few ruins left to mark the village. The hurricane and storm surge did a really good job of scraping the island bare. You can tell precisely where the ocean came in versus just waves. While the vegetation has grown back lush and verdant, the main body of the island is mat of interwoven trees, bushes and palm fronds in a distinctive single direction showing evidence of the path of the storm and the directions of the wind and waves. Despite much searching the only vegetative evidence of the former occupants of the motu were an enormous ornamental pampass grass and a bougainvelia as well as a few immature banana trees. We were hoping to find a grand daddy mango or a few papayas, but unfortunately, no such luck.

The waters are teeming with parrot fish and black tip reef sharks. Both swim right up to the shoreline within feet of the beach. It would be really nice to catch a few of the parrot fish, though cigueterra is probably a concern. We're tempted to try it anyway. It feels like you could stand in the water up to your ankles and just flip dinner on to shore. I'm beginning to wonder if black tip reef sharks taste good. They come in all sizes here from about the length of your hand swimming practically on the beach to big four to five feet guys circling the boat.

Lower down on the food chain is a phenomenal coral bed. We walked up the motu to the north and around a bend. A huge shallow opened up with a break in the reef to the north east. From shore, it appears like the entire area is well grown with sea grass and algae. However, when we put our masks on and dipped into the water for a swim, we were astonished to sea that the area is a coral forest with not a spot of algae or seaweed. For the first time, we are seeing stag coral in vibrant, vigorous health. There is a surprisingly limited variation in the reef fish and they are predominantly small (2 inches or less), but the coral is mind bogglingly diverse and vigorous. Even here there are clear signs of storm destruction with tree trunks and broken chunks of coral liberally scattered about. Yet the broken chunks are not dead. Instead, they've settled back down and are happily pumping out coral polyps by the jillions.

We spent the evening on the beach by a campfire. Night Fly joined us for a sundowner and burnt meat. Night Fly is a Dutch couple who are considerably more adventurous than your average cruisers. We enjoyed their company, their fascinating tales of sailing in Patagonia, and their keen intelligence and humor. It is good to be stranded in paradise with capable, interesting people. The steak sandwiches were delicious, the coconut needs to be roasted about twice as long as you think but it makes for a nutty, sweet and delicious dessert.

It's hard to say how we'll spend the day today. Surely we're running out of things to do. Or maybe not... DrC was eyeing the spear fishing gun and the parrot fish, and I still want to find a mango tree.

South Seas Paradise

2011-08-06T10:56:00.000-07:00

We accidentally stumbled on an amazing place yesterday afternoon. These are the moments from which the notion of trail magic derives.

The problem was a trough... a big mass of low pressure air full of moisture that was spearing south west right over our path between Bora Bora and Aitutaki. It didn't look too bad, actually. Boats west of us who weathered it were talking about heavy rain but only 20 to 30 knots in squally conditions. Honestly, we've been through considerably worse in the past few months. On the other hand, who wants to go through that kind of gunk if you don't have to? So we started looking for alternatives. Fortunately, about 130NM west and slightly south of Bora Bora is a speck of an atoll known in English as Mopelia. The pass report in Charlie's sounded a bit horrifying but reports from recent visitors in the Soggy Paws compedendium suggested otherwise. Since the weather conditions were as yet quite mild, we thought we would do a drive by. If pass conditions warranted, we'd go in, drop the hook for 24 hours to allow the trough to blow south and past, then continue on to Aitutaki.

Except, I am not entirely certain we're going to even go to Aitutaki now. We might skip Niue as well. Hell, we might just sit here as other boats have reportedly done until we run out of water, fuel, propane, and food and are forced west. Because Mopelia IS the postcard of a South Seas paradise island. It is deserted -- about a decade ago a hurricane blew through and scraped every living soul and all their worldly goods into the ocean. It is beautiful -- a crescent shaped motu now regrown with lush vegetation dominated by coconut palms swaying in the nor-northeasterly. There is diving in the pass, coral fields everywhere you look, sharks, rays, reef fish, a white sand beach stretching from the turquoise reef to our left as far as we can see to the right. Our anchor is very well set in 20' of sandy bottom with nary a snag or a bommie to worry us. Even as we sit here feeling the trough blow over with 20 plus winds, there is no fetch, no swell, and a feeling of solid anchor-not-moving-ishness that only another cruiser can truly appreciate.

Today, we are having a cappuchino and scones and helping the girls do school. Then we are going to hand them a machete, a screw driver, an enormous bottle of tang, and a baguette and put them ashore to rove like wild creatures fending for themselves and feeding off the land. After relaxing and being adults on a boat in the middle of paradise, we may or may not load the dinghy with sundowners, meat slabs, more baguettes and some potato salad and join them ashore for a bonfire this evening. There are no mooring balls, jet skis, or customs fees. There is no one to tell us we can't walk on the beach. There is no one to stop us from gathering coconuts and cutting down mangoes and bananas. If we get really inspired, we might dinghy a few miles to the south end of the motu where apparently there are a few families still clinging to a rocky islet. These families we are told live 500 yards apart, do not speak to one another due to a long standing feud, and will trade canned corn beef for fresh lobster. All of this remains to be proven, however. I'm not reporting it. I'm merely idly speculating on how I might spend my day.

Or I might rummage around to find a book I've only read five times, take a beach blanket and a cold drink, and go lie on the beach. I think we finally found paradise.

Exploring Raiatea and Taha'a (Part II)

2011-08-04T10:05:00.000-07:00

The following day, we met Ceildyh on shore to run errands and go on a hike. The errands took absolutely forever. There is something sweet and comical and absurdly frustrating about standing in a Polynesian post office (S16 38.140 W151 29.489) for an hour. The walk was on paved road; Take your dinghy to the dock at the end of the bay (S16 38.211 W151 29.455), walk north towards town, make a let at the church (S16 38.244 W151 29.187), and up up up the hill. We went up to a point on the ridge-line where you can see both south into the pass between the two islands as well as down into the bay. It is a relatively short walk through beautiful country with a nice view, even if you don't really go off road anywhere. Watch out on the pin turns for speeding vessels and enormous islanders on tiny, totally overburdened scooters traveling at insane speeds. The town also includes a bank (S16 38.159 W151 29.507), magazin (S16 38.134 W151 29.538), hardware store (S16 38.129 W151 29.542), snack shack (S16 38.142 W151 29.496), and gendarmerie (S16 38.149 W151 29.456). While we were in town, the girls stumbled on an art fair in the community building (S16 38.147 W151 29.468), but I couldn't say if that would be there all the time.

In Haamene, we also took time to visit the Hibiscus Foundation which can be found close to the entrance. The foundation was begun in 1992 by folks who want to aid in the rehabilitation of the South Pacific turtle population. They work with fishermen to rescue turtles caught in nets. They care for injuries and feed the turtles until someone sponsors a turtle release. This year, you could get a turtle of your own for 100 Euro, take it to a designated release location, and set it free. The funds go to the care and medical treatment of the turtles. Unfortunately, we couldn't afford to do this ourselves. My recommendation to future cruisers is that you get a group -- maybe buddy boats -- and plan on doing this together. Even if you can't sponsor a turtle release, it is worth stopping at the restaurant. We were too early to have dinner, but the comments in the book suggest the food is excellent. The lodge is full of flags and burgees from all over the world as well as dozens of books and 100s of articles on turtles in the South Pacific in general and specifically about the foundation. DrC and I had a cold beer while the kids spent an hour or so watching the turtles in the pen outside and exploring the turtle books.

Just outside Baie d'Haamene on the east side of Taha'a is Passe Toahotu. This pass is bounded on either side by a small coconut covered motu. The cruising guides suggest navigating through the pass only in settled weather, but I frankly think that is a fair statement for all the east side passes. When the trades are blowing and the swell is up, all of them are a bit exciting. Toahotu doesn't appear any more narrow or dodgy than the passes to the south, so use your own judgement. We anchored off the northern motu in about 15 feet of sand with bombies (S16 38.476 W151 25.825). We saw catamarans considerably closer to the reef and ranging all up and down the reef line. This gets to a larger point which is that the east side of Taha'a and Raitea feature many such "wide spots in the road" where a vessel can comfortably set a hook protected from fetch and swell by the barrier reef in even a brisk reinforced trade. This particular spot near Passe Toahotu is apparently featured in the charter trade maps as an easy hook with good snorkeling as we were surrounded in charters. I wouldn't say the snorkeling was spectacular, but the water is clear and the motus make for a beautiful backdrop. If you're serious about seeing fish and coral, take your dink as far towards the reef as you can, drop a small hook, and swim to the reef. We saw some nice healthy coral and lots of fish out by the reef. I suspect if you were a truly intrepid type, you could even dive on the other side of the breaking waves, but I'm afraid I'm a bit to risk averse. The motus are both private, but we saw several dive boats stop ashore as well as guide some drift snorkelers through the passe.

The next day after school, we pulled the hook and headed south to Raiatea again. We passed Uturoa (snatching a quick send-receive on WDG-Hotspot internet as we went by) before motor sailing about halfway down the east side to Baie de Faaroa. Like Haamene, Faaroa cuts deep into the island. While it does not feature the convenient bends of its Taha'a counterpart, the northeast orientation means that boats deep in the anchorage are likely to receive protection from nearly all winds you'll encounter during a typical cruising season. At the end of the bay, you will find good, mud holding in about 50' just off the estuary. There is a very strong signal at the end of this bay to the WDG-Hotspot wifi (S16 49.077 W151 24.938). At the end of the bay is an emergency services building and community center. You can see the kayaks and outrigger canoes from shore. If you pull in to the small landing, you can use the outdoor showers to bath. I recommend trying to contact someone at the emergency services building to request permission. Though probably not strictly necessary, it would be polite.

For a really nice adventure, take your dinghy and enter the estuary to explore up river. There are two tall sticks in the water to mark the entrance and a shallow bar (S16 49.163 W151 24.991). If you are fortunate, you will encounter James Alfred Taero (Tah-air-oh) (Cell 319781), a local guide and farmer. He will take you to a shared farm/plantation (S16 49.724 W151 25.277) and introduce you to the local flora and fauna. During this visit, you will learn all about what "is good for me, not good for you" as well as what is "big and poisonous, not good to eat". You are also likely to shlep home with a whole bag full of samples. Bring your back pack. If requested, James will also take you on a long walk to visit a vanilla farm and view the incredibly beautiful surrounding countryside. The walk is steep and not for the faint of heart, but it leads through the local farm country and winds up into the hills, and in our opinion it was well worth the effort. Again, take a backpack for your samples as well as a lot of water. It is not clear at all how James makes a living. It was abundantly evident to us that he does not expect you to compensate him in any way for the time he'll spend with you. You are his guests, and he apparently takes great pleasure in showing you the valley and teaching you about the flora and fauna. Having said that, by dint of much persuasion, we were able to convince him that where Ceilydh and Don Quixote come from, you don't visit someone's house without bringing a vase of flowers, a potted plant, a plate of cookies, or some other "host gift." While something of a cultural hurdle, I think he finally understood well enough to accept our gifts without insult. Trust me that if you spend a day with James, you will want to give him something of yourself. The day is a true pleasure and very different from our ordinary hikes, snorkels, and town visits.

(continued Part III)

Exploring Raiatea and Taha'a (Part I)

2011-07-30T10:36:00.000-07:00

With teeth and outboard resolved, Don Quixote moves back into our more typical gypsy mode. We move anchorages almost daily, dipping into and out of baies, passes, and reefs to test the waters. Serendipity has brought us together with Ceildyh for this section of our voyages ensuring that we have good company for most of our adventures. Like us, they seem willing to change anchorages frequently dependent on mode, luck, and boat breakage. They also like rum cocktails, which is a helpful lubricant to good relations.

Raiatea and Taha'a are actually two islands which share a single barrier reef. The gap between reef and islands is unusually wide, frequently enabling boats to sail from point to point behind the reef. The novelty of sailing once again in light breezes with absolutely no wind or swell is appealing to the entire family. We find ourselves attempting to sail everywhere which can sometimes get a bit ridiculous as we tack back and forth quite literally caught between a rock and a hard place. Raiatea is the larger and southern of the two islands and boasts the second largest town in the Societies -- a whopping 5,000 people. Despite the small size, Uturoa boasts two grocery stores and a farmers market as well as hardware stores worthy of the name. In fact, many boats choose to complete their final provisioning on Raiatea as the selection is as great as Bora Bora and many report that the prices are considerably cheaper.

Our first days on Raiatea were spent at the Raiatea Carenage. This is a haul out and careening facility found on the north west end of Raiatea, all the way around the corner past the airport and the Tahiti Yacht Charter base. If available, you can pick up a CNI yellow mooring ball for roughly $15USD (1300 CFP) per night. We never saw a ball available. The anchorage in front of the facilities is just awful. Steep to and rocky, it's hard to find a shallow spot and even harder to set the hook. There is considerably better anchorage across the channel and on the reef to the west. We couldn't take advantage of it, however, as our problem was a dinghy motor. The last thing we wanted to do was row over a mile across the channel in 20 knot winds. Ceildyh was very happy with the quality of the sailmaker they found at the charter marina just around the corner, we were reasonably convinced that the outboard mechanique knows what he's doing. The facility consists of multiple buildings all housed on the same bit of land. It looks like you could have virtually any type of boat work done by someone in that yard. The only issue is unless you bring your own parts, anything that needs fixing with speciality bits and pieces is likely going to have to come from Papeete before it can be grafted to your vessel. The haul out is on rails rather than a lift and apparently can accommodate fairly large vessels, including catamarans. The posted prices on the web site are extremely competitive, almost scarily so. Hard to imagine why it is cheaper to haul on Raiatea than in Mexico.

As is the case with many Polynesian islands, there is no bus service on Raiatea and only one taxi. The taxi actually isn't a taxi; It's a guy with a truck who sells his time and services for obscene amounts of money as a "tour guide". He will "tour" you from the carenage to downtown for a price that makes you consider buying a scooter as a viable economic alternative. Every time we end up in a situation like this -- far from anywhere with no buses or cabs -- we vow that on our next cruise we will travel with bikes. The good news is that Polynesians are friendly and fully cognizant of the limitations of their public transit system. While you will never see one of them hitchhiking, they are very willing to scoop up the wayward cruiser and drop them in town. Our 'lift' came from a really friendly guy named Steve (whose car smelled like gardinia) who not only took Jaime and I into town, he stopped, got out, and guided us down the street and up the dark stair case to our dentist. He was afraid (rightfully so!) we wouldn't have found it otherwise. He introduced us to the receptionist, with whom not surprisingly he was on a first name basis, and made sure we were all settled into the waiting room, before he returned to his vehicle.

Escaping the carenage, we spent a night in Baie d'Haamene. The bay cuts deeply into the heart of Taha'a and makes two jinks before terminating in a lovely, shallow and mud filled bay (S16 38.238 W151 29.157). The protection from waves and wind is so complete and the holding so good that this bay is considered a hurricane hole. DrC and I estimate it has the capacity to shelter at least twice as many vessels as Puerto Don Juan up in the Bay of LA (call it maybe 60) with potentially better protection. For us, the bay was a much needed respite after nearly two weeks in a 20 to 30 knot wind tunnel. For the first time in what felt like forever, the wind generator stopped it's whinging and we slept like the dead with no movement and utter silence.

(continued Part II)

Underway at Night

2011-07-29T10:19:00.000-07:00

Some people sleep through night passages. They do this through the simple expedient of believing that the ocean is super big, and the probability of their hitting anything is very small. Single handers (who have no choice) and super optimistic others (who have a choice but like risk a bit more than we do) will set an alarm every 15 minutes or so, scan the horizon, check the radar, then drift back to sleep. Some even more thick folks have several glasses of wine with dinner before doing this.

On Don Quixote, we have the luxury of having someone awake, at the helm, all the time. At night, we are even more cautious than during the day as we assume someone else is ignoring the horizon, the little navigation lights on the front of our boat, the ping on their radar, and the incredibly loud sound of our air horn when we try to get their attention. We have reason to believe this is a Good Policy. Close calls between two boats at night at sea are not like horseshoes and hand grenades, they are more like nuclear bombs; Even being within sight of the flash is too close. During our years cruising, we have had our share of "two ships passing in the night." With the South Pacific crossing, we are statistically underway a much greater proportion of the time and so find this happening more frequently.

Night encounters seem to fall into roughly five basic categories: Behemoth, Ghost, Panga, Misplaced Lighthouse, and Yachtie. Let's take these in order.

A behemoth is a boat so damn big that hitting you is tantamount to a 16-wheeler smacking into a mosquito while crossing Minnesota. You and your boat will barely make a smear on the bow. If it happens off watch or at night, they might not even know they've hit you. Behemoths include tankers, cargo containers, and cruise ships. The bad news is that frequently, no one is paying the slightest attention on the helm. The good news is that virtually all behemoths are visible from many miles away, and legally all of them are required to broadcast over AIS their position, bearing, and name. Basically, your job is to spot them well in advance and get out of their way as quickly as possible.

A ghost is a return on your radar or a light on the horizon that doesn't respond when you call. Sometimes ghosts even disappear after you hail them. Ghosts come in many sizes, and it's pretty fair to assume that all of them are doing something illegal. While some are drug runners, by far the majority are poachers illegally fishing out of internationally established seasons or in prohibited locations. Alternatively, they are simply a product of your exhausted imagination. I hate ghosts. They scare the heck of me, particularly when they disappear off the radar. I don't like the fact that a well lit boat with a hard return on my radar less than 2 miles away suddenly disappears when I try to establish whether I will pass them on port or starboard. After the ghost disappears, you just have to assume they have full responsibility for avoiding a collusion.

Pangas are small, hard bottomed fishing boats. Technically, pangas are a very specific brand, size, and conformation. However, we've come to use the term to refer to any idiot fisherman or pearl farmer out in the middle of the night without lights in a very small boat. To make these guys even more fun and interesting, they inevitably trail strings of nets, lines, and other assorted crap in the water, also unmarked. Generally, they are too small to show up on your radar. The way they signal their existence is to shine a flashlight at you… assuming they see you… assuming they are even awake. The bad news about pangas is that they are a serious navigational hazard which can cause tremendous damage to your boat. The good news is that they are not really offshore craft. As a rule, you can assume that if you are 30 or more miles off shore, the only panga you'll encounter is someone who is dire need of a rescue. Pangas are yet one more excellent reason to avoid sailing at night near any land mass. The really dangerous part of sailing across an ocean, remember, is the hard bits on the edges.

On our boat, we call it a misplaced lighthouse when we see a light somewhere that makes not the slightest bit of sense. This sobriquet started the night Jaime and I spotted a lighthouse about 1000 miles off the coast of Mexico. It was very tall, rotated on a regular periodic schedule, and scared the bejesus out of both of us. We pulled out both electronic charts and the hard copy to make sure we were not encountering some hitherto unstudied island in the middle of nowhere. If you've ever visited an atoll, this notion is substantially more plausible. However, in this case, we have no idea what we were seeing. It was probably a ghost, actually. But I swear it looked like a lighthouse. We also call random lights in channels, along shorelines, and in the middle of nowhere misplaced lighthouses. We see few of them in French Polynesia, but the Mexican coastline is speckled with such lights which have broken from their moorings and drifted hither and yon.

And finally, there are your friends, neighbors and fellow travelers, the yachties. Honestly, these guys are sometimes the most dangerous bunch of all. You'd think given the size of the oceans and the relatively tiny wetted surface of the average sailing or motor yacht, it would be impossible to bump into another boat in the middle of nowhere. Yet it happens all the time! The only boat we've routinely had on our horizon has been our buddy boat, but over sundowners on the decks of fellow cruisers, we hear all sorts of first person encounters with yachts at sea. Of course, the most dangerous type harken back to the first paragraph of this essay -- the ones that are asleep. Alternatively, they might be below reading a book or watching a movie, secure in the perfection of their signaling radar, auto-pilot and charts. We on Don Quixote are a bit old school. We don't really trust our charts, we definitely don't trust our radar or the alarms programmed into it. We trust our eyes and our ears, and when the adults start to get sleepy, we willingly sacrifice our children to the cause and stick them up on the helm for the night.

Night watch can be some of the most beautiful, introspective, and meditative part of your passage making. Just make sure that you are on watch to enjoy it, as well as to avoid the chance of anything going bump in the night.

Distance is Relative

2011-07-24T12:35:00.001-07:00

It's 2005. We've owned Don Quixote a mere two months. We would like to take her north to La Connor to show her off to DrC's parents. The girls want to visit their grandparents, and it seems like a great opportunity to practice sailing our new boat. The problem is that the trip is really really long. The 50 some odd miles are utterly daunting. So we break the trip into three days up, two days in La Connor, three days for the return. Even so, the 20 mile day to Everett is nearly overwhelming leaving the entire family limp with exhaustion.

It's 2007. What with closing down the practice, renting the house, and getting the boat ready, we just don't have a full week to spend on a trip to Grandma and Grandpa. We reconsider and recalculate and commit to leaving early and have long days. We can manage the distance two days each way. Thanks to some friends of ours, we've learned the wonders of using Puget Sound tides to carry us from place to place. The second, 27 mile day is hard on everyone and boring in the extreme, but we do it.

It's 2008. We cut the lines on our cruising lives and head north. We make it all the way to Port Townsend, 45 miles north, in one day push to make a scheduled appointment with a rigger. It takes all day. On arrival, we have the devil's own time docking as the family has collectively less than a single erg of energy. As the stars start to emerge from Northwest clouds, we drag ourselves down to the local microbrewery to eat burgers and drink crafted and ginger brew with a sense of accomplishment.

It's 2009. To escape the heat and mud of Santa Rosalia after Hurricane Jimena, the girls and I pull out of the harbor in the middle of the night and motor sail 65 north to Bahia San Franciscito. We don't even have the captain on board. It takes 13 hours, and we arrive before sunset with plenty of time to set the hook well for the night. The next day we duplicate the effort to get up and around the corner into the Bay of LA region where presumably we are out of the possible path of another hurricane. I can't remember us at any time discussing the distance, as the trip was well within "our wheelhouse" and a hell of a lot easier than the days just spent on the dock in 70 to 90 knot winds.

It's 2011. The family is noodling over the charts covering the region from the Societies to Tonga. Jaime notes, "Aitutaki to Palmerston North is only 193. We can leave in the morning and get in the next evening." Aeron nods, "Easy peasy." Mera adds, "Only one night watch per person."

I try to imagine this family back in the Puget Sound. Have we really changed so much? If we wanted to see Grandma and Grandpa, would we really consider leaving on Friday afternoon back on Sunday? The family is busy making plans for this summer in New Zealand with trips to the Bay of Islands and Hauraki Gulf, both of which are 100s of miles from our base in Auckland Harbor. Presumably, there will come a time when 100 miles seems like a long day again. But today, we are sailing from Huahine to Raiatea, and we don't even bother to plan when to leave or arrive. The trip is so short, it's hardly worth changing the daily cooking, school, and chore schedule. It's only 20 miles after all.

Changing Our Diet

2011-07-22T11:17:00.000-07:00

When in Rome, eat pasta. When in Polynesia, eat bokchoy. Bokchoy is a fantastic vegetable with which I had almost no familiarity prior to our puddle jump. Shame on me. It is a cruiser's delight: cheap, crunchy, widely available, and it keeps a surprisingly long time in the fridge. The greens are good raw as a substitute for lettuce in salads and sandwiches. They are equally good sautéed as greens in a stir fry or as leafy green in soups and stews. The stems are tasty in any situation -- raw or cooked -- where normally you might otherwise use celery. But unlike celery and romaine, I find I can keep bokchoy in the fridge for up to two weeks with almost no noticeable change. We've never kept it longer as we use it up fairly rapidly. Bokchoy is now a staple of the Don Quixote diet and will remain so even after we arrive in more varied veggie ports.

Another addition to our diet is the pamplemousse. I've always wondered what these things were. They look like enormous green grapefruit, not particularly appealing and ridiculously large. I can't remember seeing them in the States, but they did appear in New Zealand stores with some degree of frequency. If the price is right, we'll continue munching on these globes long after we leave the South Pacific. One pamplemousse is enough to feed the entire family at lunch along with the ubiquitous baguette, a chunk of cheap brie-like cheese, and some stalks of bokchoy or carrots.

The common veggies with which we have had little contact and less interest include taro and breadfruit. After reading Herman Melville's description of his first encounter with breadfruit in Typee, I don't feel particularly guilty over this omission. There is also a red prickly fruit which looks a bit like a sea anemone and tastes gooey and sour with little mitigating flavor to make it worth eating. Locals love these, and they can be found at every corner stand, but I can't see the appeal. Lamentably, another extremely popular vegetable in Polynesia is Chinese eggplant. It too is widely available, cheap, and keeps well. Sadly, I loathe eggplant. The only way I can enjoy eggplant is breaded, fried, and buried deep in a casserole consisting of small bits of eggplant hidden between thick layers of cheese, spicy tomato sauce, spicy sausage, and pasta.

The kids are big fans of coconut. As a parent, I advocate cultivating coconut interest in your children while you travel. Coconuts are quite literally lying on the ground everywhere. Throw the children overboard armed with little more than a screw driver, and they will spend hours feeding themselves. Coconuts are very satisfying to harvest, shuck, crack and eat. Done properly, the process involves throwing things, making stuff fall out of trees, ripping, shredding and tearing something to bits, banging, whacking, smashing, chipping, scrapping, and shattering. The yield is incredibly pure, slightly sweet juice in a rewardingly large volume along with firm, crunchy coconut meat. If you have a scraper and a small piece of fabric, you can also make coconut cream which tastes like melted coconut ice cream. Don't let the kids bring coconuts back to the boat. The shucking process generates copious amounts of husk shreds that burst open in a startling display of dirty bark bits which then adhere to every surface for a distance of 5 meters -- in over words, at least half your boat. The bits then bond to the bottoms of cat and people feet and are tracked to every other horizontal surface on the boat. It takes weeks to de-coconut-huskify your boat. If your children insist on bringing coconuts back, have them husk the fruit before returning to the boat then stick the resulting nuts in a zip lock bag in the fridge. They won't be quite as fresh as unhusked nuts, but they are still tasty even a week or two later.

French Polynesia is the land of the cheap baguette. At first, we reveled in the crunchy white bread. After a few weeks, however, we're heartily sick of it. It's like eating French Wonder Bread. It fills you up but leaves you with the dissatisfying sensation that you've essentially been eating the wheat equivalent of cotton candy. Baguettes are available at every magazin in the entire country as long as you get there before 0700. We always make pre-orders at the magazin so we can go in the next day at whatever hour suits our fancy. If you keep your baguettes in a sunny, dry spot out of the way of moist, night breezes, they dry out perfectly. You can then make them into bread puddings, stuffing, or croutons with little effort. We also enjoy smearing them with a seasoned tomato paste, a bit of pepperoni and some cheese and baking them into pizza bites. I've taken pizza bites to potlucks many times. I have never ever made enough no matter how many I bake.

Buying meat in Polynesia is a bit bass backwards. Beef is extremely expensive, New Zealand lamb about the same as in New Zealand, and chicken from the United States pricey but within reach. The cheapest protein is sushi grade tuna which can be had at any major magazin or market for roughly 750 CP/kg ($4.15/pound). I know this sounds terrible, but we've taken to buying enormous chunks of tuna, slicing it into steaks, and freezing it for later use. While sometimes we make sushi, more often we grill the steaks and serve with chili sweet and spicy or wasabi/soy flavored sauces. Leftovers get made into sandwich spreads or even -- sacre bleu! -- tuna noodle casserole. You can also purchase meats in cans… any meats. I've never seen beef in a can before. I confess, we haven't bought it yet. Bad us. We should at least try it. However, I have no idea what to do with canned beef.

The girls report that French Polynesian candy and pastries don't really stand out. Aeron says that the banana fried in dough might be a tasty exception. Most everything, however, is a bit glutinous or just plain odd. The hard candy which tastes like honey dipped in a pine tree is particularly strange and more than a bit medicinal. Everything pales in comparison to the aforementioned coconut cream derived from the girls' hard effort and a shaver. Instead of sweets, the girls report that they most enjoy the abundant sushi with its sweet Polynesian soy sauce and the poisson cru which is white fish ceviched in lime juice and salty coconut milk. According to Mera, it's very odd and it goes down your throat in a "queasy way," but it tastes really good.

We eat a lot of Mexican package cookies, crackers, cereals, and canned goods. Sometimes I think we'll be munching meloras on Saltinas for the rest of our lives. We are going to arrive in New Zealand with roughly 100 casera salsa cans for the simple reason that we ran out of tortas, and there isn't a decent tortilla chip to be found anywhere in the South Pacific. This lack is probably okay since beer the local Hinano beer is $3/can and tastes terrible. We plan to just wait it out drinking rum cocktails and munching raw coconut and sashimi till we get to New Zealand. Rough culinary life.

Nous Sommes Reparer

2011-07-20T14:43:00.000-07:00

Don Quixote is once again a fully operational vessel.

Jaime does not need surgery. Basically, the new wisdom tooth is starting to form behind and under the last molar, but it's not ready to come up. The pain of the growth resulted in Jaime not cleaning properly which led to a small infection and then a bad loop of behavior and bacteria. The dentist cleaned it all up, shot it full of antibiotics, and handed us some drugs and a mouth wash. However, the dentist did say that starting her orthodonture in November is "obligitaire". This is the polite French way of saying, "Do it or else disaster will strike."

The outboard can be fixed with parts from Tahiti that might get here in a week or two. So we bought a new one. It's exactly like the old one except it's shiny and it works. I've tried for nearly five years to believe that the two conditions -- shiny and functional -- are not obligitaire. Yet ultimately, there was something incredibly liberating in the act of dumping the old motor in the bottom of the dinghy and strapping on the new one. It started. It ran. It thrummed powerfully. It got us out to the boat. This morning's spontaneous decision to drop several thousand dollars on a new motor was motivated in part by a rather apocryphal experience attempting to row upwind in 20 knots to get Jaime to her dentist. Someday I'll have enough emotional distance to write about it. Today, it just didn't seem funny.

Now before I see the comments in the blog, yes I am fully cognizant of the irony that we have spent enormous amounts of time, angst and energy thwarting dinghy outboard thieves. We could have saved ourselves a tremendous amount of misery had we simply allowed our old one to be stolen and submitted an insurance claim. In fact, arguably we would have done the cruising world a community service by diverting the thieves of Polynesia towards an investment of time and energy in stealing the horrible thing and then more time and money to get it to work. Maybe it would have put them off their feed. In any case, DrC is stripping our old motor of everything useful and old looking. The harness, cover, gas tank, and fins are all going to be put on the new motor. The shiny new cover and brand new tank will be hidden in the port bow. This effort both makes the new motor less appealing to the casual thief as well as improves the resale value down the road when we slap the shiny new back on.

On balance, the day cost less than we anticipated. The motor put us back a large sum, but the sum was only about 10% greater than the price in the United States and maybe 15% greater than New Zealand. It hurts but we're not resentful. The dentist cost less than $40USD which is amazing considering the time and materials, the fun with translation, and the X-rays he took. We spent another $15USD on pharmaceuticals, again a very reasonable price for the purchase. We extravagantly threw some money at a snack-bar-tiarea and had french fries, sausage dim sum, and fruit smoothies. It all could have been so much worse. There was a distinct possibility of returning to Tahiti, oral surgery, and dogz know what else. It's all good.

Tonight, we'll have dinner with Ceilydh. They are also here in the Raiatea Carenege area getting work done on their sails. Tomorrow, I think we'll try to put the entire F.U.D. of the past weeks behind us. There is a turtle sanctuary near by as well as a river to explore, excellent provisioning at the local market, and a reportedly excellent snorkel and dive spot. We need a vacation.

Another Quick Status

2011-07-19T10:44:00.000-07:00

No stories today, funny or serious. Just an update on Jaime and the outboard. Both are still broken. The cruising community -- in particular the South Pacific Cruisers Net (0230 UTC 6224.0) -- is proving particularly helpful in getting us organized. Today, we will sail over to Raiatea. The second largest city in Polynesia is located there at Uturoa. We'll hopefully get Jaime into a dentist tomorrow (Wed) and the motor into a mechanic this afternoon. If Jaime needs to return to Tahiti for surgery, a northeastern light breeze is helpfully coming in this weekend to blow us down there in reasonable comfort.

As always is the case when the issue of medical care in a foreign country arises, opinions on medicine in French Polynesia is deeply divided. We hear reports that the French locals always return to France when they want medical care and avoid the local services. On the other side are Polynesians and forever cost-conscious cruisers who report positively on the quality of medical care here. We already had reason to visit a Polynesian doctor and health clinic. The experience left DrC and I feeling satisfied and moderately impressed. The care was not as cheap as Mexico and considerably less expensive than the United States. The staff were highly competent and friendly, the facilities and equipment modern and clean. The pharmacies are well stocked and carry medicines in both familiar brand names as well as generic alternatives. The doctor was French and trained in France. Moreover, he was nice about my broken French. Trust me, they don't teach you in high school French any of the words I needed for that visit. The bottom line is that I see no reason for us to fly to the States or New Zealand should it become necessary to have any of Jaime's teeth pulled. The only reason we might have to go to Tahiti is if the extraction is going to be sufficiently complicated that it requires someone who isn't in Raiatea. Given the small population, there may only be one oral surgeon in the entire country.

As for the outboard, I'd love to buy a new one. Folks in the comments recently suggested I put a donation button on the blog. Instead of "Donate Now", I think our button should say, "Fix the outboard already, we're heartily sick of hearing you bitch about it!" When I told DrC, oblivious and annoyingly thick man that he is, he suggested that if people had money to donate, they should give it to a charity. I hit him. No kidding. I just grabbed the nearest pillow and smashed it into his chest. While I'm no James Herriot, I'd like to think that my stories are stories. There was a time when story writers actually got paid for their stories. *gasp!* It is not so much that I feel I need to solicit donations, as there is an old school part of me that really likes the idea of getting Paid To Write. So I want to thank those of you who suggested the idea. If nothing else, it is tremendously flattering to know that there are readers who enjoy this blog enough that they would consider paying for it. It also encourages the slightly delusional notion that someday, I'll skim off the cream of these stories and compile them into a book. As for my husband, I'm thinking of putting a poll button on the blog instead with the question: "Is DrC -trying- to get murdered in his sleep? (Yes/No)"

Securing the Dinghy - The Sequel

2011-07-18T11:53:00.000-07:00

Moorea is a great island for hikers. There are roads and trails all over the island with variegated forests, incredibly scenic vistas, and great sites both natural and historic to reward the intrepid walker. Today's walk will take us through the valley lowlands past experimental farms, a natural resource college and grazing lands. Then we'll head up through -- of all things -- a pine and fern forest before breaking through towards the top to a platform with a stunning view of both Cook and Oponunu Bays. The road also takes us past a part of the Ag School which sells samples of local products as well as ice cream. The station is a must-do in Moorea. My personal recommendation is the passion fruit ice cream and the tiare flavored honey. It is also the only place in French Polynesia where I have found whole coffee beans. On the return journey, we'll opt for the walking trail through the forest and pineapple farms, past archeological sites dating back nearly 600 years.

But first we must secure the dink. The first attempt to secure the dink at Pointe Venus was such a great success, we decide to change up our technique a bit in Moorea. We estimate that today's hike is roughly 8 km round trip (not including getting lost on side trails), so we'll be gone several hours, leaving the boat unattended and exposed to all sorts of mischief. It won't do to leave the dinghy and motor within easy reach on shore. The basic soundness of the idea "drop the family on shore, secure the dinghy to Don Quixote, then swim ashore" is not in question. The problem was obviously in the execution: in particular with my inability to handle the motor or the now somewhat infamous anchor chain. So, we'll just eliminate both obstacles.

First, we lock the dinghy motor to its stand on Don Quixote, and we grab DrC's home-made paddles for a quick row ashore. This part actually goes quite well. We don't even lose anything overboard. After breaking one of our original oars in Nuka Hiva, DrC made a replacement set out of broom handles, splits of plywood, long screws, and wood glue. Unstoppable! that's my captain. The oars are about 5 feet long and weigh a ton, but they make very good paddles. In fact, I can honestly report that Jaime and I think these are a substantial improvement over our old, light-weight, aluminum and plastic pair. We canoe paddle over the glassy water to shore with commendable skill and rapidity. We make landfall without a hitch, disembarking today's princess (Aeron in her tennis shoes) without so much as a splash. All I have to do now is row back to Don Quixote, lock up the dinghy, and swim ashore.

DrC and Jaime push me off and the dinghy sails into the still waters of the bay with me balanced precariously in the middle looking vainly for a seat. When you canoe paddle, you sit on either side of the boat and try to paddle with a single oar without screaming to your partner that he or she is a complete moron for failing to paddle at precisely the same rate and strength as yourself. Rowing, however, requires that you sit with your back to bow in the middle of the boat with both oars threaded through oar locks (assuming you haven't lost these overboard on an atoll in the middle of nowhere) while you stroke your oars in harmonious and balanced synchronicity. Done right, it is beautiful to watch and great exercise. But as I drift farther and farther off shore, I realize with a doomed sense of inevitability that one of the single most important props necessary to enact my rowing drama is missing. I have no place to sit.

If DrC can be unstoppable, who am I to quibble at details. I thread my homemade oars through the oarlocks and carefully balance myself in the middle of the dinghy. With legs spread wide, feet braced in the crack between hard bottom and inflatable pontoon, I begin to row. It turns out that the five feet of broom handle is about 2 feet too short to make my first posture feasible, so with a wiggle of my back side, I squat and tentatively take another stroke. It works! Never mind that I can't see where I'm going or that the bow is still pointing at the shoreline, I'm making progress in roughly the right direction. I ignore the somewhat urgent yells of my family who are somewhat unhelpfully pointing out that the dinghy is moving backwards. I put my heart and back into the effort, and the dinghy accelerates, suffusing me with pride and overcoming the niggling worry that in my crouched position I look like I'm taking a crap in the aft end of the dink while simultaneously flapping wooden wings to hurry the process.

From the shore, the frantic calls of my family reach a new pitch. I look up from my crouch to see them urgently pointing to the left. A glance in that direction reveals two jet skis heading straight for me. I am apparently the somewhat mobile target platform for a teenage jet ski race-a-thon, or I might merely be the only interesting way point in an otherwise empty bay. In any case, the two craft zoom up and around my dinghy enveloping me in sound, spray and a rocking wake. Precarious balance shot to hell, my feet fly out from under me and the oars launch themselves into space as my butt hits the very hard bottom. Flat on my back staring at enormous, puffy white clouds, feeling the gradual diminution of the jet ski wake and waiting until I can once again breathe, I ponder the meaning of my cruising existence. As I can not recall ever reading about any other idiot knocking themselves out on the bottom of their dinghy after attempting to row it with homemade wooden oars and no seat, it becomes absolutely clear to me that we're doing it wrong.

Painfully, I haul myself to a seated position. As my head pops into view, a cheer arises from the shore. My loving family is happy to see I have survived. Although as I clamber up and retrieve the oars a bitter inner voice tells me that they might just be happy to note I am once again underway, back in the poop position which I later learn makes for fabulously amusing photos. Unstoppable we might be, but it would be nice to get through even one day with a bit more grace.

Moving Backwards

2011-07-16T15:20:00.001-07:00

We have two problems which are likely to push us back to Tahiti. First, our outboard is dead. Again. [Insert a series of swear words here] The last problem of fuel solved, now the lower unit seems to be footer. [More swear words] DrC is giving up. We keep throwing $70 here and $140 there at this thing without any permanent fix. We can not cruise without an outboard. Right now is a perfect example. We're pinned down at the anchor off Fare on Huahine because of wind squalls blowing through and an uncertain motor. It might get us ashore and back, it might not and it is much too windy to row. All these attempts to save the dinghy outboard from being stolen seem to be incredibly misplaced.

This problem is NOT resolving itself. DrC is ready to throw the damn thing overboard. We can buy a new one in Tahiti for roughly three grand. Lovely. But we have to go back to Tahiti to do this. We might be able to cut the price considerably by purchasing it duty free. That's an interesting wrinkle. It'll still be insanely expensive.

But the real reason we'll probably end up back in Tahiti is Jaime's teeth. Her wisdom teeth can't wait another 4 months and have decided to erupt. Now. I don't know what the heck we're going to do about this, actually. We're emailing the orthodontist who took her x-rays last year. Hard to say what we're going to learn from that exercise. At this point, DrC is proposing that I fly her to New Zealand and get her orthodont started. Because we can afford that. Two tickets to New Zealand from Tahiti, please.

I'm depressed today. No decisions can be made for at least 24 hours in any case. Then we'll have to figure out what to do next. Part of me is in denial. The other part of me is making cheese buns. I finally found a yeast that works in 80F temperatures. My New Zealand just couldn't handle the temperatures and my Mexican yeast couldn't handle French flour. My Polynesian yeast is happy here, but I expect it to start balking as soon as we head west to the Cook Islands. In the meantime, we had garlic rolls for dinner, fried dough for breakfast, cheese buns for lunch. The entire family will soon be in a yeast coma.

At least it's cheap.

Pahn Pahn Pahn

2011-07-15T11:01:00.000-07:00

Editor's Note: Corrected to spell securite correctly. Thank you Steve.

A long string of nonsensical franco-sounding syllables bursts from the VHF startling the entire family out of our familiar and comfortable bickering at the dinner table. The only sounds that are clear to all members of the family are the mariner's knell of "pan pan pan."

Everyone knows about "mayday". You say mayday when things have gone completely to hell and you need help… like ten minutes ago. In all our years out cruising, we've only heard one mayday. We were somewhere up in the Pacific Northwest near the San Juan Islands. The mayday was issued by a woman on a powerboat. The captain had been injured -- it was never clear how but he was incapacitated and unable to come to the radio -- and the woman was helpless. She could barely operate the radio, let alone operate the boat itself. We listened with an odd mixture of horrified fascination and worry as the US Coast Guard attempted to first get the woman to change from 16 to another channel, and -- failing that -- tried to assist the woman to secure the vessel. The craft was drifting ashore and perilously close to running up on rocks before we gratefully heard the Coast Guard announce on 16 that they were within sight of the vessel. Not long after, 16 went silent again as the Coast Guard took over the boat and apparently got the women off channel. Ever since, we have enforced a family policy that everyone on the boat knows how to operate the radios as well as drive the boat solo in the event of an emergency. It is hard to overemphasize how frustrating it was to bear witness to this woman's helplessness.

"Securite securite securite" is another VHF radio alert. In the United States and Canada, you'll hear the securite message frequently. Generally, it is used by officials such as the Coast Guard to make non-emergency announcements such as navigational hazards as well as by weather services to alert boaters to the pending delivery of an updated weather report. Interestingly, we never heard the securite message in Mexico. This is no doubt due to the fact that outside of a few very select areas, Mexicans do not broadcast marine weather reports via VHF. In French Polynesia, our memory of the securite messages was refreshed upon arrival in Tahiti. For the Tahiti and Bora Bora areas, Meteorologie France regularly broadcasts weather reports on 26 and 27. Of course, the alert is "seh-kyu-reh-teh" and in French, but it's nice to be back in a country which keeps its mariners apprised of the weather.

Somewhere between "mayday" and "securite" is the "pan pan pan." A pan message indicates that someone or something is in trouble, but the trouble is not necessarily immediately life threatening. There is such a broad range between mayday and securite, that any time you hear a pan, the ears perk and the heart starts to beat a bit faster. To some mariners, anything short of a ship actually banging on rocks and sinking is merely a pan, whereas other folks think a pan is when you run out of fuel and are drifting slowly down the Straits of Juan de Fuca with an estimated landfall three or four days hence. One of the laws of the sea -- sometimes literally a legal requirement and at others merely a custom -- is that all vessels hearing a request for assistance such as a pan alert are required to render assistance if at all possible. A pan alert on channel 16, in other words, could literally mean the end of dinner and a very rough few hours while you do what you can to save the property and life of a complete stranger.

The vessel that has garnered the most positive karma in pan situations on the puddle jump this year must be Loose Pointer. While preparing our boats, we all simply stopped counting the number of times that Dan and company piled into the dinghy and went out to save another vessel. Usually, it was a boat dragging in a norther or poorly anchored boats that started banging into each other in the typical Magote waltz. At least once, he zoomed out all the way to Costa Baja to tow in a completely disabled vessel. Dan has supplied endless tools to repair Don Quixote and other boats, loaned us a critically needed outboard motor, and been the best companion boat a cruiser could ask for. They also towed Star Gap 12 miles into Papeete when it looked like that benighted vessel was going to extend its 7 week Galapagos journey another few weeks and go all the way to Tonga. I am sure there are other rescues. Dan and Kathryn are considering renaming their vessel "Triple A".

Tonight's pan alert, however, is completely incomprehensible. I am considerably more sympathetic now over DrC's protests that he could never understand the Mexicans chattering on VHF. Heavily Tahitian accented French over VHF is about as close to complete babble as it gets. What I am able to translate is something having to do with a very large thunderstorm, lightening, no power, and near Papeete. Even the words I am able to grasp in the stream of nonsense is enough to worry all of us. Deep in Oponunu Bay, we're getting hammered ourselves by incredibly heavy rain and intermittent gusts in the 25 to 30 range. It's not hard to imagine a boat getting hit by lightening just outside of Papeete harbor and now drifting towards the barrier reef. We are not, however, in any position to help even if this is the case. We're a minimum of three hours away and on the hook. Someone else needs to respond to this pan.

We watch each other chew in dead silence while we await a response. The pan message is issued a second and then a third time with no reply. Each time, I'm able to decipher just a few more words, confirming my initial impression and adding the knowledge that the vessel is out of the Tuamotus, power, and large. It might even be one of the cargo ships or ferries. Finally, someone responds in a version of French even more incomprehensible than the vessel in distress. Now, I am completely unable to figure out what is going on. However, the knowledge that someone is interacting with the disabled vessel dramatically reduces the tension on Don Quixote. Bickering over the division of the pumpkin pie resumes punctuated periodically with squawks from the radio which sound like negotiations on how and where to tow the disabled craft. Eventually, DrC has had enough, and we turn of the radio for the remainder of the emergency.

Someday, we may "pull a Loose Pointer;" We may be the rescuer, motoring out of our way to help a fellow mariner. Sadly, it is also true that we could be the rescuee, needing the assistance that only another boat can render. The constant chatter on the hailing and emergency channels is a part of our lives, a constant reminder to us that bad juju can happen at any time on the sea. At the same time, it reassures us that there are also helpful strangers out there who are listening for our mayday, pan or security, ready to lend a hand.

What is Missing?

2011-07-11T11:59:00.000-07:00

It's a relatively common question -- "What do you miss while cruising?"

In some ways, it's very hard to answer. Arguably, I miss nothing. I have my family, my husband, my health, the biggest and most magnificent backyard in the world, and I don't have to go to work. Ever. Compared to these advantages, it feels rather petty to go on and on about the small things I crave, the medium things I jones for, the big items for which I sometimes think I would literally kill. Out here, missing stuff is very much a part of our way of life. It's the empty wistful next to the full glass of amazing.

Let's first confront head on the mistaken notion that French Polynesia is a third world country. Some of the comments I've seen on this blog and elsewhere suggest that folks might have a concept of the South Pacific islands as impossibly remote and primitive, where people are living an incredibly hard scrabble existence with no modern amenities. There may be islands so remote that this description still holds true. However, on most islands and in all the cases we've had an opportunity to visit, French Polynesians lead a relatively modern lifestyle that would not be terribly unfamiliar to the average American, Kiwi, or Australian. While adopting a very beach casual with flippy floppies attire, they are by no means the palm frond and flower clad naked folk that we see in the dance shows. The islands have established road systems, distributed electrical and communication grids, satellite access to international communication and Internet, and regular supply ships carrying the exact same cheap Chinese plastic crap and friable cotton clothing found literally everywhere.

The one aspect that seems uniquely different from North America is that many Polynesian homesteads include a very robust cottage farm component with established fruit trees, bushes, and vegetable gardens. This is due no doubt largely because ferry supplies are considerably less fresh than local and usually expensive. With the exception of the capital Papeete, French Polynesian towns are incredibly clean. On the smaller islands and all the atolls, there is a high rate of solar power adoption and many of the atolls are investing heavily in water cachement systems. The economy here appears robust and is based on tourism, pearl farming, as well as copra, flower and fruit exports. It will be interesting to witness their transformation over time as they gradually wean their economy from the heavy subsidization of France. At this point, I would bet on the Polynesians as they appear a highly adaptable people. As is frequently the case, we see a deep contrast between the people who live in the well developed areas and those who live below the poverty line. This reminds me strongly of coastal Mexico where educated Mexicans taking part in the modern economy shop at Costco, Home Depot and WalMart, drive their suburbans, and send their children to private school, where the uneducated and extremely poor underclass live in plywood shacks with dirt floors and live largely on fishing while growing their own chickens, beans, and limons.

As a result of the high degree of modernization, there are few commercial goods which are truly unavailable here. If we want it, we could buy it. While availability can be a problem for the average cruiser on the atolls and smaller islands, locals order what they want and it appears on the next supply ship. The problem is cost. Everything here except coconuts, pamplemousse and bokchoy is imported at insane cost. I don't honestly know how the locals afford it. I frankly can not even figure out how they feed their children. But obviously, the economy works for residents as most appear prosperous: well fed, well clothed with cars, cell phones, good medical care, and satellite television. (As a side note, we've had reason to sample the local medical services and -- yet again -- it puts the American medical establishment to shame… quick, reasonable prices, highly professional, no wait.)

So what could we on Don Quixote possibly want? American candy and English language books. Actually, when you travel it is super important to stash a lot of the little sauces, candies, and other treats you favor, because even if they have the same product in another country, it doesn't taste the same. We are now on our fourth Dorito's Nacho Cheese chips, none of which taste like home even though the packaging is identical. I have no idea what the hell they've done to the recipe, but the version in Polynesia is even worse than Mexico and that's saying something. I can't find red vines and the M&Ms don't crunch right. Asian sauces are abundant here so don't worry about packing soy sauce or wasabi or Thai fish sauce, but you can kiss good bye anything even remotely Central or South American. It's as if every taste south of Oklahoma is simply non-existent in the South Pacific -- including NZ and Australia.

Reading material is a bigger problem. At least in Mexico, the cruisers made a point of establishing English language book exchanges. For whatever reason, we have not found any similar, large scale give-one-get-one exchange anywhere in Polynesia. As a result, everyone in the family has pretty much read everything on the boat, and there is just no replacing it. We can't even count on getting new books when we get to New Zealand as for some reason, the cost of a book in New Zealand is only marginally less than the book's weight in gold on the open market. Our electronic devices have not helped as pretty much all of them are either gradually or abruptly failing. The iPad and Aeron's iTouch are down for the count, Jaime's iTouch has a smashed screen, and the entire back of my MacBook is melting in a manner that disturbingly suggests imminent and explosive failure of the lithium battery. So much for ebooks. To delay the inevitable end, I've purchased two children's books and a few adult books in French for Aeron and myself. It's a start.

I think if I had to have a care package mailed to us at incredible expense, it would include the following: iPod headphones, Branch's butter mints, three packages of Costco women's briefs (all dark colours), a replacement sun protection hat from REI (mine finally died), sets of flippers for the kids (and here they cost $40USD/pair), and a replacement iPad or Kindle stuffed to the memory limit with science fiction, non-fiction, and South Pacific tour guides. And Taco Bell. Oh my god, I would kill for lunch at Taco Bell.

Securing the Dink

2011-07-10T11:09:00.000-07:00

Disturbing news was recently published on the Puddle Jump lists to the effect that dinghies and outboards are being stolen in unprecedented numbers from Tahitian and Moorean anchorages. These are not rumors. We've spoken with one of the captains who lost a dinghy. Tourism officials and local organizers made a point of letting all the participants at the rendezvous know that this is a serious, unresolved issue, and cruisers should be highly alert.

As a result, when we decided to go for yet another of our many "hikes in the woods" today leaving from Pointe Venus on the northwest corner of Tahiti, DrC and I canoodled for quite some time on what to do about the dinghy. Obviously, we needed it to get to shore, but neither of us felt comfortable leaving the vessel unattended on the beach. We decided to drive the dinghy to shore, drop the family, then I would drive back and chain the dinghy to our transom. Along with the locks on the motor, we felt this would prove a strong deterrent to the casual thief.

Like many of our great ideas, this one proved challenging to implement. First, the locks are slippery. I mean this literally. After telling us not to drop them overboard about 500 times in the past three weeks, DrC promptly drops one of them overboard as we leave Don Quixote fully loaded with children and hiking gear. I watch it sink out of sight with only the smallest sigh and a warning look when the captain starts to shift the blame. He subsides after sufficient glaring and motors us into shore. Our next hurdle comes from a common problem -- I can't start the dinghy motor. Actually, I can. I sweat, I swear, I disavow all knowledge of mechanical things, I kick the soft squishy sides of the dinghy (not the hard crunchy toe-breaking bottom), I chant something, then I agree that my soul belongs to the devil, after which it starts. By this time, locals are gathering on the beach and watching the entire performance with something approaching glee. I don't think French T.V. is nearly as entertaining as American cruisers with recalcitrant outboards. My inner child decides that I am merely enacting a scene to ensure that these self same locals have absolutely no motivation to steal a dinghy which can cause such loud and embarrassing antics.

The drive back to Don Quixote is otherwise uneventful. Which is good, because now I have to figure out how to chain up the dinghy. DrC had thoughtfully moved the heavy stern chain bucket to the starboard transom. The idea was to use the security cable on the bow of the dinghy, loop it through the transom handle, then loop chain through both the dinghy and the handle, and then lock chain, cable and dinghy together. However, the security cable is pretty short, the chain unwieldy, and in the 10 knot breeze, the dinghy keeps moving off out of range of the two. Frustrated, I throw one leg into the dinghy and brace the other on edge of the transom step while I wrestle with the cable and the chain. Giving the chain a yank to get more scope, I find myself suddenly in possession of plenty of chain while the rest slides off the transom, down the steps and with a clatter worthy of the ghost of Christmas past slides into the ocean.

It's 25' of high test 3/8 chain leftover from when we replaced the front rode. It weighs about a million pounds. It goes into the water simultaneously slow enough for me to mentally record every single link and quickly enough that it takes considerably longer to describe the event than to actually live it. What I want to do is drop the chain, divorce my husband, move to a one bedroom flat in Seattle, and pretend like this never happened… "this" essentially being my entire life. What I do instead is pretend like I have inner thigh muscles and squeeze the two boats together, hanging on to the chain for dear life. With the dinghy touching the transom, I throw as much of the remaining chain as I can over the bow of the dinghy. A satisfying few feet land with a thunk in the hard bottom. Then in a maneuver worthy of Cirque du Soleil and never to be repeated, I swing my DQ side leg over the bow and sit my ass on the chain. To do this, I must briefly let go of the chain, but I use my impossibly hard and/or impossibly large and squishy ass to pin the thing to the bow of the dinghy. A most disconcerting sensation of chain links moving rapidly between my butt cheeks alerts me immediately to the essential stupidity of this strategy, so I reach between my legs and grab -- quite literally, the last foot of chain before the entire lot drops into the ocean.

Cruising life presents many such "Now what?" moments in which no possible action can reasonably taken, but life or expensive property depends on taking the action successfully. I have hold of the chain which due to its length and weight has now effectively anchored me a few feet from the stern of Don Quixote. There is no bringing it back on board either vessel. My back is not something we talk about much, but suffice it to say that it still doesn't work. I'm not going to be able to get this thing inboard. But I can lock it! I have locks. I have a at least one fully functional lock somewhere in the bottom of the dinghy. With one hand on the chain, I use the other to grab the cable at the bow of the dinghy, then loop it into the handhold on DQ's transom. With a third hand I was unaware I possessed, I grab the lock and braid the mess together in a secure tangle. My last considered action is to drop the cable, watching lock, chain end, and cable all sink three feet before settling as neat as you please into a taught stern hook. The dinghy is now so tightly and inextricably bound to the back of Don Quixote that the two craft might as well be grafted together.

With considerable élan, I don my goggles, dive neatly off the dinghy, and swim ashore. DrC regards me curiously as I stride through the shallows, "How did it go?"

"Swimmingly!" I reply with a heartiness that has all four of my family members staring at me suspiciously. "There's gonna be a wee bit of work when we get back, but it's all good. No one is going to be stealing the dinghy while we're gone. Trust me."

Kid Boat Party

2011-07-10T08:00:00.000-07:00

It seemed like a good idea at the time… host a kid boat post rendezvous party. "At the time," however, took place while we were hundreds of miles from any kids except those on our buddy boat. Lots and lots of children in the same place seemed like a fantastic idea. Of course, lots and lots of children in the same place is perhaps a much better idea on paper than it is in person.

Don Quixote broadcast the call on the SSB South Pacific Cruisers Net for kid boats to meet in Moorea the day after the Tahiti-Moorea Rendezvous. The idea was to extend the opportunity for kids to just hang out together. We volunteered to host the day, bringing a few activities and some grilled meats to seed the party, as it were. When asked, "What do you have planned?" I confessed that the sum total of my plan was to, "Put the kids ashore and get out of the way." Response to the idea was enthusiastic and ultimately, a dozen boats joined us with nearly twenty kids ranging from 5 to 17 years old. The kids skewed mostly older this year, surprising to long time observers of the Puddle Jump fleet. All the kids but Jake of Savannah were 10 and over. In fact, at times this year we fleet adults feel we are awash in teen angst, nautical style.

As a rule, boat kids need little guidance on how to have fun. Even when they are in very small numbers or solo, boat kids know how to take advantage of everything around them to fill their days. Boat kids bring inexhaustible curiosity and energy to everything they do. The prior day during the official rendezvous, it was our many boat kids who consumed the majority of the time and energy of the locals who were on hand to teach crafts such as lei and basket making, coconut husking, and coconut milking. They were active participants in the canoe and fruit carrying races, and it was the kids who tried to pick up the monster rocks of the Tahitian weight lifters.

The kid boat day on the beach was essentially a repeat of the prior day's activities without the pretty flowers, clever adults, and musical entertainment. DrC and I went ashore and nominally kept count of the many sun-bleached heads while the kids made their own party. While at times we lost sight of a few of the flock, the activities we saw them engage in included: hair braiding, tying people to trees, climbing trees, stripping trees of bark, hanging people from trees, running around trees, lifting trees up, pulling trees down, making plates, bowls, hats, whips, and tables out of tree leaves, getting coconuts out of trees, throwing coconuts into trees, knighting people with tree chunks, sitting in trees, eating trees, and sitting under trees eating. There were also many activities which involved rope, some of which looked positively dangerous and all of which included at least one bowline and two half-hitches, one project even included a monkey's fist.

As the sun set, the adults starting drifting ashore with drinks and food. In a memorable display of stupidity, Toast dropped all the sausages overboard after being sent to retrieve dinner. "One hand for the boat, one hand for the sausage" is not just a salacious commentary on cruising couples any more; These are literally words to live by. Fortunately, Watcha Gonna Do and Loose Pointer stepped into the gap with enormous pots of Mac N'Cheese (the meal of champions) and dorado (the meal of cruisers who can actually catch fish) respectively. Everyone got plenty to eat, spent an enjoyable evening swapping stories, and got a bit tipsy happy besides. Of course, we kid boats can afford to enjoy sundowners on the beach as the kids were there zooming around in the dinghies to rescue us after dark. Good to ship out with your own designated driver!

So a note to kid boats following in our wake in subsequent years. Organizing a kid boat party requires a radio, roughly five minutes of concentrated thought, and a really good sun hat for the day of the event. Otherwise, both children and adults of the kid boat fleet take care of themselves and know how to enjoy a a nice long day together on a tropical beach in paradise. Just don't drop the sausage!

Kid Boat Party

2011-07-09T10:53:00.000-07:00

Don Quixote broadcast the call on the SSB South Pacific Cruisers Net for kid boats to meet in Moorea the day after the Tahiti-Moorea Rendezvous. The idea was to extend the opportunity for kids to just hang out together. We volunteered to host the day, bringing a few activities and some grilled meats to seed the party, as it were. When asked, "What do you have planned?" I confessed that the sum total of my plan was to, "Put the kids ashore and get out of the way." Response to the idea was enthusiastic and ultimately, a dozen boats joined us with over twenty kids ranging from 5 to 17 years old. The kids skewed mostly older this year, surprising to long time observers of the Puddle Jump fleet. All the kids but Jake of Savannah were 10 and over. In fact, at times this year we fleet adults feel we are awash in teen angst, nautical style.

As a rule, boat kids need little guidance on how to have fun. Even when they are in very small numbers or solo, boat kids know how to take advantage of everything around them to fill their days. Boat kids bring inexhaustible curiosity and energy to everything they do. The prior day during the official rendezvous, it was our many boat kids who consumed the majority of the time and energy of the locals who were on hand to teach crafts such as lei and basket making, coconut husking, and coconut milking. They were active participants in the canoe and fruit carrying races, and it was the kids who tried to pick up the monster rocks of the Tahitian weight lifters.

The kid boat day on the beach was essentially a repeat of the prior day's activities without the pretty flowers, clever adults, and musical entertainment. DrC and I went ashore and nominally kept count of the many sun-bleached heads while the kids made their own party. While at times we lost sight of a few of the flock, the activities we saw them engage in included: hair braiding, tying people to trees, climbing trees, stripping trees of bark, hanging people from trees, running around trees, lifting trees up, pulling trees down, making plates, bowls, hats, whips, and tables out of tree leaves, getting coconuts out of trees, throwing coconuts into trees, knighting people with tree chunks, sitting in trees, eating trees, and sitting under trees eating. There were also many activities which involved rope, some of which looked positively dangerous and all of which included at least one bowline and two half-hitches, one project even included a monkey's fist.

As the sun set, the adults starting drifting ashore with drinks and food. In a memorable display of stupidity, Toast dropped all the sausages overboard after being sent to retrieve dinner. "One hand for the boat, one hand for the sausage" is not just a salacious commentary on cruising couples any more; These are literally words to live by. Fortunately, Watcha Gonna Do and Loose Pointer stepped into the gap with enormous pots of Mac N'Cheese (the meal of champions) and dorado (the meal of cruisers who can actually catch fish) respectively. Everyone got plenty to eat, spent an enjoyable evening swapping stories, and got a bit tipsy happy besides. Of course, we kid boats can afford to enjoy sundowners on the beach as the kids were there zooming around in the dinghies to rescue us after dark. Good to ship out with your own designated driver!

So a note to kid boats following in our wake in subsequent years. Organizing a kid boat party requires a radio, roughly five minutes of concentrated thought, and a really good sun hat for the day of the event. Otherwise, both children and adults of the kid boat fleet take care of themselves and know how to enjoy a a nice long day together on a tropical beach in paradise. Just don't drop the sausage!

PARTICIPANTS THIS YEAR AT THE KID BOAT PARTY
Watcha Gonna Do (Danielle 12, Harrison 10)
Loose Pointer (Adam 15)
Evergreen (Josh 13)
Don Quixote (Jaime 15, Mera 13, Aeron 10)
Phambili (Cameron 10, Anina 15, Naomi 13)
Savannah (Jake 5)
Big Fish (Matt 14, Alex 13, Ayla 11)
Calou (Francois 16, Antoine 13)
Nina (Dave 16)
Rhythm (Joey 17, Olivia 15)
Ceilydh (Maia 9)
Discovery (Claire 12)

Rendezvous in Tahiti

2011-07-08T19:45:00.000-07:00

For awhile, it didn't look like we were going to make it. We started late in the season across the Pacific, we stayed a long time enjoying the Marquesas, and we were sucked into The Aquarium with a fascination and pleasure that made it really hard to leave the Tuamotus. Yet ultimately the siren call of other kid boats, free drinks, and dancing girls lured us to Tahiti just in time for the annual Tahiti-Moorea Rendezvous.

The rendezvous is sponsored by a group of organizations from Tahiti, New Zealand, and the United States. The purpose according to Andy Turpin of Latitude 38 is to welcome cruisers to French Polynesia, celebrate our successful crossing, and introduce cruisers to Polynesian culture. Our mission as guests according to the Tahitian tourism folks is to learn all we can and then to go out and encourage other cruisers and tourists to visit the islands. The Kiwis participate because we yachties have to go somewhere when the weather gets ugly, and New Zealand marinas and chandleries would just as soon we turned south instead of continuing west and on to Australia. They told me that there are on average just over 600 cruising yachts making the trek each year not including the mega yachts. This represents a very large chunk of commerce to French Polynesia and no trivial amount to downwind destinations. Figure each non-mega yachts drops at least $2K during a three month transit, and you begin to have some idea why all these varied organizations go to so much trouble.

The effort put into the event was evident this year in the outstanding party enjoyed by all in Moorea. The rendezvous is actually a three day event starting with welcomes, speeches, captains meetings, dancing, music, and cocktails in Papeete. The second day is a rally (not a race!) from Papeete to Moorea. However, when you put two boats in the water anywhere near each other, it's a race. After the non-race, folks gather on the beach for more speeches, cocktails, music and local dancers. The third day, however, is really the centerpiece of the rendezvous. The day includes canoe races, stone lifting, coconut shucking and shredding, fruit tossing/carrying, lei and palm leave crafts, more cocktails, more Tahitian dancers, more island music, more speeches.

We had a fantastic time. All of us had a FANTASTIC time. I'm so tired I can hardly lift my arms to the keyboard, but it was worth every erg of energy. The kids ran like wild animals all over the beach. We had at least 16 kids, probably more but they didn't sit still in one place long enough to get a count. I admit to my usual horrible parenting in that I lost track of all three of my children within about 5 minutes of landing on shore. In fact, I believe it's accurate to say that I checked the dinghy far more frequently than I checked to see whether or not my kids were alive and well.

Somehow, they survived parental neglect, however, and are all back on Don Quixote demanding pasta. Tomorrow, we are hosting a bit of a kid boat party on the beach. The other boats were asking me today what I had planned. These are boat kids. I have nothing planned. The sum total of my plan is to show up with a medical kit, cooked seasoned meat in tubes, bread and condiments. And a book.

And a privacy screen.

Two-fer Mechanique

2011-07-04T10:48:00.000-07:00

It is possible... not necessarily true but possible... that we now have two functioning outboard motors. The Evinrude magically fixed itself, again. The Mercury/Mariner has a new carburetor and appears to also be humming along. It is difficult to trust this. Our experience is that outboard motors work really well when you are 5 NM from a certified mechanic. Outside that range, they thumb their outboard-y nose at you. Our plan -- such as it is -- is to test this theory by returning to explore more of Moorea. If the outboards continue to work, we can really and truly declare them fixed.

As anticipated, Papeete is proving to be the City That Stinks But Has Stuff. We're all working very hard to complete an aggressive list of chores. A good fraction of the work is simple cleaning. While I had considered the laundry and drinking water implications of limited fresh water, I hadn't really thought out what it meant in terms of boat cleanliness. What no fresh water means is you have a dirty sticky boat or a sticky boat, but you never have a clean boat. Cleaning with salt water leaves everything with a patina of stinky dampness. It's better than having every surface covered in dirt, dead skin, hair, and baguette crumbs, but only marginally.

The marina at Papeete, however, has a potable drinking water hose available at the dinghy dock. Since our arrival, we've hauled roughly 200 gallons of fresh water on to the boat with which we've cleaned every item of clothing, all the sheets, pillows, and blankets, as well as sluiced down every interior surface. The freezer is defrosted and the fridge washed down, while the pantries have all been emptied, wiped down, and restocked in preparation for reprovisioning. We've scrubbed down both heads, wiped off all the counters, ledges, and horizontal surfaces, scrubbed the stove/oven, emptied out the under sink area and scrapped out the spilled soaps, garbage sludge, and mold. We washed the throw cushions, aired out the salon cushions until they are bone dry, and shaken out all the blankets. Every clothes locker was emptied out, all the clothes either washed or hung up until bone dry and no longer smelling of boat, and the shelves damp washed and dried before putting everything away. The only big task left is the floors and deck. We probably won't do these until right before we leave Tahiti. As long as we're in a big city, we'll just keep putting the dirt back so we'll hold off on that one.

As for the boat, in addition to the outboards, we've been doing other maintenance chores. Fuels -- propane, diesel, and gasoline -- were a high priority. The costs here are insane. Propane is roughly twice what you would pay in Mexico, gasoline is roughly $8USD/gallon and diesel isn't much better. At these prices, DrC and I are utterly bewildered by the amount of traffic on the roads. Environmentalists take note: $8/gal does not seem to keep anyone off the road. It makes no sense whatsoever, but there you have it. However, it will keep Don Quixote on a strict "diesel for anchorages, power, and water" policy. For the most part, this has been our pattern since we left Mexico. As a result, we still have Mexican fuels on board. Unfortunately, there is no avoiding taking on some diesel here as the next fuel stop is Tonga. Even restricting ourselves to water/power/anchor uses, we have gone through roughly half our stores, so safety dictates filling up before we leave. We also may row a lot. So much for fixing the motor. At these prices, rowing looks really good.

DrC has completed one round of hardware store shopping. He came back loaded with bits of this and that which he plans to use to repair, upgrade, tweek, or otherwise screw around on the boat systems. I think I mentioned before that at least to date, we've been very fortunate with our breakage. Unlike many boats out here, we have no huge repairs to make. All those crossed fingers and positive thoughts sent to us over the last few months have apparently proven effective. This leaves DrC working on minor repairs or small issues we've been meaning to address for a long time. For example, our refrigerator does this odd repetitive cycling thing at low power which we think is caused by a power drop along the electrical circuit. He bought new electrical wire and plans to rewrite it today.

For my part, since all our cleaning chores are winding down, after school today will be spent on the Internet. There are the usual family, pictures, bank, credit card chores which are months behind. I also need to complete our residency applications for New Zealand and get the soft copies off to our advisor. Internet access in all of French Polynesia has sucked. Oddly, the best connectivity was in the anchorage at Rangiroa. Here in Tahiti, the connections are so bad I feel like banging my head against the desk every time I try to connect. Today, I'm going to try having a cocktail with an umbrella at the marina restaurant known as the Pink Coconut and see if I can finally get a break. With luck, this will mean new pictures on the flickr account. No pictures today and you can assume I have a large red welt on my forehead.

But It's Not Even Ours!

2011-06-28T10:36:00.000-07:00

As I've said in previous posts, probably Don Quixote's biggest breakage/suckage is our dinghy outboard motor. This has only been endurable due to the tremendous generosity of our buddy boat Loose Pointer who loaned us their 15HP Evinrude for the duration. Having that old motor has meant both safety as well as the freedom to zoom around anchorages, dive spots, and Papeete. There is no way I can thank you Loose Pointer sufficiently for letting us use their motor for a few months.

Instead, we'll just throw it overboard.

Okay, not literally. Or maybe literally. Actually, what we literally did was secure it poorly to our dinghy. After a very long trip around the island to the propane station and back, Jaime was making her way from the dinghy dock to our boat, and the damn thing just bounced off the back and into the water. So here's what I have to say about this:

* DrC immediately admitted this was entirely his fault. Jaime is NOT in trouble.

* We're incredibly lucky the damn thing didn't pop off while Jaime and I were in 100 feet out by the airport. Instead, this incident took place quite literally in the middle of the anchored fleet about 50 yards from the dinghy dock in only 40 feet of water. If there is a "good place" to throw your outboard into the ocean, this is probably the best.

* It's a 2-stroke and so recoverable. Once again the cruiser's wisdom of going with 2-stroke models is proven. These things are a lot more forgiving than the 4-stroke varieties.

* It is now working. It worked really well for a day, now we're seeing an electrical glitch so we're going to have to do more work on it. However, I believe ultimately we'll get the whole thing straightened out.

* All that blather in the cruising guides, sailing manuals, forums, etc etc about securing your outboard to your dinghy? Maybe with a lock and a really strong cable? Okay, stop dithering. Just do it. Please. The only thing more horrifying than throwing your dinghy motor overboard is finding out at the cocktail party that evening that a good third of the boats in the anchorage have at one time or another done the same thing. Really people? Are we all that knuckleheaded? Apparently so.

DrC immediately dove on the motor, hooked it with a piece of line, and hauled it back up again. After sluicing it down in fresh water, we straightaway took it to the local outboard mechanic to get cleaned up. If the motor had been ours, I'm not sure we would have taken it to the mechanic. We've dunked our motor in salt water before when we flipped the dinghy in San Sebastian. We know the steps to recover from these types of disasters. On the other hand, it's not even our motor! We wanted to make sure we'd done everything possible to recover it to full operational status. In the process of cleaning and blowing it out, the mechanic replaced the spark plugs which were little rust bunnies. We also believe we might have fixed a long standing idle problem. So on the whole, it's okay. This electrical skipping thing is worrisome, but again, Dan and DrC think they have a handle on it.

But. BUT. It's not even our motor! DrC and I are both a little stuck on that detail. We have parts coming in for our Mercury. If those parts prove to solve the problem, we will propose a swap. We have a 15HP 15 year old Mercury which as far as we know has never been swimming. Loose Pointer has a 15HP 15 year old Evinrude which we took swimming. If restitution requires the swap, Loose Pointer gets the Mercury. Of course, the point is totally moot if the new parts don't solve our own motor problems.

At this juncture, I want to pitch all the dang dinghy motors overboard permanently and replace them with little 2HP putt putts that weigh nothing and never stop. Maybe even electric, solar powered ones. Maybe if I put 7 of of them on the back of the dink it would be like having one big monster that nearly breaks my back every time we put it on or take it off. A smaller outboard, however, probably must wait until we ditch the children. Until we have much smaller dinghy and lower weight requirements, we are essentially stuck with the big guys.

Or we're stuck with one of them, in the fervent hope that we've now found the magician mechanic who can make both these ancient machines run smoothly for one more year.

Rainbow's End

2011-06-27T11:32:00.000-07:00

Jaime exclaims, "Oh my god. Look at all those PEOPLE!" She's standing mid-ships and gazing with an odd mixture of horror and delight at the verdant, populated slopes of the island of Tahiti. We are on approach to Papeete harbor prior to joining the rest of the fleet for the Tahiti-Moorea Rendezvous.

The rest of the family boils up from below to enjoy the view. Papeete is by far the largest port we've visited to date on this long trip. Arguably, it's the largest city we've seen since we left Los Angeles in February. It is the largest city in French Polynesia and the most people we will see probably until we arrive back in Auckland. Here we will rejoin old friends from our cruising years past: Calou, Evergreen, Watcha Gonna Do. We'll revisit with more recent friends: Britannia, Ceilydh, Discovery, and Shang Yu. And we'll finally meet in person the boats with whom we've been chatting for months on the net: Soggy Paws, Rutea, Diligaf, Chanty. And there are so many more. The place is simply bursting with cruising boats, meeting here for a very brief rendezvous before scattering all over the second half of this Pacific transit.

Over the intervening months, Papeete has taken on something of mythic proportions. This vision of Papeete as the Emerald City at the end of our endless blue water road is no doubt common amongst puddle jumpers. It starts the moment you leave shore and one of the children knocks your one bottle of sesame oil off the counter and into oblivion. You feel it when a stainless steel tang snaps or a sail rips or a line breaks. Your dreams are full of Papeete as they subconsciously protest the always slightly dirty sheets. And your glands salivate every time the word is mentioned with the thought of crisp green vegetables and cheap, fresh fruit. Papeete is the place you go after months of ocean passaging and stunning but remote anchorages. It's where you can find fully stocked chandleries, replacement parts, and large grocery stores. There are packages from home, broadband Internet connections, and laundry mats. You can find diesel mechanics, outboard experts, and sail makers.

Papeete is the drink of water after a long journey in the desert, it is the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, it is cruiser heaven.

It is also noisy, busy, and full of people. We're not used to people. We've been on islands where a total population of 400 is considered crowded. We're happy to have arrived, and within an hour, we're also talking about how soon we will go. It begs the question how we are ever going to settle into Auckland. We might need to make landfall in Opua (population 500) first just to acclimatize.

We have a list of things to do here in Papeete. Mera interjects here over my shoulder, "Of course you have a list, Mom." "You say that like it's a bad thing," I retort.

Of course we have a GTD list with a Papeete context. It's what I do. We've been pretty lucky as puddle jumpers go. Our list isn't particularly dramatic. The only really big ticket item is the dinghy outboard. This is the Mercury's last chance. She's either fully functional before we leave here, or we buy another one. Smaller items include a new tang for the main sheet system to replace the one we snapped, replacement sunglasses, cat food (Dulci is eating through her food supply at roughly twice the anticipated rate), packages to family, and our residency application for New Zealand.

These are in addition to the obvious requirement that we provision up. Basically, we need to add enough fresh to the boat to last to Tonga, 6 to 8 weeks down the road. Of course, we still have all the dry and canned goods as well as staples we put on in Mexico. We're working through the majority of our staples (other than the cat food) at about the rate we'd anticipated. There are some notable exceptions. We're eating more canned spaghetti sauce than I would have thought because we've been using it as a marinera dip for fried eggplant and panko chicken nuggets. On the other side of the equation, we're awash in cake mix. Don't ask, because I have no clear idea why.

So here we are sipping sundowners as the sun disappears behind Moorea contemplating the wonder which is anchoring between a mountain and a barrier reef. We're at the rainbow's end, the heart of the cornucopia which is modern commerce with everything we might possibly want at our fingertips. Yet all I can think of is how fast can we stock up, fix the motor, and sail north back into the middle of nowhere.

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The Aquarium

2011-06-26T10:43:00.000-07:00

"Every beach resort town has an aquarium," DrC glanced dismissively over his shoulder at the area the dive instructor told us about. Unsaid was the corollary, the aquarium is usually a nice place to swim, but the sobriquet was primarily a marketing ploy.

We all nodded our heads in agreement. It's true. All the dive shops and tour operators say there is an area of the reef or shoreline which is so amazing it's like swimming in an aquarium. Usually, the instructor with whom you are speaking at the moment knows The Best Aquarium in the area. It's their stock in trade. There was an "aquarium" at every stop we made when we were on a cruise ship in the Caribbean. We've read about "aquariums" in the Mediterranean, in Hawai'i, and obviously off every island and atoll in the South Pacific. DrC was really saying, "Don't get your hopes up."

It was late in the day in any case, so we toodled back to the boats and settled in for the night. Rangiroa is the second largest atoll in the world and the largest in the Tuamotu island chain. It is so large that you can't see the entire atoll from the anchorage. You bring your boat in through one of two passes on the northwest coast and then anchor in the lee of the hooks made by the passes themselves. At 35 NM across, the sheer size of the lagoon ensures that unless the wind is blowing from a north-ish quarter (which basically means just about never), wind waves can build up enough in the lagoon to make for a bit of a bouncy anchorage. On the other hand, you could be as lucky as Don Quixote and go in during a lull in the usual trades. With the classic southeasterly blowing at 5 to 15, the anchorage near Passe Tiputa is snug, stunningly beautiful, and good holding… a cruiser's delight.

We spent nearly a week tucked up near the pass in Rangiroa. While there are limited services available near Passe Tiputa, intrepid cruisers can trek down to the other pass about 4 NM west to a largish magazin complete with obscenely expensive veg and fruits stored in their cooler as well as beer and wine and bread products that are not the ubiquitous baguette. The tiny magazin near the anchorage has the standard tienda/magazin style basics. They also sell baguettes in the morning at 06:30. A little publicized fact of South Pacific cruising life is that if you want fresh bread, you have to be at the magazin by no later than 07:00 before the stock sells out. An even lesser publicized fact is that virtually every magazin in the islands will take a pre-order. Pay the shop keeper the day before to hold n</n> baguettes for you. Then you can go in any time the next day that the shop is open to pick up your order. Okay, they are not as warm or as fresh, but you also do not have get into your dinghy before the dew evaporates. Also note that magazins routinely close their doors from noon to 13:00.

So why did we spend so long in Rangiroa? You could say that we were pinned down by the weather… first by no wind, then by too much wind. Sailors could teach Goldilocks lessons in pickiness. However, the real reason we spent so much time there and failed to blog or write home or do laundry or frankly get anything done was the aquarium.

The aquarium at Rangiroa is The Aquarium. Accept no substitute. The Aquarium is a shallows and coral reef just south of Passe Tiputa. As you enter the atoll, it's a hazard that requires that you head way south before rounding the tip of the reef and coming back into the anchorage. Once hook down, you thank The Aquarium for doing a rather fine job of dampening southeasterly wind waves and smoothing your sleep. But the real wonder of The Aquarium begins when you dinghy over and tie up to one of the small moorings conveniently provided for cruisers and tour operators alike. Pull on your fins, spit on the inside of your mask, lick the salt off your snorkel and then flip backwards off the edge of the dinghy into the largest tropical aquarium in the world. Literally under your boat you'll find a swarm of variegated damsels, colorful perch, trumpet fish, and angels. The fish swarm your dinghy and the mooring lines as the dive operators routinely drop bits of food into the mooring field. They cluster around your prop in colorful moving bouquets and swim up to your face mask as if as curious about you as you are about them.

Then strike out across the enormous coral reef with new vistas opening up at every slight kick of bright blue fins. The terrain ranges from 30 feet to less than a foot. The Aquarium lies in the lee of a tiny island so there is little swell even when the wind is blowing. There is also an odd current effect which results in fresh sea water blasting through the area just about 50 yards off the reef twice a day, but none of that current effects the actual aquarium itself. This results in water with such clarity that you can see as far as the light will travel, easily 75 feet in the pass. The water is effectively invisible in the shallower areas. Like sharks? Go to the shallows where the juvenile black-tipped reef sharks take shelter from the big greys in the pass. Like to dive? Pull on your gear and drop down to the edge where it drops off towards the pass and see the deeper, larger animals. Rays, moray eels, octopi, parrot fish, and every variety of reef fish imaginable are in ridiculous profusion. And this doesn't even begin to describe the coral which is vibrantly healthy, vigorously growing, and found in dozens of varieties.

This is one of those cruising finds which I almost don't want to publish. Too many people and The Aquarium will be no more. Hell, global climate change may kill the entire reef. But for now, The Aquarium ranks as one of the highlights of our South Pacific voyage. It's in the top three with the day we greeted the Te Moana canoes and our hike up to the waterfall in Daniel's Bay.

As DrC hauls himself back into the dinghy after our umpteenth snorkel, he asks me, "Did you see that yellow one feeding on the bottom of the dink?"

"$75. At least," I reply.

He grins, "$100. And there were at least a dozen." My husband, long time owner of salt water fish tanks, has found his aquarium at last.

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All is Well

2011-06-23T09:47:00.001-07:00

Folks have been asking why the deep dark silence on the blog. I'm a bit embarrassed to admit that the cause is simple. Snorkeling. The best snorkeling in the world. I simply haven't written anything. I've spent all my time reading, relaxing, and snorkeling. And eating baguettes. However, now that we've finally pulled the hook out of Rangiroa, perhaps I can get reinvigorated.

So nothing bad. We're all good. Boat is good. Cat is still annoying. Children are still hairy. Or something like that.

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