Tahiti

 

TAHITI

 

Much to tell since last contacting everyone.   

Sorry if you’ve been worried, but I’ve been off the grid and moved a fair distance in the mean time. 

Last time I sent off anything was from Taiohae Bay, Nuku Hiva, in the Marquesas.  Since then I’ve spent time in the most beautiful anchorages I’ve ever seen, the sort of places I sailed all this way for.

The first was Anaho Bay on the north side of Nuku Hiva.  I went there expecting to stay only a couple of days before heading south to Tahiti, but then found it to be the most perfect spot in the Marquesas and stayed probably two weeks instead.  Got addicted to freediving, which is now my communion.

In Anaho we met a man named Hugh and he changed the entire direction of my travels.  I had long been trying to find a way up to Kiribati, but it always seemed a most impractical path, seeing as I don’t plan on going to Taiwan as Herbert and Brian do. 

Since I doubt but a few of you have ever heard of Kiribati (pronounced “Kiribas”) I’ll mention that it is a country of scattered atolls in northwestern Polynesia and eastern Micronesia.  All this means is that it is north of the normal milk run of traveling yachts and very isolated and rarely mentioned by sailors.  It is far enough north that it is out of the typhoon belt and therefore safe in the wet season.  Kiribati is also vastly spread out over a huge area of ocean, but, again, north of the more popular Tonga, Fiji, and Samoas.  Most sailors visit these countries before heading south to New Zealand for the typhoon season, which was my plan as well.

 

Hugh spent a lot of time there years ago and loved it.  The way he described it, and the sort of travel he likes sounded perfect for me: essentially isolated, pristine, and unvisited.

So I started to sway that way again, which means I would winter in Tarawa instead of New Zealand, then visit NZ at the end of next year instead.

Hugh then told us the he and his family were headed to this island west of the Marquesas called Caroline, the SW’ernmost island of Kiribati, and that it was rarely ever visited, like 2 yachts a year.  It was unpopulated and NW of the Tuomotos which are the more popular area to visit.  Since my engine wasn’t running I wasn’t going to visit the ‘Motus and Caroline sounded great.  The diving, he said, was superb.

 

So Hugh, Herbert and I took off that way.  Brian headed south, wanting to do some work in Tahiti.  The sail was excellent.  You’ll have to read about it in my journal.  The entrance into Caroline was the most terrifying experience of the last few years of my life.  I hope to never repeat a sailing maneuver like the one I managed there.  (And Herb got it on video.  Ha)

I did fix my engine while I was there, which was a tremendous feat.  (I don’t know how I ever would have managed to escape Caroline without it.)

And from Caroline Herbert and I had a grand sail down to Tahiti.  We stayed within ten miles of each other the whole way and could talk regularly to each other on the VHF, too regularly—my batteries were toast when I arrived.

 

Tahiti is the antithesis of Caroline: it is big city, it is modern and touristy.  I relished my first cold, fizzy coca-cola and had a Chinese meal for lunch.  There are a few jetskis, a cruise ship.  I miss Caroline already.  I want Kiribati, not Fiji and Tonga and all the honey-mooning dream spots.  Moorea is next door and promises to be wonderful and quiet with good diving.

 

Don’t get me wrong: internet cafes, restaurants, BIG grocery stores are great.  I am thankful and happy to be here.  The water is actually immaculate, despite the city.  But I like to have the both, one after the other, city then solitude.

 

It has been great to run into old (relative) friends again.  Old faces from Mexico and the Marquesas.  I just met Akko and Adda, two voices I’ve heard on our morning radio net for months.  Great folks. So many people I thought long lost heading west.  People get stuck here.   Jim, on Aguaja is here.  Paul and Laura will be back within days.  Brian, of course, was here.   There are maybe one-hundred boats in the anchorage, called Maeva Beach. (In Caroline -  3 boats total; Anaho – 5 boats.  See the difference?) 

 

 

I’ve written a fair bit about everything and is in my journal if you want to read it: swimming with sharks, eels, sea turtles and other reef fish, caught Ciguatera, a nasty reef-fish disease, lot’s of amazing lost and found adventures—including losing my dinghy at sea; revived the engine, which was huge; ate clams and crabs over the fire—a lot of good stuff to be sure.  Caroline is really one of the most special spots of my life.  The coral and the lagoon there are like nothing I’ve ever dreamed of. . . it was something out of Disney.

 

 

From here on to Moorea then Bora Bora.  I’ll have to be quick as I only have three more weeks before I have to leave French Polynesia.  I will likely skip the Cooks and head straight to American Samoa and provision there and move quick to Western Samoa which is much nicer, I hear.

Herb, Brian and I may head further west to Fiji to see Hugh again, but will likely head north toward Kiribati.  I haven’t really looked that far ahead and don’t really know what is on the way.  Nui, perhaps.  Tilikum wanted to go there. 

 

 

NOTE:  Jamie Blythe and Jeremy Wood are getting / just got married.

            I hope Widge was the Best Man.  He wouldn’t make much of a bride’s maid.

            Congrats.  I love you guys and my heart is always, always with you.