The Cleaver of Damocles (Toau, Tuamotos)

15 48.213 S
146 09.141 W

Another unpronounceable Atoll. I can't get my tongue around all those vowels strung together. Toe A Ooooo?

This is a "false Pass" the difference here is that it is like a pass, but then it doesn't go all the way through. There is almost a pool after the reef break, but not quite in the lagoon. Its pretty cool. We got met by a couple in a speedboat who wanted to show us where they had put some anchoring buoys out (this anchorage is a really tight space and there were 6 other boats there, so it is prob a good thing that they put them in, otherwise we may have not been able to stay. I get my neck up in situations like these, where my spidey sense immediately asks why people are being helpful. In this case, they were being helpful because they wanted us to come to their restaurant outside of their home. Not in the smarmy I did you a favour sort of way, but in a nice exchange of pleasantries sort of way. Not that they needed to worry, there is no other place to go. Period. They are the only game in the one family "town". The cynic in me is starting to resurface from time to time. I am torn about it when I am wrong, but it has served me well in dodgy situations in the past. Mixed feelings about it.

Dinner was AWESOME. Valentine and Garstone (sp?) put on quite a spread. Parrot fish breaded in coconut and fried, poisson cru (my new favourite food), BBQ'd lobster, rice, clams, chicken in a coconut milk sauce, varo (a very tasty and strange lobster like thing that I don't think you can get outside of here) and topped off with a coconut cream pie. These guys are a little bit of an institution among yachties apparently and the anchorage is quite famous in these parts. They have quite a niche, a beautiful location and welcoming personalities. Garstone agreed to pick me up the next day to go snorkeling off of a coral head that was nearby with a 10 FOOT manta that liked to glide around it. It wasn't to be however, as the wind picked up
quite a bit in the morning and by the 3 o'clock arranged time it was either a) too rough (which it likely was in any event) or b) he didn't make it back in time from his trip across the lagoon to do some copra something or other. I was disappointed, especially in light of my self imposed moratorium on Scuba diving. Hey - life's full of disappointments, you just have to pick up the pieces and move on ;).

I know why I didn't take many pictures of this place - I left my camera on the boat when I went ashore. It was too bad and nice at the same time. Had a walk among the coconut groves with a rottweiler as a guide. He liked to run about 50 yards up the path and wait for me. If I took too long then he would come back and nudge me along. I turned around at one point and he was there in a flash to suggest that I keep going. We ended up in a shallow bay and the dog went nuts - leaping and thrashing and pounding around the ocean after what I assume were some very fast fish. Laughed out loud by myself again, which is happening more frequently than it used to (never). It was low tide, so I walked back in the the ocean with the freaking out dog coming in and out of the picture from time to time. Lots to see in the foot of water.

Whats a family of piglets called? A snout of pigs? Anyways, 3 massive pigs tied to trees who could barely stand up to greet me with a dozen or so piglets infused with the vigour of tasty youth. They pressed their wet noses to my legs and sniffed like only a pig could do then proceeded to rut around in the mud. The centre of their piggly dance was a well used chopping block with a massive cleaver stuck in it. Disturbing, but I kind of envied them for being so unaware. Then I thought that maybe they wouldn't notice a missing hunk or two if I was quick with the cleaver and really, I should do them all a favour and teach them to fear their deaths properly. Right... time to move on.

Tomorrow we are leaving for Rangiroa at 6 or 7am to be at the pass hopefully at 6:30am on Sunday, but we probably won't make it until later in the day, prob 12pm or some such thing.

Cottage Fever

Cottage sale closed today. Strange that I will never see the place again and odd that if I went to take a peek at the old girl, I would be trespassing on land that I used to own (at least in part). I can now say that I have gone through a cycle of real estate. There will be none in the future that will hold so much emotion (buying, owning or selling). I still find myself looking around and saying "wow that would be great at the cottage". I need to stop that. Bitter sweet.

No more Clos? Faka-Rava. (Fakarava, Tuomotos)

16 03.325 S
145 37.380 W

It seems like the more built up a place is, the less I have to say about it. I take less pictures too. Its not that the place turns ugly or some such thing, I think its just part of the wonder dissipates. Or its that I'm too busy stuffing my face at a restaurant to think about anything other than digestion.

Second biggest atoll, probably the island with the "newest" feel so far. Sealed roads, marked channel, massive concrete jetty etc.

Seemed to be another bank Holiday so there wasn't anything open. I had a fever, and the only cure was Internet. 5 mile hike to a resort, old Macintosh, emails about stuff that got dealt with 10 days earlier, unfriendly staff blah blah blah.

There is a really nice Snack (the Polynesian term for in between a Roulotte - chip wagon - and a full restaurant) along the way. We had lunch there several times over the last few days. Ate my favourite poisson cru thus far, served with a strawberry vinaigrette. Walter and I came here on the way to a artisan's shop and we watched six 1' rays, two 3' black tipped sharks, two 7' reef sharks (Lemon? Grey? where is a handy fish chart to make me look learn-ed when you need one?) with jack fish swimming around in about 3 feet of water. Although they all had clearly defined boundaries with each other, it had a very symbiotic appearance. Then the cynic in me piped up and characterized it as "mutually parasitic".

Another Walter kid shot. I have to make a point of saying that Walter isn't a pedophile. He does have a knack of capturing kid type moments though. She was fun, and I shared her excitement of the pretty fishies.

Shortbox landrover convertible - I want one. Apparently they also come with a V8 engine.

Really nice, gentle woman selling shells that she had sewn together in a little hut. She was very apologetic for not having any water in the midday heat, but would twist off a coconut and stick a straw in it for you as (I think she thought at least) a consolation prize.

There is someone in my head, but its not me. (Kaeuhi -> Fakarava)

16 02 S
145 40 W

No wind. Straightened the leg and headed straight to the pass at Fakarava. At about 9:30pm there was enough wind to throw up some sail and we meandered along. Its actually nice to not have to be anywhere soon either in my head or in reality. Chris took over my shift at 10 and I laid down on the bow and stared at the moon for a couple of hours. Relived my Pink Floyd concert a la mp3 and had another one of those moments. I was almost in a trance watching the moon roll around. A bright moon to be sure, not great stars but still saw a couple of the shooting variety and the southern cross stood vigil as usual. Eventually Chris rolled in the sail above my head and we just blazed along at 0 knots on bare poles (counter current). Rocking good times (pun intended).

"All that you touch
All that you see
All that you taste
All that you feel
All that you love
All that you hate
All you distrust
All that you save
All that you give
All that you deal
All that you buy
beg, borrow or steal
All you create
All you destroy
All that you do
All that you say
All that you eat
everyone you meet
All that you slight
everyone you fight
All that is now
All that is gone
All that's to come

and everything under the sun is in tune
but the sun is eclipsed by the moon."

(Pink Floyd - Eclipse)

My new nighttime sailing hobby - clamping the tripod to the boat and letting the boat motion draw on the frame with bright celestial bodies (13 seconds of a 3/4 moon - f/8.0 ISO 50 - sounds counter intuitive to me, but I had a lot of problems with noise and over exposure and this achieved was I was looking for in the end).

It looks like I will be able to do it with bright stars, although the moon was still up and there was a lot of reflected light on everything around. I also didn't have the tripod setup, so some of the motion is mine for sure (which isn't the point). I have some different options on my film camera, but with my experience and without immediate LCD feedback it will be dumb luck if I get them to show. I have a vision of the stars in the big dipper, or the southern cross expressed on a black sheet as identical, smooth arcs. We shall see.

Flotsom and Jetsom

The atolls that we are visiting have passes and enclose a massive amount of water. As tides ebb and flow, you get a bottleneck at the pass as all that water shwishes in and out. Kauehi has a tide of 0.5 metres in the lagoon, so 9 x 12 miles x 0.5 metres = roughly 138,240,000 cubic metres (tonnes) of water at the command of the moon's gravity and the rotation of the earth. Nothing more than a useless fact, unless you want to float a boat through that pass safely. In some passes currents can go to 9 knots with evil standing waves and strange eddies and pools. Apparently there are a number of factors that make crossing into the lagoon more or less dificult including Voodoo and luck as far as I can tell so far. The trick is to sneak in and out during slack tide (ideally the point when the tide through the pass reverses) but figuring out when slack tide happens is an elusive beast in these parts. We went in at full ebb at Kauehi becuase it looked fairly benign, we were there and we were tired of being at sea (and even still we squeeked by with a whoppping 0.3 knots over ground against the current at one point). Its not something that we can count on moving forward (in or out). Timing becomes a bit tricky when you want to go to another Atoll that is only 30 miles away.

Our plan is to get the tail end of the tide leaving Kauehi at dusk and do the same at Fakarava at dawn'ish. There are 80 small islands in the lagoon of the 'Rava and we don't really want to run the risk of running that guantlet without good light.

So, we have 6 hours of sailing to accomplish in 12 hours to be as safe as possible. We've got a pretty dogleg scribled on the chart to kill some time and we'll lay up off the coast if there is any more time killing required.

Tearavero Settlement, Kauehi Atoll (Tuamotu Archipeligo)

49.560 S
145 07.152 W

One afternoon, as I sat cross-legged on the end of a runway, I had a nagging feeling in my brain. There was a thought in there that I couldn't quite put my finger on. I knew that it was an obvious one and fancied it profound in its simplicity. Then something else hit me.....

This place is _not_ like other places that I have been to.

Kauehi is an atoll. What is an atoll you might ask? Well, I asked the same question. I knew that it was a type of island, some sort of spit of land in the pacific and that the Americans and the French like to blow them up.

To The Planet:

"Strung like Jewels across the Pacific, the Tuamotus (too-ah-moh-toos) are a world apart. These rings of coral were witnesses to what was once, according to Darwin's theory of atoll formation, an archipelago of high islands as mountainous and grand as perhaps the Marquesas or Society islands are today. The 77 atolls, scattered like confetti on an ocean of ink, stretch 1500km northwest to southeast and 500km east to west. The closest islands are about 300km to Tahiti. The atolls, coral crowns not reaching more than a few metres above the water, surround a central lagoon. Pearls, sand, diving blah blah blah"

Basically, picture a volcano in the ocean. A coral reef grows up around the ringed base of the mountain and then the volcano sinks over a million years or two. The reef that used to ring it is left, paying homage to the big ass mountain that once was. The mountain in the middle of Bora Bora is sinking at 1 cm per century or some such thing. I've only ever heard it referred to as Darwin's "theory" but I haven't heard any other ideas, although there may be some.

The anchorage is idyllic and a few hundred yards off the town with only one other boat, French, that has the look of one who has been here a while. The lagoon is a 1000 shades of blue and the atoll itself is approximately oval and approximately 9 by 12 miles in size. It looks like there are about 30 families living what appears to be mostly a subsistence life, although there is at least one pearl farm (currently closed). I've been pretty bad at guesstimating population on this trip so it may be more or less. There is nowhere to stay, no restaurants, a church, cemetery, some crushed coral paths / roads and a small store. There seems to be one busted down car on blocks for each person in the town (but there isn't really anywhere to drive to even if they worked), dogs seem to outnumber people by a factor of two and these huge and unbelievably creepy coconut crabs outnumber the muts by several orders of magnitude. One report that Chris read claimed that only 10 sail boats a year make the trip, but I am skeptical around this for some reason.

Its kind of like a lake in the middle of the ocean and I have been enjoying it (not that it makes up for me missing the cottage on May 24th weekend - Boo). The lagoon is a water sports paradise. You could happily spend an entire season Windsurfing, dingy sailing etc. (and this is only a medium sized atoll).

I took the dingy out for a run with my beer can hat firmly in place. I had this vision of a narrow piece of sand, with the Pacific on one side and the lagoon on the other. I am sure that it exists here, but in retrospect the distances are too vast for the 3.5 horse motor to get to without knowing for certain that you were actually going to get there if you take my meaning (spending 4 hours in the blinding heat and sun to get to a piece of land in the distance that is just like the piece of land that you left would be disappointing). Also, because of the size of the lagoon, it can actually get pretty rough if the wind blows in certain directions which I didn't really want to be stuck in. As it was, I headed for what I thought was a beach about 5 miles in the distance which actually turned out to be an airport of sorts. Its a strange feeling to spend some time on a runway with _nobody_ around. I kept feeling like I was going to be arrested by some French flavoured homeland security patrol. Interesting coral on both sides and a weird tidal pool in the middle (off the runway of course). It is the only piece of pavement on the entire atoll that I can see and it appears to be recently done and in good shape. That being said, it would be quite an adventure to land a plane on it me thinks.

Another highlight was when Walter and I took a walk to the end of a path and were inexplicably invited to sit with an old woman on her back veranda overlooking a house on stilts. Limited conversation to be had, but with our French knowledge she seemed to be emphatically complaining that all her sons were on other islands. All told though, she liked to laugh. Thats good.

More forced nothingness. Its getting easier but I am starting to crave a bit of nightlife. Should be 3 weeks or so until Tahiti, at which point I will shortly wish that I was in the middle of nowhere again I am sure.

Right now though, I'm happy to be at anchor. That was a tough bit of sailing.


Distanced Sailed: 548 nm
Time Taken: 5 days, 6 hours
Avg Speed: 4.3
Best Daily Run: 110
Worst Daily run: 94
Avg Daily Run: 104

Fresh Horrors with Harriet, O Lord forgive us.

15 37 S
145 02 W


Thumbed through a book called "Defining the Wind".

Aside from being a prolific sailor and doing a lot of good work for God and country, Sir Francis Beaufort slept with his sister when he was 61 and she was 57. His honest to goodness, same mother, blood sister. Yuck. Then he wrote about it in his diary.

Another lesson - don't write your thoughts down where anyone could read them ;)

The Ocean V: The Revenge of Ocean (Oa Pou, Marquessas -> Kauehi atoll, Tuomotus)

14 08 S
143 44 W

My definitions and understanding for the things around me keep getting changed.

Its like when new relationships redefine your feelings about communication, love or sex. With experience, your capacity to understand each broadens. When a relationship opens your eyes, you look back and laugh at the fact that you thought you were previously in love, not because it wasn't love or the love wasn't real, its that your old definition of love only comprises a small slice of your now broader one. You loved within your capacity, its just your capacity and depth for such things has been increased. You've been "re-potted" and you can't reverse it, unless you cut out a part of you to squeeze back in the old confined space. Look back on those laughable days when you had sex without a goat, a compass and a garden gnome in the room. Like wearing socks in the shower, the doors of perception are flung wide. You move from the minors to the bigger leagues. You rest, panting next to the hole in the floor that you just climbed through. I'll call them "gateway" experiences (half the room groans. Bush and Nancy Reagan smile broadly and give each other a high five).

Anyways, back to sailing:

Admiral Beaufort developed something called the Beaufort scale. Well, there are some reports that he copied it from someone else, but it's got his name (so if he did steal it he did a good job). The intent of the scale was to provide sailors with a tool to succinctly and uniformly describe the state of the wind and sea. It runs from 0 (Calm) through 6 (Strong Breeze) to 12 (Hurricane). We use it in our deck log (as well as position, barometer, heading, distance travelled and any other notable items) which we fill in at the end of every watch. It enables pattern recognition and allows those coming up on watch to get a handle on what is going on (and a good diary of the boats travels). We are not so slowly working our way up through the Beaufort scale during this leg and I find myself filling in new and interesting assessments of the current state of things with each passing day. True to form, my definitions of what a "big" wave means or what a "strong" wind is have shifted through experience. (Mike - Hahahaha you were such a neophyte 6 weeks ago, now that you are a neophyte +.5 you are so wizened). The idea of "Endurance" is slowly taking on different boundaries as well. We have been hand steering in 2 and 3 hour shifts for 5 days and although we didn't count them, we have endured 30 squalls or so as an estimate (conservative?). The moral I am taking from this long winded mess: don't walk in like you own the place and don't squash a tale retold with wild eyed excitement. There are different capacities for experience and you never reach the end of the learning curve. Love is love.

I am tired. Its been really tough and slow this go around, but there have been some brilliant moments as well. This leg has been a little bit more technical with more to deal with, learn, take on, enjoy and not enjoy. I wrote in the log one day that "today has restored my joy of sailing." I guess that has to say something. I have also seen some pretty cool conditions like rain so strong it turns jagged seas into smooth intestines and spray being whipped straight up the back of a wave and off the crest.

The courses are something I am interested in, but I've squeezed all that I can from the lectures today. Schools out long ago and I am getting tired of detention. Looking forward to land.

long passages on small boats are a mindfuck.

One boat and the mountain goats (Vaiehu Bay, Ua Pou, Marquesas)

09 23.155 S
140 07.701 W

Pretty cool anchorage tucked barely behind a cliff on the 'Poo. A stones throw from the shore, it felt like we were anchored in the wide blue ocean to one side while kissing a hard place to the other. Turned out to be well protected and we had a contemplative time watching the wild goats navigate impossible looking paths on the side of the cliff.

Goodbye Marquesas. I will miss you and we will probably never see each other again, but I gotta go.

Hehehe its pronounced "Poo" (Hakahau Bay, 'Ou Pou, Marquesas)

09 21.513 S
140 02.851 W

Sailing the way it should be. Close hauled, no reefs, full head sail out, heeled over, sun shining and more than 3.5 knots. Fantastic day on the water.

I like this place quite a bit. Its the kind of place where stray dogs chase a horse down the street and children stay out until they are tired instead of that pesky street light alarm. Tidy and compact (maybe 1000 people in the village), not a lot going on. People just doing their thing.

Had a wonderful, family style meal at one of the pensions. Three different fish dishes (Mahi Mahi steaks, the best poisson cru _ever_ and a fish quiche au gratin), bread fruit au gratin, bananas, rice, baguettes and on and on. SO good.

Boat life is pretty static and I've tried to go for a walk in each destination to move my bulk around a bit. I picked two hills at opposite sides of the bay and ventured out to each of them. Tried to get a photo of me from the boat, but we had some technical difficulties (I turned out to be about 2 pixels high on Walter's camera and he refused to take a picture of me mooning them. weak ;) The one hill turned out to be a bit of a bouldering problem at the top which was more than I was entirely comfortable with, but I was quite pleased with myself for the jam that got me over the one piece.

After it was all said and done, tired and sweaty, I sat down for some cold hydration. A very sinister sounding jeep came down the road with everyone in chemical suits. They stopped and looked at me for about 30 seconds then drove off. I didn't know what to do other than take their picture. I think they were spraying for bugs but in any event I decided to get to the boat.

New million dollar idea: I've been NoNo'd. NoNo's are very bad bugs. Bug spray should have an antiseptic agent (maybe it inherently does?) for bites that you have inadvertently picked bloody, but when you need to re-apply spray. Two birds with one stone.

Sailing destinations as they stand (7 or 800 miles?):

- Vaiehu Bay, 'Ou Pou, Marquesas (tomorrow)
- Kauehi, Tuamotus
- Fakarava, Tuamotus (this is my new "Holy Crap" statement. Like "Faka-rava, did you see that?". I am trying to make it stick. The pause after Faka and slowly drawing out the Rava is very important)
- Toau, Tuamotus
- Rangiroa, Tuomotus
- Tahiti

After that I will tour some of the leeward and windward society islands solo before heading to Thailand to spend some time with the Moore family (because they are good people) and hopefully hit Rangoon on the way to Beijing (then follow the rails to western Europe and fly home - this is the current pipe dream part of the trip. Visas and train ticket availability are the biggest holes in my knowledge). Dates are about as undefined as they could be.

Editors note: Walter took the photo of the kids and I am jealous. Posted with permission :)