Last Departure...by boat

After a wonderful stay in Vava'u we are preparing to set sail for New Caledonia. Steve and Stephanie left for New Zealand on the 7th of May and recent weather has not been so good for heading West. We saw some spectacular coral here in Vava'u and overall Tonga is the best that we have seen. Neiafu is the small capital city that is young and vibrant.
Stephanie and I waxed the hull before she left so that was quite an undertaking; we needed a flat anchorage, but with enough wind to keep us slightly under boiling temperature. The other work that has to be done will happen in New Caledonia before she goes on the market. We have not yet done a passage with only three people so this next sail will be a new experience. It should take about a week to nine days, depending. I had my birthday here in Vava'u and I simply could not believe that a whole year has gone by. But we ate a lot of good food and did some wonderful snorkeling. After being in the marine environment for so long it is amazing how much I am craving to swim in fresh water (i.e. Lake Tahoe). We'll see how quickly my wishes come true.

We are leaving here right at the beginning of both whale and cruising seasons. Apparently the best time for whale watching is also the busiest for boats. It has been nice coming West early, albeit weather risk. There are fewer boats and it is hard to imagine how busy this harbor gets by August and September. Now our trip is coming to a real close. All we have left to do is work on the boat, which can be fairly hard in this heat. There is always water that's awaiting you though. I really can't wait to see the Golden Gate again.

Giovanni

Tonga -- April 23, 2008

Tonga is a beautiful country, it was never colonized so it retains a culturally independent spirit. We entered into the less visited Ha'apai group, geographically central to the country. The capital, Nukualofa is to the South and the popular Vava'u is farther North. The islands of the Ha'apai are mostly coral atolls, but some have been raised or sunk depending on the whims of the fault line at the Tonga trench. The people and the villages we saw are still part of the old Tongan way of life, mostly all subsistence living. Aid money has brought in solar electricity to some of the villages and gives them a taste of some comveniences. The snorkelling that we did was probably the best we have seen on our trip so far. Some of the uninhabited atolls have spectacular reefs in the vicinity. I bolstered up my cowrie collection; the shelling was fantastic. We got some rainy and overcast weather so we were stuck in our anchorage for a few days. Moving the boat with so much coral and no sunlight to see could turn out to be disastrous. We left the Ha'apai on the 15 of April and set sail for Vava'u. We had weather reports predicting bad weather so we wanted to get into Neiafu harbor. The winds were not so strong so we needed to run the engine to make it in by sunset. The Vava'u group are raised atolls with deep channels between them. The harbor at Neiafu, the capital, has been used as a hurricane shelter. It is quite a lively town, a lot of foreigners have sailed here and simply stayed because it is so beautiful. The provisioning in Ha'apai lacked fresh vegetables and cheese, but we found big yams which were delicious. The markets in Vava'u carry a lot more produce and with the onset of the cruising season the selection is bound to increase.

We have been doing some work to make the boat more presentable on the market in New Caledonia, cleaning and fixing. Our plan is to sail direct from Vava'u sometime at the beginning of May, providing there is a good weather window. We are at the tail end of the cyclone season and it remains to be seen if another could be generated or not, but the chances are now only diminishing. Once in Noumea, New Caledonia, we will have some work to do before we can board a plane bound for San Francisco. The bottom has to be painted while hauled out, there's a lot of cleaning, and we should move most of our stuff off of the boat into storage.

Steve is arriving here in Vava'u today and he will be staying with us for a little while, enjoying the island experience that he and Nico missed out on after the crossing from San Francisco. After the time on the boat, Stephanie and Steve will spend some time travelling in New Zealand. Everything we have heard is that it is a beautiful country. A French family that we met in the marina in Tahiti just went there and thoroughly enjoyed it. Right now our trip is really coming to a close. A year has almost passed, it went quickly but it has been so filled with memories and experiences. Sailing has transformed from something that we did occasionally on the bay as a family to an enjoyment that will stay with me for the rest of my life. For my parents, the trip has given them a clear idea of what are necessary design elements when purchasing a boat for them. This is a lesson that only experience can teach, so the purchase and outfit of a next boat, once our Haapsalu sells will be clarified by first-hand knowledge. I am trying to add some more pictures to our blog so you can take an updated look.

Niue and ENGLISH!!!

Our arrival to Niue was unique, we were utterly amazed at how flat the island appeared. Niue was formerly an atoll, but volcanic activity raised the whole lagoon area a few hundred feet. So the island is a big plateau. It is quite large but many people have taken advantage of the free association with New Zealand to go and live there, thus population is actually declining. It definitely retains the feel of an old South Pacific Island. It is not a huge tourist destination and many of the natural features are protected. Overall it was a beautiful island to visit and hearing English after so many months of French was quite an experience. Niue was devastated by a cyclone in 2004 but the landscape has recovered, the coral is still in the process however. The waters are very clear because rain simply percolates through the limestone of the island without taking runoff sediment. There are tons of sea snakes in the water but they pose no threat really and we saw a number of turtles there. The limestone also has created beautiful caves all around the island. The problem with Niue is protection at harbor. Only Alofi Bay has any moorings for yachts and most other places are too deep to anchor. The whole east side of the island is shear cliff and the west side drops off quickly as well. Our visit was cut short because of weather, westerly winds were predicted. With the swell increasing as well as the wind at our mooring we decided to head out to sea, start sailing for Tonga. Our other option was to head to the east side of the island, hove to, and wait out the weather, but we decided to set sail in the evening. We went right into rain squalls and bad weather. The wind was a steady 40 knots, rain, and confused seas for all of the next day. We hove to twice but then decided to see if we could sail out of the weather, finally by this morning the weather cleared. Everything on the boat is salty and sour so we will have some cleaning when we get to Tonga. The weather was particularly hard to handle on our first 24 hours out to sea, we had no time to get out sea legs back on. Even with our second reef in the main and our jib reefed way down we were still overpowered, burying our rail. With the rail underwater we had some intake problems, our sink overflowed as well as a head. The boat handled well so that was comforting but a third reef point on the main would be useful. Overall it was a good experience to have because it brought to reality our sail home if we are going to undertake it. On a well equipped boat, set up for wet seas possibly with inside steering, the trip would be a fun sail. Either way it could also be cold and miserable. We definitely got a feel for how the boat handles and what sailing becomes in that kind of weather.

Giovanni

Niue Here We Come

We said goodbye to French Polynesia and sailed out from Bora Bora on March 11, bound for Niue. Niue is a small island nation in association with New Zealand. It is supposed to have spectacular diving and snorkeling because all of the groundwater filters through the limestone rock on the island. It is situated west of the Cook Islands, mostly South of Samoa and east of Tonga. Our crossing so far has gone well. We have done consistent 150-mile days. Winds have not been too light or strong, but occasional rainsqualls have stirred things us a bit in the last few days. It is a 1065-mile trip. The sailing has been mostly down wind, varying between off a stern quarter and dead down. We never hoisted our main, but instead put up a second jib. My dad brought back the old jib that came with the boat when he went back to the States in December. Somehow we had forgotten it when we originally left. With two headsails up on spinnaker poles, there's no flapping and banging by the main and sailing during the night is comfortable. In a rainsquall yesterday while I was on the helm we heard a bang and then I see the spinnaker pole flying forward. “All hands on deck!” The sheet to the second jib had snapped, we hadn't attached two sheets because it was our second sail up, so the sail was out of control with wind and rain incoming. We managed to bring her down and put her away as well as securing the pole, which broke free from the mast for an unknown reason. Maybe it just wasn't quite secure to begin with. Now the sail's back up. Two sheets this time. We also got a big hit on our fishing rod but the line snapped, very disappointing. We are still about two days out and we'll probably have to head to nearby the island and wait out the night. It will be strange hearing English spoken again. Our whole trip has been in French Polynesia up until now, so we have become quite accustomed to hearing French. This will be a change. Right now we are still in our planning stages for the end of our trip but we will get the boat back home instead of leaving it somewhere. We can either sail it or ship it. It depends on crew and what we are up to. It is a long sail, but coming in under the Golden Gate is quite appealing.

Giovanni

FIRE

We have sailed over to Moorea a few times, and when Stephanie and Nancy came we went to Huahine, but we always managed to return to Papeete, for our visa or for the wind generator. Now we are on our way. Spending time on Huahine was beautiful. We toured the island by car which did not take so long, but the views were spectacular. Once we returned for our visa extension we saw some of the movies in the film festival, which were all well made and interesting. They covered a huge range of topics but all centered around the Pacific islands (Australia included). My dad, Dylan and I went surfing a few times over at the beach break at Papageno in Tahiti. I saw some good improvement, and my board sustained some injuries. After all that we left for Moorea where we stayed for only one night because the winds were just too good to pass up, so we set off again heading for Raiatea in the evening. The wind generator, recently installed, had been doing a pretty good job. We have two solar panels on the stern so we ran the wiring for the wind generator together with the solar panels. Both went throught a 25 amp charge controller (regulator), which was a little small but it was only temporary. Anyways, come a middle of the night rain squall and there's an electrical smell down below. My dad and Stephanie are on watch. I sort of wake up and hope that I can continue sleeping but the smell is only getting stronger so I get up. Out of the back lazarette smoke is sort of billowing out, surrounding Stephanie in noxious fumes. We looked in at the stern but saw no flames, so we reconsidered and my mom and I looked down below. The regulator had melted; it was mounted below the starboard aft bunk. I peeked through the cushions and saw a lot of smoke. I started taking off the cushions and then made way for my dad with the fire extinguisher. He lifted up the board and the fire flamed with new fury from the intake of oxygen. The board was put back after my dad attempted swatting the fire. It took two brains to overcome the complexity of a fire extinguisher, which is locked with a pin. The lever is on top of the handle, not a very ergonomic design so I pushed the lever while my dad aimed the thing. The fire was out, and the whole cabin was covered in white ash that smelled horrible and probably did a number on all of our lungs. The night proceeded as normal.

It took quite a bit of cleaning to spruce up the cabin, but we managed after quite a bit of sleep. This of course is only a side-remark on our ongoing war with ants. We have the worlds smartest on board. They are incredibly quick and they hide. They run into the cracks or crevices that are too small for our fingers. Furthermore, they love damp plywood, so they have hatched some baby ants on board near the condensation from the fridge and other choice places. We have been inhaling more noxious fumes from the penetrating epoxy sealer that makes the wood less inhabitable. So far the war rages on.

We had a great time in Raiatea. I got to paddle an outrigger, which after flipping in the first ten seconds turned out to be really enjoyable. We also ate the best pig of the trip so far.

Right now we are on Tahaa and Benoit, from Makemo, is visiting us. We are on the closing end of our stay in French Polynesia and we will depart soon for the Cook Islands. English comes.
Giovanni

Notes on a Tahitian Dance experience

Today my heart is soaring, yet it is only out of a sadness that I am aware of this "incredible lightness of being". We will soon leave Papeete and I attended my final Tahitian dance class today. I will make an attempt at describing my experience at this unique school. The "Heiragi Ecole de Danse" is this amazing (and I am sorry to say rare and unusual) space where women of many ages and backgrounds gather to study Tahitian Dance. The owner whom I fondly refer to as "Il Generale" is of Tuomotan heritage and infuses the school with a cultural force that proudly displays the beauty and strength of the Polynesian people. She brings a deep sense of her culture and for her it is dance that is a woman's expression of Polynesia. She expects us, the learners of this kind of dance, to come each day ready to work and to keep on working (she often reminds us, " boku travail"), both to learn the dance forms in an exacting yet artistic way, and to know the Tahitian words for the individual moves. When she attends the classes everyone becomes just a bit more serious in their studies, yet she also brings along her big belly laugh that reminds us of our shared womanhood. I call her assistant "La Professora", and she very sweetly gets each dance class started, and the very difficult labor of learning this dance begins almost effortlessly under her guidance. She too brings along a good humor and suddenly we are all laughing because she has imitated our awkward attempts at a particular form, then the laugh is over, now she warmly gives us the corrected move. Many women look in the mirror as they attempt to imitate her; as for me, I am so far from approximating her form that I simply watch her and imagine that it is my body moving with just the same grace as hers. We " ladies of the dance" come in all shapes, our common thread being women joined together in the learning of this art of Polynesian Dance, and it is interesting how beautiful we are each becoming as the work begins to reshape us just a little and gives us a bit more grace. There are a handful of women that are of Polynesian heritage, the two dozen others are mostly from France with a sprinkling of ladies from Australia or New Zealand, and me, the lone American. Children often attend the classes and become a part of the dance. The baby in the stroller who begins to fuss is cooed at by anyone near, the dropped toy retrieved as one of us dances by, and when the fuss becomes a near scream, the baby is suddenly in a mother's arms, the arms usually belonging to "Il Generale or La Professora", the baby now happy to watch our mostly clumsy display from a new vantage point. Newcomers are always welcome in this school, even now as the dance school begins the more serious preparation of their performance for "Heiva", a huge cultural "fete" held in July. "Il Generale", actually Veronique Clement, has chosen the songs and created a choreography that she and Selena, "La Professora", are teaching us. As we learn the individual moves and begin to put them together, she also writes out the Tahitian words to the songs and explains just what our gestures are meant to convey. The dance forms that are often described in the French language are now frequently referred to by their Tahitian names and we students must know the meaning. Since my days at this special dance school have come to an end, Jeff joined me at the class today to take photographs of all of us hard at work. I introduced him to a woman in the class I call "my Tahitian Idol" and asked him to watch her move and attempt to capture that on film ! This woman is much shorter than I and quite a bit more broad, her movements are completely fluid and graceful and she never seems to tire, her hips just keep on circling round and round as if this is the way a woman's body is made to move. The only way to perceive just how hard she is working is to be close enough to see the wet glow of her skin, or when her butt length hair falls out of its clasp as she dances. For me, she absolutely shines with a true womanhood, the kind that many of us belonging to the world of the dominating cultures are attempting to obliterate with our excessive thinness and surgical sameness. If you were to attend this class I think you would agree that the fashion photographers of the modern day are really taking photos of nothing, the emaciated, hollow-eyed, soulless shapes being nothing when compared to these dark- haired, full- figured beauties. My heart soars at this very lovely and surprising experience here in Tahiti, and I know that although I can grow my hair long, clasp it up, wear a pareo as my dancing skirt, it will not be so easy to build a space that carries an equal amount of feminine strength in its architecture as the simple "Heiragi Ecole de Danse". Maururu Roa to Veronique and Selena and all the "dames de danse" of Tahiti.
Ia Orana, Teresa

Holiday Festivities

Holiday festivities started right on time here, which is of course way too early. People began setting off fire works in early December already shouting Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. The weather was entirely too hot for us to even imagine that it was Christmas time, much less have our normal holiday cheer. Nevertheless things quieted down around the marina. David and Stephanie left for San Francisco on December 22, so Christmas was just my mom and I but we also celebrated with Dylan, from Australia, who we had met in the Marquesas, and just to make sure everything was unusual, we made fondue.
This is the summer season and December is said to be the wettest month and the weather has definitely lived up to its reputation. It rained almost every day in December, sometimes for hours nonstop, but at times other it was clear and beautiful. I have been taking surf lessons and the learning curve is slower than I expected; it's still a lot of fun.
We ended up buying a new dinghy and engine here because our old one is quite big and it is fully inflatable so getting it up on a plane was rather challenging and our 15 hp engine weighs a bit too much for comfort. We bought a smaller rigid bottom inflatable with a 9.9 hp engine and so far it has worked fabulously. Yesterday we tied a rope on to the stern and went scurfing (getting towed behind the boat on a surf board). We had heaps of fun and lots of laughs and certainly is an activity worth repeating many times over, especially in this heat.
It is truly amazing how much heat effects my motivation to get up and do things. When I am just sitting on the boat dripping sweat from doing absolutely nothing it is kind of hard to just get up and start moving. Grocery shopping and the general errands for living always leave us completely drenched. Swimming is always the easiest activity for obvious reasons.
We left home on this trip with nothing in the world of tv entertainment besides some PBS dvds. Here we discovered the wonderful world of watching other people's dvd collections. I even found a few in German so that has been fun attempting to brush up. Nevertheless staying in this marina for so long has been challenging, both my mom and I are ready to start moving again. Just bearing witness to just how much materialism has permeated the far reaches of our planet has been slightly depressing. Furthermore the city of Papeete gives the atmosphere a completely different feel from community centered outer islands, which are our personal preference; you are able to connect with the people in a much more human way. My dad missed his flight from LA so he is flying in early tomorrow morning but we will remain here to finish up some work on the boat before we set sail again. The departure date is however inching reassuringly closer.