Get Lost On Purpose

Category: Bora Bora

  • Bloody Marys in Bora Bora

    Yesterday Drew and I drug up Dosia’s anchor from the depths of the Yacht Club and relocated her over to Bloody Mary’s. We’d heard rumors that in exchange for a little business in the restaurant that we could fill our water tanks at their docks. Well I had promised a great friend back home a hat from there, and we knew they had Hinano on tap, so case was closed. We were there!
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    Today after waking up and turning six “almost gone” bananas into two loaves of yummy banana nut bread, we headed to Bloody’s for lunch. Shocked to see a reuben on the menu, Drew’s mind was instantly made and I decided on a fresh tuna salad sandwich. We were pleasantly surprised by how good our meals were and highly recommend their lunch menu if you are in the area. Their lunch items range from 900 to 1500 CFP (some of the cheapest we’ve seen for lunch other than roadside roulottes) and it was good, quality food. I got completely schmoozed by a beautiful cat who has obviously made itself a staple at the restaurant. She so casually wandered up and gave me that “I’m so hungry” look so I shared my tuna. She’d no more cleaned her paws when she saw lunch delivered to another table and before I knew it I was face to face with her backside. Worked. Oh well…

    Full bellies, a hat, key to the water dock, and we were on our way, eager to get over to the east side of the island. Drew had dinghy explored the other day and said it looks absolutely gorgeous. Oh, btw, for any fellow cruisers who are in the area or will be here at some point and plan to stay at the Yacht Club…they offer laundry services. They have three washers, a dryer, and it is 700 CFP a wash, same for a dry. At 1400 a load, it too, is some of the cheapest we’ve come across. And we hang dry on the boat so 700 a wash seemed like a complete steal to us. Just wanted to pass the info along!

  • Back to Bora Bora

    It seems Bora Bora either delights or disappoints sailors.  I’ve heard it called “Boring Boring” by some while others proclaim it their favorite spot in Polynesia.  I admit I was shocked by the beauty of Huahine and if we hadn’t been so excited to meet up with everyone of Friday night we’d probably still be there exploring all the anchorages and small private beaches.  But Bora Bora is what it is; a unique island surrounded by a beautiful lagoon that attracts honeymooners and wealthy vacationers from around the globe.  This is now my third time visiting the island and Margie’s second so we arrived with a good sense of the layout and what to do.  For instance, we already know that renting a car here is a waste of money.  We know Bloody Mary’s has Hinano on tap and is a fine place for a beer but not diner.  And we know that to really experience what made this place famous we need to crash visit the resorts on the islands in the lagoon (the motus).  So that’s our plan.  In the next couple of days we’ll move over to the east side of the main island and spend a couple of days checking out the posh St Regis, the brand new Four Seasons, and several others I’m sure.  It’s the less popular side of the island because of the eight foot depth limit that restricts larger boats from making the trip.  It’s also the more beautiful side of Bora Bora with several square miles of white sand bottom backed up to palm fringed beaches.  Sounds like a great place to finish up our time in French Polynesia!

    Here’s a couple of shots from the Bora Bora Yacht Club.

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    I think Margie mentioned it in an earlier post but I updated our About the Journey page to reflect our plans for the next couple of months.  Check it out!

  • Living in the moment

    Living on a boat is interesting. Drew and I usually find ourselves to be one of few couples, or groups, in our age bracket that have chosen to spend this time in our lives sailing. Most people whose waves you cross out here are closer to our parents age and this has been their dream for as long as they can remember…often times longer than Drew or myself have been alive. We constantly try to remove our feet from our mouths, having to say “oh…we didn’t mean it that way” when we refer to the older age bracket of most of our fellow travelers. There is never an ounce of disrespect in our words. Just blatant fact. It’s okay mom and dad…god willing, Drew and I will be listening to our kids do the same thing one day.

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    However, believe me…there may be a few more years notched on their belts but whatever the age, be it 40, 50, 60, or even 70…EVERYONE OUT HERE IS YOUNG AT HEART.

    Truth is…whether you’ve had this dream for thirty years, or ten, there is a connection you find amongst yourselves, no matter the age difference, unlike that of anything I have ever experienced. The more I learn about sailing the more I’ll be able to participate in conversations but for now, I mostly sit back and listen to Drew and our newest companions (usually males) talk about types of engines, outboard motors, dinghys, satellites, weather patterns. All the while laughing to myself as they each try to hide behind their polarized sunglass lenses when the occasional female walks by on the dock or glides by in in a boat. And even though I might not understand it all just yet, my heart is happy because there is never a time that Drew’s face lights up more than it does when he is talking about his pride and joy, Dosia

    We often get the questions that you would normally expect people to ask us–how are you able to do this at such a young age…how can you afford it…what do your parents think about you being all the way out here…(the inevitable) how did you guys meet (we always have fun telling that one)…what about jobs…are you nervous to go back at the end and basically start all over…

    We cant, and won’t lie, that returning back to the states after our journey is over (whenever that shall be) is scary. We pretty much know our life as far as November and even that is not set in stone. After that’s its an open book. Drew does his best to keep us in a position where we will not go home to nothing but you do find yourself faced with the fact that according to the “norm” we should be settling down, focusing on careers, saving money, etc.

    I have not had the pleasure to meet the couple below, Antonia and Peter, just yet, or their one and a half year old son, Silas, who has joined in their journey and is now on their boat with them. Drew met them in the boatyard in Ecuador. They are now getting ready to leave New Zealand and move to Fiji on their boat. And we want to introduce you to them because she is hands down one of the funniest and best blog writers we have ever come across. I wanted to correlate this blog in with one that she wrote and it all has to do with the many questions we face spending these years in our lives on a boat. I have never heard it said better…

    “The first time I decided to go sailing, it was 1999, and everyone who knew their way around a computer was busy making their first million, while I savvily decided to drop out on a sailboat in the Caribbean. This earned me a net profit of zero dollars, though it did set my life on a fairly consistent path of seeking more boats on which to drop out, spoiling any long-term career ambitions I may once have had and ensuring that any money I ever made would quickly be squandered on marinized stainless steel and underwater epoxy.

    But now I’m thirty-four years old, a real grown-up, a mother. Silas is just learning how to walk. I should be shopping for the best preschool, working my way up the corporate ladder, saving for college and retirement, buying a home and a better car and acquiring a mortgage. Or at least, that’s what the pictures on TV tell me I should be doing.

    But one day ten years ago, while sailing through the Bahamas, I leaned backwards over the lifelines and I saw: the pink sky at dawn over a rose-tinted sea. The sun glimmering over the horizon and the moon, watchful in the heavens. I had the sensation of skimming over the surface of a water-washed planet, a human with a place in an intricate cosmos.

    That’s what I want to give my son.”

    Cheers to that.

  • Back to Tahiti

    The sail over to Tahiti from Bora Bora took twice as long as I thought but I guess you can say that’s typical of sailing.  I forgot about that westerly current that  pushed me backwards a knot in the direction from whence I came.  I was finally able to grab a wind shift and sail at an angle that made much more sense for my intended destination.  It’s been such a long time since I sailed upwind I forgot about the excitement that goes into it.   The rail spent most of the morning in the water yesterday.  To you non-sailors, the boat was heeled over so far the deck was awash.  That means I was going fast, not thinking of safety, and seeing if I could break anything.  After miles of easy downwind sailing, it was fun to push Dosia to her limits again and remember why I put so much hard work into making her seaworthy.  So there it is, my first overnight solo passage and I gotta say, I don’t like it.  I don’t understand solo sailors and how they do it or why they even want to.  I guess many don’t have a choice cause if they did, I assume they’d sail with a beautiful woman like I do (no offense Aaron…you were a good mate last year man).  In the end though, I guess it’s not who you are voyaging with as much as the fact you are actually out there doing it, living life the way you demand it be lived.

    And that brings me to my not-so-official quote of the week.  I was reminded of this quote reading a fellow Pearson 365 owner’s blog.  I used to have a copy of Sterling Hayden’s book, The Wanderer.  I have no idea what happened to it but I remember reading it 10 years or more ago and falling in love with the concept.  A hollywood actor in the 50’s, distraught with the industry, accused of being a communist, and pissed about his recent divorce, takes the kids and runs off on his sailboat to Tahiti. You may recognize him at the cop Michael Corleone kills in The Godfather but probably not as it was years after this photo was taken.  A famous quote from his book describes exactly what I’m doing out here and why I’m doing it at this point in my life.  Sterling Hayden died from prostate cancer at age 70.

    Sterling Hayden“To be truly challenging, a voyage, like a life, must rest on a firm foundation of financial unrest. Otherwise, you are doomed to a routine traverse, the kind known to yachtsmen who play with their boats at sea… cruising, it is called. Voyaging belongs to seamen, and to the wanderers of the world who cannot, or will not, fit in. If you are contemplating a voyage and you have the means, abandon the venture until your fortunes change. Only then will you know what the sea is all about. “I’ve always wanted to sail to the south seas, but I can’t afford it.” What these men can’t afford is not to go. They are enmeshed in the cancerous discipline of security. And in the worship of security we fling our lives beneath the wheels of routine – and before we know it our lives are gone. What does a man need – really need? A few pounds of food each day, heat and shelter, six feet to lie down in – and some form of working activity that will yield a sense of accomplishment. That’s all – in the material sense, and we know it. But we are brainwashed by our economic system until we end up in a tomb beneath a pyramid of time payments, mortgages, preposterous gadgetry, playthings that divert our attention for the sheer idiocy of the charade. The years thunder by, the dreams of youth grow dim where they lie caked in dust on the shelves of patience. Before we know it, the tomb is sealed. Where, then, lies the answer? In choice. Which shall it be: bankruptcy of purse or bankruptcy of life?”