Get Lost On Purpose

Category: General

General posts about life, travel, and more…

  • Reroute to Rarotonga

    Well thanks to our engine, and Drew’s willingness to motor instead of sitting still like a duck in water, we were able to arrive in Rarotonga in a little over a day. There were absolutely NO WINDS to aide in our journey here but of course southerly winds hit us head on early Tuesday morning. So instead of only having four more hours left to the trip we had barely 4 knots pushing us along and another two hours or so tacked onto the trip. Funny, as quickly as we can change our plans and add another island onto our list, the weather can change just as fast. You can follow all the weather charts you want but sometimes, oftentimes, out here you get some stuff you’re not expecting, and all you can do is adjust and push on. We did just that and pulled into Rarotonga, a.k.a. Raro, around 3:30 Tuesday afternoon.

    What did prove dead on was the anchorage here in Raro. Exactly as we had expected, we came in, dropped anchor, and then butt wedged Dosia into a spot. We are tied up to a concrete wharf and could literally reach out and high five our neighbors. Needless to say, there are fenders and lines EVERYWHERE! Two other boats have come in after us so right now there are ten, one of which is a 60+ foot massive catamaran. There isn’t much room left for any more boats and we’ve all got our fingers crossed that no northerly winds or swells come ripping through here or this harbor is likely to turn into a big mess of bumper boats. On a positive note, no outboard dinghy engines are necessary as you can just pull yourself back and forth from your boat to the wharf by all the lines from the boats.

    Instantly once you pull in, your nose is tantalized by the gourmet burger joint across the street and the fish-n-chips hole in the wall off to the right of the harbor. We got Dosia settled, made sure she wasn’t going to be doing the two step with any of our neighbors, and set off to follow our noses to get something to eat. Within half a mile from the boat there are more restaurants than we could possibly eat at in the week we plan to be here, along with several grocery stores, and plenty of shopping. For Tuesday night we chose Trader Jacks, which appears to be a very popular bar and grill here on the island, large enough to possibly entertain the entire population of Aitutaki! Grilled wahoo, seafood pasta, calamari….scrumptious!

    First thing yesterday we rented Junior, our new scooter, and were off to tackle the 32 km that makes up the coastal road around Raro. The largest island, and capital, of the Cooks, Raro is home to more than half the population that makes up this group of islands. Driving here will prove to be a bit more of a test with a lot more traffic than in Aitutaki so we’ll let Drew do most of it. The wharf offers a hot water shower to cruisers (for $10NZ w/a $20NZ deposit) so yesterday I was able to take a LONG shower and didn’t have to worry about turning the water off! So nice. We’ll be able to provision our fridge while here and restock the freezer with fresh chicken and beef and the best part…there is a small movie theater here so tomorrow night we’ll be able to check out the new Transformers movie! Heck yeah!

  • Change of Plans – Sailing to Rarotonga

    The best thing about this lifestyle is that short of weather and boat capability, we have complete freedom to direct ourselves and change our plans. After 10+ days in Aitutaki we decided to do just that. We like Cook Islanders, we like the food, the atmosphere. We like all the Kiwi and Aussie tourists hanging around. So we decided to not cut ourselves short here in the Cooks and head south to see what the nation’s “city life” is like in Rarotonga, the capital island. It’s only 140 miles due south from here…an overnight sail. We’ll be able to do a good restocking there and get some needed laundry done. Plus, if we stick with our plan to head up to Swarrow, we’ll also add in a stop at Palmerston Island putting one more Cook Island under our belt.
     
    So far we’ve only heard of two boats heading to Raro. Some years it’s a popular stop while in other years yachts stick to a more northerly route through Aitutaki and Swarrow. It seems this is one of those more northerly years. There’s seven boats in Swarrow right now with 5-6 more on the way. On the 17th, a cruise ship (the first ever) is pulling into the island with 350 passengers. Now that’s a crowd. It’s not surprising Raro is becoming less popular. The harbor is tiny and offers no protection from a northerly wind and swell. We’ll be Tahiti-moored to a concrete wharf meaning we’ll drop anchor, back up, and tie stern lines ashore. This way they are guaranteed to squeeze 15 boats into a space meant for 12! In years past the harbor runs completely out of space and the port captain is forced to turn boats away. Hopefully it won’t be an issue for us this early in the season.
     
    Aitutaki remains one of our favorite stops ever. The only regret I have is not getting down into the main part of the lagoon on our dinghy. We tried yesterday but with the wind blowing steady out of the east the waves were up and the ride was miserable. I hoped to try again today but the trades aren’t letting up. At least we were able to do that lagoon tour with Zen (Bishop’s Cruises was great) so we have an idea of what we missed. Here’s a list of some of the highlights from the past week and a half.
    -One Foot Island was absolutely gorgeous and deserves its spot as one of the world’s most beautiful beaches.
    -For an animal that doesn’t move much, giant clams are pretty damn cool
    -being sick sucked but watching the first two seasons of Entourage did not (thanks Tom and Monique)
    -The Pacific Resort is still my fav. Voted Best Island Boutique Resort 2008 in the World Travel Awards
    -Margie can and will dance for an hour by herself at the Blue Nun Cafe and not care cause she’ll “never see ANY of these people again!”
    -Goodbye Scoot-Scoot…we will miss you
    -we found the best candy store on the island. email us for details
    -the fire dancing at the Tamanu Resort on Thursday nights is killer! not to be missed.
    -Margie loves her some banana pancakes at Cafe Koru and they make bacon here just how I like it…fatty and greasy!
    -And we love the international cruising community. Last night we joined Brits Neil and Jackie from Camelot for some fish burgers and rum punch aboard the Austrian catamaran, September, with Hans and Gaby. There’s 5 Norwegian guys on a boat anchored outside the pass. This morning an Italian boat left and a New Zealand boat showed up. We really do know people all over the world!
     
    So long Aitutaki. Thanks for the great introduction to a new country!

  • 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.

  • My utmost apologies to Maybelline

    We’ve heard through the grapevine that it’s getting warmer back in the states. Right before I left to join Drew it was a constant 60 to 70 degrees during the day but at night it was still dropping down into the low 50’s. Stepping off the plane in Tahiti was like getting hit by a brick wall of heat. It was almost 80 degrees and only 4:30 in the morning. Man….is it HOT over here!!!! Thank heavens I did not waste money on too many backup supplies of my makeup because at this rate I don’t forsee myself wearing much, if hardly any at all! Tissues to wipe my forehead have replaced my mascara and concealer so it’s too bad for Drew he has to love me and think I look good regardless : )

    This past Thursday Drew and I decided to go people watch a little bit and headed to happy hour at the only microbrewery in French Poly called Les 3 Brasseurs, located on the waterfront in Papeete. On the way we stopped off to phone Youri, our friend from Ua Pou who helped us fix the boat last year. He had emailed and said he was going to be in Papeete so we thought it was worth a shot to call and see if he wanted to catch up over a few beers. Now…I know that there are courteous people all over the world. But for whatever reason it seems that there is multitude of them in French Polynesia and we must have befriended the cream of the crop.

    Youri was estatic to hear from us and said he’d meet us at the brewery right away. He had no more than sat down when he asked what we were doing for dinner. We shrugged and said we had planned to just head to the roulottes and pick something up there after happy hour was over. He said his wife was in the car and that we should “come back to their house and eat with them.” So we slammed our beers and off we went. Lydiane, Youri’s wife, is the sister of Fara and Paru, our good buddies we met last year. Kindness seems to be a staple that runs through the veins of every single person in this family because Lydiane was just as nice and sweet as her brothers, father, mother, and children.

    Over a delicious dinner of chow mein, lemon chicken, curry chicken, won ton soup, and pepper steak, we learned that Youri makes these trips to Papeete to train fire fighters here. He pretty much island jumps around the south pacific and teaches young men how to become fire fighters. Aside from that, he also owns the two fishing boats we spent time on in Ua Pou last fall and his main goal or dream is to own a ferry that carries people to and from the islands. Lydiane is in Papeete going to school to become a teacher, one of the few jobs she says is available to women on the islands. She has been living in an apartment in Papeete for several years now while she attends school and her parents take care of her and Youri’s two children back in Ua Pou.
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    Dinner was phenomenal. The bill from this dinner had not even been payed before they were asking if we wanted to stop off at the best pizza restaurant in town to grab a pie to take back to the boat with us. Despite being so full we could barely move, Drew probably contemplated the thought but I quickly shot it down! Drew + Pizza=true love

    So we made plans to tour the island on Saturday. Times got mixed up so Drew and I were sitting on the boat at seven a.m. thinking we were supposed to be ready for them to pick us up. Needless to say we were way off because they didn’t show up until almost eleven. Who cares though right? You’re on island time! We took off in their truck having no idea where we were going or what we were going to see. First stop…the only doughnut shop in French Poly. I thought I was going to have to wrestle Lydiane to pay for the doughnuts, as they had picked up the tab for dinner Thursday night.

    Afterwards we spent a couple of hours breezing down the road. We stopped at a natural grotto, a few fruit stands, and the home of their good friend, Youan. His house is right in front of the location for the Billabong pro surfing competition that will begin in May. A couple hundred yards out is the wave, Teahupoo, where the competition takes place.

    A mere hour later we were dining on poisson cru, baguettes, and getting to know some new friends. Youan owns a fishing store in downtown Papeete and is also the manager for one of the Tahitian soccer teams. He houses several of the players that he manages. Because of how far he lives from Papeete and because of traffic, Youan leaves his home at 3 in the morning to be able to make it to work by 6:30 or 7! Everyday…. ugh, I could not imagine…

    One Heineken after after another, Drew and I couldn’t help but feel like we had known these people for years. Youan said we are more than welcome to come stay at his home during the surfing competition if we would like. I wanna say he is housing one of the pro surfer’s but we never caught a name. It’s unlikely we’ll need to crash there seeing as how our boat will be anchored right outside his back door! But it will be nice to have a place to hang out and good people to pass the time!
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    So for now Drew and I are busy preparing the boat to move it around to the other side of the island. Grocery list in hand, we plan to stock up the boat because it’s not as easy to get food and supplies over there.  We hope to move the boat either later this afternoon or sometime tomorrow. The generator is getting all tuned up and as soon as that’s done, we’ll say bye bye to downtown Papeete!

    Dad-HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!!!! I love you so much : )