Get Lost On Purpose

Category: Society Islands

  • Sailing and Reading – Books, books and more books

    Eight days on the boat, three books down. Man…I don’t know why it is that I never find time for literature when I am back home. Good literature. Learn a thing or two from it literature. Not Cosmo or US Weekly. I guess I make excuses as to why I don’t have the time or something. Over here, even if I wanted to read a gossip magazine I probably couldn’t. 1) You can’t stand and read a magazine on a rack here like you can at Target or Walmart. Someone comes along to tell you “you read, you pay.” 2) At a some odd $20 a pop here, there’s no breakup, plastic surgery epidemic, or good celebrity deed in the world that would persuade Drew to buy one of those. Lucky for me I don’t miss ’em that much and I can still log into people.com every now and then if I really need a fix.

    We do have a lot of books though. Most every port/marina you pull into has a book exchange. It’s a really awesome, common, and free concept in the sailing world to trade bags upon bags of books at a time. I read as many as 5 books in a week so it’s great for me! I can get so nose deep in a novel that Drew will sometimes have to remind me that there is tropical paradise floating right around/beside/underneath me. Maybe I should learn to put the book down a little more during the day…

    Nonetheless we both love reading ourselves to sleep at night. And the coolest part about it is it doesn’t give us a hangover in the morning : )

  • A Little Warning to Fellow Cruisers

    We two day hopped it over to Teahupoo from Papeete hoping to snag a good spot for the surf competition starting next week. It’s only 40 to 45 miles and easily could be managed in one day. We decided to “bebop” (as my dad may say) our way over. There is a reef that runs pretty solid from the time you leave up until you get here so for the most part it is green light/red light the entire way here. For those who might not spend much time on the water, green and red lights mark the channels and are a guide for where to go and where not to go.

    Advice for those who may be headed this way next week or anytime in the future, approaching Teahupoo (right now you can’t miss it because there’s a massive Billabong tower built on the reef in front of the wave for the judges), the channel markings fade out. It’s a curvy little channel right in front of the Teahupoo marina. At the end of the markings headed easterly we suggest you cut a hard left (but not too hard) and head towards the point of land that juts out. Dead ahead….coral reef. We found this out the hard way and spent an hour stuck right on the edge of it. Not so bad with the usual calm lagoon waters. A little more difficult when a storm bringing winds and rain up to 25 knots hits a few minutes after you do though! Drew fended us off by standing on the reef pushing the boat back against the storm. That kept us from going any farther into the coral while the wind broad-sided us. Me…well I did what any first timer would do in this situation…I panicked.

    When the wind and rain died down some nice fellas came and gave us a little tug and we were off in two seconds and moving again. A couple of small scratches on the bottom paint but other than that she pulled through just fine. Drew’s a little worried that I’m going to start to think that things like this happen all the time on the boat. Ahhh…I’m not too uneasy about it. A little scare every now and then as a reminder to always stay on your toes and keep a good lookout. There goes Dosia with her damn upperhand again….

  • A Revision to Sundays in the South Pacific

    **Jessica, if you see this, I keep trying to email you but it comes back undeliverable.  Send me an email from another account.  I see you got the blog uploaded.**

    Allow me to revise my earlier entry where I spoke of everyone disappearing on Sundays in the South Pacific Islands.  From what I’ve seen that is the case in many islands but today I discovered Tahiti is a completely different animal.  Sunday on the big island seems to be Get-Out-On-Your-Boat Day.  After they found me hiding out on a private mooring opposite Taina Marina I headed back to the quay downtown.  The trip between takes you right beside the runway for the airport.  You actually have to call Harbor Control as you pass on either end of the runway to make sure there’s no jets taking off or landing.  I taken this route several times now and usually it’s just me, a bunch of guys in outriggers, and the daily procession of tidal trash heading out the main pass.  Today, there were water skiers, jet skiers, bow bunnies, and hundreds of boats anchored along the length of the sand shelf leading up to reef.  I had no idea.  If Easter Sunday over here saw an increase in traffic like I saw in Moorea last weekend, I can’t imagine what the reef looked like.

    Looks like I’ll be here at the Quay till Marge gets here.  Priority number one is getting the outboard running.  I may call my miracle worker from last year and see what he thinks.  There’s a big concert on Friday.  Alpha Blondy, the famous French Reggae star is playing.  I’m not buying tickets but it’s right on the harbor and it should echo out of the water.  Hopefully we’ll have the dinghy running so we can anchor it out down there and chill.  Hell, maybe I’ll take Dosia over there.  Tomorrow he’s playing at one of the bars downtown so I plan to take all the film gear over and see what I can get.  After the weekend and we provision the boat, I think we’ll start sailing around Tahiti since I’d like to anchor on the southside of the island near the Billabong Pro Surfing Competition in the beginning of May.  That also puts us at a better angle to sail back to the Tuamotus for a couple of weeks.  I gotta get Margie in the water with some sharks.  At least that’s the plan…I’m not telling her that though.

  • Interesting Facts About Tahiti

    Here’s 21 interesting facts about Tahiti and the islands I borrowed, oddly enough, from a gohawaii site.

    • Hawaii gets more visitors in 10 days than Tahiti does in an entire year.
    • In ancient Tahiti, archery was a sacred sport, practiced only by people of high rank. And while they were expert marksmen, bows and arrows were never used as weapons of war.
    • It’s common to put a tiare (Tahiti’s national flower, a fragrant white blossom) behind one’s ear — left side you’re taken, right if you’re looking.
    • James Michener’s mythical island of Bali Hai is likened to Moorea.
    • Moorea is known as “The Island of Love,” and Bora Bora as “The Romantic Island.”
    • Moorea means “yellow lizard” which is a name taken from a family of chiefs.
    • Natives of the lush Austral Islands grow many crops in the fertile soil. Due to their diets of foods rich in fluoride, people from these temperate isles have beautiful white teeth.
    • Over half of the population is under the age of 20 years old.
    • Tahiti and Her Islands covers over two million square miles of the South Pacific Ocean and is comprised of five great archipelagos with 118 islands.
    • Tahitians are very friendly, but somewhat shy. Visitors find that by offering the first smile or “ia ora na” (hello), they will be greeted by wonderful Tahitian hospitality.
    • The beautiful black pearls, cherished by natives and visitors alike, are indigenous only in the Tuomotu Islands of French Polynesia.
    • The Chinese population (about 10 percent) monopolizes the retail trade, so when Tahitians talk about going shopping, they say they are going to “la Chine” or to the Chinese.
    • The letter “B” does not exist in the Tahitian language. Bora Bora is actually Pora Pora, meaning first born, but early visitors heard it as Bora Bora.
    • The Pearl Museum on Tahiti is the only museum in the world devoted entirely to pearls. The unique presentations about Tahitian Cultured Pearls describe and demonstrate the history and practice of cultivating pearls as well as their place in art, history, mythology, and religion.
    • The traditional method of “stone fishing” is still performed for special festivals. Dozens of outrigger canoes form a semicircle, and men in the canoes beat the water with stones tied to ropes. The frightened fish are then driven towards the beach and the men jump from the canoes yelling and beating the water with their hands to drive the fish ashore.
    • The translation of Papeete (Tahiti’s capital) is “water basket”.
    • The ultimate private island escape, Motu Tapu is the most photographed isle in the South Pacific. This tiny motu, just a few hundred yards from the main island of Bora Bora, is best described as the world’s most perfect to relax.
    • The word tattoo originated in Tahiti. The legend of Tohu, the god of tattoo, describes painting all the oceans’ fish in beautiful colors and patterns. In Polynesian culture, tattoos have long been considered signs of beauty, and in earlier times were ceremoniously applied when reaching adolescence.
    • There are more hotel rooms in a typical Las Vegas hotel than on all 118 islands of French Polynesia.
    • There are no poisonous snakes or insects in French Polynesia.
    • Those things that look like mail boxes outside the homes of Tahitian residents are not for mail, but for French bread delivery. Residents get a fresh loaf dropped off twice a day. But alas, they must go to the post office to retrieve their mail!