Get Lost On Purpose

Category: Tahiti

  • 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 : )

  • Allow the bruising to commence…

    I arrived in Tahiti around 4:30 this morning after three flights and almost a solid 24 hours of travel. Last year when I made the journey to join Dosia in Nuku Hiva it took me four flights and a two hour alterain vehicle ride up and down a mountain. So when I boarded the flight for Tahiti last night in LA and knew that this was it and Drew would be waiting at the end, it made this trip feel like a cinch compared to last September.

    This go round the only anticipation I felt was that of wanting to just see Drew, hug him, give him a kiss, and hold his hand like all the other couples I’ve been watching for the past month back in the states. Drew’s mom and sister even commented prior to me leaving the airport yesterday that I was MUCH calmer than last year. That’s because traveling out of the country for the first time, and doing so all by myself…the anticipation was ridiculous. I had flown several times before but not to that extent. Changing my bags over in LA was quite an experience. I’m a southern girl. In LA an “excuse me” can often be mistaken for getting an attitude with someone. I was completely out of my element. This time around, I breezed through there as if I might have actually known what I was doing! I returned to the same grill where I sat waiting for my flight last year and had myself a couple of Miller Lites. It’s gonna be a LONG time before I get anything other than a Hinano or Heineken again.

    Getting off that plane and seeing my boy there smiling and waiting was so awesome. Ummm…skinny, mini over here has lost a ton of weight. He always does that when he leaves the country and is by himself for a while. Not to mention I could not look more ridiculous walking next to him as he has been kissed many times by the sun and I appear to have lost touch with it for quite some time!  As long as that’s all he was kissed by while we were apart then I can deal with it : )
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    So here we are back on the boat together again! Drew began to unpack my things earlier to give me a chance to get a nap in but I found myself getting up to explain why I needed four bottles of leave in conditioner and ten of the exact same tank tops. They are totally not the same…they are all a different color. It’s great to be back, great to be next to him again. We hit up a local, what seems to be always packed and popular, eatery called Oasis in downtown Papeete for a grilled fish sandwich. We came across them last year, fell in love, and today it was just as good as I remembered. Highly recommended to anyone who might find themselves downtown in Tahiti’s capital one day.

    We haven’t quite mapped out our complete journey yet. All I know is I’ve been on the boat for approximately eleven hours and have already formed three nice bruises on my legs and we haven’t even left the dock. Thus….is boat life! All you can do is hope that you tan well enough to cover up the evidence that no matter how much experience you have, the boat always has the upperhand…

  • 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!