Get Lost On Purpose

Category: Tahiti

  • Maeva Anchorage and Marina Taina

    Today I moved over to the west side of the airport to the huge anchoring and mooring area surrounding Marina Taina.  I think it’s called the Maeva Beach anchorage although from where I am, I can’t see any beach and I don’t know technically where that anchorage begins and ends.  There’s A LOT of boats around here ranging from ultra elegant 100’+ yachts to the rusting, hard-chine steel hulls that seem to form a some sort of niche with French sailors.  I’ve seen them along the whole trip, through the Caribbean and Latin America, but the number of these homemade-looking boats around here is staggering.  This anchorage is like the Coral Bay of the west; it’s filled with boats you can barely believe made it this far.  I don’t mind it here all that much.  It does get rolly on a monohull and I find myself staring out the window at the catarmans with a wanton desire.   The bar at the marina has bands on the weekends and you can hear the music out across the water which I love.   It’s especially handy right now since I was unsucessful at cranking the outboard.  With the wind, current, and traffic here, rowing a RIB dinghy single-handed with one working oar lock is more likely to send me in circles than anywhere close to my intended destination.

    I decided to grab a mooring since it’s so crowded over here and this area does have a reputation for getting nasty when a big stanky westerly wind blows through.  It’s not that I don’t trust my anchor but I figure the last place I want to be is up on the bow in the middle of the night, butt naked, wrestling with the anchor as Dosia drifts through a crowded anchorage in 50 kt winds.  Some things are just plain easier when your by yourself!  There’s probably fifty moorings out here but all the ones up close to the actual marina are taken by Frenchies who came here and never left.  I tied up to one of those when I first got here but within an hour I had a guy in a “mankini” on a Beneteau hovering over me explaining in French it was his mooring.  So I moved down to another which also has lines on it and certainly belongs to another boat but no one’s come yet so hopefully I can stay the night.  I plan on moving back over to the quay tomorrow where I can begin the official “Margie Cleanup” before she gets here on Thursday morning.

    Tomorrow is Sunday.  Perhaps the worst day to be alone in the South Pacific.  As Paul Theroux wrote, “there is nothing more pacific than a Pacific Sunday”  and there is no better description.  Business stops, the radio goes quiet, and the people disappear into their churches and homes.  Tahiti is the one island where you can expect a little more action on Sunday and even here it still feels like a ghost town.  Once I get the watermaker pulled out and ready to ship, I’ll probably spend my Sunday looking into our passage west.  I want to learn more about the islands in our path.  I’ve realized my eyes were a bigger than my wallet in planning our time in French Polyneisa so we won’t end up using the full six months of our extended stay visas.  Everything is too expensive here.   We’ll hang out as long as we can but with similar, cheaper islands on the horizon, it’s hard not to think about following the sunset sooner than later.

  • Papeete, Roulottes, and the Quay

    Back in Tahiti now, I spent last night at the Quay (the main dock area in downtown).  I don’t mind being down here all that much.  A lot of other sailors hate it.  It does get hot and you can’t swim but at least stores and repairs facilities are in walking distance.  And the roulottes at night are a big plus.  A roulotte is a mobile food van.  Every evening at dusk, a bunch of these things converge on the main square at the head of the cruise ship docks.   Maybe 15-20 different vans set up open air restaurants with plastic tables and stools and the place gets packed with locals and tourists.  They serve all kinds of different cuisine from pizza to Chinese to salted crepes.  Roulottes are the only places to grab quality food in these islands on a budget.  I’m putting together a little youtube thing about them.  I hope to have it up soon.

    The reason I came down here was to work on the outboard engine for the dinghy in a place with a hose and access to some parts.  Also, the port captains don’t really care about charging you if you’re only staying a night.  I came here believing that the carb on the outboard needed cleaning (which it did). I’ve been cleaning all day and the thing still won’t start. I think I might have water in the gas I got on Raiatea. If it turns out to be that simple, gas quality could also explain why I can’t get my little honda generator running.   One can only hope.   Looks like I
    have to send the Katadyn Powersurvivor Watermaker back to Minnesota or somewhere for repair.   I’m positive the problem will end up being something stupid that I either messed up or missed in all my repair attempts.  I’ll pay a ton in shipping.  No, it’s not the best attitude to have but sometimes, living on a boat, I feel like buying one of these stickers and slapping it right on the transom.
    Honk
    This afternoon, I’m getting out of here regardless of what’s fixed.  It’ll be the weekend and most of the stores close anyways so the appeal of being “in the middle of it all” disappears.   I want to be somewhere I can swim and that certainly isn’t here in the middle of Papeete harbor.  I also think it’d be best to save some cash before Margie gets here.   I’ll head to the westside for the next few days.

  • Ecuador, Crossing the Pacific, and Polynesia

    I got a few emails from people who read the old blog asking how I ended up in French Polynesia so here’s a brief summary of last years events and the Pacific crossing.

    Dosia was stored in Ecuador at Puerto Lucia Yacht Club for a total of 20 months from December 2006 to August 2008.  I was really happy with that boatyard for the long term storage.  Their weather has the perfect elements for boat storage: little rain, overcast skies, and dry air.  They also have tremendous security set up there and they seem to keep running logs of each boat in the yard.  I left Ecuador in April 2007 and  I returned last July.  A thick layer of dirt and airborne dust covered every inch of her but the paint job beneath was still in good shape.  No bugs, mold, or mildew and the only thing missing was small fender that fell off the back of the boat.  There’s some pics below.  I painted the bottom and did all the normal boatyard stuff while I waited for my crew to arrive in early August.  Thankfully, the managers of the yard and some of the marina residents warned me to start the paperwork early.   That process turned into a whole debacle and took something like 37 days to complete.   It took every bit of patience I had to get through it and I vented on the message boards around the web as it was happening.  You can read all about it here.

    Dirt After a long storage in Ecuador

    Once that was done, the crew and I set off for the Galapagos.  Aaron is the cousin of a friend I had been doing deliveries with back in the states.  He didn’t have a lot of experience but it wasn’t needed since I can pretty much sail Dosia by myself and downwind sailing in the Pacific doesn’t get any easier.  At the time, I had semi-budgeted out all my money for the rest of the year so I needed someone who could basically pay their own way.  Aaron had the added benefit still being in school and used the trip as a “semester abroad” where he’d sail with me and then continue on to the Cook Islands and New Zealand after we arrived in Tahiti.  It worked out well and I think Aaron would still be in New Zealand right now if it weren’t for school.

    In the Galapagos Galapagos Sunset
    After a short stop at the Galapagos, we started the Pacific crossing on August 31, picked up the tradewinds on day 3, and averaged 145 miles a day for the three-thousand mile crossing.  That’s fast for this size and type of boat and I couldn’t believe it when we pulled into the harbor at Nuku Hiva in the Marquesas after only twenty-one days.  The crossing itself went smooth but wasn’t without problems.  Somehow a rocker arm broke on the engine 750 miles from the Marquesas.  We could use the motor but it sounded like a freight train was driving through the cockpit so we didn’t turn it back on till we were a mile from the anchorage where we could get it repaired.  With the engine, we would have done it in twenty days cause I know of at least two instances I would have turned that sucker on!

    After twenty-four hours of flying and a two-hour mountain drive with Jean-Pierre, the French throat-talker, Margie arrived in Taiohae Bay on her first ever excursion out of the U.S.  We were stoked to keep moving so after touring Nuku Hiva by car and hiking the waterfall we headed back east to catch a glimpse of the Bay of Virgins on Fatu Hiva before heading to the Tuamotus.  We intended to stop at the island of Ua Pou for the day to grab some fresh bread and use the ATM but when the engine died a mile outside the entrance to the main harbor, we found ourselves stuck.  And we almost found ourselves on the rocks after the wind died behind the mountains!  Two weeks later with a new fuel injection pump but still no functioning engine we left the island much wealthier than when we arrived.  We had made our first friends in French Polynesia.  Fara, Youri, and the family helped us with the engine, showed us around the island, partied with us, and loaded us down with more fresh fruit than three people could possibly consume.  Aaron went goat hunting with some of their friends from town.  They took us deep sea fishing.  We helped them sand the bottom of one of their fishing boats.  We even had a Marquesian slumber party at their house one night.   I don’t hesitate to call them lifelong friends and I’m excited at the prospect of seeing them again this year.

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    After the 700 mile engineless sail to Tahiti, I pulled Dosia into the harbor with the dinghy and started looking for help.   Aaron left on October 25th.  I remember this because it’s Margie’s birthday and we ate the most expensive meal I’ve ever had in the company of Vince Vaughn, John Favreau, and Jason Bateman at the Intercontinental Hotel.   A week later, we found ourselves boarding the boat…not our boat…a cruise ship.  For 10 days, we lived in the lap of luxury aboard the Tahitian Princess while Pascal, my godly mechanic, replaced the entire lower end of the motor in Papeete.  It was less expensive to grab a cruise for $700 a piece and eat for free than it was to stay in or around Papeete plus we got to visit many of the islands we were missing due to the mechanical problems.  After the cruise, we spent a few more nights in a hostel before the motor was complete.  From there, it was a quick sail over to Raiatea to haul the boat out and store her at CNI for cyclone season.  We made our way back to the states, bummed a room off my parents for a few months, worked odd jobs, and traveled up and down the eastern seabord.  Now here I am again.   Twelve more long days till Margie gets here.  Kinda wish I wasn’t on island time…

  • Greatest logo in the world

    HinanoHinano, the beer of Tahiti must have the greatest logo design in the world.  I love it on signs, tshirts, and even right here on this can I’m drinking.    Google supposedly has the most popular logo in the world but does it inspire tropical fantasies in your head?  No.  From the Hinano logo, you are inundated with South Pacific images.  The polynesian girl with the Ei of flowers on her head, the wind-swept palms on the motu in the background, and the calm waters of a lagoon; all this on your can or bottle.  Hinano Logo hinano4 They have an entire clothing line with their own models and they sponsor sports teams, surfing competitions, and outrigger canoe races.  They seem to have a hand in 80% of advertising that goes on in these islands.  I thought the brand is unheard of where I’m from but according to their clothing line website, it’s sold at a bunch of stores on the North Carolina coast!  I’ll still load up on t-shirts while I’m here though.

    By the way, the ring of flowers on her head is, I believe, called an Ei here in Tahiti and it looks like it is made of Tiare flowers, the national flower of French Polynesia (a form of Gardenia).  For anyone coming to Tahiti, when you get off the plane someone will most likely offer you one of these flowers.  It you are taken, that is to say, if you are in love, you put the flower behind your left ear.  If you are single, your right ear.  It’s hilarious how many women I see running around here with their husbands in tow and a Tiare behind their right ear.  The locals probably ignore it by now but I figured I’d point it out anyways.