Caitlin

Windward Passage Notes

On Thursday, November 15 we headed out the south pass of Fakarava in the Tuamotu with friend JT aboard, bound for Nuku Hiva, back in the Marquesas. Although the weather window was not ideal, we needed to get moving again as Hawaii is beckoning and she’s 2400 nautical miles or so from the Marquesas, where we plan to re-fuel, take on water, do some final provisioning, and check out of French Polynesia. And anyway, sailors’ superstition has it that you never leave on a passage on a Friday, so we had to go.

We made landfall in Nuku Hiva two days ago, after a week at sea. We thought we’d been posting updates from that passage, but learned on arrival here that our blog was down. Here are those notes.

Weather permitting, we’ll leave next week for Hawaii. We hope to keep you posted along the way, and we’ll update photos at that point. As always, it’s lovely to think of you reading our words as we write. Thank you.

11/15 – Day 1

From the ship’s log: 0800 Departing Fakarava, bound toward the Marquesas.

11/16 – Day 2

From Alma: Happy one-third birthday Arlo, we’re going to the Marquesas! Day two, we’re heading to windward, so the forepeak [ed: where Alma and Arlo sleep] is uncomfortable. I’m a little sick of the pitching. If you’re not lying down, you feel sick in the forepeak. But other than that, things are going well (knock on wood). On deck it’s nice with the wind. We are headed for Nuku Hiva (New-koo heave-uh). It will be the third island that we have returned to. The first one was Toau (Tow-aaa-ooo) and the second one was Fakarava. I enjoy being able to picture what it will be like. And I think that I will enjoy returning to Nuku Hiva.

From Arlo: JT’s back. We are currently heading from the Tuamotu to the Marquesas, where we will pause briefly in Taiohae, Nuku Hiva and then continue on to Hawaii. So far it has been all upwind, which means forepeak hatch is shut, and pounding into the seas. But at least there is no rolling rail to rail. My sister and I have changed from our watch of 6-9am, to a morning watch of 5:30-8am, and I am also taking a solo 12:30-2 or 2:30pm watch. At least I get to fish again on passage, although I have not caught anything since the Great Barracuda in Apataki. Earlier during watch, I spent a lot of time using the exercise bands. These bands are great for passing the time on watch.

From Jason: After lunch. Arlo and Alma on watch and Alma singing and chatting. The aft cabin is a greenhouse. Here in the main saloon it’s cooler with the portlights open. Sailing to windward is work! It takes such patience. The boat is so much slower when we’re close hauled. All the sails are strapped in tight and we’re just slogging into a headsea. Each drop from the peak of one wave into the face of the next feels like it stops us. We fall off and everything feels heavy and inert until slowly, slowly we gain way again. When we’re moving again, we lurch off another wave, plow heavily into the next and are stopped again. Over and over, with a leaden feeling that makes me really feel the weight of the boat. And all this slow and slogging is all in the wrong direction! Will we travel half again as far as the rhum line course? So slow in the wrong direction. It takes a whole different mindset to have that kind of patience. You have to settle into the passage and really get into that passage making mode of just doing the best you can every moment to just keep her going, and not worrying about how long it will take. You have to take the long view. I’m getting there, but I’m not there yet. Just getting some miles behind us helps, but this windward work is so uncertain.

11/17 – Day 3

From Arlo: Fish! Fish fish fish fish fish fish fish! Today around midday I caught a good sized Skipjack Tuna. We cleaned it immediately and then marinated and baked it for dinner. It was delicious. In other news, this morning while washing dishes I spilled the entire tub of soapy water across the counter after a larger than usual swell. The weather has been mostly fair all day, except for two squalls of rain in the morning. We ran out of my favorite brand of sunscreen, so now I have to use the only other kind we have. We just fired up the engine again, because the wind just died. Just like we have been since we left Fakarava 2 ½ days ago: sailing when we can and steaming it when we can’t. With Nuku Hiva still four or more days out, we could use some favorable winds, not from dead ahead as they have been.

11/18 – Day 3

From Caitlin: The eastern sky is paler as dawn approaches. It’s taken a couple of days to get back into the rhythms of being at sea. First, the watch schedule starts to feel like a natural cycle: Jason hands DEBONAIR to me at sunset, JT takes her at midnight, Jason’s got the mid-watch, and I am on deck by 2:30am. Arlo and Alma take over at sunrise, and Arlo is on again after lunch to facilitate naps for the rest of us.

Then there are the daily rituals: the “noon report,” prepared by Arlo or Alma, is a highly anticipated accounting of miles covered and miles made good in the last 24 hours. Jason and I send for weather and update our strategy at 7am and 7pm. After dinner, in good weather, I read aloud to the whole crew. We’ve gotten through half a dozen books this way over the year—right now we’re reading The Last Navigator, by Stephen Thomas, about traditional Micronesian navigation. Sometimes it’s lighter fare.

The routines are kept interesting by the constant changing of weather and by the work to respond to that weather (genoa down, yankee up, yankee down, genoa up again, shake a reef in the main), by the maintenance work and galley chores. There are also moments each day that provide punctuation: the enormous ice crystal halo around a gibbous moon our second night out. Or yesterday afternoon, when I sat on the coach roof, leaning against the overturned dinghy and looked to windward in the perfect light of the late afternoon. Arlo and Alma and JT were working below on calculating wind speed based on the rotations of a Sprite bottle spinner the kids made. Jason was below too, replacing the water filter in our fresh water system. I only felt selfish for a moment as I watched the light on the water, on the varnished wood, on the sails, on my toes. And it seemed then that not only was this a perfect moment, but that this moment had another dimension, connecting me across years to each of the other late afternoons I have spent looking at the sea in the perfect wind and the perfect light. Those moments appeared to me all at once, unbidden: when I was six on my family’s first boat, when I was in high school mid-Atlantic, and on a schooner I worked on in my twenties.

My 3 a.m. watch this morning began under a clear sky. The moon had set already and the stars were extra bright. The milky way, which is easier to see in the southern hemisphere, glowed and Jason pointed out the “Magellanic Clouds” that are actually other galaxies. And then we sailed into squall after squall, some with wind, some with rain that came down so hard I could barely see the surface of the ocean. Some with both. By the time the sun came up, the squalls were moving past us and the clouds were shot through with rainbows in every direction.

I’m tired and also tired of going to weather. But I know how lucky I am.

From Jason: Today over lunch (Skipjack-salad sandwiches for the fisheaters) in the cockpit, Arlo gave the noon report. He told us that it was 14,300 feet deep. That’s 2.7 statute miles! (Or 2.4 nautical miles.) That’s a lot of water. We all thought about all that water down there. JT suggested picturing a column of water under DEBONAIR, 44 feet long and 12 feet wide and 14,300 feet tall and imagining all the life in that column. Mindboggling.

I’ve gotten into the upwind groove. It still takes way more work and attention than all the rolling downwind we did on our way here, but we’re keeping the boat moving in the right direction. I’ve acclimatized to the slower speed, and if we can keep her going four knots I feel OK. Five’s better, but four’ll do for now. I’ve relaxed enough to see the endless beauty of the sea all the way around us, and the sky above. The sea and sky are always changing, the sun playing through the clouds and over the water. Last night it was clear. Once the little waxing moon set, the stars were brilliant.

We’ve been out sailing all year—long enough to notice the slow movement of the constellations and planets across the sky. On our way South, from the Marquesas to the Tuamotus back in early July, just after sunset Mars was rising over the Eastern horizon, big and bright orange. It was so bright that I mistook it for the light of a ship until it rose higher and higher in the sky. Now, in mid-November, heading back to the Marquesas, Mars is right up overhead at first dark. The Southern Cross that used to stand vertical at sunset now rises on its left side in the wee hours after midnight, pivoting up a bit before disappearing at dawn. Just seeing the sea and sky, watching them constantly and continually and infinitely changing every day all year has been such a surprising pleasure for me.

11/19– Day 4

from ALMA: Home seems so far away, and it is. And yet our trip is almost over. Just over a month left. It is sad to leave this place, yet it is also nice to come home. As we get closer to leaving for Hawaii from these little towns on the French Polynesian Islands,, it is seeming crazier to come back to busy civilization

11/20—Day 6

From ARLO: 9:00 a.m. Fishing line deployed. Breakfast cooked. I made eggs, toast, and pamplemousse (pomelo). Yesterday we calculated the amount of water under us as we passed over a 16,400 foot deep spot. The amount of water under us was 3,837,600 cubic feet—although it would have been more if we had calculated it at our record depth of 18,040 feet deep.

This whole going to weather thing that we have been doing this passage definitely has its downsides, such as using the engine sometimes, and a couple of now-apparant leaks in the deck.

10:00 a.m. “Fish!” J.T. yells. I come up on deck and start heaving in the 300 lb test handline. The fish has been getting dragged through the water for a few minutes, but it still has plenty of fight in it. 90 seconds later we have a 3.5’ wahoo alongside. I had the leader in my hand while JT grabbed it and swung it aboard. Dad and I cleaned it and half an hour later we had four large plastic containers and one plastic bag in the fridge, packed with fish. Wahoo steaks for dinner tonight. And the next night and maybe the night after that too.

4:00p.m. (1600) My watch again. Dolphins sighted. They played under the bow, leaping from the water, the evening light making rainbows in the spray of their blowholes. All in all, not a bad day.

11/21—Day 7

We sighted Nuku Hiva around 0700. Spent the day trying to make easting in a confused sea. Around sunset, the seas calmed as we got cover under the southeastern point of the island. We ate lentil soup in the cockpit in the dark. Eventually Alma went below to read in her bunk and then sleep. Later that evening, we nosed our way into Taiohae harbor and anchored by the light of the almost full moon.

Sharks!

We see amazing things on every passage–on our way to Fakarava, we spotted these noddies herding and eating bait fish.

–by Alma

After leaving Tahiti, we went to the beautiful atolls of Apataki and Toau, and now we are in Fakarava.

Halloween costumer preparations in the cockpit.

We arrived in South Fakarava on Halloween where some friends – a British boat and a Canadian boat – were already there. South Pacific Halloween is tons of fun. It was the first time and probably the only time we will trick-or-treat by dingy.

That afternoon, we went over to one of the boats and made Halloween decorations. Then we all got into our last minute homemade costumes. Arlo was a mahi mahi fish and I was the Greek goddess Artemis. The kids trick or treated among our three boats, plus a French boat that was in the harbor. When we told them it was Halloween they gave us candy too. The anchorage was full of sharks, and when we accidentally hit one with an oar, it splashed us. Once we were done, we went back to one of the boats and had a potluck dinner.

That’s me and my friend, checking out some coral.

While we were in South Fakarava, the parents on the Canadian boat taught Arlo and I how to SCUBA dive. I just went with their daughter Zoe in ten feet of water, but the rest of my family dove the length of the famous South Pass of Fakarava where they saw hundreds of five to ten foot sharks.

We also snorkeled the pass twice and saw a good number of six foot sharks as well as some cool fish like the humphead wrasse (often up to five and a half feet long), the Achilles Tang (one of my favorites), and many, many more.

When we first swam with sharks in the Tuamotu, I was somewhat scared. Now if a shark isn’t looking at us, or if it is less than two feet long, then I am Okay with it. But I have to admit that if it is looking at us and is more than two feet long, then I will get an uneasy feeling. After multiple dives, my dad said that he wasn’t scared of the sharks when he was diving because they seemed so uninterested in him

I have loved what we have seen in Fakarava. Next we will be heading back to the Marquesas and then to Hawai’i. I have included some additional photos from the last week or so, but first, here is a note from Arlo . . .

Hello, Arlo here, and I have a couple of updates. First, if you can recall the “Off the Grid on the Water” blog post, you will remember that we had no functional solar panels. After a visit from an electrician, we now have solar power, and I must tell you, the ice is nice.

But more to the point, I got the chance to go scuba diving thanks to our good friends on ALONDRA, and it was incredible. My second dive ever was in the south pass in Fakarava, and we were 73 feet down while we watched the hundreds of sharks swim by as we got swept along with the current. It blew my mind. Although it was hard to keep track of fish and shark species, while I was still figuring out my equipment, I know we saw at least five species of sharks: blacktip reef shark, blacktip shark, gray reef shark, silvertip sharks, white tip reef sharks. I’m totally hooked on it and I hope to get certified when we return to the States.

Arlo caught this barracuda–first fish after a dry spell.

Thanks to our good friends on ITCHY FOOT for shooting this picture of the four of us.

152 Degrees West

–by ARLO

As I am writing this we are dockside at Pape’ete, Tahiti. We are back in the world of traffic, fire sirens, restaurants and grocery stores. Several weeks ago on the island of Raiatea, we were at the farthest point west we’ll reach this year, 152° West.

It rained a lot in Raiatea and we had to dry laundry below decks.

After several weeks in Raiatea and her sister island Taha’a, we left Raiatea bound for Mo’orea, with a one night stopover in Huahine. On the last morning of this upwind, up-sea passage, we were lucky enough to get calm winds, calm seas, and a great view, with Mo’orea’s imposing peaks on one side of us and the sun just peeking over the horizon.

Looks like my folks are happy to be in Mo’orea!

Only several hours after anchoring in Cook’s Bay, we rowed ashore to the prearranged resort, and there was our Grandma Nance waiting for us!

We had an incredible week with Nancy, full of hiking in the woods, dinghy sailing, swimming with sharks and stingrays, fruit shopping, and lots of other fun activities.

It was crazy and awesome to see our Grandma Nancy in French Polynesia, and it was a nice break in the routine of our trip.

After all of the time in Mo’orea with friends and family, we sailed one day to Tahiti, and then tied up in downtown Pape’ete.

Then, the very day that Nancy left us, we met another friend of ours, Eloise, who by chance had booked a flight to Mo’orea at the same time that we happened to be there.

Contrary to what many people are expecting when they arrive, Pape’ete is just a city, and a relatively dirty, noisy one at that.

When I compare this city to to the remote Marquesas, Tuamotus, and even the Leeward Society Islands, I find that I prefer the remote islands over Pape’ete.

I visited no fewer than three fishing stores in Pape’ete!

Although I am not especially moved by Pape’ete, we have had some fun experiences here, like eating dinner at the roulottes (food trucks), shopping for fishing gear at the marine supply stores, and getting a tour of Tom Cruise’s mega yacht, and these experiences have made our time here more enjoyable, along with the fact that we were fore warned of what to expect by our friends on other boats.

Now that we have arrived in Pape’ete, we have reached a turning point in our trip. now we will be heading back east to the Tuamotus, where we will meet our friend J.T., for the rest of the trip. From the Tuamotus, we will sail five days to the Marquesas, to get a better wind angle to leave on a two and a half week passage to Hawaii.

During our time in the Society Islands, and Tahiti in particular, we have been getting spoiled on city life. There will be some things we will miss heading back into the remote islands, but it will be a relief to get away from the hustle and bustle and overfished waters of the Tahiti, and back to the crystal clear water and plentiful seafood of the Tuamotus, and then back to the rugged scenery of the Marquesas.

I’ll leave you with a few additional pix, including some of our own sketches.

Thanks, Eloise, for taking this picture of the four of us!

There’s always schoolwork to fill spare moments.

Alma’s looking through a microscope at some plankton we scooped up after doing a tow with our friends on ALONDRA.

My mom and dad saw this turtles while SCUBA diving on Mo’orea with our friends on ALONDRA.

Arlo’s running out of material to draw–here’s Alma’s foot.

Jason’s sketch of a flying fish that landed aboard DEBONAIR

Notes from the Galley

First, a quick note on other topics . . .

We always love getting your comments and notes and never more so than the thoughtful words you sent after Chauncy’s passing. Thank you for your stories, your wisdom and your kindness.

A few of you have expressed concern about our safety in light of all the hurricanes currently swirling across the oceans. Pilot charts graphically represent weather data as well as information about seas and currents by area and by month–in essence, they show us weather probabilities. We spent a lot of time with pilot charts while planning our voyage as we have a strong desire to avoid hurricanes. Luckily, hurricanes (called cyclones here and typhoons in the Indian and Western Pacific Oceans) are fairly predictable. We’re in the southern hemisphere now, while the hurricanes are in the northern hemisphere. Come the end of October, we’ll begin to work our way east again toward the Marquesas, and we’ll leave the southern hemisphere by the end of November, not crossing to Hawaii until December, when hurricanes would be extremely rare. Then we’ll leave Hawaii late spring before the summer hurricane season begins there.

So no hurricanes, but the past couple weeks have been marked by many days of strong winds. After a plague of flying insects descended on us in Raiatea one night and proceeded to lose their wings by the million on our boat (we are hoping they were anything but termites), we headed to Taha’a, the island that shares Raiatea’s lagoon.

Despite the winds, we circumnavigated the island, visited an off-lying motu, climbed inland, and hitchhiked a lot.

The hitchhiking has turned out to be a way to meet some wonderful people, from the English teacher who invited us to go paddling with her va’a team on Raiatea, to the vice-mayor of Taha’a who opined about the delicate balance between economic growth and traditional life on the island.

Jason left for the States yesterday, and Arlo and Alma and I are thinking of him, Nancy and Chris in Connecticut. We wish we were there, of course, but we are spending the time in Raiatea well. In addition to doing some exploring, we’ll be catching up on a bit of schoolwork and tackling some projects we’d been putting off.

Arlo and Alma are transforming a “pearl farm buoy” into an accurate globe.

Alma and I wrote the following blog entry together—Part I is Alma’s take on eating aboard Debonair, while Part II follows up with my thoughts on shipboard cooking. Enjoy–-and send us a comment if you have the chance.

PART I: EATING

–byAlma

If I could go home for 24 hours, one of the first things that I would do is go to our favorite taqueria and get a burrito. Then, I’d go get a bagel, and finally, I would get lots of cold grapes and berries. I haven’t had any of those things for almost a year. Food on the boat is different from home, but it’s great, and when we get back home, I’m sure I’ll miss baguettes and pamplemousse too!

There are hundreds of baguettes baked daily on many of the islands, though you often have to get up early to buy them.

Hiking in the Society Islands with a baguette snack.

The differences between eating on the boat, and eating at home vary depending on where we are. For example, in Mexico we ate more guacamole than we do at home. In the mountainous islands of French Polynesia, there’s a lot more fruit than at home, but fewer vegetables… and not an avocado in sight!

The beautiful breadfruit leaves frame the bright green breadfruits perfectly. Breadfruits are a little chewier than a potato, but taste similar.

In the Tuamotus, we ate less fruits and vegetables than we did at home. And in general, we have been eating more canned stuff, such as canned beans, canned pineapple, and canned chicken. My mom is great at using these new ingredients to make something new and wonderful every day!

Some of my favorite foods on the boat are rainy day popcorn, piles of fruit, pasta, and baguettes. When it’s rainy, and we huddle up down below with popcorn… I love it! On the other hand, when it’s hot outside, and there are piles of fruit on the table, I love that too! My favorite fruits have been papaya and pineapple.

Every time we walk ashore in the Societies, we return with fruit. Here, breadfruit, bananas, plantains, mangoes, and mystery tuber, whose Tahitian name sounds like taro, but isn’t taro, which is purple.

When it comes to pasta, I’ll take it any way! On baguettes, I like to put Nutella, butter and jam, or poisson cru!

So it’s all different and it’s all good. Eating on the boat changes from place to place. We have gotten to try many different types of food, and I have liked most of it! All of the food on the boat is good, and most of the food ashore too!

I have recorded some of our food recently. Here it is:

2 Days in the remote Tuamotus:

	Day 1	Day 2
Breakfast	Walnut pancakes Raspberry whipped cream Applesauce	Scrambled eggs Toast with butter and jam Canned pineapple
Lunch	Tomato-bean soup Homemade bread with butter	Bread and cheese, with Bean Spread optional Cucumber slices Corn Nuts
Dinner	Homemade pizza with caramelized onions Cucumber and cabbage salad	Pinto bean soup topped with salsa and cabbage Corn Bread
Snack	Cashews Coconut	Crackers and almond butter

2 Days in the Societies

Breakfast	Homemade yogurt Apricot bread Fresh pineapple	Baked eggs Toast Papaya with lime
Lunch	(At a restaurant) Poisson Cru (raw fish salad, a bit like ceviche) Fish burger and Fries Ice cream parfait	Brie/Tomato sandwiches
Dinner	Homemade Mac and Cheese Coleslaw Ratatouille	Pumpkin/Tofu curry Black rice Chicken
Snack	Bananas	Bananas popcorn

PART II: COOKING

–by Caitlin

We left Mexico loaded with food—a refrigerator full of cheese and vegetables, as well as all kinds of snacks and staples. And loyal readers will remember the saga of the 220 green bananas. Then four and a half months passed before we stepped into a supermarket again. How did we feed ourselves over weeks at sea and months in the remote Marquesas and the Tuamotu with no freezer and enough electricity to keep the fridge cool only about half the time? Let the Great Galley Challenge (GGC) begin.

Of course, there’s been lots of fish, and in the Marquesas we bought, gleaned and were given great quantities of fruit. But grocery shopping has been limited to a few corner-store style magasins in the Marquesas and a few smaller, dustier versions thereof in the Tuamotu.

The shelves of well-stocked magasin in Fakarava.

There’s room on these shelves in a smaller magasin on the island of Kauehi,
Tuamotus.

Outside the Kauehi magasin: piles of copra drying. The coconuts are split and turned upside down to dry before the meat is removed to be sent to Tahiti for oil.

A stone fishing weir on the island of Huahine, Society Island Group. Once the fish swim into the end of the stone channel, they are scooped up or speared.

Anything that comes to these remote islands is brought by supply ship from Tahiti, which means the stores are well-stocked for a day or two but then can go a couple weeks without replenishment.

Two supply ships cross path in Taha’a, pne of the busiest islands we’ve been to in months.

Because of the French influence, you can often find canned paté, canned butter (actually from New Zealand and remarkably good), and baguettes. To my disappointment, there’s not much cheese besides brie, sometimes a little expensive gruyere, and a Velveeta equivalent. And the small Tuamotu stores emphasize white rice, sunflower oil, corned beef and flip flops.

Before we left Alameda, my friend Laurie and I canned and pickled many pounds of vegetables. Then I hit Costco to stock up on canned beans, canned chicken, canned corn and canned pineapple as well as a can opener, which we didn’t previously own. We filled 6 shopping carts with olive spreads, bruschetta, dolmas and other fancypants items form Trader Joe’s. I ordered powdered cheeses, powdered buttermilk, and powdered eggs from a camping supply store, and gallons of freeze dried vegetables and quick-cook beans from a website that may be catering to survivalists. Arlo liked the catalogs that started appearing at our house featuring ammo alongside emergency food supplies.

I have a deep pressure cooker that I use most days on the boat. The locking lid helps keep the food in the pot at sea, and the mountains of dried beans and grains we eat cook relatively quickly. Actually, lids are an important theme in our galley—in addition to the pressure cooker, I use bowls with lids and keep big silicone lids that will cover our frying pans. Hot oil and ocean swells are a bad combination.

Of course, onions, potatoes, and garlic keep for weeks or months. And it turns out that most condiments–loaded as they are with delicious salt, vinegar and sugar–don’t need refrigeration. Mayonnaise, mustard, ketchup, soy sauce, hot sauce, most salad dressings, jam and chutney, nut butters, vinegar, oil and honey live happily on a shelf, even in the tropics. Yes, I did say mayo.

Although we buy bread when we can, I’ve baked a lot of bread and gotten good at it. My other pioneer cooking skills are a little more uneven—sometimes the sprouts grow, and I’ve gotten a few thermoses of yogurt to set. But pickled hard boiled eggs are the best.

Meals got creative at times during the GGC. We’ve had to work within our limited resources, but sometimes I do better with limited choices. Add limits to a bunch of words and you get a poem, after all, and without limits a river becomes a flood. Limited ingredients have generated new dishes aboard Debonair – the taro “potato” salad, the mahi mahi “tuna” salad, the plantain “banana” bread, the green papaya “coleslaw.” It turns out that corn bread made with masa harina is especially light, and egg salad stretched with UHT tofu is creamy. Arlo has learned to cook fish many ways, and I’ve incorporated coconut—coconut milk or grated coconut–into any number of dishes.

Yes, we do bake birthday cakes in our galley.

A few weeks ago, after a two-day sail from the Tuamotu to Huahine in the Society group, we picked up a mooring in the town of Fare to visit the beautiful supermarket. So much produce! Salami! Frozen everything! Acres of eggs! A maramu, the strong wind from the south, was forecast to begin that evening, and we had about two hours to shop before we had to head south of town to find a secure spot to ride out the wind. Everything went into the cart. Bok choy, fresh ginger, New Zealand apples, frozen chicken, five dozen eggs, papayas, bananas, breadfruit, many wedges of brie, tomatoes, cilantro. We inquired about the hundreds of tiari flower buds packaged for sale in the refrigerator case. They are not for eating.

Baguettes are delivered in the Society Islands!

It’s all wonderful–the bounty of the Society Islands, the limited ingredients of the GGC, learning to cook and eat and live a little bit differently. We have to get ashore early in the day to buy baguettes. We’ve learned to love breadfruit every way you can eat it. We haven’t seen a refrigerated egg since we’ve left the States, and we don’t miss it yet. Like Alma, I’ll be happy to pick up take out burritos again when we get home, but I have found so much more that will be missing from my kitchen.

Chauncy Rucker

From Jason–

My father, Chauncy Rucker, taught me to sail when I was little. He was very big, and we had a small sloop which he loved sailing. I came to love it too.

My dad passed away earlier this week. He didn’t just teach me to sail of course. He taught me by example how to be a father and a husband and a loving man in the world. He was exceptionally good at all those things.

I’m looking forward to joining my mom and brother in Connecticut in a couple weeks. Right now, it’s good to be remembering Chauncy here in Taha’a with Caitlin, Alma and Arlo. Yesterday, walking a few hours way up over the ridge from Haamene Bay to Patio, we looked through the dense green over the bay where Debonair lay at anchor, and on out over the aqua reef to the ocean.

The view from the ridge
Taha’a, Society Islands

Looking out from that high vantage point I felt lucky. It’s a feeling I’ve had a lot these days—the good luck to be here, the great good luck of my mom and dad loving and supporting me all my life, and the continuation of that good luck in having Caitlin and these kids loving me here now.

When my father first pushed me off to sail on Mansfield Hollow by myself, I felt independent for the first time I remember. Parents have to push their children toward independence, while at the same time supporting us with a constancy of love. I’ve found it can be a hard balance to achieve, and my mom and dad nailed it. Pushing off on this voyage, I carry that great love with me. I know how lucky I am to be Chauncy Rucker’s son.

Tuamotu Photo Round Up

We arrived at the beautiful Island of Hauhine two days ago after a mild 2.5 day passage from the Tuamotuan atoll of Toau. I’m sitting in the town hall in the village of Haapu where we have found wifi. Here are a few more photos from the Tuamotu.

We continue to feel ridiculously lucky to be here and to be in touch with you.

Arlo became an enthusiastic and then accomplished spear fisherman in the the Tuamotu. Here he hunts reef fish from the side of the boat.

The leeward side of an atoll (here, Tahanea) often has very little land visible above the water. You can just barely see a little surf hitting the reef top in this photo.

The windward side of every Pacific Island we’ve been on is strewn with plastic washed ashore. Toothbrushes, shoes, polypropylene rope, and endless bottles and bottle caps .

So much beauty underwater. This is the top of a “bommie” that rises up from 70′ of water, a column of life in the middle of an atoll lagoon.

Taking underwater photos is tricky, but the swimming is great. Both Arlo and Alma easily free dive to 25′ to see fish and coral. Neither is worried when sharks swim nearby. We’re not in Alameda anymore, Toto.

Typical boat lift, Rotoava Village, Fakarava

Even the five dollar bills are beautiful.

Arlo, always happy to be able to run again.

On the shelf in the magasin, Kauehi Village

So many roofs are woven palm fronds. This is looking up inside a house.

Picking coconuts, opening coconuts. With friends.

The upright sticks are pieces of rebar that encircle the chambers of a fish weir. Arlo and Jason helped build a new chamber. Not sure if the coral enjoyed it.

Life on the boat. Alma touches the radio antenna to the backstay for better reception.

Polynesian francs and the operculum (opercula?) that cover the opening of snail shells.

Sunset at sea, on the way to the Society Islands.

Off the Grid on the Water

–by ARLO

It is a good thing that everybody else was huddled belowdecks on their boats as we ran out in our underwear to plug in the water catchment hoses during the tropical rain squall. Because we only carry a limited amount of water, we try top up our tanks whenever it rains. In fact, on Debonair, all of our consumable resources are limited. In addition to water, we carefully manage our supply of propane, food, diesel, electricity, and other stores.

Everybody who goes cruising on a small sailboat has to make choices and compromises about how much of what to bring, and everybody makes different choices based on what they want most. Some cruising boats have lots of solar and wind generators, watermakers and powerful dinghy engines, and flat screen TVs. Some boats have no oven or fridge. Those are the ends of the spectrum, and we are probably somewhere in the middle.

WATER

Probably the most critical of our resources, and therefore the one that we conserve the most, is water. We carry 140 gallons in four tanks. We don’t have a watermaker, so we only use freshwater for drinking, cooking and brushing teeth. Our rainwater catchment system directs all the water that hits our mainsail and cabin top into our tanks.

If we have spare rainwater that we caught in jerry cans or buckets we use it for washing clothes and showering, although the latter is not always a priority because of daily swimming. With all our normal conservation techniques, the four of us use about three gallons a day. At that rate, we have enough water to last us 45 days. Aside from rain, our other way of refilling water tanks is by filling jerry cans ashore and then siphoning the water into our tanks. We can also fill up when we are in marinas, but we haven’t done that since San Diego. For those of you who worry about us, know that we also carry an emergency hand operated watermaker that can produce six gallons per day.

PROPANE

We have two twenty pound propane tanks aboard–each tank looks like the one you have for your barbeque except it has side-mount brackets so they can be installed horizontally on deck under a special cover. Each one lasts us a month and a half. We’re careful with propane too. For example, here in French Polynesia, when my mom bakes bread (about once every third day), we always put something else in the oven then too. With three months of propane, we have a relatively long cruising range compared with other boats of our size. Here in French Polynesia, we have been filling with butane which works equally well for our stove.

FOOD (The Best Supply Aboard)

Back in Alameda, we loaded five full minivans worth of food on board. At the time, that was enough food for four people for five months. Then in Mexico, preparing for the crossing, we fillled the taxi driver’s whole trunk, not even counting the 220 green bananas that we bouth from the local banana farmer. Despite some reprovisioning along the way and some fishing success, after the Pacific crossing, the Marquesas, and now especially in the desert of the Tuamotus, we are probably down to about two or three months worth of food. As we use up different items, we mark them off in the logbook, with a map of the boat’s lockers and a number and letter for each locker (e.g. one can of tuna from S7). When we arrive in the Society Islands, we will do a big restock. I can’t wait for the subsidized sardines again. Oh yeah, and the fruit and vegetables too.

DIESEL

Debonair has a 75 horsepower diesel engine, and we carry 140 gallons of diesel. At 2200 RPMs, our regular speed, the engine burns about one gallon of diesel per hour, and we make about six knots of speed. At that rate, we have a range of 840 nautical miles. (One NM is equal to one minute of latitude and 1.12 statute miles.) Although we carry a lot of fuel, we try to conserve it. We don’t run our engine while in harbor for generating electricity; we just run it when we need it to move the boat. When we have gone a while without refueling or are about to leave on a crossing, we need to refuel. In the States and in Mexico, we could usually fuel up at a fuel dock with a hose, but in the South Pacific, we usually have to refill by taking jerry cans to a gas station (different jerry cans than we use for water, of course!).

ELECTRICITY

Our electrical panel shows battery voltage and electrical draw (in amps).

When we run the engine, the alternator charges the two 500 amp hour batteries beneath the sole (floor). When we first get settled in an anchorage and shut off the engine, we will usually be all charged up from the engine time. The batteries will then last easily for a week, but we can stretch it to two weeks before we need to charge again. We are extremely careful with our electricity usage on board. We only use the absolute minimum cabin lights, and we prioritize running the navigation computer and our running lights at night (red on the port bow, green on starboard, and a white stern light). Our less prioritized electricity usage includes other computers, our VHF radio, a fan, charging devices and running the fridge, which we only do when we have enough power. Aside from running the engine, our only other way to charge is two small solar panels, although at the moment, these don’t seem to be working.

OTHER STORES

Our line locker contains loads of spare rope. We hang it so it doesn’t get snarled.

Apart from all the other categories of consumable resources already mentioned, we have a lot of other stores on board. These can be split into two categories: spares and materials. Spares are things like light bulbs, float switches for our bilge pump, fuel filters, rubber impellers for the engine cooling pump, spare parts for the head, the galley pumps, the windvane, etc. Materials includes things like bolts, screws, lengths of rope, plywood, planks, and shock cord. If we brought spares for everything, we would sink the boat, so we chose carefully. We have had to buy some spares along the way and get a new relay switch for the engine shipped to the Marquesas, no easy task, but besides that, we have done pretty well on our compromises. Among many other items, we had the rope we needed to replace worn rigging, and the hardware we needed to make a set screw to fix the windlass, and even when our snorkel mask strap broke, we fixed it with some inner tube material.

It might be fun to be on a megayacht for a two-week charter and have all the luxuries of wifi and high-capacity watermakers, but that really doesn’t give you the full experience of cruising. I am also glad that we aren’t cruising with even simpler supplies than what we have now. We would always have to be stopping in at ports and cities to resupply. We will soon be heading to the Society Islands on a three day passage, where once again we will be in the land of plenty, but it’s good to know that we can live off what we have got.

Treasure in the Tuamotu

–By ALMA

DEBONAIR at anchor near the motu we mapped.

There’s treasure in the Tuamotu. If you are already in the Tahanea Atoll and just want to get to the point, then skip to the end of this post where there are photos of the treasure map we created. But I hope you’ll stick around to read the rest of the post!

Tahanea Atoll is a great first stop in the Tuamotu. It’s a beautiful, uninhabited atoll, and it’s also a nature preserve. This means that there are many birds and lots of coral reefs to snorkel. It’s also upwind of many of the atolls that cruisers go to. I hope that you visit Tahanea and find our treasure.

A first sketch of the motu with distances and directions marked.

The Mapping of the Motu

Kids from three boats, Alma, Arlo, Anna, Sophia and Teo, went ashore to map a previously unmapped motu. First we all ran around the little motu to get a sense of it. When we got back to the beach where we had come ashore, our parents gave us the tools that we would need: a hand bearing compass, a clipboard, and a 100 meter tape measure. We measured our walking paces to measure distances. To map the island, we walked from point to point measuring in various directions on the hand bearing compass, to find the proportions of the motu. Next, we plotted the points on a universal plotting sheet that provided a compass rose. After that we walked around the motu again to sketch in the shape of it. Finally, we decorated our maps with colors, and sea monsters, and compass roses, and legends, and more. Suddenly we realized that you can’t make a map without adding treasure!

Treasure

Just before we left the anchorage, a few of us went ashore to put treasure in a jar. We also put in a log book to record everyone who’s found the treasure! Then it started to rain, and we all took cover under a tree. Once the rain had stopped, we walked all over the motu until we found a good spot to bury the treasure.

We dug a hole, buried the jar, and built a cairn over it to mark the spot. Next we paced out the distances for the directions for how to find the treasure. And now we’re sharing it with you. We hope that you enjoy finding the treasure as much as we enjoyed mapping the treasure and burying it.

The map of Axe Motu. Look carefully at the map to find the point marked “Start Here.” You’ll also find latitude and longitude coordinates for a couple points of the island.

What the Heck Do You Do on a Tuamotuan Atoll Anyway?

–By ARLO

Whoa. As we first turned on the engine and steamed through the turbid pass of Tahanea atoll we were astounded by the change of water color, from the rich royal blue outside the lagoon to the breathtaking aqua blue inside. Lying midway in the Tuamotus, Tahanea is about 25 NM wide and 10 NM long (one nautical mile is equal to one minute of latitude and is slightly longer than a statute mile). Like the rest of the Tuamotus, Tahanea is a low doughnut of coral sand with palm trees and some scrubby bushes on it. Millions and millions of years ago, each Tuamotu was a tall, volcanic island. Over the years, a coral reef grew up around the island. As the mountain began to subside and sink, the coral reef continued to grow. Eventually, the mountain sank completely, and all that is left is a low ring of broken down coral, not 10 feet off the water.

Today Tahanea supports only two or three families who come for a couple months of the year to make copra to be processed in Tahiti. Otherwise it’s uninhabited. We met up with two other boats at our first anchorage in Tahanea, and two days after our arrival we celebrated my 15^th birthday with a bonfire on the beach, cake, bread dough on a stick to be roasted on the fire, and other assorted activities.

Since then, we went to an anchorage protected only by underwater coral. When the sun was low in the sky, the reflection of the sunlight kept you from seeing into the clear water; without seeing the coral, it looked like we were anchored in the middle of the lagoon, kind of the middle of nowhere. There we visited an island, which was remote and had lots of seabirds nesting on it. Then we moved to an anchorage near the pass into the atoll. There we went on an incredible snorkeling expedition from our dinghy in the pass, and saw all sorts of fish, large and small, in addition to coral and cowries. Snorkeling is one of the most amazing experiences you can have, free diving down, and getting to within feet of large fish before they swim away. Back at the boat we saw a large number of blacktip reef sharks circling the boat, one of which startled me by swimming rapidly towards me after I leaped off the dinghy.

Our time in the Tuamotan archipelago has been incredible. When you shut off the engine in a new beautiful anchorage, your first instinct is to put on your swimsuit, mask snorkel, and fins, and then swim as fast as you can to the nearest coral head to see if there is a tasty looking grouper that you might be able to spear for dinner. Even on these little expeditions near the boat—not out in the pass or on a mid-lagoon coral bommie (a chunk of coral that rises from 80+ feet deep to within two feet of the surface)–we have seen some crazy things like a moray eel, a four foot long bumphead parrotfish, and lots of smaller fish and invertebrates, like octopus. I made a type of speargun called a “Hawaiian sling” so now I can go shooting fish–sharks and ciguatera allowing (ciguatera is a dinoflagellate-born disease that can occur in fish, especially those high in the food chain).

We are now in our second and most populated atoll, Kauehi (pop. 350). Like the Marquesans, the people of Kauehi are overwhelmingly friendly, generous, and welcoming to the point of inviting you to their wedding even though they just met you. The locals here speak three entirely different languages: French, Tahitian, and Puamotuan, the native language of the Tuamotu. The primary work in Kauehi, besides subsistence fishing, seems to be copra production, but on a much larger scale than in Tahanea or the Marquesas; today men were shucking the dried meat out of thousands of coconuts to prepare for the supply ship tomorrow. As if this place isn’t different enough from Alameda already, we met a 350 pound pet wild boar, who is tied up to a tree, who will let you scratch him behind the ears and feed him your food scraps.

Tomorrow we will head to the southern anchorage to do more swimming, sailing, snorkeling, fishing, and exploring. Sorry no pictures now, but when we get to internet in a few weeks we’ll post tons of pictures. We can’t wait to here from you guys!

Goodbye Marquesas, Hello Tuamotu

–By Alma

We sailed from Ua Pou, to Fatu Hiva in early July. Like other Marquesans, the locals in Fatu Hiva were very kind — selling us fruit, inviting us over for dinner, etc. Like we did on other Marquesan islands, we hiked to a water fall on Fatu Hiva. It was buggy like the rest, but still really beautiful.
After about a week in Fatu Hiva, we left for the Tuamotu, an archipelago of 78 low-lying coral atolls. Sailing away from the Marquesas, we were greeted by two huge (maybe blue?) whales, who sent us on our way. The passage was good except for one day with lots of squalls. Arlo and I took an extra watch each afternoon, because my parents split the night between just the two of them. The passage took about four and a half days, and today we came to an atoll called Tahanea. Some other cruising families who we met earlier on our trip are here as well. We will celebrate Arlo’s birthday on the 16th here in paradise!
Leaving the Marquesas meant leaving plenty of fresh water, too much fruit (almost), and great hikes, but definitely not coconuts, which there are a lot of in the Tuamotu.
In fact, when we arrived in the Tuamotu, the first things we could see of the island were the palm trees, because the islands are so low, only about five feet above sea level. We entered the atoll’s lagoon through the pass and crossed the lagoon to our first anchorage. We could see the bottom 77 feet down! I am exited for our time in the Tuamotu, but also a little scared. I am exited for white sand beaches, and clear water, and lots of good snorkeling (which we have seen that there is a lot of here). I am scared because in 60 feet of water, there could be a coral head sticking up just below the surface. If the person in the ratlines (a ladder that goes up the mast) does not see it, then you could hit it.
We will miss the bounty of the Marquesas, but we are looking forward to what lies ahead (and I am scared, but just a little). In the photo below you can see the beautiful view from our boat. [end]