Homeward Bound, part I

Tuesday, 11/27
Day 1

Caitlin:
Our last day in French Polynesia we were anchored in the long, narrow Baie Hooumi. We spent the day preparing to go to sea—anchors secured, propeller cleaned, bread made. We rowed five half-mile round trips to the beach to fill jerry cans with spring water to fill Debonair’s tanks.

In the late afternoon we went ashore for the last time. Walking through the village of a few dozen houses, we admired the mangoes hanging from huge trees. We discussed the skinniness of the horses tied along our route. Arland Alma took advantage of a long hill and ran up it. On our way home, a man called afer us: “Ka’oha! Parlez-vous francais?” So we turned back and met Patrice and his grown niece and nephew, and when we left their family compound we were carrying a large stalk of bananas (it would become the third one hanging in our cabin), a bag of mangoes, a bag of limes, and a bag of guavas. These were not small bags. “It is not good to refuse, madame.” We are no longer surprised by this ubiquitous generosity.

We sailed from Nuku Hiva under gray skies this morning. This will be a relatively dark passage—the moon is about half full and waning. It won’t rise tonight until just before midnight and it will rise later and smaller every night this week. The days will get shorter as we sail due North into the Northern hemisphere’s winter. Both my watches will be dark ones.

But there will be fruit!

Jason:
Underway from Nuku Hiva! Three nap below. Arlo’s got the deck watch and the helm. I’m on the high side looking down to Nuku Hiva as we sail over her eastern, windward shore. The final northeastern point is sliding off astern. It’s all gray all around today. Ua Huka is just visible in the clouds off to the East.

Wednesday, 11/28
Day 2

From Arlo:
Yesterday, 10AM, we departed Hooumi, Nuku Hiva, Marquesas bound for Hawaii, three weeks away. This morning we caught a smallish Mahi-Mahi, which we turned into an excellent poisson cru for lunch with cucumber, onion and lime juice. Now it is 4:30p.m., and we just raised the staysail, so now we have all four sails set: mizzen, main, staysail and jib. Some large dolphins came and went. Now it is just us cooking along with just enough wind to keep us at five to six knots. We have been on a beam to close reach since Nuku Hiva, so we can keep some portlights open, but, sadly not the forepeak hatch because of the spray. There were 2.9 meter seas heading towards us from the north predicted, but so far they haven’t showed up. Knock, knock.

Today I have only eaten five bananas, unlike yesterday’s eight, and nowehere near my record nine from the pacific crossing from Mexico. I am going to have to pick up the pace. Now the sun is setting over an empty horizon, and I have to watch it go.

From Alma:
All four sails are up and we are charging along. I read for a couple hours until I was called on deck to see the dolphins. There was only ever one at a time and they all had very blunt foreheads. That was cool. I can’t believe that we will probably be in Hawaii in about two and a half weeks! I’m excited.

Thursday, 11/29. 0200 hours Marquesas time
Day 3

Jason:
We’re going to miss the Marquesas.

We’re close reaching under single reefed main and working jib and are just in a groove. All day yesterday and all through the night, Debonair has just been charging along. There’s a forecast for a big swell from the North that could slow our progress, but it hasn’t materialized yet and we’re roaring along while we can.

Friday, 11/30
Day 4

Jason:
The Southeast trades are treating us well—good fair wind on our beam ever since we cleared Nuku Hiva, and we’re steadily sailing straight north along the 140th meridian west. This morning at 10am we were at 03 degrees 02 minutes south, and 139 degrees 40 minutes west and easing along at about five knots. In the last day or so the wind has breezed up to nearly 20 knots and has eased off to as low as about 10 knots. We’ve carried all sail, in the lighter wind—jib, staysail, main and mizzen, and have reduced sail to just double reefed main and jib in the heavier wind. Through all that we’ve kept our speed between five and six knots, with the occasional runs even faster.

We caught a good sized skipjack tuna yesterday. It’s maybe a bit bigger than we can manage, but we’ve dedicated ourselves to eating it. Arlo and JT marinated and baked some last night for dinner. This morning Arlo made a great poisson cru for breakfast. (Poisson cru, the raw fish, lime, onion, veggies and coconut milk specialty of French Polynesia, became a favorite for the fish eaters aboard. Like the locals, we enjoy it breakfast, lunch, and dinner.) We’ll have fish salad sandwiches for lunch. We think we’ll take a break from fish tonight, and will cook the rest of the fish tomorrow and plan on finishing it by Sunday. With all this fish, accompanied by papayas, mangoes, guavas and bananas, we feel like we’re really having a final Marquesan celebration.

Just this moment, the wind is light enough that the forward deck has dried. I’ll go see if I can putty the seam between house and deck where water is coming in and making Arlo & Alma’s forepeak a little swampy. It’s been so wet on deck lately that we couldn’t do the work, and so we’ve been taping up towels to keep the salt water from soaking everything. Every morning we hang the towels out to dry and replace them with dry towels. Between little projects like that, and the work of just keeping the boat going, and everything working right, the days fly by. We just finished our poisson cru and it’s almost time for skipjack salad sandwiches!