A Year and a Day

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]

Thoughts on Generosity from the Island of Uo Pou

This is a longer post—we need to put it up before we leave the internet here, so we didn’t edit as much—enjoy!

Look for Arlo’s green shirt, and Alma’s pink one.

A couple of days ago, Arlo and Alma were invited by the president of the local and championship va’a (outrigger canoe) club to join a middle school paddling class. After class, which took place largely in with a twin-hulled canoe, Arlo and Alma got individual coaching from the master paddler in individual canoes. I expect Arlo or Alma will write more about the experience, as va’a (outrigger canoes in Marquesan) fever seems to have infected them, and they are already is talking about how to get outrigger canoes on the Oakland estuary when we return home. They’ve continued to paddle here at the school each day.

Rataro (right) coaches Arlo in the three phases of the paddle stroke (attack, propulsion and return).

What I can’t emphasize enough is the ubiquitous generosity we are benefiting from so often. The paddling coach was the man who founded the Ecole Va’a here in Uo Pou. The school—the only of its kind in the Marquesas, now serves 390 students a week and produces champion paddlers at the big competitions in Tahiti (which, by the way, the coach said Arlo had the making of). The coach is also, we learned, a renowned singer and performer and a nurse at the hospital’s maternity ward, as well as the nurse that accompanies patients on inter-island transports. And he took the time to coach each of our kids using a mixture of English, French and a lot of modeling.

I hope the pictures show how far beyond gifts of fruit this generosity goes—though we do continue to be grateful recipients of bags of pamplemousse and bunches of bananas. We return the generosity as we can—with gifts we brought for the purpose, invitations to our boat, and of course, our enthusiasm. It doesn’t always feel enough.

We are still figuring out the relationship between the Marquesians and the colonizing French culture. The world over the colonial relationship is complex, and there is necessarily tragedy, old and new. Here, we see a powerful indigenous culture, but we also feel a shadow of sadness from 150 years of colonization. As in so many colonized places, contact with Europeans, which began in a big way about three hundred years ago, decimated the Marquesan population, reducing the roughly 150,000 inhabitants to about 8,000. There are stone foundations, paths, bridges, and tikis in all the valleys, testifying to this once-booming population. My French is not nearly good enough to have a sense for whether this shadow sadness is more in my eyes or how much it colors the lives of Marquesians. We are aware always of this uncomfortable history, we are grateful to be here, we are learning what we can and we are giving as we are able.

In addition to enjoying the hospitality of the Marquesan people, we’ve met with generosity by sailors on other boats—cruisers, as we’re called. Almost all sailboats crossing the Pacific each year stop at the Isles Marquises. And for good reason. The Marquesas are the first possible stop after leaving Mexico (about 3,000 nautical miles), the Galapagos (a similar passage), or Panama (an impressive 4,000 miles). For a boat like ours, those passages range from about 3 weeks to 7 weeks spent at sea. I’ve heard it estimated that about 500 sailboats arrive in French Polynesia each year.

In such a remote place, there’s a sense of being in it together—maybe not so far from the ethos of farmers in remote areas who know that they are the only ones available to lend a hand to a neighbor. Cruisers here make friends quickly and help each other before we have become friends. American boats are in the minority here. We’ve shared food and drink with folks from Australia, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Belgium, France, New Zealand, South Africa and England, as well as sailors from the Bay Area. We’ve been loaned tools and jerry cans and books and we’ve been given a relay switch for our engine starter, as well as star fruit and grapefruit. One new friend taught us how to use some open source navigation software, another swam over and introduced himself and dove on our fouled anchor with Jason. Of course, we’ve tried to be generous with our resources as well.

There are all kinds of things about cruising that are uncomfortable (stuffy heat, dirty hair), scary (squalls in the middle of the night after a boat anchors too near you), and annoying (endless flies, cash machines not working for days), but these have been dwarfed so far by all the good things that fill our days—the natural and the cultural. Our debt to those we meet along the way grows deeper, adding to the debt we have to all of you who sent us on our way with your help and love and letters and gifts.

Below Jason writes about the talent and generosity of two woodworkers we spent a morning with a couple weeks ago. Thanks for reading. We love hearing from you all!

From Jason:

When we first met Pori and Axel a couple weeks ago, they were working in a yard alongside the road, cutting a massive tree up into boxy chunks. Caitlin spoke with them in French, and Arlo & Alma and I tried to follow along. Pori, the boss, is broad shouldered and solid. Axel, Pori’s junior and employee is built like a sumo wrestler, bald headed and heavily tattooed. When they heard we were interested in wood and carving, they were excited to try to explain about the tree they were working on (locally called Temanu), the carving tradition, and their work. It was difficult to communicate, so we arranged to come visit them at their shop. Before we parted ways, Axel held a board down with his plastic sandalled foot, and cut a slab off for us. It made me nervous, but he’d obviously been handling a chainsaw his whole life, and he still has all his toes.

We found Pori and Axel in their shop this morning, overlooking the bay up the hill from town. Pori showed us the ukareres (the local varient of the ukulele—flatter and higher pitched and with double or triple strings at each of the four string sizes) he makes. He uses all kinds of local woods, the Temanu he’d been cutting when we met him, breadfruit wood, mango wood, and other deeply and beautifully grained and colorful woods from the hills around his house. The shop is a broad shed attached to his house, full of blocks of beautiful wood, with some nice stationary tools (a thickness planer, a bandsaw) and hand tools and power tools and a carpet of wood chips over the dirt floor. A shop I wouldn’t have noticed from the road held so much beautiful wood and work. When I showed Pori the spoon I was carving from the Temanu they gave us, his eyes lit up and he took it to show Axel, who was working in back of the shop on a large carving. Axel was pretty amused at the idea of a wooden spoon, and found it even funnier when we said I might make a knife to go with it. A wooden knife? He and Pori were supportive of the idea of hair sticks though.

I showed them the knife and gouge I use, and Axel sharpened them both, and at my invitation, tried them out on the spoon I was working on. While we talked with Pori, Axel hollowed the bowl of the spoon and shaped its back. We checked with him a few times and he demonstrated the way that he uses both of his hands to hold the work and control the blade. He has a two handed technique where he levers both of his thumbs against the handle and back of the blade to apply a lot of pressure with a lot of control. He makes it look quite simple, but I’m going to have to work to get the feel for it. He’s even more deft with small carving tools than he is with the chainsaw. His carvings, in the traditional Marquesan style, bowls and tikis, are busy with exceptionally fine detail. Their shapes are graceful and the elegance and perfection of the carving are amazing.

We went back and forth with Pori and Axel, talking about wood and carving and Ukareres. Pori played his ukarere–a little, faster and higher pitched than the Ukulele music we’re used to. We talked about tools some more with Axel. We looked at more of Axel’s carvings. I didn’t want the visit to end, but they had given us a couple hours of their time, carving lessons, sharper knives, and a lot of patience already. We let them get back to work, and wandered down the hill to town, wondering at our fortune in finding these two woodworking masters at random out alongside the road, and at connecting with people over shared passions.

The Bounty of Nuku Hiva

–by ARLO

We walked onto the patio and were confronted by the severed head of a 200 pound wild boar sitting on the grill. That’s right, a boar’s head, on the grill–tusks, eyes, hair, everything. This scene took place on the beautiful island of Nuku Hiva, which we have just finished a circumnavigating. Along the way, we encountered and harvested enough natural resources to feed a small army.

Up a coconut tree to reach nearby mangoes

The fruit trees on Nuku Hiva, and the rest of the Marquesas for that matter, are abundant. When we go on a hike inland from a harbor, we hardly need to pack snacks because of the mangos, starfruit, pomme citerne (not sure how to spell this, but it’s like a tropical apple), and limes, which are all just hanging there, free for the taking. It is one of the nicest things to be able to just be walking along, pick up a fallen mango, peel of the skin, and eat it whole, all without breaking your stride.

Coconuts are a central part of life in the Marquesas. The ancient Polynesians provisioned with coconuts on their voyages, and now locals drink the water from them, eat the meat, and dry them to make copra to sell, which will be processed into oil in Tahiti. The animals eat them, I open them with my machete, and shrimp cooked in coconut is very good.

Without coconuts, the Marquesans would be in a real fix. The island is overrun with coconuts for the taking, and we’ve eaten our share.

The fishing and hunting in Nuku Hiva is excellent. During a sail from one bay to the next, I let back a couple of fishing lines into the wake, and before I finished putting them out, a three foot long bonito had the lure in its mouth. We quickly hauled it in, filleted it, and popped the thick, red, fillets into our semi-cold fridge. That afternoon, when we arrived in our next bay, we made some delicious poisson cru for lunch.

My other seafood gathering expedition occurred when two fellow cruisers, one from Norway, the other Belgian, invited my dad and me spearfishing for octopus. We climbed into the dinghy, anchored in about 6 feet of water, put on our masks, snorkels, and fins, and grabbed the two spearguns. Now, I had never touched a speargun in my life before, but I was explained how it works. You put the spear into the gun, and slide it back until it clicks. Then, with the safety on, you brace the butt of the gun against yourself, and pull back the rubber into to the notch. Then just dive down, flick the safety off, and pull the trigger. So we split up into teams of two, each with a speargun. You swam around, diving down to peer into likely looking holes and crevices for octopus. I saw the first one, so I called over my buddy, the Belgian guy. He dove down, shot the octopus, and pulled it out of the cave. Once we had gotten four, we went to a small beach, and each of us tied a two-foot long string to our octopus, and beat it against a rock until it had doubled in length, to soften it up. After beating the juice out with a mallet and removing the innards, eyes, and beak, we washed them in water, then boiled them for 30 minutes. After slicing and sauteeing them in olive oil and garlic, we declared them excellent eating. Both my dad and I liked spearfishing so much that we are now building our own “Hawaiian sling” to shoot the spears.

The local Marquesans also hunt the wild boars that live on the islands that were brought by Europeans, like I mentioned earlier. We ate lunch at one family’s house and the guy that lived there had just returned from a boar hunt, in which his dog had tracked down a boar, chased it to him, then he stabbed it with a knife, and then the dog had chased it until it collapsed. Then he walked home with a dead, 200 pound boar, sliced off the head, and put it on the grill, and was in the process of lighting the grill as we walked in. The locals here use all the parts of a pig. They roast most of it, and then make a paté out of the brain, liver, and heart. Unfortunately, my parents won’t let me go on a boar hunt.

With all of this readily available food, you can eat as much as you like, for free. I can easily see how people have lived and thrived on these islands for 1,000 years. We’re eating our fill now before we head to the Tuamotu archipelago, whose low coral atolls offer coconuts and fish, but no fruit and definitely no boar liver paté.

And a few other recent shots around the island:

We hiked to a waterfall and ate lunch at this beautiful pool before we swam across it, behind some rocks to the falls.

First Impressions of the Marquesas

–by Arlo

When we first sighted the Marquesas after 25 days at sea, the mountainous, lush islands rising out of the sea were breathtaking to look at. The sheer-sided mountains rose up to the sky in craggy ridges, and became lost in the clouds. Every inch of the island appeared to be covered in greenery. Bushes, vines, palms and other trees were flourishing. We were all immensely glad that we had made the passage.

We sailed into the crowded harbor and dropped the anchor. Before we had even set foot on shore, a fellow cruising boat gave us a bag stuffed to the brim with pamplemousse, the Marquesan pomelo, and bananas. The first shower in 25 days that we took ashore that afternoon made the day a “10 out of 10” perfect.

The harbor in Atuona where we had anchored was loaded with fishing boats and pirogues (outrigger canoes) and the locals who used them were friendly—the men, usually shirtless and tattooed. They wouldn’t mind you piling in the back of their pick up trucks on the two mile trip to town.

Sometimes it drives me bonkers how I can’t communicate. Whenever I see a fishing boat coming in loaded with Tuna I want to go over and talk with the fisherman about their fishing gear, what they’re catching and what techniques they use. One of the official languages spoken here is French, but I was surprised at how alive Marquesan, or Te E’o Enana, the native language, is.

On the road to town, you passed countless mango, papaya, breadfruit, orange, pamplemousse, and coconut trees, which were full of fruit. When we left that first harbor after five days at anchor, we were loaded down with bananas, 20 pamplemousse, papaya and several bowls of mangos, and we were extremely satisfied.

Now that we have seen a couple of islands, we are getting the feeling that there is possibly even more wildlife than there is fruit, even out here in the middle of the Pacific. There are feral goats that live on the islands, and we have seen both feral pigs, and pigs on leashes. We have seen lots and lots of colorful fish when we were snorkeling in crystal clear water, in addition to the 1000 pound bluefin and yellowfin tuna that the local fishermen catch. There have been crabs on the rocks, massive coconut crabs in burrows, hundreds of exotic seabirds wheeling overhead, eels in the drainage ditches eight foot sharks feeding on fish scraps, manta rays that we swam with, and a menagerie of other assorted critters.

A stone tiki at a sacred site in Puamau. The site was not so sacred that I couldn’t climb a papaya tree and pick a couple of green papayas for salads.

Between the several hundred year old stone tikis, breathtaking mountains and cliffs lush islands teeming with wildlife, delicious fruits and the good food (poisson cru anyone?), I’m liking the Marquesas even more than Mexico.

Thanks to all you readers for your comments. They are much appreciated. Feel free to keep in touch through comments or look for the get in touch section.

Thanks again, Arlo.

———————————-

And, from Caitlin & Jason:

Here’s recording of one of the songs that filled the Catholic church here yesterday in Nuku Hiva. Do listen to a bit of it!

And, rowing home from the church service:

Rowing home to DEBONAIR, which is in the background.

What You Want After 25 Days at Sea

–by Alma

After 25 days of rolling down the seas of the Pacific there are a few things that you want, and we got all of them. The first thing that we got was to see something other than horizon when you looked around. We got that one even before we arrived at the island. Seeing the silhouette of Hiva Oa was amazing.

The second thing that we got was fruit. When we were anchoring, some other cruisers thought that we had put our stern anchor on their bow anchor, so my mom rowed over to their boat and talked with them in French, and when they looked at it again they decided that it was OK. Then, when we were getting ready to go ashore for our showers, they offered us some bananas and grapefruits. That was really nice.

When we first got to Hiva Oa, we needed and wanted showers. The shower was outdoors, by the dumpsters, the floor was covered in mud, and the water was cold, but there was a lot of it, all streaming down. It felt like the best shower in my life.

Another thing that you really want after 25 days at sea is to be able to sleep through the night. At sea, every night you have to get up at a certain time for watch, but at anchor, you can sleep through the night. Also, there’s no roll. No roll makes cooking, and just living easier. Both of those were awesome.

In Hiva Oa there are two ways to get your laundry done. One of them is to send your laundry with a person who lives there who helps cruisers, which you have to pay for, but the other way is free. There’s a tiled counter with a spout and you bring your laundry, soap, and buckets, do your laundry, and then hang it up on your boat to dry. We did both ways, and doing the laundry on our own was surprisingly fun.

The last thing we were craving was walking and running. We didn’t hike at all on the first island that we went to, but there was a walk into town that took about thirty minutes. At the second island that we went to, we didn’t hike much, but here Nuka Hiva, Arlo and my dad have gone on a few runs. Tomorrow we will all go on a hike.

Those are the things that you really want after 25 days at sea, and we got all of them. We certainly aren’t rolling down seas anymore!

Landfall (Sunday midday)

3rd Update from our Pacific Passage

Day 19

from Arlo–
Still no fish. About five days to go (knock on wood).
Today, we rigged the staysail on the main backstay. Worked great for downwind. The only issue with the nav program that Alma and I are making is that it does not work when your two positions are on opposite sides of the dateline, within 90 degrees to either side of the dateline, but we are working on it. We had pizza for dinner and the last of the equator (key lime) pie, which we made when we crossed the equator and the Southern Cross is clearly visible in the sky. I did my 6th half hour stationary run of the trip, and I am longing for a nice run on dry land. But, other than that, it’s great out here.

Day 21

from Alma—
This morning on . Arlo’s and my watch, it started to rain, so Arlo went down to get my rain jacket while I steered. (He already had his on.) While he was down below the wind and rain picked up. I was drenched and also scared. Then once Arlo came back up, I found out that he had been changing into a swimsuit while I was on deck alone and drenched. For the rest of the day, the only consistency was that the wind wasn’t constant. When the wind got really light, my mom started to make bread because we were motoring and it was so flat. (Our stove is hard to use in rough weather.) Then, the wind picked up so we sailed, but my mom was already making bread. So, it has been somewhat frustrating.

Day 22

from Caitlin–

The crazy French sailor Bernard Moitissier circumnavigated the globe alone in the early 70, as part of one of the first single-handed races. But when he approached England in the lead, he turned the boat around and kept on going—almost all the way around the world again. This has always confirmed for me that Moitissier really was crazy.

For me the point of a passage has always been to go somewhere, to get the passage over with and be somewhere. But we’re sailing through our 22nd day now, and I’ve been at sea longer than I ever have before, and while I’m very ready to step ashore, I’ve begun to understand, I think, why someone might want to keep sailing.

Time is slippery out here—the days and nights keep reeling off, unchecked by a full night’s sleep. The horizon always stays the same, no matter how far we sail, though the sea and the sky never look the same. Some days sea and sky are in black and white—so many shades of grey, then everything is blue the next day. Sky and sea can turn pink and red and orange with sunsets. And the sky at night is just as variable. It took me a week or two to get used to night watches, but now my favorite nights are moonless ones when the dome of the sky is so full of stars that it matches the phosphorescent sea.

It’s hard to believe we might be ashore in less than a week.

Day 23

From Alma–
This morning when I woke my dad up for breakfast, he had been dreaming, and so he said “Who is going ashore?” and I reminded him that we were at sea. We should get to the Marquesas in about three days, and at noon today we will have completed 23 days at sea. Arlo has been fishing a lot, and he keeps losing lures, and now it seems like a few have been being bitten off by a big fish or sharks.

Day 24

from Alma–
I have a weird rash. It’s just on my right side and only where sun hits me, so we think that it is from too much sun. Today we saw the top of the island that we are going to over the horizon. Tomorrow we will come in to port. I can’t wait. Arlo and I don’t need to stand watch in the morning because everyone will be on deck to see the island close up. I said that I wanted to sleep in, but that probably won’t happen since I have gotten used to waking up at about 6:00 in the morning.

Day 25

from Arlo–
Today we anchored in Atuona in Hiva Oa after sighting land at 5:50PM last night. The whole island is lush green, with soaring craggy mountains, sheer cliffs, and a friendly cruising community. We took our first showers since Manzanillo, after a passage of 25 days, 2 hours and 40 minutes. By anybody else’s standards, the showers were terrible, right next to the dumpster, shielded only by a shoulder height cinderblock wall, muddy floor, and no hot water. To us, it was paradise, and in the tropics, the cold water is a luxury.

When you have arrived in the Marquesas, you receive a startling realization that the Marquesas, which have always seemed so impossible and unreal to me, are just hunks of land in the water. Sure they have amazing mountains, and are tropical and lush, but our anchor lines still creak and people still use bathrooms and the Marquesas are not the fantasy that I knew was unreal, but could not expel from my mind.

From Caitlin & Jason–
And to us, when we arrived here in the Marquesas, we realize that these islands we have been dreaming of, that have always seemed less than real, are not only very real, as Arlo points out, but are also bigger, more vertical, more beautiful, more foreign, more everything than we imagined. We are amazed that we are actually here.

From Alma–
This morning when I woke up and came on deck, we could see Hiva Oa much more close by. At about noon we made landfall. We anchored once, but it is crowded in this anchorage, so everyone needs to set a bow and stern anchor, but there was one boat that refused (or couldn’t. We don’t know because they spoke fast French.) to set a stern anchor. This meant that we had to move or else they would hit us. So we moved to another spot in front of a blue boat that gave us bananas and grapefruit, which was good because we had just eaten our last apple. After that, we went ashore and took fresh water showers. It was awesome! It’s still hard to believe that we’re in French Polynesia.

still sailing

May 5, 2018.
Day 10–
from Caitlin
The endless rolling is getting to all of us. The noise of it, the way it keeps us from sleeping, that it keeps us from doing much besides what is necessary. Making dinner and doing dishes has become a contact sport. I have bandages on my thigh and elbow from burns I suffered when the hot oven launched its racks onto me. A dinner doesn’t pass when the contents of some bowl isn’t hurled across the cabin.

It’s easier to take on deck. We spend a lot of time watching the swells, the birds, and the not-as-rare-as-you’d-like pieces of plastic trash float by.

The windvane is steering and only requires occasional adjustment in these consistent northeast tradewinds, and we roll across the sea at seven knots day after day. The pilot charts suggest we should have a current with us here, and our progress across the chart is steady, but it’s become clear that we have a one knot current against us. Nonetheless, we’ll reach the ITCZ soon.

From Arlo:
Rain!! Glory Hallelujiah!! And one beautiful sunset. The whole sky and sea were pink then yellow, and a perfect double rainbow. I caught a mahi mahi on a trolling feather. The mahi mahi salad was good. I only consumed six bananas today, unlike yesterday’s eight. If we keep up this speed we have 13 ½ days left. Unfortunately our calculations show a one knot countercurrent. Shucks. Seven flying fish aboard during the night. Tossed them over because mom won’t let me fish until I finish the mahi mahi. I finished it today, so she will probably let me fish tomorrow or the day after. Oliver is helping me make a program on the calculator to tell me the distance between two lat/long positions. It will also tell me the course.

May 7, 2018
Day 12–
from Alma:
Two flying fish came aboard last night. Today, we opened gifts of origami paper and colored pens from our friends. I made cranes, balloons and penguins. This evening we sailed under our first rain since California. It came with wind too. When we did the calculations and if we kept up this speed, we will be in the Marquesas in 11 days.

from Arlo:
I am writing this in the middle of a squall. The wind has gone around a hundred degrees and picked up. It is raining and overcast, so I came down from on deck in my swimsuit to go to bed. We have covered 1420 nautical miles and have 1332 to go. Over halfway! Our calculations show us to have 11 days to go. We are officially in the ITCZ.

May 8, 2018
Day 13–
from Caitlin:
Jason called the squall last night a “magic portal.” In the final hour of daylight we were running at six knots, driven by the same tradewinds that had been powering us for nine days. Then a gust of cold wind, then hard rain, then the wind veered to the Southeast and suddenly we were beating to weather in a stiff breeze and cold rain.

We had seen the dark cloud of squall coming and we had gotten ready for a warm fresh water “shower” by changing into our swimsuits and bringing shampoo on deck. So there we were, in our swimsuits, teeth chattering for the first time in months as darkness descended. Eventually Oliver went below to do dishes and Arlo and Alma changed for bed. Within an hour the rain and wind let up, at the same time and quite suddenly. And then, for the first time in ten days, it was calm. We had passed through the squally door into the ITCZ. And here we are today—sometimes ghosting along under full sail. Sometimes motoring, looking for the rain to try for a shower again today.

May 9, 2018
Day 14–
from Arlo:
Today we got out of the ITCZ in which we got several rain showers, and caught enough water to wash our hair. Now we are roaring along on a port tack again. With 9.7 days to go, we will get there with a total of about 24 days hopefully. Today we made and launched a sardine tin boat. It had the metal bit on top strung behind it as a rudder and the lid peeled up as a square sail. We still have plenty of canned fish, so maybe we can launch some more of these. [Editor’s note: we keep all plastic aboard, but outside 25 nautical miles MARPOL law allows for the disposal of glass, metal and paper overboard.] My sister and I have been working on recreating “the Settlers of Catan” and we are almost finished.

May 11, 2018
Day 16–
from Caitlin:
Through the ITCZ! A squally night turned into a beautiful day. We are sailing hard enough on the wind that the port lights are shut and we are hot and sticky below. But on deck it is always beautiful, in whatever version the sky and sea are serving up at the moment. Nights, especially, have been awesome: phosphorescence deep in the water, stars all the way to the horizon, the milkiest milky way you’ve ever seen, and dolphins leaving phosphorescent trails.

from Jason:
The crescent moon is up above the Eastern horizon peeking in and out of clouds. The milky way is arcing from dead ahead, up straight over the top of us to the North. We’ll lose sight of the North Star soon in our steady progress South. Alma came on deck last night and looked at these new Southern stars with me. Arlo is sleeping in the cockpit tonight. It’s a little better tonight, but it’s been brutally muggy. Steamy. Close and damp. Oliver said that on his watch a flying fish landed on Arlo’s head (!) and flopped around while Oliver scrambled for it, and Arlo never woke up. I think Arlo will like that story.

The ITCZ, the doldrums, are feared and despised for their light fluky winds and sudden squalls. They’re also beautiful. The sky is crowded with clouds of all sorts, stretched out in the distance where you see the peaks of high cumulus clouds peeking up over the horizon. Those distant high clouds, sunk down low, and the patches of dark squally cloud that drape gray veils of rain down to the ocean make it feel like the sky has come right down to the ocean. As the sun crosses the sky, the light on the waves and clouds continually changes.

As beautiful as the doldrums are, our love for the tradewinds is understandable. The consistent Northeasterly breeze that drove us West and South for seven days felt endless, like the water and sky. This wind revolves clockwise around the entire North Pacific, unchecked by any landmass. The waves too. They roll round and round, uninterrupted, building into a bigger, cleaner form. It felt like we could have ridden that wind and those swells forever.

May 13, 2018
Day 17–
from Alma:
This morning I made rice pudding for breakfast with the left over rice from last night’s dinner. I threw a message in a bottle over. My second one! I threw it over just before lunch. Arlo went on another run in place. I did a lesson of math today, and more origami. Then later, my mom and I made bread. My mom also made oatmeal cakes to have for breakfast morning after next. Right now, my dad is taking apart the pump in the head (bathroom) to fix it. I can’t wait till the bread is done! I love homemade bread.

from Jason:
I don’t think I can tell the entire banana saga here. Through friendly negotiations in the Manzanillo marketplace, Caitlin procured two large bunches of bananas. I mean large. Each one was difficult for one person to carry. The crew come down the gangway, with someone on each end of each bright green bunch. It seemed like a good idea at the time.

We hung one bunch in the galley and another all the way up in the forepeak, hanging over the foot of Arlo’s bunk. Somehow Oliver had a recording of Harry Belafonte’s Banana Boat song, and we played it and sang it as we worked. In our first days at sea, as the boat started really moving, we added rigging to try to stop the swaying of these huge masses of fruit. We eagerly waited for the bananas to ripen, adding banana backstays and shrouds, topping lifts and vangs to try to keep them from getting momentum. They’re delicate, and though they were green, they bruised if bonked. Finally, on the seventh night out, the bunch in the galley broke loose on its lower end and swung wildly with the roll of the boat, thrashing itself on the back of the settee. Oliver was on watch, and Alma was awake, and they re-secured the bananas and cleaned up the banana slush valiantly.

Oliver only had to give a few bananas a burial at sea, and ate a couple that were broken but not destroyed. He proclaimed them ready and the banana eating was on! We wagered on how many bananas there were in those two bunches. There were 220. Accounting for some loss of bananas, the five of us probably ate at least 180 bananas in nine days. Arlo led the charge, eating as many as nine in a day. We ate so many bananas that we learned, and classified the various stages of banana ripeness. The ripest, “dessert bananas” were so sickly sweet that eating one would put you off bananas for the rest of the day. Caitlin made a wonderful banana bread and Arlo made delicious banana pancakes to try to dilute the sweetness of those last bananas. There was little fanfare or sadness when the dried up final stalk was tossed overboard.

from Arlo:

Today is Mother’s Day, and Alma and I made mom a card.

Our latitude is zero degrees, 20 minutes North. This afternoon we are crossing the equator. Each moment I am farther South and West than I ever have been. My sister and mom are making key lime pie to celebrate, and I am going to toss over a message in a bottle as we cross the equator. It has our lat/long, an email, a date, and a message in it.

I had the idea of putting up both headsails at once and we are going a lot faster. We are about seven and a half days out from the Marquesas. I have not caught any fish since the mahi mahi, and I am convinced that there are no fish in this half of the ocean. Other than that, life has been great. We finished the bananas, and by the time we got down to the last couple dozen out of the 220 to begin with, they were too mushy for anything but being baked into pancakes. They were quite good that way.

May 14, 2018
Day 19–
from Jason:
This morning we’re broad reaching again, rolling downwind toward Hiva Oa. The South Pacific looks and feels just like the North Pacific on the other side of the equator of course, but it still feels like a milestone to have crossed the Equator yesterday. We were at 129 degrees and 42 minutes West at 1654 local time (UTC – 8). Arlo and Alma threw messages over in a bottle. Oliver threw another. Caitlin gave an offering of rum to Poseidon. I blew the Calavera shell we got in Manzanillo, and there we were. It was another typically lovely day in the trades, with the wind and waves and sky all going our way. From here the degrees South will tick back upward. The Southern stars will keep coming higher in the sky at night—Southern Cross, Centaurus, Scorpius, Sagitarius.

In addition to crossing the equator, yesterday our total miles sailed went over 2000 and it was mothers’ day. It was a good day. We ate dinner in the cockpit as usual, Caitlin read The Walkabouts as the sun went down, and we settled Debonair in for another steady night of tradewind sailing.

Jumping the Puddle

Thanks to our friend Mark for posting this update. For those of you who want to follow our progress, you can look up our position at noon today: 14* 04’ N, 118* 51’W.

What follows are a few unedited thoughts from Arlo, Alma, Caitlin and Jason:

Day 2

–Arlo
Left yesterday. Had a great sail all day. I stood my dawn watch this morning. Yesterday as the sun set, we saw a green flash. This morning the sunrise was great. We have been making 4-6 knots under sail, and 6-6.5 knots under engine. Currently the wind is down and we are motoring. The seas are all smooth. The windvane has been steering, and we have been sailing within 10-20 degrees of our course to the Marquesas, 240 degrees. I have a fish line out, but I have not caught anything. Pelagic fishing seems to be farther and fewer between. Just as my mom said it would be. Today we took sun sights with the sextant. The water is so deep and pure blue. I have never seen anything like it. We took a secci disk reading today and you could see the disk for 18 2/3 meters down! All in all it has been about as good a trip as you could hope for, and I was expecting a lot worse.

–Jason
Caitlin is braiding Alma’s hair to keep it from snarling. Oliver is doing the dinner dishes. Arlo is reading in his bunk. Caitlin and Alma are on deck with me. I’m on watch, just past sunset. We quit motoring just after dinner and are sailing on a light and fluky breeze. When it comes up and we go, it feels so good. It’s been lighter than we expected and certainly hoped these first days. It’s been beautiful though. The water is very clear. The sea is a bright, brilliant blue and the sky is pale in this humidity. We stay busy and the day pass quickly.

Day 3

–Arlo
Fluky winds. Watch was uneventful but good, and the sunrise can compare to the previous one. Yesterday, I caught a foot and a half long Mexican Bonito. It was quite good fried. I read the Old Man and the Sea from cover to cover (can you say that when you read it on Kindle?) in one hour. Water has just gotten bluer. You can see clear to over 90 feet deep. The depth around us is several thousand meters. We have come 310 miles and have 7,442 to go, in about 26 days. On the first day out, we retarded clocks one hour, so that the kids’ dawn watch was only dark for one hour. I have started the second volume of Lord of the Rings, the Two Towers. I am working on re-reading the whole series. None of our 220 bananas are ripe yet. Yesterday all five of us took out the exercise bands, and worked out on the foredeck. When the loud old engine is off, life is great.

–Caitlin
Sailors sometimes refer to the Pacific Ocean as “the puddle,” and right now that description feels apt. Today is the third day at sea, and though we’re still rolling across small swells there’s almost no wind—the sea surface has alternated these last few hours between glassy and riffled, and we’re all itching to sail again.

We left the harbor at Las Hadas, Manzanillo with no fanfare, no wavers or confetti throwers. That was just fine. It felt good to be slipping away finally after a couple of weeks of getting ready. Our friend Oliver flew in for the passage and got right to work helping with the preparations. In addition to the boat readiness projects, we took on about 70 gallons of water to top off our tanks, bought 220 green bananas (yes, we did just count them!), filled every seat in a taxi with provisions, took on additional diesel fuel, and filled an empty propane tank. Figuring out how to provision in a new town was a good challenge. Finding 12 dozen unwashed eggs was not hard, but where do you find a banana farmer to request two very long stems of bananas? How do you get onions with their skins intact, when every market in Manzanillo strips them? And not having tasted a particular brand of olives in a little baggy, do I really want to buy 20 baggies of them?

DEBONAIR was ready to go on Tuesday morning. On Monday Jason had visited half a dozen different offices in the big ship port of Manzanillo, trying to get us and our boat cleared out of Mexico. It had been a bit of a runaround—Jason described the varied reactions he got from security guards with machine guns when he showed up carrying a propane tank. But everyone was courteous and most were helpful and after we had all gone back to the immigration office that night at 7pm because they wanted to see our faces, we thought we’d be able to sail Tuesday after a quick trip to cancel a permit at the government bank in the morning. How wrong we were. It seems that we’re the first yacht to check out of the Port of Manzanillo in quite some time and they didn’t know how to treat us any differently than the container ships and tankers that they usually clear. So instead of heading out to sea Tuesday afternoon, we found ourselves tied up to a big concrete wharf under the Vessel Traffic Control offices, where we had an appointment for a customs inspection. The four men and one German Shepard that showed up to conduct the inspection didn’t quite know what to do on a boat as small as ours. And the dog had even less interest in going aboard a small rolling boat than a cat would want to dive into a pool.

We passed inspection and here we are a couple hundred miles of the coast of Mexico, heading west. Nights have been beautiful, days have been hot. If you haven’t been to sea, it’s easy to imagine that it’s boring. But we always find more to do than we have time for. Part of the reason for that is that we often need to sleep a bit during the day. There’s also always something to attend to on the boat—a sail to reef, a line to re-lead, chafe gear to install. And anything you do regularly at home—cooking, cleaning, personal care, washing dishes—can take twice as long on the boat. But there’s so much we want to do out here when we’re not taking care of business.

We’ve started taking sun sights and are trying to get good at working them. There’s exercise routines, reading, looking at weather forecasts, school work, art, little fix-it jobs, and watching the sunset, which we do as a whole crew in the evening. Already today, Alma and Arlo are working with Oliver to learn programming on a graphing calculator, I stitched up holes in various items of clothing this morning, Jason and Arlo made a fishing gaff out of a stick of bamboo and a very large fish hook, Arlo prepared the noon report, Jason stowed some gear, we poured endless buckets of water across the hot decks, and Arlo did a little washing up with a bucket of fresh water we kept on deck for the purpose. Now if only the wind would come up, we’d be sailing too.

I think we’re all enjoying the rhythm and routines that are emerging. Many of those routines will stay the same all the way across the Pacific—some will change as the weather and sea state changes. The blue-footed boobies are still with us, trying to land in our rig for a free ride. We’ll be too far offshore for them soon, I think. And I wonder which birds will replace them. We have so many miles to go.

Day 5

–Alma
This morning I made breakfast for the first time on this trip—I made oatmeal with cinnamon and dried cranberries. My favorite part of the day was when I threw over one of the three bottles I brought for messages in bottles. But the dolphins we saw in the afternoon were pretty good too!

Day 7

–Alma
This morning for breakfast my mom and I made pancakes and a brown sugar and lime juice syrup! Last night four flying fish landed on our boat. Today, Arlo put one of them on a hook and caught a fish! Arlo has also been desperate for a run, so today he ran in place on the side deck. I wish that we were there already. I don’t like waking up at 6:00 for watch. I don’t like making breakfast alone at sea. But there are things that I do like too, like the fact that we haven’t seen another ship since our second night. It’s amazing to think about and hard to keep yourself looking for ships on watch.

–Arlo
Today I caught a skipjack Tuna. I had four flying fish come on board last night, and so I put one on a hook and trolled it at five knots. We got him aboard, and he was so colorful. By the time we were half way done filleting him, all the color was gone. He was about two or two and a half feet long, and when we baked him up at dinner with some potatoes. . . damn. This evening the wind has picked up a bit and we were doing seven knots. Last night at the same time we clocked nine knots. Yesterday, I lost some lures overboard when we rolled and they slid off the aft seat. So very, very, sad. I talked to Granma Nancy yesterday, 600 miles off shore. We are almost 700 miles offshore now. Today I went on a “run”: 30 minutes of jogging in place on the side deck while holding on. It may not sound great, but it’s pretty good cardiovascular exercise, and about all that you could hope for in that neighborhood on a boast.

Day 8

–Jason
Rolling, heaving, pitching, swaying, surging, yawing. Coming up on two straight days of sailing and no engine time. It feels so good. Tonight, Alma and I swapped out jibs again just after sunset in the new dark. A & A really know the boat now, and Alma knows her way around the foredeck. She handled halyards and I tackled as we took in the big jib and then she handled sheets while I hauled the halyard as we set the working jib, the bow rolling sweetly and the bow waving shushing. Last night the dolphins joined us. Tonight there was phosphorescence in the bow wave. As we surged and plunged, lights rolled out in the froth like stars in the sea.

Day 9

–Alma
No flying fish came aboard last night. Every day we make note of how many miles we have come from noon to noon. Today we broke our record and did 144 nautical miles! Last night, a lot of our bananas mushed from being rocked so much. We took the mushy ones to make banana bread.

— Caitlin
We hit the trade winds a couple of days ago and have been scooting along ever since, often going 7 or 8 knots under mizzen and yankee jib alone through the days and nights. Today at noon Arlo plotted our position and announced we’d made good almost 150 miles—a vast improvement over our first few windless days.

It’s odd that it’s not lonely, but I think very few sailors feel lonely at sea. To start with, there are five of us living in a 40’ space. But also the sea, the sky, and Debonair herself are dynamic, always changing, and it’s hard not to think of ourselves as in conversation with those forces. The brown-footed boobies and red footed boobies are still with us, and now tropic birds are making an appearance. They all seem to stay near us—some of the hundreds of flying fish we scare out of the water become their dinner. And, of course, dolphins visit most days and many nights.

The fresh food should be largely gone by the end of next week, though we’ll have cabbages and onions to the end, I hope. After a bananadventure last night involving some mashed bananas that were given a fitting burial over the stern of the boat, we’ve opened the banana season—we should be in bananas for a couple of weeks, if they don’t ripen too fast.

Arlo prepared our noon report and predicted 16 more days until the Marquesas. We’ll see what lies ahead.

Specifically the Pacific

Our next port is 3,000 nautical miles away, which seems like too long (to me at least). It should take about 25-30 days to reach French Polynesia, and I expect that eventually we will get into a routine. We hope to leave next week, once our friend Oliver has arrived and we finish all the projects on our lists. Getting ready to cross an ocean takes a lot of preparation.

My dad’s project of replacing leaky bungs.

We have a list of projects to prepare the boat. A few of these are inspecting and tensioning the rig, setting up and testing the sea anchor, and making new fair leads for the jib sheets. We will also hire a diver to clean the bottom of the boat before we leave.

A drawing that I made of the spoons to the left, the salt and pepper to the right, and seeing over to some shelves in the galley.

In the beginning, we may get pretty sea sick, so my mom will prepare a few meals just before we leave. This way she, she doesn’t need to go down below and cook if she is feeling sea sick.

Another aspect of the preparation, is planning. We have been watching the weather every day to see when we can leave. There is a calm spot with little to no wind in the Pacific. This calm spot is called the Inter Tropical Convergence Zone (I.T.C.Z.). We are watching the I.T.C.Z. to see when it will be the smallest. The other thing that we are planning is the paper work. We need papers to leave Mexico and to arrive in French Polynesia.

We have ordered about 100 green bananas to be delivered to a market near by for the passage.

The aspect of preparation that I am most exited for is provisioning and supplying. We will stock up on food (from mangoes to garbanzo beans) and water. We will also get diesel for our engine, and propane for our stove. We have started (and will continue) buying a few miscellaneous things that won’t be available in the Marquesas and Tuamotus, like clothes, clothes pins, and Nerf balls to stuff in our hawse pipes around our anchor chain to keep water out.

The last aspect of preparing (that I am going to talk about) is preparing the crew. I’m kind of scared about being at sea for about a month. The thing that helped me the most, was looking at the digital charts, and seeing how short 3,000 miles looked on the computer screen. Before that, I had been trying to ignore the fact that we are about to cross. Preparing the crew also means taking our last real showers for a long time.

Although I know what the preparations are like, I don’t know what the actual passage will be like. Maybe 3,000 miles won’t seem too long after all.

Hear are a few more recent photos: