Leslie:
Wow, the last one of these particular posts was about Hiva Oa? We’ve been pretty lazy around here (in Tonga at the time of this typing), so thanks to our ghost blogger for filling you in on most of this. But, multiple viewpoints are always fun to read (in fact, Andy has written his own version of this--stay tuned!), and the viewpoint of Aldebbie’s calendar is a choice one. For the sake of catching us up, I’ll try to comment as briefly as possible on each calendar entry (good luck, wordy!) I'm not posting photos with this because it takes too long and Don is doing daily roundups, so keep your eyes open.
June 29 – Andy’s mum’s b-day, dancers and dinner
This was the first anchorage we stopped in on Oa Pou (yes, we are time travelling way back to the Marquesas), and we celebrated Annette’s b-day by enjoying a local dinner and dance show. We couldn’t understand what was happening, other than the drumming, dancing and the eating (poisson cru, pork, chicken, beans, rice, and lots of pretty bugs falling onto our plates from the overhead light bulbs), but somehow we ended up winning a lovely wooden paddle that was being raffled off. Annette, there in spirit, especially enjoyed the children’s dances and the manly men’s hakas. The dinghy-landing situation here was rocky and a bit perilous, however. I managed to get soaked by waves twice, and Carl took a nasty little fall while saving Don’s shoes from certain dampness.
July 1 – Miss Oa Pou
We moved to a different anchorage in a bigger village (with excellent dingy landings), and happened to be in time for a beauty contest. Carl was excited, until he realized the girls were only 15 and 16. Jail bait! Well, maybe not here. Nevertheless, he had many, even younger admirers (who we noticed going for the free beer along with the adults). We enjoyed an active day of volleyball with these girls, followed by an active night of free food, drink, and entertainment, mainly at Carl’s expense. Oh, the jokes!
July 2 – Beach BBQ
We instigated a beach potluck, which was great fun. Lisa cooked the goat ribs from the goat we were given in Hiva Oa, and people brought sausages, breadfruit, coconuts, and lots of adult beverages. Shout out to Kajanana's pomplemousse punch! Swear-out to “Floater”, who is a mooch and a creepy old man.
July 3
Not on the calendar, but Kaja and Jean Paul had us and “Windwalker” over for a little cocktail party. Mojitos, pina coladas and popcorn!
July 4 – Happy Birthday America, Pizz’ata
Sorry America, but we are too partied out to do more than try out a nice guy’s new wood-fired pizza shack to celebrate your independence. Deelish, but Lisa says, “get the oven hotter”, her usual criticism for pizzaiolas.
July 6-9 - Sailing to Tuamotos
I don't even remember this. Did I black out?
July 10 – Rangiroa! Sharks! Snorkeling!
I think we all still agree that this was the best drift snorkeling we’ve done so far. Reef sharks below us were far enough away not to be too scary, and the water was clear with tons of fish.
July 11 – Bikes! Deer stops squeaking. Passage to Papeete
Carl, Andy and I rented bikes, cruised around the atoll and stopped for strawberry ice cream and ice cold water at a cute little café. Then we said, this sucks, let’s leave the Tuamotus. Actually, we wanted to get to Papeete for Bastille Day. Raleigh’s best stuffed animal pal deer stopped squeaking. We were sure he was dead.
July 12 – Mellow…auto pilot on!
Haha. Joke. We had our steering wheel locked but this is not at all like having autopilot. You still can’t read or nap or journal on the helm.
July 13 – Shit shit shit! Morning dock show, Papeete
Pardon our French, but we had some real shitty weather overnight. I think something broke and none of us got much sleep. Then we almost hit a boat as we were re-docking in a narrow aisle. Carl pushed the endangered boat away with his feet, and Andy jumped in the water and swam-pushed Aldebbie away, while everyone else sipped their coffee and enjoyed the comedy show.
July 14 - Bastille Day, Deer speaks!
Personally, I wasn’t impressed. Not with the parade, but with the lack of enthusiasm on the part of the crew (other than Carl) to actually try to see the parade. True, watching the canoe race which took up all afternoon in the hottest part of the day zonked us out, but why was it only Carl and I running down the street, away from our dinner at the Chinese food truck, to chase after the last moments of the parade? We ditched tiki trekking on Fatu Hiva for this? Ah well, live and learn. Oh, and Deer is alive again. Squeak, squeak.
July 15 – No more freedom for Ral!
Raleigh isn’t actually allowed off the boat in French Polynesia? We didn’t actually get clearance to take him ashore, we just thought we did, or they didn’t care in the Marquesas? At any rate, no more city-cruising for our pup—not ‘til we leave Papeete. He is bummed!
July 17 – Bri arrives
Don’s good ole’ pal Bri arrives. There goes the neighborhood (and possibly our livers)!
July 19 – Chinese Trucks
The only place you should eat in the Societies, if you’re poor like us. There are other types of food trucks here (sometimes we got french fries from one), but mostly we were beholden to Peking’s veggie fried rice (the cheapest option).
July 22 – Dinner on Eden
We invited ourselves over, again. Why do they still like us?!
July 23 – Cessna Diving
Near the airport there are a few planes underwater, the shallowest is a Cessna. Makes you want to fly to Tahiti, eh? Don’t worry, there are also some shipwrecks thrown in for good measure. It was pretty cool to free dive close to the wreckage and see all the squatter-fish, living it up in first class.
July 24-29
Apparently nothing happened, or everything happened. This marks the point where our calendaring begins its steady downward spiral. Somewhere in here we spent one day on Moorea, hiked around a sacred marrae or morrae or murrae and had dinner at a Corsican guy’s restaurant. The Corsican flag is the coolest, ps.
July 30 – Uturoa wandering
We walked one way, then another way. Not much going on here.
July 31 – Raitea scooters
We rented scooters and made some nice go-pro videos of us scootering around the island. Fun!
Aug 1 – Raitea fresh water river cruising
It looked just like the Jungle Cruise at Disneyland, except without the animatronic hippos, gators and angry, spear-wielding natives.
Aug 2-4
Another black hole of calendaring (when did we swim with the sharks and rays? Can’t recal), but we arrive in Huahine, at Fare, one of these days.
Aug 5 – Baie Avea walks
We moved the boat over to this bay, and walked around. Nothing much to see, but bought some art off some guys who paint with dirt and minerals and stuff from the island. Don and I plan to hang ours up in our flea circus caravan or kidnapper-cargo-van/apartment…whatever happens after this trip.
Aug 6 – Baie Avea, Sea Slug City, Les and Lee Kayak
So…why did we move from Fare and the nice beach and the food trucks with the cheap, delicious fish burgers, to Sea Slug City? Lee and I took the kayak out, hoping to find a nice snorkel spot away from the millions of huge gross sea slugs, but with no luck. Time to leave!
Aug 7 – Fare snorkeling
That’s better, no sea slugs! Not much coral though, but lots of little fish and lovely water.
Aug 8 – Happy Hour X-plosion!
Don and Andy get into an argument, Don and Brian go to have “a” beer, Lee and I make sandwiches for a beach picnic that never happens because no one comes back from the bar, and Andy “goes surfing”. After swimming around and having our own fun, we find EVERONE at the bar, including Adam and Eve. And it’s not even happy hour yet! We go back to the beach, Carl wanders off and meets a boar-hunter named Jimmy with a boar tattooed on his chest (he hunts them with just a knife!), we crash a child’s beach birthday party, the kids yell “Diggydoo” at me, laughing—I have no idea if this is a real Tahitian word or not—then we all meet back up at 5, when pitchers of Hinano are cheap…relatively. My shoe gets thrown, Raleigh loses a shoe, and the food trucks are terrorized by the boisterous, hungry lot of us. Like I said, explosion.
Aug 9 – Bora Bora
This brief passage hurt. See above.
Aug 10 – Snorkeled near Hilton’s dredger
Not sure why this is notable. It was loud and sandy. Lots of colorful clams and a ray though.
Aug 11 – Hanging in Vaitape
On the calendar there is a stick picture of people in the back of a pick-up, and ice cream, which translates to: hitchhiked into town and ate ice cream and sorbet.
Aug 12 – Donny’s Birthday, Mountain Climbing, Bloody Mary’s Dinner
Started early, got picked up immediately and taken to town, where we bought our 200-franc egg croquettes (baguette sandwiches) and headed for the trail. Intercepted by a man who decided he was our guide, even though we didn’t want one, but it was probably for the best, because some of us may have talked ourselves out of heading to the top if the guy hadn’t kept lying to us, “Just 20 minutes to the top.” His puppy came too. 3 hours of vertical climbing up vines and ropes later, we were at the top, with a spectacular view. Coming back down was interesting, pretty much a buttslide and crab walk the whole way. The guy gave us some papaya and didn’t wince at our 500-franc tip. Phew! By the time we got back and cleaned up, Adam and Eve were over for pre-dinner snacks. Bloody Mary’s is really expensive and overrated, even for French Polynesia. But, it was conveniently located where we were moored, the fish was good, and we had a great time. Rule of Thumb in FP: “nice” restaurants will likely disappoint you. If the average meal is under 10 francs (about $12 US), and especially if the restaurant has wheels, you will be far more satisfied.
Aug 13 – Bri left
Let the sobriety begin.
Aug 14 – Lazy Detox Day
See above.
Aug 15 – Carl’s Kite Surfing Lesson
Raleigh and I went with Carl to Point Matira for his first of 2 kite surfing lessons. Ral did not like it when I left him on the beach so I could snorkel out to get pics of Carl in action. He actually broke free and swam out to me. Granted, I’d tied his leash to a stick in the sand…oh well, he needed the exercise.
Aug 16 – Hot showers! Yacht club
First hot shower since Mexico. Seriously.
Aug 19 – Gourmet Day
Lisa made cinnamon rolls, I made dahl, saffron rice and roasted garlic not-so-flatbread.
Aug 20 – Snorks
I think this may have been when we moved to the south side of Bora Bora. At any rate, this is the last entry for Bora Bora, so it’s notable to mention that the bay next to Hotel Sofitel had the best snorkeling so far on the trip. Schools of huge fish just hang out around the coral. I’m not good with fish names, but I do know there were some parrot fish, angel fish, grouper, and we even saw a little octopus. Raleigh, in the dingy, does not like it when we swim away from him. Nor does he like swimming with us. Catch 22.Carl and I had kayaked over in the 2-man and left it on a little motu, so we got to meet the couple who lived there all by themselves, making thatched palm roofs for the hotels. They taught us the proper way to husk and open coconuts, and back in town, before we left Bora Bora, Carl bought a machete (finally) for such a purpose.
Aug 30 – Raleigh pee’d
On the 27th there was a party at the yacht club, on the 28th, around 11am, we left for our 6-day passage to Suwarrow (we always seem to head out to sea after a night of cocktails!), and Ral only waited 2 nights to pee! This was very exciting for us.
Aug 31 – Last Mexican Soymilk
You don’t understand how much we hate this soymilk, and now we have finally put # 36 of 36 into the fridge. It will be a happy day when we don’t have to water down our cereal to try to thin the thick, marshmellowy taste of it. Ick. Tahitian soymilk is much better.
Sept 2 - Squall!
Actually, squalls, plural; about 3 or 4 of them. Our last passage day/night/morning was a wet, windy one, but not a bad swell. We were using only our storm sail and sometimes a reefed headsail, and not going too fast. It was mainly just uncomfy and hard to see.
Sept 3-10
Not a jot had been calendared since we arrived in Suwarrow; we were far too active, in a lazy, island way. This place is getting its own post. Stay tuned!
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