Sept 23 – TONGA!
We’re here! In Niafu that is, party central of the Kingdom of Tonga.
Sept 24 – Rugby France vs. NZ
The first of many nights watching the Rugby World Cup in Niafu, at Mango Bar, I think. The All Blacks smooshed France! And I mean that NOT in a Snookie smoosh way. Gross.
Sept 25 – Hangover Day…Church Singin!
Lisa and Andy were the only heathens sleeping off a bender. Don, Carl and I went to the Catholic church to experience the famed Tongan singing! Hassle Don for the recording…he made one!
Sept 26 – Pre-B-day Beer Bingo
That’s my (Leslie's) birthday we’re talking about, and it was pretty amazing! Beer Bingo is like normal bingo, only you win beer and food, and the crazy fun people at Sunset Grill throw in other games like music trivia, darts, bottlecap toss and beer pong. We were glad to share the fun with boat peeps Tuatara, CD, Sharkita and Dolphine. High fives to 32!
Sept 27 – Leslie’s B-day, recovery!
What birthday? Can I go back to watching movies now?
Sept 28 – Anchorage 8, L&L shelling w/ Rals
We broke away from the sucking black hole of partytime in Niafu, to visit Anchorage 8, a quiet spot where we were the only boat! Lisa, Raleigh and I went for a walk along the beach, and found some lovely shells.
October 1 – Mariner’s Cave land adventure! Anchorage #15
Most people have a dinghy with a working engine, and can go anchor nearby and dinghy up next to this cave. Not us though. Along with Kevin and Evelyn of Tuatara, we tramped into a village and then followed a kid into the bush. I don’t think he knew exactly where he was going, but we finally bashed our way to the edge of the cliffs over the cave. “Ok. It’s down there” “Down there? You mean, we jump?” “Yep!” “How do we get back up?” “Um…climb up?” These are scrape-your-feet-up coral rocks we’re talking about. Andy doesn’t worry though, he just strips down and does a front flip into the water. Don and Carl join him soon after, but Lisa and I are still stuck on the, “How are we getting back up here to get our stuff?!” question. Eventually we followed Kevin and Evelyn further along the cliffs to a better launching point, where we could actually stand a chance of climbing up. Then we jumped, and took the slightly scary plunge down under and up into the amazingly beautiful sea cave, which would fill up with steamy fog as the surf rushed in and out. The kid who led us eventually asked for some obscene amount of money, but we gave him one of our extra snorkel masks, which was more than a fair trade.
Oct. 2 – Church, Anchorage 15
Ah yes. So that previous evening, we’d intended on cooking dinner for Kevin and Evelyn. But a local woman who’d met the young couple previously, rowed over and gave us heaps and heaps of leftover Tongan feast. Sweet and sour fish, breaded fish, fried kumara (like sweet potato), grilled breadfruit, watermelon, coconuts, and other unearned delicacies. Kevin arranged to return the woman’s dishes the next morning at church, and I agreed to go with him and experience yet another pious, melodious celebration. This mass was a “Free Church” gathering, which included some hellfire and brimstone sermon I couldn’t understand, but did have lovely singing. Afterwards the woman, Dominique, fed Kevin and I with more of the same food we’d gorged on the night before. She and her girls stood around the table, fanning away insects, which was kind of weird for us, then we brought back even MORE leftovers for our crews! Fat times! It was hard for me to accept that someone would want to make a meal for perfect strangers and get nothing but conversation in return, so I gave Dominique some music discs, which I hope she likes and is currently grooving to at her lovely little seaside home.
Oct 3 - #16
Anchorage 16, we moved.
Oct 4 - # 16, Bonfire and Reef Snorkels
Kevin and Evelyn (now known as Kevelyn for ease and funniness) joined us in a day of beautiful reef snorkeling (like an underwater garden), and a night of chatting around a smoky bonfire. Good fun!
Oct 5 – Tranies @ Tonga Bob’s
Tonga Bob’s hosts a phenomenally entertaining transvestite show. Our vote goes to the bespectactled chubby guy who works at the supermarket. He didn’t even bother to shave his pits! He was hilarious, and a far more confident dancer than the “girls” who tried very hard to look like female strippers.
Oct 6 – Trivia @ Tonga Bob’s
We showed up late, midway through the quiz, but they let us play anyhow, and the old folks won and shared their prize of a flat of beer with the bar (even the table of 13 year olds got one beer to share, they went wild!), and our new friend Damo came, and we all danced , and Lisa and I won the dance competition against one other couple with our signature kid ‘n’ play and in-synch electric slide. These are the pictures from this night!
Oct 7 - #7 Pig Roast
Pics and one-liners here!
Oct 9 – Niafu Rugby
More Rugby watching, at Mango I think.
Oct 10 – Movie Night with Mel
We watched a movie with Mel, our new kiwi friend.
Oct 11-13 – Sailed to #11 – Mel left, met Britania and Pico
Britania and Pico came aboard for sundowners. Lisa whipped up mini quiches like a crazy person. Don hid down below like a criminal. We stayed here awhile because of some bad weather I think. There’s a floating art gallery here owned by a nice older couple with a mean cat who scratched Raleigh.
Oct 14 – Left 11, Swallows Cave
Cool cave with bats, not swallows. We hovered outside the cave and took turns snorkeling in. The water was kinda gross though, and I’m surprised none of us got a guano disease.
Oct 15 – Neiafu, France beat Wales @ Tonga Bobs
This was a close, good game, in a fun atmosphere packed with a good mix of Tongans and expats. Boo France!
Oct 16 – Neiafu, AB beat Oz, Marina Bar
Rugby is a crazy sport! Another fun game. Marina Bar was also packed! Yay All Blacks!
Oct 17 – Mexican night on Hokule’a
We’d met Jake and Jackie on Hokule’a, along with their cruising buddy Bill on Solstice, in Bora Bora, and mused then about Mexican food and how much we missed it. So when we met up again in Tonga, we planned a Mexican night. Aldebbie made veggie tacos and we had a feast of tacos, spicy shrimp, Spanish rice and margaritas. Things went downhill when Jake ran out of limes and tried to sub in Crystal Light lemonade. Then I severely heckled Bill’s movie about a haunted boat until I fell asleep. But we’re all still friends, thank goodness!
Oct 18 – Taco tuesday at Aquarium, cleaned Sharkita’s Hull
Sharkita hired us to scrub their boat’s bottom in exchange for lunch. It was a fair trade. Chrissy is a great cook. Don, Lisa and I weren’t through with tacos yet, and splurged on a $5 burrito-sized fish taco at Aquarium. Yum.
Oct 19 – Andy’s package arrives…grrr
Andy’s parents had sent us a care package a month before. After much checking up, calling, and $70 in mysterious taxes and fees, we got our coffee, whole leaf tea, and dark chocolate peanut slab! It seemed worth the wait to me, but then, it was Andy and Graham doing all the follow-up work. Thanks guys!
Oct 20 – Movie night at Balcony
We watched a cool documentary about a cultish/church type group that worships this mythical American guy named Joe (something) who supposedly came to Vanuatu in the 60s and told them the American army would come back again and give them more nice stuff.
Oct 21 – Provisioning begins! Oz beats Wales 2/1, Poolside
Poolside has an amazing 2 for 1 pizza deal on Friday nights. The pizza isn’t the greatest, but then, we have high standards. It was good and cheap and filling, and we could watch Rugby outdoors, so, who’s complaining? Oh and we’ve started provisioning. Noooo! I don’t want to leave!
Oct 22 – Dinner at Ovava, movie night at Aquarium (The Last Waltz)
We’d been told to go to Ovava by one of the Whale people in Nuie. She said Lawrence, the owner, was the best chef in Niafu. Lisa and Andy had already gone on a date here, and had been promised free pizzas if they came back. So we came, and it was the best pizza in the South Pacific! And, even though the waitress spilled my Sav Blanc all over our hummus and flatbread and replaced nothing, I couldn’t stay angry, because Lawrence also comped us each a “painkiller” cocktail, which is a strong tasty rum punch. So after a fine meal, we merrily we went to Aquarium for a screening of a young Scorcesse’s music doc on The Band, The Last Waltz. This is a must-see film if you like 70’s era rock music and want to see a rather square-looking Van Morrison continuously wiping cocaine off his nose.
Oct 23 – Cleaning, NZ vs. France rugby final, woohoo!
Most of us spent all day cleaning the boat for pictures for our new broker, and then had many well-deserved beers at Marina Bar, watching a very tense and close game between France and NZ. The All Blacks won by the skin of their teeth!
Oct 24 – Still in Neaifu
More provisioning! Noooo!
Oct 25 – Left Neiafu to #7
Oct 26 – Ha’apai, Ha’ano Island
Carl and I took a walk down a long, tree-lined dirt road into a pretty little gated village. Pigs and dogs and chickens and goats waddle around happily, and the spiders in the trees are huge and scary.
Oct 27 – Potluck on Far Fetched, Snorks in Crevices
The snorkling here was alright, a pretty live reef and some underwater tunnel/crevices that the daredevil twins Don and Andy swam down into and through. Scary! Then we went over to newly-met friends Far Fetched for a dinner of fish and fried rice. Good times.
Oct 28 – Sailed to Ha’afeva
Oct 29 – Beach Walks and Lobster Attempts
Carl met some guy on land who said he’d take Carl and Andy lobstering one night, but he didn’t seem to actually know anything about lobstering, and the weather was dark and windy and awful, so they came back to the boat and we all ate dinner. Good story. Oh, and that day we walked on the beach with Raleigh. This was his first daylight walk in like, a month, soon to be his last for a month!
Oct 30 – Hull Cleaning and Cook-off
Carl would have better headings and stories for these days in Ha’afeva, as he spent all day and night hanging out with locals in a hospital, and eating food at their houses. But the rest of us chilled out, and apparently we also cleaned the hull and Lisa did her usual thing of cooking 2-3 nights worth of dinner before we headed out to sea.
Nov 1 – Left Ha’afeva and Tonga
Nov 2 – Lavac Explosion
The potty wouldn’t flush and did a weird gross thing that Andy and Don, bless them, cleaned up.
Nov 3 – Motoring, no wind
Terrible
Nov 4 – Minerva
What a crazy place! It’s this big still spot in the middle of the ocean (actually it’s an underwater, circular reef), where boats come and rest. Andy and Carl go out for a snorkel, and Andy warns Carl of an “Aggressive gray”, meaning gray shark, but Carl hears “aggressive ray”, which sounds interesting to him, so he goes looking for it and get charged by a little reef shark, which makes him scream and flap around like a bloody wounded screaming fish. Don’t try this at home!!! P.S., he makes it back to the boat unharmed.
Nov 5 – STORM
There’s a storm, but we’re too busy watching movies to notice.
Nov 6 – Getting ready to go, reef walk.
I don’t know what “getting ready to go” means at this point, since we’re already “gone” from land, but Don, Carl and I dinghy over to the edge of the reef and go for a walk. It’s kind of surreal, watching waves crash on a flooded shore, with nothing but water for 360 degrees all around.
Nov 7 – Leave Minerva, big porpoise.
Is it a small whale or a big dolphin? What is that? Sea monster, probably.
Nov 8 – Ripped main sail (at first reef point)
Don feels bad about this. Now we go slower than slow.
Nov 9 – Motoring, no wind.
Slower than slower than slow.
Nov 10 – Slow going.
Nov 11 – Jack Honey (? Can’t read Andy’s writing) B-day. Wrong Way! Caught another tuna.
Jack is one of Andy’s old family friends, and Andy talks to him on the ham sometimes. Happy birthday! Wrong way means that we had to head off the rum line because of some navigational/weather reason.
Don and I wondered what that tin can was doing caught on our line, but then it turned out to be a tuna. A delicious tuna!
Nov 12 – Oatmeal, masala eggs, fried rice and tuna.
Our meals for the day. Not bad for sea-going food, eh?
Nov 13 – Lavac mutiny again.
More pooeyness for Don to clean up. You’re the best, Don!
Nov 14 – Underwater fishing lure treasure hunt.
Another terrible screw-up that leads to the boys going into the water to unwrap something from important parts of our boat! This time our trolling line wrapped around our prop. Another 2-3 hours of water drama, and we were going again. At least this happened during the day this time!
Nov 15 – Wind! Maybe we’ll be there by morning! Oh yeah and there’s a gale warning!
We were there by morning! But there was not a gale, phew!
Nov 16 – NEW ZEALAND!
Andy’s parents flash their van’s lights at us as we cruise toward Opua, all of all bundled up in our foul weather gear. Goodbye tropical weather! Once at the quarantine dock, we cook up a huge pancake breakfast and invite Hokele’a and CD. Oh, then the customs lady shows up, just as all our guests come pouring out of our boat. “Have you finished your paperwork?” “Um…paperwork? No, but we have pancakes!” Thank goodness kiwi officials have a sense of humor!
From this point Raliegh goes to jail for about 2 weeks, we hang out with friends at the All Points Rally events, we drive up north with Andy’s parents, have amazing seafood on Solstice, have an amazing Thanksgiving potluck on Hokelea, Carl falls in lurve with a Swede, Andy and Don bring the boat to Auckland, Lisa and I couch surf on boats then drive to Auckland, with a stop at Sheep World, we all get the boat clean and unpacked in Auckland, and everyone takes off for awhile in different directions to enjoy New Zealand. It’s not really “the end” yet, but it’s close.
Showing posts with label Leslie. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Leslie. Show all posts
Thursday, January 5, 2012
Wednesday, January 4, 2012
Confessions of a Calendar Girl: Niue
Leslie:
I feel bad that Niue (and the 5-day passage there) got left out in the jump from Suwarrow and past photos, to up-to-the-minute reports of debauchery from Tonga. So, here you go: a daily report of a very special place—yet another which was never on our itinerary until we made the decision in Bora Bora to go to Tonga via Suwarrow and Niue. As always, pics will be up later when Don feels like it.
September 10 – Left Suwarrow
As mentioned in an earlier post, an emotional departure.
Sept 11, 12
Both days on the calendar feature quick, messy drawings of a sailboat charging up waves. It might have been like that.
Sept 13 – Scary Squid Night
Awful, awful night. I awaken to hear shriek-like laughter, the loudest belonging to Carl, which normally means something funny or ridiculous has happened. It meant that in this case too—Andy’s auto-inflatable personal floatation device (pfd) spontaneously combusted while he was leaning over the side of the boat. But why was he leaning over the side? The answer to that culminates in a serious of not very fun or funny circumstances leading to the heading, “Scary Squid Night” (although I meant to write “jellyfish”, not squid!).
At the time of the laughter, our gennaker sock (that pretty, blue and white, balloony-like sail you’ve seen in previous photos) had fallen overboard from not being tied to the deck. Immediately following the laughter, the boys discover that the sail has wrapped around the rudder, Don jumps into the water (with the engine still running) in an attempt to free it (in the middle of the dark, dark night), gets stung by a jellyfish, and reacts to that by peeing on his leg and applying ice—neither of which you are supposed to do to a jellyfish sting, btw. By this point Lisa and I are up, looking at our medical book (use white vinegar on stings, and an antihistamine can also be helpful), and helping to hold and yank the gennaker sock up. Andy is the next to go into the drink, this time with a knife to cut away the still-wrapped length of sail. Suddenly he screams, “Get me up! Get me up!” We are sure that a shark is snacking upon him. Lisa tries to hoist him up with all her might, but Andy quickly calms down and tells her not to hurt herself. Don finishes the job and gets him safely on deck. Andy’s been stung too! Carl then jumps in to get the last of the sail free, but it has worked itself out and floated away, which is sad, since we were hoping to Frankenstein it together at some future date. We then find that there are glowing jellyfish parts in the retrieved piece of sail, so then we have to shake them overboard since allegedly they’ll sting long after they’re dead. Like zombies! In the wee hours of the morning, Don gets paranoid that his throat is going to close up, so Lisa and I monitor him with an Epipen at the ready, while I take his blood pressure. Fortunately, it turns out that all Don needs is a cookie and a nap.
Sept 14 – Arrive in Nuie
That night Carl, Don and I are meant to meet Andy and Lisa in town to walk to the “golf club” which is showing the All Blacks vs. Japan game, but we are late (big surprise there). So they walk on without us. Meanwhile, we stop at a restaurant to ask directions, and find out that the owners of the golf club are still eating dinner there, and can give us a ride when they’re finished. It was very amusing to wave at the Craigs as we cruised by them. The golf club was like a Lions Club or a grange hall or something, with mismatched couches and chairs and a big screen TV, as well as a makeshift bar area. The Craigs caught up just in time to get a good seat, and settled in to watch their first Haka of the season. Or not. The Haka was plastered over with badly produced commercials for Fijian businesses. Anyhow, the game was a lot of fun for us, but not for Japan, who got smashed, a million-something to zero.
Sept 15 – Indian Food, Yum!
The Indian Food place in Niue is the only deal in town. You can share an entrée, or get your own something-curry-wrapped-burrito-naan thing for about $5. The guy who runs the place is very nice. If you go there, ask him immediately about things to do at night, and he might go “clubbing” with you. We missed out on this experience, sadly.
Sept 16 – Andy’s B-day
Andy turns 33 years young! Chrissy and Simon on Sharkita, and Chris and Dave on ChrisandDaver’s Dream (otherwise known as CD) come over with balloons, snacks and drinks, and share some of the lovely slanted chocolate cake Lisa made. It was a rolly anchorage, hence the slant while baking.
Sept 17 – Car Rental
The car had no radio and smelled like kitty litter, but it got us around to lots of sea tracks, which are paths to immensely diverse, scenic oceanview experiences. There were fairytale-maze-like chasms, limestone caves, arches, and still pools where you could swim and snorkel, and even jump from the rock walls into the deep pools. The boys did this last bit, of course.
Sept 18 – Washaway Café.
Carl, Don and I hitched a ride with some Mormons to get to this place, which was meant to be an unmanned “honesty bar.” This was not true, and we didn’t have enough money to spend it “honestly”. So we sat by the beach under a tree while lots of rain fell, drinking the beer and punch we’d brought along with us. The hitch back made up for everything, as we met an interesting guy from India who stopped for ice cream. I got rum raison, and it was delicious.
Sept 19 – Whales Alive
We took out some young whale researchers who paid us in gas money and an awesome lunch of veggie sausage sandwiches and asian rice cracker snacks and oranges. We learned that whales like Barry White, and though we didn’t have any on our ipod stereo, we saw a fluke-flapping whale anyway. Unfortunately, we didn’t get to hear the whale singing its own rendition of “Can’t Get Enough Of Your Love Babe,” as the whale people suspected it was a female, and only the dudes do the singing at the whales’ undersea singles’ bar.
Sept 20 – Leaving Nuie, market
Lisa and Andy went to the market in the morning. They did not buy anything. We left.
Sept 21 – Lost Day
Time zone thing. Today is tomorrow is yesterday. Where am I?
Sept 22 – Squalls!
Rainy poopy blowy.
I feel bad that Niue (and the 5-day passage there) got left out in the jump from Suwarrow and past photos, to up-to-the-minute reports of debauchery from Tonga. So, here you go: a daily report of a very special place—yet another which was never on our itinerary until we made the decision in Bora Bora to go to Tonga via Suwarrow and Niue. As always, pics will be up later when Don feels like it.
September 10 – Left Suwarrow
As mentioned in an earlier post, an emotional departure.
Sept 11, 12
Both days on the calendar feature quick, messy drawings of a sailboat charging up waves. It might have been like that.
Sept 13 – Scary Squid Night
Awful, awful night. I awaken to hear shriek-like laughter, the loudest belonging to Carl, which normally means something funny or ridiculous has happened. It meant that in this case too—Andy’s auto-inflatable personal floatation device (pfd) spontaneously combusted while he was leaning over the side of the boat. But why was he leaning over the side? The answer to that culminates in a serious of not very fun or funny circumstances leading to the heading, “Scary Squid Night” (although I meant to write “jellyfish”, not squid!).
At the time of the laughter, our gennaker sock (that pretty, blue and white, balloony-like sail you’ve seen in previous photos) had fallen overboard from not being tied to the deck. Immediately following the laughter, the boys discover that the sail has wrapped around the rudder, Don jumps into the water (with the engine still running) in an attempt to free it (in the middle of the dark, dark night), gets stung by a jellyfish, and reacts to that by peeing on his leg and applying ice—neither of which you are supposed to do to a jellyfish sting, btw. By this point Lisa and I are up, looking at our medical book (use white vinegar on stings, and an antihistamine can also be helpful), and helping to hold and yank the gennaker sock up. Andy is the next to go into the drink, this time with a knife to cut away the still-wrapped length of sail. Suddenly he screams, “Get me up! Get me up!” We are sure that a shark is snacking upon him. Lisa tries to hoist him up with all her might, but Andy quickly calms down and tells her not to hurt herself. Don finishes the job and gets him safely on deck. Andy’s been stung too! Carl then jumps in to get the last of the sail free, but it has worked itself out and floated away, which is sad, since we were hoping to Frankenstein it together at some future date. We then find that there are glowing jellyfish parts in the retrieved piece of sail, so then we have to shake them overboard since allegedly they’ll sting long after they’re dead. Like zombies! In the wee hours of the morning, Don gets paranoid that his throat is going to close up, so Lisa and I monitor him with an Epipen at the ready, while I take his blood pressure. Fortunately, it turns out that all Don needs is a cookie and a nap.
Sept 14 – Arrive in Nuie
That night Carl, Don and I are meant to meet Andy and Lisa in town to walk to the “golf club” which is showing the All Blacks vs. Japan game, but we are late (big surprise there). So they walk on without us. Meanwhile, we stop at a restaurant to ask directions, and find out that the owners of the golf club are still eating dinner there, and can give us a ride when they’re finished. It was very amusing to wave at the Craigs as we cruised by them. The golf club was like a Lions Club or a grange hall or something, with mismatched couches and chairs and a big screen TV, as well as a makeshift bar area. The Craigs caught up just in time to get a good seat, and settled in to watch their first Haka of the season. Or not. The Haka was plastered over with badly produced commercials for Fijian businesses. Anyhow, the game was a lot of fun for us, but not for Japan, who got smashed, a million-something to zero.
Sept 15 – Indian Food, Yum!
The Indian Food place in Niue is the only deal in town. You can share an entrée, or get your own something-curry-wrapped-burrito-naan thing for about $5. The guy who runs the place is very nice. If you go there, ask him immediately about things to do at night, and he might go “clubbing” with you. We missed out on this experience, sadly.
Sept 16 – Andy’s B-day
Andy turns 33 years young! Chrissy and Simon on Sharkita, and Chris and Dave on ChrisandDaver’s Dream (otherwise known as CD) come over with balloons, snacks and drinks, and share some of the lovely slanted chocolate cake Lisa made. It was a rolly anchorage, hence the slant while baking.
Sept 17 – Car Rental
The car had no radio and smelled like kitty litter, but it got us around to lots of sea tracks, which are paths to immensely diverse, scenic oceanview experiences. There were fairytale-maze-like chasms, limestone caves, arches, and still pools where you could swim and snorkel, and even jump from the rock walls into the deep pools. The boys did this last bit, of course.
Sept 18 – Washaway Café.
Carl, Don and I hitched a ride with some Mormons to get to this place, which was meant to be an unmanned “honesty bar.” This was not true, and we didn’t have enough money to spend it “honestly”. So we sat by the beach under a tree while lots of rain fell, drinking the beer and punch we’d brought along with us. The hitch back made up for everything, as we met an interesting guy from India who stopped for ice cream. I got rum raison, and it was delicious.
Sept 19 – Whales Alive
We took out some young whale researchers who paid us in gas money and an awesome lunch of veggie sausage sandwiches and asian rice cracker snacks and oranges. We learned that whales like Barry White, and though we didn’t have any on our ipod stereo, we saw a fluke-flapping whale anyway. Unfortunately, we didn’t get to hear the whale singing its own rendition of “Can’t Get Enough Of Your Love Babe,” as the whale people suspected it was a female, and only the dudes do the singing at the whales’ undersea singles’ bar.
Sept 20 – Leaving Nuie, market
Lisa and Andy went to the market in the morning. They did not buy anything. We left.
Sept 21 – Lost Day
Time zone thing. Today is tomorrow is yesterday. Where am I?
Sept 22 – Squalls!
Rainy poopy blowy.
Monday, January 2, 2012
Sellouts
Yeah yeah...I know we haven't caught up on our pictures and stories since Bora Bora, but nowadays it's all about the Benjamins...or whoever it is on the New Zealand $100 currency. You need foul weather gear? Hydrostatic auto-inflatable life vests with safety harnesses and tethers? A CPT autopilot? Are you in New Zealand, or willing to negotiated a fee for shipping all the way to wherever you are? We are selling stuff!
Tell you friends and enemies, and have them contact us.
Tell you friends and enemies, and have them contact us.
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| Lisa, looking sharp in a Men's Medium! |
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| Don is so excited, and he just can't hide it. |
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| Isn't this sooo feminine? The product info would like you to believe this. |
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| OMG, it's so yellow! |
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| Hydrostatic auto-inflatable vest with harness and double tether! Hook it here, and here! |
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| Sexy sailing bib looks even better when they let me stick this stapler in the utility loop! |
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| Butt view. |
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| Steer your ship of fools/dreamboat with no hands! Just make sure your wheel will come off first. |
Saturday, October 8, 2011
Animal Feelings
It's an odd thing, waiting on the wharf for a man named "Davida" of indeterminate (read, unremembered) Tongan appearance (note, he is number 5 in the line out shots), who is meant to be delivering upon the previous night's negotiation. Wait, what? A pig? How large? Can I carry it myself? Where are we taking it? What's happening? Fortunately Davida finally showed carrying a reasonably sized 24 pack beer box, with a little Babe peeking out. Awww, it's too cute! Don't look! Here is what ended up happening to Babe: Pig on a Spit! Raleigh pipes in; "Best. Birthday. Ever!"
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| Raleigh's 11th birthday party |
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| Braiding some saplings to make rope |
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| I like technology |
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| Captions are a pain in the ass |
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| Sunset 5000 |
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| Squeal like a pig! |
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| Ready for action |
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| Tanning nicely |
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| Carl working the pole |
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Cracklin
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| The Feast |
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| Ok cooking is done, let's just make a huge fire |
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| An evening full of wonderfully bad ideas |
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| The after party. Fuzzy handcuffs? |
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| Ollie and Mel feeling good |
We Love You, Camp Suwarrow!
Leslie (see photos here):
During my last Skype date with the parents back in Bora Bora, Dad mentioned that he’d looked up Suwarrow (accent on the a) on Google earth and didn’t see anything there. Why, he wondered, were we going to this tiny island with nothing on it? Truthfully, I didn’t really know why either, but Carl had read something online about the place and learned that this uninhabited (almost) Cook Islands National Park was a cruiser’s paradise, where you could learn how to climb coconut trees and catch coconut crab. It had also been made infamous by a kiwi named Tom Neale who had come here three times in the 1950-70’s, before it was a park, to live off the land, all by himself on his own private island.
Over the last few days of the passage, I read Tom Neale’s account of his stay, An Island to Oneself, and became fascinated by the place, and by this strange guy, who’d already spent most of his adult life as an expat on Raratonga. He seemed so resourceful, spear fishing, building several types of cookers, baking uto (a stage in the life of a coconut I’d yet to taste), re-thatching the palm roof of his house, growing veggies in his garden, etc. He wasn’t a hermit, exactly. A lovable curmudgeon, perhaps? He was visited by a surprising number of sailors passing through, and clearly liked entertaining people, but once they left him he’d claim he was ‘too busy to be lonely’ and seemed to enjoy his solitude (well, if you don’t count his 2 cats, a duck and many chickens as companions). Before his first trip to Suwarow, he’d been inundated with invitations from Raratongan women to let them join him in his solitude, but he’d refused, stating that he ‘didn’t want to be trapped with some woman, like a convict on Devil’s island.’
With the legend of Tom Neale fresh in the minds of Lisa, Carl and I (Andy and Don missed out on the book), and after a day and night of vigorous, uncomfy squalls, we eagerly arrive at Suwarrow. The first thing we notice is that the pier that Tom Neale had tried to repair (after months of work, his pier was blown to smithereens by the season’s first storm) is still pretty much in smithereens. No worries, the dinghy doesn’t need much to hold onto. Better than a nice pier are the 6 or so hammocks hanging between palm trees on the beach. So far, so good!
Up a well-kept path, Tom’s house is still here, now with a tin roof and some add-ons from the 80s. It shelters one of the rangers, John, some storage, and a book swap library. Across from this is a newer, much more impressive lofted wooden house, where James, the head ranger, sits writing in his ledger beneath a collage of homemade flags from some very grateful boaters (the Henkel clan will enjoy knowing that one of the flags was from a boat named “Pyewacket,” the name of our late, great dog).
It quickly became obvious what the gratitude is all about. James is a wonderful, and wonderfully knowledgeable, grandfatherly type of guy; big and elaborately tattooed with a formidable, grizzly gray beard and a crowning bun of long dreadlocks. What—he doesn’t sound like your average grandpa? Well, nor was this your average cruising destination. We quickly dubbed it, “Camp Suwarrow,” due to the unceasing variety of activities available to us “yauchties” (as James and John dubbed us). John took Carl out fishing that first afternoon and caught 4 grouper and 1 trumpetfish; the biggest grouper ended up in our curry pot that night, when we hosted an impromptu dinner for James and John on Aldebbie. It’s to Lisa’s credit that both of these fellows of ample appetites left full!
In the morning we joined 2 other boats, Soggy Paws and Chesepeake, for snorkeling, and saw one majestic, black-velvet manta ray, and plenty of 3-6 foot black and white finned reef sharks. Oh yeah, Suwarrow is reef shark heaven. They don’t seem too fussed about humans, but even so, I tend to swim the other way with my eyes shooting daggers at them; they feel my danger rays and dart off!
That evening, we brought boatmade oatmeal chocolate chip cookies to the beach “sundowner”—which is, of course, a party at sundown. Other yauchties brought chips, veggies, dips, and crackers, and it was nice to chat with new friends (or see old ones again, in the case of the Czechs on “Sayonara” who came to our bbq in the Marquesas). James, with his tongue rum-loosened, let loose on Tom Neale, revealing that there was actually a village of 60 people on Suwarrow while he was living here, and he’d gotten help from the natives to set himself up; not so self-sufficient, eh Tom? In an afterword to An Island to Oneself, we’d already learned that Tom had a wife and 2 kids on Raratonga (not mentioned at all in his memoir), but James also informed us that he’d left a family in Tahiti as well, prior to moving to Raratonga. The plot thickens! I’m curious to read more on this interesting and controversial character.
Curated by James’ entertaining morning radio net, the next day’s activities included clam digging for Carl, “shop class” for Don and Andy (working on our defunct dinghy engine with Simon from “Sharkita” and various other curious menfolk), and an “uto fritters” cooking class courtesy of James for Lisa, Don, and I. First, James showed us how to identify the correct stage of coconut: the downed ones sprouting 3 leaves, no more, no less. Then he demonstrated husking the coconut, a job done in less than a minute on a crowbar stuck in the ground. Next, he cracked open the nut with the back of a machete (ah, much safer!), and pulled out the dense, spongy bulb known as uto, which is what happens when the meat and the milk condense in an old coconut on its way to becoming a new coconut tree. We all got a taste of the sweet, nutrient rich bulb; spongy isn’t quite the texture—it’s more like that green block of foam that florists use, only whiteish and sugary-coconuty. According to Tom Neale, if you ate too much of it raw, you’d get an awful stomachache, so we only tried a bit. After James had grated all of the uto into a large bowl, he added water (about 1:1 cups), stirred it up into a thick batter, and showed us how much oil he’d use later that afternoon. We’d have to wait until the potluck that evening to taste the results of this recipe.
Meanwhile, Raleigh had been having a culinary adventure of his own while stuck on the boat (no love for foreign animals in a protected park—there was a menace of a cat dropped off by past yauchties who had scared off all the nesting birds from the main island.) Ral had gotten into the flour, eaten his flea soap, kept down the hydrogen peroxide meant to make him throw up said flea soap, and devoured half a loaf of bread that Andy had so proudly made that afternoon. The likely toxic Mexican flea soap particularly caused a scare when suddenly Ral couldn’t use his hind legs. Fortunately, Andy got in touch with his vet brother via his Ham dad, and after the prescribed treatment of antihistamines and activated charcoal, was back in action—or inaction, in this case!
Following the boisterous and mildly frightening shark feeding show at sundown, the potluck commenced (in a similar style of frenzy), and proved to be a lot of fun—and food. We brought dal and garlic flatbread, and enjoyed James’ uto fritters (like a donut crossed with a potato pancake), John’s fish and clam poisson cru, Sharkita’s veggie lasagna, and various other people’s cous cous salad, grilled fish, and more tasty dishes I ate but can’t recall right now.
Camp activities for the remainder of our week included a reef walk to where the terns nested, a movie night courtesy of Aldeberan’s digital projector, and an impromptu sushi sundowner thanks to some Japanese guys who’d just arrived and were heading out the next day. We even had “arts and crafts” on our last day in Suwarrow; we made the first Aldebaran flag ever, to accompany the others hanging in the rangers station. We humbly think ours is the best! Oh and PS, we did not learn to climb palm trees, and catching coconut crabs is currently forbidden due to the diminished population, but I still think we had more than our fair share of fun and adventure here!
Our departure from Suwarrow was probably the hardest goodbye so far of this whole trip, which is funny, considering that this amazing stop was never on our original itinerary. My (or somebody’s) next post will be on another place that wasn’t on our list either—Niue: the second smallest country next to the Vatican (which strikes me as merely nominal. Did it secede from Italy? So many things to Google one day!). Going where the wind takes you, both figuratively and literally, is a rare and special lesson that the Aldebaran crew has been lucky enough to learn these last few months. I’d encourage you readers to do the same, wherever you are in the world. Hallmark moment, go!
During my last Skype date with the parents back in Bora Bora, Dad mentioned that he’d looked up Suwarrow (accent on the a) on Google earth and didn’t see anything there. Why, he wondered, were we going to this tiny island with nothing on it? Truthfully, I didn’t really know why either, but Carl had read something online about the place and learned that this uninhabited (almost) Cook Islands National Park was a cruiser’s paradise, where you could learn how to climb coconut trees and catch coconut crab. It had also been made infamous by a kiwi named Tom Neale who had come here three times in the 1950-70’s, before it was a park, to live off the land, all by himself on his own private island.
Over the last few days of the passage, I read Tom Neale’s account of his stay, An Island to Oneself, and became fascinated by the place, and by this strange guy, who’d already spent most of his adult life as an expat on Raratonga. He seemed so resourceful, spear fishing, building several types of cookers, baking uto (a stage in the life of a coconut I’d yet to taste), re-thatching the palm roof of his house, growing veggies in his garden, etc. He wasn’t a hermit, exactly. A lovable curmudgeon, perhaps? He was visited by a surprising number of sailors passing through, and clearly liked entertaining people, but once they left him he’d claim he was ‘too busy to be lonely’ and seemed to enjoy his solitude (well, if you don’t count his 2 cats, a duck and many chickens as companions). Before his first trip to Suwarow, he’d been inundated with invitations from Raratongan women to let them join him in his solitude, but he’d refused, stating that he ‘didn’t want to be trapped with some woman, like a convict on Devil’s island.’
With the legend of Tom Neale fresh in the minds of Lisa, Carl and I (Andy and Don missed out on the book), and after a day and night of vigorous, uncomfy squalls, we eagerly arrive at Suwarrow. The first thing we notice is that the pier that Tom Neale had tried to repair (after months of work, his pier was blown to smithereens by the season’s first storm) is still pretty much in smithereens. No worries, the dinghy doesn’t need much to hold onto. Better than a nice pier are the 6 or so hammocks hanging between palm trees on the beach. So far, so good!
Up a well-kept path, Tom’s house is still here, now with a tin roof and some add-ons from the 80s. It shelters one of the rangers, John, some storage, and a book swap library. Across from this is a newer, much more impressive lofted wooden house, where James, the head ranger, sits writing in his ledger beneath a collage of homemade flags from some very grateful boaters (the Henkel clan will enjoy knowing that one of the flags was from a boat named “Pyewacket,” the name of our late, great dog).
It quickly became obvious what the gratitude is all about. James is a wonderful, and wonderfully knowledgeable, grandfatherly type of guy; big and elaborately tattooed with a formidable, grizzly gray beard and a crowning bun of long dreadlocks. What—he doesn’t sound like your average grandpa? Well, nor was this your average cruising destination. We quickly dubbed it, “Camp Suwarrow,” due to the unceasing variety of activities available to us “yauchties” (as James and John dubbed us). John took Carl out fishing that first afternoon and caught 4 grouper and 1 trumpetfish; the biggest grouper ended up in our curry pot that night, when we hosted an impromptu dinner for James and John on Aldebbie. It’s to Lisa’s credit that both of these fellows of ample appetites left full!
In the morning we joined 2 other boats, Soggy Paws and Chesepeake, for snorkeling, and saw one majestic, black-velvet manta ray, and plenty of 3-6 foot black and white finned reef sharks. Oh yeah, Suwarrow is reef shark heaven. They don’t seem too fussed about humans, but even so, I tend to swim the other way with my eyes shooting daggers at them; they feel my danger rays and dart off!
That evening, we brought boatmade oatmeal chocolate chip cookies to the beach “sundowner”—which is, of course, a party at sundown. Other yauchties brought chips, veggies, dips, and crackers, and it was nice to chat with new friends (or see old ones again, in the case of the Czechs on “Sayonara” who came to our bbq in the Marquesas). James, with his tongue rum-loosened, let loose on Tom Neale, revealing that there was actually a village of 60 people on Suwarrow while he was living here, and he’d gotten help from the natives to set himself up; not so self-sufficient, eh Tom? In an afterword to An Island to Oneself, we’d already learned that Tom had a wife and 2 kids on Raratonga (not mentioned at all in his memoir), but James also informed us that he’d left a family in Tahiti as well, prior to moving to Raratonga. The plot thickens! I’m curious to read more on this interesting and controversial character.
Curated by James’ entertaining morning radio net, the next day’s activities included clam digging for Carl, “shop class” for Don and Andy (working on our defunct dinghy engine with Simon from “Sharkita” and various other curious menfolk), and an “uto fritters” cooking class courtesy of James for Lisa, Don, and I. First, James showed us how to identify the correct stage of coconut: the downed ones sprouting 3 leaves, no more, no less. Then he demonstrated husking the coconut, a job done in less than a minute on a crowbar stuck in the ground. Next, he cracked open the nut with the back of a machete (ah, much safer!), and pulled out the dense, spongy bulb known as uto, which is what happens when the meat and the milk condense in an old coconut on its way to becoming a new coconut tree. We all got a taste of the sweet, nutrient rich bulb; spongy isn’t quite the texture—it’s more like that green block of foam that florists use, only whiteish and sugary-coconuty. According to Tom Neale, if you ate too much of it raw, you’d get an awful stomachache, so we only tried a bit. After James had grated all of the uto into a large bowl, he added water (about 1:1 cups), stirred it up into a thick batter, and showed us how much oil he’d use later that afternoon. We’d have to wait until the potluck that evening to taste the results of this recipe.
Meanwhile, Raleigh had been having a culinary adventure of his own while stuck on the boat (no love for foreign animals in a protected park—there was a menace of a cat dropped off by past yauchties who had scared off all the nesting birds from the main island.) Ral had gotten into the flour, eaten his flea soap, kept down the hydrogen peroxide meant to make him throw up said flea soap, and devoured half a loaf of bread that Andy had so proudly made that afternoon. The likely toxic Mexican flea soap particularly caused a scare when suddenly Ral couldn’t use his hind legs. Fortunately, Andy got in touch with his vet brother via his Ham dad, and after the prescribed treatment of antihistamines and activated charcoal, was back in action—or inaction, in this case!
Following the boisterous and mildly frightening shark feeding show at sundown, the potluck commenced (in a similar style of frenzy), and proved to be a lot of fun—and food. We brought dal and garlic flatbread, and enjoyed James’ uto fritters (like a donut crossed with a potato pancake), John’s fish and clam poisson cru, Sharkita’s veggie lasagna, and various other people’s cous cous salad, grilled fish, and more tasty dishes I ate but can’t recall right now.
Camp activities for the remainder of our week included a reef walk to where the terns nested, a movie night courtesy of Aldeberan’s digital projector, and an impromptu sushi sundowner thanks to some Japanese guys who’d just arrived and were heading out the next day. We even had “arts and crafts” on our last day in Suwarrow; we made the first Aldebaran flag ever, to accompany the others hanging in the rangers station. We humbly think ours is the best! Oh and PS, we did not learn to climb palm trees, and catching coconut crabs is currently forbidden due to the diminished population, but I still think we had more than our fair share of fun and adventure here!
Our departure from Suwarrow was probably the hardest goodbye so far of this whole trip, which is funny, considering that this amazing stop was never on our original itinerary. My (or somebody’s) next post will be on another place that wasn’t on our list either—Niue: the second smallest country next to the Vatican (which strikes me as merely nominal. Did it secede from Italy? So many things to Google one day!). Going where the wind takes you, both figuratively and literally, is a rare and special lesson that the Aldebaran crew has been lucky enough to learn these last few months. I’d encourage you readers to do the same, wherever you are in the world. Hallmark moment, go!
Monday, July 18, 2011
Confessions of a Calendar Girl: Hiva Oa edition!
Leslie:
Hiva Oa, notably, the town of Atuona, was really good to us, which is why we stayed longer than we expected too! Again, pictures will be added when we stop slacking!
June 12- dinner out. Raleigh eats all the granola bars!
Here's a good idea. Don't leave Raleigh alone ever in Ventura or Mexico, then, after a 21 day passage, leave him alone in the middle of the night and forget to hide the tuperware of granola bars, while you go enjoy pizza and poisson cru (raw fish and veg marinated in lime and coconut milk). Raleigh does not know the subtlties of wrappers, so he got quite a bit of extra roughage. Fortunately, his colorful poops over the next few days weren't too messy.
June 13- movie night with kaja and Jean Paul
Kaja, from maine, has been cruising since 1993 and has been everywhere. In brazil she met Frenchman Jean Paul, who renamed his boat after her, kajananas. We invited them over to watch the sailboat racing classic from the 80s (90s?) staring jennifer gray and matthew modine, Wind. I'm glad we are not racers!
June 14- pamplemoose party
Sandra, the local agent/angel to boaters, gave us some of this delicious local version of grapefruit. Sweet and grassy, we flip out and froth at the sight of any tree bursting with this fruit.
June 15- moved Debbie
We had supposedly been in the way of the shipping boat that comes every thursday, so we moved but it didn't come til Tuesday and we missed it anyway. Allegedly it is a town event. Poo. I think this is also the day don and I walked about 4 miles to Taha'a. Hitchhiking is very normal here (it's usually how we get to and from town), but nobody picked us up for a long time. I blame don's werewolfy good looks. Finally a family stopped and took us the rest of the way, about a 5 min drive. There is a church that looks like an old new England stone church, but up close you can see that the stones are volcanic rock. We had a crappy map that led us up a road to an ancient ceremonial site. There was no sign indicating distance, so we almost gave up, but pushed on just enough to finally get there. There were many stone walls/foundations, but the tiki were seemingly way up in the jungle, beyond some amazingly massive vine-entwined trees (I think the sacred banyan tree?). It was getting late and the mosquitoes were hungry, so we cut our Indiana jones adventure short. Fortunately a couple picked us up right away and drove us all the way to the port.
June 16- Raleigh is legit!
Our fears of ral being stuck on the boat in the marquesas were averted! He spent a danger-filled afternoon on shore playing fetch (fell into a hole and scraped his nose), watching the locals fish (nearly swallowed a hook going after a baited line), and strolling with carl (had to be thrown onto the shoulder after wandering repeatedly into the middle of the road.) We think he's learned an important lesson: freedom has a price.
June 17- atuona
A big day out in atuona. Don and carl got picked up early in the morning to go see sandra's husband david's workshop. He makes stringed instruments out of breadfruit trees, heart cedar, hibiscus wood, and other local flora. Lee, Andy, ral and I went for a hike and saw many jungle chickens, goats, horses, and grumpy dogs who barked at ral.
Later we all went to sandra's to use her wifi, then don went with David to meet the mayor and help show the town how to use their new audio equipment. This is a good example of why I love don.
June 18- little island
We took a break from our dirty, sharky, rocky anchorage and spent some time at the picturesque island of Tahuata, only an hour away.
June 19- frisbee on the beach!
The water was warm and clear, great for swimming, and the sandy beach was nearly people-free. Raleigh enjoyed playing frisbee, but was not so into us playing in the waves or swimming away from him.
June 20- dinner on Eden
We'd met Adam and eve briefly in San Jose, and knew we'd be doing the crossing around the same time, and ending up in the same area. Luckily we met up on Tahuata and invited ourselves for dinner on their aptly named power boat, Eden. While we may have been uncouth in our desire to see their boat, we are good guests! We brought over a fresh baked loaf of bread, cous cous salad, and a sort of margarita punch made with tequila from Tequila, Mexico, simple syrup and limes picked onshore that day. The boat...talk about lavish! It was nicer than the nicest apartment I've ever been in. Cream leather seats, lots of nice West Elm-y pillows, tatami floors, shiny kitchen with a regular sized stove and fridge/freezer, computerized everything, an indoor cockpit like Captain Kirk's, the ability to watch The Sopranos while steering, washer and dryer, second freezer, princess bed in a real bedroom, spiral staircase, covered porch-like transom, and a seemingly loose attitude towards fresh water; water pouring down the drain as they washed their hands and dishes! We use buckets of sea water and squirts from a 28oz spritz bottle of fresh water, so all of us gasped in awe at this. Envy much? I'd give up apples entirely to get into that Eden! Dinner was great, raleigh, andy and carl
feasted on chicken, and we all, except for ral, enjoyed eve's fresh green bean salad and adam's great chocolate cake. Not to mention all the wine and the board game...I forget the name.
Lots of fun! And, Eve gave us the much missed treat of magazines! Hope to see them again one day.
June 21- Raleigh surfs
Slowly but surely, R dog braves the waves! He only gets rolled a few times!
June 22- swimming with rays and a shark.
Andy and carl wake up early to swim with manta rays (you know, what killed croc hunter Steve Irwin). Carl sees a shark swimming below him and nearly kills himself getting back on the boat!
June 23- back to atuona
Back on shore, Lisa, Don and I attack Andy's hair with scissors, while the nice Aussie family on Connect 4 laughs with/at us. Lisa and i give each other trims, while don hacks at his own hair, as usual. Later, we start watching season 2 of true blood on the projector.
June 24- music fest! Rum n coconuts!
Don and carl head to town early with david to help set up the music fest. R dog and I walk to town later and get swarmed by children. Raleigh is a crowd favorite! The music fest is not what I expected (guys on electric guitar and keyboard playing island Muzak), but the atmosphere is fun, like a small fair or a big family cookout with tents of food and drink for sale. We buy coconuts from a linebacker of a guy in drag (seemingly not a shocker here) and spike them with a bit of Tahitian rum. The mayor, a big, friendly, heavily tattooed man, treats us to a few orders of grilled meat and french fries. Kids run around playing in the field all night long, and the lovely Connect 4 australian family hangs with us. We are glad we came back for this!
June 25- music fest 2, beers with david's band and Sandra
Day 2 of the fest. David's band plays an upbeat sort of reggae-influenced rock. No one, however dances at all, save for later when too highly inebriated guys cut loose. I let 2 little kids try out our digital point and shoot, and they take awesome pictures! There will likely be a whole post slide show devoted to them. We really enjoyed sitting in the grass with david's band, Sandra, and her friends, sipping the local beer, Hinano, making shandies with beer, 7up and lime (not bad), and discussing life on the island, how david and sandra met, and of course, cannibalism. I'd always understood it to be a war thing between tribes (mainly via Herman Melville's "Typee"), but Sandra and her friend believed it was a hunger issue in the old days. Are you sure that's chicken on the grill?
June 26- Negro head rock, dinner out! Pizza! Mahi mahi! Green beans!
David and his friend Jack, or Sako (his marquesian name) drive us to a bay on the other side of the island, with a famous and distinctive rock jutting out of the water. We jump off the pier and the rocks, and, lets just say that carl is a "natural". A post is soon to come with some colorful photos illustrating this.
Later we have a farewell dinner with ourselves at the pizza place (I'm the one who always orders the fish, whenever possible), and Raleigh gets a banana from the owner himself.
June 27- carl gets tatted! Fruits galore!
David comes to pick us up with a giant tattoo artist named Axle riding shotgun. Carl's tattoo decision is only 1 1/2 days in the making, but how can you back out of a marquesian tat from a 275 lb man named Axle? Carl grins and bears it well, and now has a life long memory of his trip. The zigzags represent the cliffs of hiva ou, and with the anchor he fulfills our pact. Donny's the last one! Man up don!
June 28- leaving atuona
The boys shove us off at 2am for the next island, Ou Pou. We are excited for the next leg of our adventure!
Hiva Oa, notably, the town of Atuona, was really good to us, which is why we stayed longer than we expected too! Again, pictures will be added when we stop slacking!
June 12- dinner out. Raleigh eats all the granola bars!
Here's a good idea. Don't leave Raleigh alone ever in Ventura or Mexico, then, after a 21 day passage, leave him alone in the middle of the night and forget to hide the tuperware of granola bars, while you go enjoy pizza and poisson cru (raw fish and veg marinated in lime and coconut milk). Raleigh does not know the subtlties of wrappers, so he got quite a bit of extra roughage. Fortunately, his colorful poops over the next few days weren't too messy.
June 13- movie night with kaja and Jean Paul
Kaja, from maine, has been cruising since 1993 and has been everywhere. In brazil she met Frenchman Jean Paul, who renamed his boat after her, kajananas. We invited them over to watch the sailboat racing classic from the 80s (90s?) staring jennifer gray and matthew modine, Wind. I'm glad we are not racers!
June 14- pamplemoose party
Sandra, the local agent/angel to boaters, gave us some of this delicious local version of grapefruit. Sweet and grassy, we flip out and froth at the sight of any tree bursting with this fruit.
June 15- moved Debbie
We had supposedly been in the way of the shipping boat that comes every thursday, so we moved but it didn't come til Tuesday and we missed it anyway. Allegedly it is a town event. Poo. I think this is also the day don and I walked about 4 miles to Taha'a. Hitchhiking is very normal here (it's usually how we get to and from town), but nobody picked us up for a long time. I blame don's werewolfy good looks. Finally a family stopped and took us the rest of the way, about a 5 min drive. There is a church that looks like an old new England stone church, but up close you can see that the stones are volcanic rock. We had a crappy map that led us up a road to an ancient ceremonial site. There was no sign indicating distance, so we almost gave up, but pushed on just enough to finally get there. There were many stone walls/foundations, but the tiki were seemingly way up in the jungle, beyond some amazingly massive vine-entwined trees (I think the sacred banyan tree?). It was getting late and the mosquitoes were hungry, so we cut our Indiana jones adventure short. Fortunately a couple picked us up right away and drove us all the way to the port.
June 16- Raleigh is legit!
Our fears of ral being stuck on the boat in the marquesas were averted! He spent a danger-filled afternoon on shore playing fetch (fell into a hole and scraped his nose), watching the locals fish (nearly swallowed a hook going after a baited line), and strolling with carl (had to be thrown onto the shoulder after wandering repeatedly into the middle of the road.) We think he's learned an important lesson: freedom has a price.
June 17- atuona
A big day out in atuona. Don and carl got picked up early in the morning to go see sandra's husband david's workshop. He makes stringed instruments out of breadfruit trees, heart cedar, hibiscus wood, and other local flora. Lee, Andy, ral and I went for a hike and saw many jungle chickens, goats, horses, and grumpy dogs who barked at ral.
Later we all went to sandra's to use her wifi, then don went with David to meet the mayor and help show the town how to use their new audio equipment. This is a good example of why I love don.
June 18- little island
We took a break from our dirty, sharky, rocky anchorage and spent some time at the picturesque island of Tahuata, only an hour away.
June 19- frisbee on the beach!
The water was warm and clear, great for swimming, and the sandy beach was nearly people-free. Raleigh enjoyed playing frisbee, but was not so into us playing in the waves or swimming away from him.
June 20- dinner on Eden
We'd met Adam and eve briefly in San Jose, and knew we'd be doing the crossing around the same time, and ending up in the same area. Luckily we met up on Tahuata and invited ourselves for dinner on their aptly named power boat, Eden. While we may have been uncouth in our desire to see their boat, we are good guests! We brought over a fresh baked loaf of bread, cous cous salad, and a sort of margarita punch made with tequila from Tequila, Mexico, simple syrup and limes picked onshore that day. The boat...talk about lavish! It was nicer than the nicest apartment I've ever been in. Cream leather seats, lots of nice West Elm-y pillows, tatami floors, shiny kitchen with a regular sized stove and fridge/freezer, computerized everything, an indoor cockpit like Captain Kirk's, the ability to watch The Sopranos while steering, washer and dryer, second freezer, princess bed in a real bedroom, spiral staircase, covered porch-like transom, and a seemingly loose attitude towards fresh water; water pouring down the drain as they washed their hands and dishes! We use buckets of sea water and squirts from a 28oz spritz bottle of fresh water, so all of us gasped in awe at this. Envy much? I'd give up apples entirely to get into that Eden! Dinner was great, raleigh, andy and carl
feasted on chicken, and we all, except for ral, enjoyed eve's fresh green bean salad and adam's great chocolate cake. Not to mention all the wine and the board game...I forget the name.
Lots of fun! And, Eve gave us the much missed treat of magazines! Hope to see them again one day.
June 21- Raleigh surfs
Slowly but surely, R dog braves the waves! He only gets rolled a few times!
June 22- swimming with rays and a shark.
Andy and carl wake up early to swim with manta rays (you know, what killed croc hunter Steve Irwin). Carl sees a shark swimming below him and nearly kills himself getting back on the boat!
June 23- back to atuona
Back on shore, Lisa, Don and I attack Andy's hair with scissors, while the nice Aussie family on Connect 4 laughs with/at us. Lisa and i give each other trims, while don hacks at his own hair, as usual. Later, we start watching season 2 of true blood on the projector.
June 24- music fest! Rum n coconuts!
Don and carl head to town early with david to help set up the music fest. R dog and I walk to town later and get swarmed by children. Raleigh is a crowd favorite! The music fest is not what I expected (guys on electric guitar and keyboard playing island Muzak), but the atmosphere is fun, like a small fair or a big family cookout with tents of food and drink for sale. We buy coconuts from a linebacker of a guy in drag (seemingly not a shocker here) and spike them with a bit of Tahitian rum. The mayor, a big, friendly, heavily tattooed man, treats us to a few orders of grilled meat and french fries. Kids run around playing in the field all night long, and the lovely Connect 4 australian family hangs with us. We are glad we came back for this!
June 25- music fest 2, beers with david's band and Sandra
Day 2 of the fest. David's band plays an upbeat sort of reggae-influenced rock. No one, however dances at all, save for later when too highly inebriated guys cut loose. I let 2 little kids try out our digital point and shoot, and they take awesome pictures! There will likely be a whole post slide show devoted to them. We really enjoyed sitting in the grass with david's band, Sandra, and her friends, sipping the local beer, Hinano, making shandies with beer, 7up and lime (not bad), and discussing life on the island, how david and sandra met, and of course, cannibalism. I'd always understood it to be a war thing between tribes (mainly via Herman Melville's "Typee"), but Sandra and her friend believed it was a hunger issue in the old days. Are you sure that's chicken on the grill?
June 26- Negro head rock, dinner out! Pizza! Mahi mahi! Green beans!
David and his friend Jack, or Sako (his marquesian name) drive us to a bay on the other side of the island, with a famous and distinctive rock jutting out of the water. We jump off the pier and the rocks, and, lets just say that carl is a "natural". A post is soon to come with some colorful photos illustrating this.
Later we have a farewell dinner with ourselves at the pizza place (I'm the one who always orders the fish, whenever possible), and Raleigh gets a banana from the owner himself.
June 27- carl gets tatted! Fruits galore!
David comes to pick us up with a giant tattoo artist named Axle riding shotgun. Carl's tattoo decision is only 1 1/2 days in the making, but how can you back out of a marquesian tat from a 275 lb man named Axle? Carl grins and bears it well, and now has a life long memory of his trip. The zigzags represent the cliffs of hiva ou, and with the anchor he fulfills our pact. Donny's the last one! Man up don!
June 28- leaving atuona
The boys shove us off at 2am for the next island, Ou Pou. We are excited for the next leg of our adventure!
Confessions of a calendar girl: The Crossing
Confessions of a calendar girl
Leslie:
If Andy and Lisa's rollicking tales of life at sea weren't enough to make you quit your job and stowaway on the first boat you see, here are the Pacific crossing highlights from Aldebbie's social calendar.
May 20- San Jose to cabo, cabo passage; scary windy swelly
After fixing our leaky water tank in San Jose, we anger the fuel dock guys at cabo by sitting there for 3 hours while we run off on last minute errands. Oh well, we paid for fuel and water, calmete hombres!
Right out of the gate, mid-pop from the Henkell champagne bottle, we are met with nasty weather. Andy, Carl and Leslie begin to turn a nice shade of sea green. Family "iron stomach" Fierro have no problems.
May 21- lovely day
Although maybe not according to Andy's tummy.
May 22- overcast rolly, but nice
This passage business ain't so bad! Although at some point in the night/morning we bust a shackle on the preventer, but it's an easy fix for Don. "Guys, don't over-tighten the preventer! What's your heading?"
May 23- overcast, ripped a sail
Ripped a reef point on the main (a reef is a way of making the main sail smaller when you have a lot of wind). Andy and I spend about 4 hours passing a needle back and forth through the thick sail, sail tape and patch. It's not so pretty, but it works!
May 24- banana muffins
Banana coconut chocolate muffins, to be precise! Mmm! Lisa wins for best galley slave ever!
May 25- Raleigh's pee and poo explosion!
Raleigh's first experience on an overnight watch, and a rolly, windy one at that! He was too scared and too desperate to make it to the bow, so he used our foot towels as a last resort. He was very ashamed of himself, but he soon got into the daily habit of constituting himself on the bow, with moral support from carl!
May 26- Grodnick
This is what we call our jenniker sail, because though it seems nothing more than a beautiful, light and airy bit of balloon, it's really going places, just like carl!
May 27- carl gets a tuna!
A ten pound yellowtail, delicious sushi right off the freshly slain corpse, but even better seared as tuna steaks with wasabi, soy and an asiany slaw!
May 28- olive oil bread
Lisa taught me and Andy how to make this versatile and delicious bread recipe, though Andy cannot stomach the galley during passage, so lee and I alternate making bread every day for the ravenous beast-boys, who act like a day without bread would destroy them!
May 29- still motoring going rolling along
No wind affects the crew's sanity and sentence structure.
May 30- hot hot hot
It was hot!
May 31- bird on the mast
A booby stayed on our mast for a few days, pooping on our Grodnick, which made the other Grodnick mad and wish for an air rifle. Lee and don named the booby "Titswiggle" because they are 10 years old.
June 1- another fish! Totally legit fish! Big!
This 20 pound, blue-hued beauty may have maybe perhaps kind of been on the no-no species list, though carl squinted and swore the fin had a little yellow in it! At any rate, he tasted marvelous filleted and served with coconut rice. Later that night, bioluminescent dolphins congratulated us with an amazing laser light show around the bow!
June 2- rain
Rain on our parade, a gloomy day and a wet dinner of sadsacks and yummy leftovers.
June 3- sun
Hooray.
June 4- whale
50 yards off. I didn't see it. Are we there yet?
June 5- equator day 0* 129*
Woke up at midnight to take a group photo. What a mess!
June 6- champagne + dunks + haircuts = shellbacks!
More Henkell champ, jumps in the sea after we hove to, Raleigh dunked, hairs snipped! Don and Andy finally shave those horrific beards!
June 7- waves!
Big ones! Nothing Debbie can't handle though.
June 8- foccacia! Mmm!
The same bread recipe as the olive oil bread, with sundried tomatoes, parsley, pepper, basil and thyme.
June 9- fat lip bread!
The humidity makes the bread rise quick and pout over the side of the pan. Still delicious though.
June 10- one more night!
The rock'n n rolliest yet! We get there a bit earlier, so we head the wrong way for an hour and then turn around so we'll get there at first light.
June 11- Marquesas Eureka!
It's raining but nobody cares! We muscle our way into a fairly crowded anchorage at tahuata bay on hiva ou, and put up our tarps as a full rainbow stretches itself like a Cheshire grin across the breakwater. In town, which is only like 3 blocks long, we buy baguettes and orangina, then walk to gauguin's grave. It smells like fruit and flowers everywhere.
If the passage sounds like a relative walk in park, here is a word cloud of notes from our overnight logbook to add another dimension of mood:
Vomit feel like vomit no vomit need sleep slam! Slammy stupid wind why why? Just get to 270*! engine started wind sucks sailing this way sux Line islands or bust genniker line chaffing effed up Ghost whale wind light and shifty can't find headlamp This sux as mutter I love trivial pursuit nice sunrise gps speed f**ked fuel gauge broke storm sail reefed let out reef more right, less left midnight cowboy was x-rated? Wind freckle swell annoy slower slammier ruff as bro big splashier waves lots of spray land!
(pictures to come someday when we get our act together!)
Leslie:
If Andy and Lisa's rollicking tales of life at sea weren't enough to make you quit your job and stowaway on the first boat you see, here are the Pacific crossing highlights from Aldebbie's social calendar.
May 20- San Jose to cabo, cabo passage; scary windy swelly
After fixing our leaky water tank in San Jose, we anger the fuel dock guys at cabo by sitting there for 3 hours while we run off on last minute errands. Oh well, we paid for fuel and water, calmete hombres!
Right out of the gate, mid-pop from the Henkell champagne bottle, we are met with nasty weather. Andy, Carl and Leslie begin to turn a nice shade of sea green. Family "iron stomach" Fierro have no problems.
May 21- lovely day
Although maybe not according to Andy's tummy.
May 22- overcast rolly, but nice
This passage business ain't so bad! Although at some point in the night/morning we bust a shackle on the preventer, but it's an easy fix for Don. "Guys, don't over-tighten the preventer! What's your heading?"
May 23- overcast, ripped a sail
Ripped a reef point on the main (a reef is a way of making the main sail smaller when you have a lot of wind). Andy and I spend about 4 hours passing a needle back and forth through the thick sail, sail tape and patch. It's not so pretty, but it works!
May 24- banana muffins
Banana coconut chocolate muffins, to be precise! Mmm! Lisa wins for best galley slave ever!
May 25- Raleigh's pee and poo explosion!
Raleigh's first experience on an overnight watch, and a rolly, windy one at that! He was too scared and too desperate to make it to the bow, so he used our foot towels as a last resort. He was very ashamed of himself, but he soon got into the daily habit of constituting himself on the bow, with moral support from carl!
May 26- Grodnick
This is what we call our jenniker sail, because though it seems nothing more than a beautiful, light and airy bit of balloon, it's really going places, just like carl!
May 27- carl gets a tuna!
A ten pound yellowtail, delicious sushi right off the freshly slain corpse, but even better seared as tuna steaks with wasabi, soy and an asiany slaw!
May 28- olive oil bread
Lisa taught me and Andy how to make this versatile and delicious bread recipe, though Andy cannot stomach the galley during passage, so lee and I alternate making bread every day for the ravenous beast-boys, who act like a day without bread would destroy them!
May 29- still motoring going rolling along
No wind affects the crew's sanity and sentence structure.
May 30- hot hot hot
It was hot!
May 31- bird on the mast
A booby stayed on our mast for a few days, pooping on our Grodnick, which made the other Grodnick mad and wish for an air rifle. Lee and don named the booby "Titswiggle" because they are 10 years old.
June 1- another fish! Totally legit fish! Big!
This 20 pound, blue-hued beauty may have maybe perhaps kind of been on the no-no species list, though carl squinted and swore the fin had a little yellow in it! At any rate, he tasted marvelous filleted and served with coconut rice. Later that night, bioluminescent dolphins congratulated us with an amazing laser light show around the bow!
June 2- rain
Rain on our parade, a gloomy day and a wet dinner of sadsacks and yummy leftovers.
June 3- sun
Hooray.
June 4- whale
50 yards off. I didn't see it. Are we there yet?
June 5- equator day 0* 129*
Woke up at midnight to take a group photo. What a mess!
June 6- champagne + dunks + haircuts = shellbacks!
More Henkell champ, jumps in the sea after we hove to, Raleigh dunked, hairs snipped! Don and Andy finally shave those horrific beards!
June 7- waves!
Big ones! Nothing Debbie can't handle though.
June 8- foccacia! Mmm!
The same bread recipe as the olive oil bread, with sundried tomatoes, parsley, pepper, basil and thyme.
June 9- fat lip bread!
The humidity makes the bread rise quick and pout over the side of the pan. Still delicious though.
June 10- one more night!
The rock'n n rolliest yet! We get there a bit earlier, so we head the wrong way for an hour and then turn around so we'll get there at first light.
June 11- Marquesas Eureka!
It's raining but nobody cares! We muscle our way into a fairly crowded anchorage at tahuata bay on hiva ou, and put up our tarps as a full rainbow stretches itself like a Cheshire grin across the breakwater. In town, which is only like 3 blocks long, we buy baguettes and orangina, then walk to gauguin's grave. It smells like fruit and flowers everywhere.
If the passage sounds like a relative walk in park, here is a word cloud of notes from our overnight logbook to add another dimension of mood:
Vomit feel like vomit no vomit need sleep slam! Slammy stupid wind why why? Just get to 270*! engine started wind sucks sailing this way sux Line islands or bust genniker line chaffing effed up Ghost whale wind light and shifty can't find headlamp This sux as mutter I love trivial pursuit nice sunrise gps speed f**ked fuel gauge broke storm sail reefed let out reef more right, less left midnight cowboy was x-rated? Wind freckle swell annoy slower slammier ruff as bro big splashier waves lots of spray land!
(pictures to come someday when we get our act together!)
Sunday, May 15, 2011
"I'm covered in bees!" - Eddie Izzard
Leslie (belated tale from Paradise Village, Puerta Vallarta, Mexico):
...as I was saying, A SWARM OF BEES (!!!) descends upon our radar, and Lisa and I go screaming into the boat, wondering what plague of doom has been sent to punish us for trying to sneak down the alligator slides after 9pm. This is very annoying because Andy has been making snacks and now we have to smuggle them outside to a bee-free trench to enjoy them. After taping up holes in the mast where bees have begun coming in, we manage to scramble out with wine, beers, and a plate of bruschetta, and find refuge at the end of the dock to watch the bees pirate the top of our mast and top of out radar. Passerbys rubberneck and offer advice: "Oh no! I've heard of this happening!" and "If you need a bee guy, I have a guy who took a giant hive of my mast last summer!" Finally, we have a plan of attack! Carl will put on his wetsuit, sailing gloves, cover his face and head with mosquito netting and be hoisted up to the top of the mast by Andy and Don, where he will then enrage the bees with a healthy spray of Raid. I am poised nearby with the hose to protect Don and Andy, but Andy gets stung twice (clearly, I am protecting Don better). Amazingly, it works like a charm, though we are cleaning up dead bees for the next two days, and killing a few refugees here and there. Anyhow, that's an old story.
...as I was saying, A SWARM OF BEES (!!!) descends upon our radar, and Lisa and I go screaming into the boat, wondering what plague of doom has been sent to punish us for trying to sneak down the alligator slides after 9pm. This is very annoying because Andy has been making snacks and now we have to smuggle them outside to a bee-free trench to enjoy them. After taping up holes in the mast where bees have begun coming in, we manage to scramble out with wine, beers, and a plate of bruschetta, and find refuge at the end of the dock to watch the bees pirate the top of our mast and top of out radar. Passerbys rubberneck and offer advice: "Oh no! I've heard of this happening!" and "If you need a bee guy, I have a guy who took a giant hive of my mast last summer!" Finally, we have a plan of attack! Carl will put on his wetsuit, sailing gloves, cover his face and head with mosquito netting and be hoisted up to the top of the mast by Andy and Don, where he will then enrage the bees with a healthy spray of Raid. I am poised nearby with the hose to protect Don and Andy, but Andy gets stung twice (clearly, I am protecting Don better). Amazingly, it works like a charm, though we are cleaning up dead bees for the next two days, and killing a few refugees here and there. Anyhow, that's an old story.
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| Don preparing the warrior. |
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| Full body view. |
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| Lisa and I, laughing with Carl. |
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| Bees swarming the mast (there are more than you see here!) |
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| Lisa offers bee man a snack before battle! |
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| Hoist! |
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| Kill! Kill! |
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| Why Don didn't get stung...why Andy did. |
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| 100 yard stares, battle scarred. |
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| The casualties were far worse than this. |
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| Stung in the forehead. Andy the rhino!
I'm writing from my phone, so I have no more finger strength to tell current events, other than we just returned from Pescadero / Todos Santos, which is, truly, paradise, and we are leaving for the Marquesas hopefully tomorrow. But all this info will come belatedly, so sit tight!
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Wednesday, April 13, 2011
No Business Like Showbusiness
Leslie
Opening Scene:
Don and I are strolling around Puerto Vallarta after having caught the last bit of a Son Jarocho music and dance session at our new friend Wen's cafe and roastery, Cafe Oro Verde. As we pass a "casting" sign, I glance into a spare, tiny office and immediately am met with calls inviting us in. We keep walking, but are stopped by a woman who has run out of the office. "Do you want to be in a commercial for the British Lottery?" she asks, and tells us they are filming Saturday, Sunday and Monday. As it's Tuesday and we are hoping to have our refrigeration done by Friday, we hesitate and decide to come back another day after we discuss matters with the rest of the crew. Walking away laughing at this weird occurrence, we are later hollered at on the boardwalk by some random restauranteur: "Hey, it's Barbie and Ken after a few drinks!" This almost seems like a complement, and thus confirms our bizarre Aryan star quality, planting the seeds that will lead us to delusions of grandeur.
Scene 2, Act One:
Don and I return to PV on Tuesday, and, after a fantastic smoked marlin burrito, cervesas, and "rehearsing" mute reactions of surprise and delight at having won the British lottery, we go to the office and find out we don't get to act at all! We just have get our pictures taken and fill out some info forms, including, "sports proficient at." I write volleyball, sailing and biking. Don writes skateboarding and hockey. British people love winning a million Euros and going for a skate and a volley, no? We are told to come back the next day to see if we're in.
Scene 2, Act Two:
We return on Friday with the entire crew, including Raleigh, having wooed them with tales of the $170 a day we could each potentially make. Pics are snapped, infos are filled--oh and we are asked if we can all scuba dive (Carl and I lie in take three, after convincing ourselves it won't be "real" scuba-ing), and then the casting director asks us to come back at 4pm to meet some kind of scuba casting agent.
Scene 2, Act Three:
Scuba guy is a no show. We are asked to come back tomorrow to where they will be filming downtown.
Scene 3: Downtown Puerto Vallarta:
After wandering around, following signs for "extras", we are told that they will be using some kind of scuba divers' union and they don't need us. "Ma-a-a-a-aybe" he will call--or rather email us since none of us have a local phone number to give--for us to be in a party scene, but at this point we have been given the run-around so much that we don't believe the guy. He gives us bottles of water to appease us.
I skipped the scene where we were sulking in Cafe Oro Verde, to the scene where Lisa, Carl and I are at El Arrayan, a slow foods restaurant owned by a woman who we'd met at the a fore mentioned music session. Carmen had invited us to come by and enjoy some music by Wen (the coffee guy), his daughter and her boyfriend. So, while Andy and Don are at some mythical jungle skatepark they'd heard about, Carl, Lisa and I are sharing plantain empanadas, jamaica (hibiscus) flower quesadillas and some kind of amazing chipotle garlic sauce with fresh corn chips, along with crisp, cold Modelos on draft, listening to live Son Jarocho music and chatting with Carmen, who has given Lisa three recipe books featuring some of her specialties! All in all, we aren't too fussed with having lost our chance at stardom.Scene 4, act 2:
Don shows up at the restaurant (Andy, being Andy, went back to the boat to sleep and be frugal), and after hanging out with Wen, his daughter Camilia and her man Daniel for awhile, decide to move along to some party being thrown by one, "Lorena." "Do you know Lorena?" asks Wen of Camilia and Danny; "No, but so-and-so is playing there..." So, we get into their cars and go.
I'm probably summing this up too quickly, so Don, Lee, Carl, feel free to write a post devoted to the party. Almost everyone here is Israeli, Croatian, or Ukrainian, which none of us realize for about an hour, speaking broken Spanish at them. Oh yeah, and Raleigh has also been dragged to this party. He glumly lays on the floor and sniffs around for food scraps. Wen, Camilia, and Daniel begin playing music, and gradually nearly everyone, including Don and I, grab an instrument (I suddenly think I can play this box thing called the cajon), then this mime shows up to play drums, blowing our minds (the mime talks, while also acting in weird mime-like fashion), and everyone dances like they're Eastern European, except for Carl and I, who dance like Peanuts characters, and we get out of the party at about 4am and blow the budget on a cab back to Paradise.Final Scene: Tragedy.
Sunday I'm so partied out that it's all I can do to drag myself out of bed to go with the neighbors and Lisa to the Farmers Market at La Cruz. I later can't get myself to go check my email, and everyone else answers negatively to the question of whether or not they got anything from the casting agent. Fine, we were burnt out and spirit-crushed on the Hollywood rat race anyhow. I don't check my email until Tuesday--when, of course, I see an email sent from the casting agent Sunday, asking if Don and I want to work on Monday. ARRRRGGGGGHHHH!!!!
I beat myself up for the entire day, even while playing frisbee on the beach and living the lifestyle of a tortured starlet, drinking wine in the middle of the day. And then, I am snapped out of my depression at once by...
A SWORM OF BEES!!! (To be continued...)
Friday, March 11, 2011
Minami es tsunami!
Leslie:
So last night during Carl's and my midnight shift, we start hearing the Coast Guard reports about a tsunami watch on the West Coast. "3 foot swell?" scoffs Carl, "We won't even notice that!" Later, during our 5am shift, the watch report seems to be getting a little more intense. Mariners are advised to exit the water...clear harbors...run screaming for the hills! This morning I woke up to the sounds of the rest of the crew laughing and whooping. Clearly, we made it through the 7am tsunami call just fine. Of course, our first landing in Ensenada today was met with frantic emails from friends and family, but rest assured, we're all fine. Now, since the last few days have been straight sailing with interupted sleep shifts, I'm more than a little zonked. So I'm just going to comment on the pictures below documenting our saga of preparing to take off into the deep blue sea.
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| I'm sewing our bimini cover to make it a convertible top. Carl's working on our solar panels. |
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| A dour pelican looks on as we work late into the evening. |
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| Late night sewing! By late, I probably mean 7pm. |
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| Lisa keeps us going with a special breakfast. |
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| Raleigh gets his first bath of the month! |
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| Getting our main back on track |
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| Don blasts sparks into his face, cutting a hole in our water tank to "fix" it. I don't get how that works either. |
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| Post champaign smashing (video to come)! |
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| Our empty slip. Bye-bye Ventura! |
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| Charlie work |
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| Old mast step gets a burial at sea |
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| Don looking slick under my bimini! |
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| Raleigh looking slick in his new doggles! |
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| Up goes our gennaker! We're sailing! |
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| Our first sunrise |
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| This is how we spend our days now. |
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