French Polynesia

This blog post is loooong overdue, as we have not only landed in French Polynesia, but at this point we have also left as well, and are currently tied up safe and snug at the Ala Wai marina in Honolulu, Hawaii, 2400 miles away from Tahiti.  But, to plead my case, the thing about being in Paradise is that you are really, really far away from civilization, and that includes internet service.  It would be incorrect to say that French Polynesia is without internet service, but totally dead-on to say it is without internet service that is fast enough to create a blog post without pulling out your hair until you are bald as a cue ball, followed by sticking a needle in your eye while you wait for a picture to load.  Hah!  So, here I am sitting on the deck at the Hawaii Yacht Club overlooking the water on a beautiful July day, enjoying the sun and a slight breeze and happily writing about French Polynesia.

There is so much to say about French Polynesia but I can only begin to describe the highlights, so here is a Top 10 list of our travels there:

10.  Hermit Crabs: those little guys are so cute, and really, really don’t want to be used as bait to catch fish, even though they really do make excellent bait.  We used them to snag some super tasty Napolean fish in Manihi in the Tuamotus.  They crawl along in the rocks on the shore of atolls, and as you approach them they stop dead in their tracks and if they could talk they’d be saying “I’m not a tasty crab!  I’m a shell!  I’m a shell!”

Here Giulia is cradling the world’s smallest hermit crab. This cute little guy was substantially smaller than the ones we used for bait.

9.  Hanging out with fishermen in the Tuamotus, who came by to trade with us.  We traded a Leatherman tool for black pearls.  They hung out with us for most of the day, teaching us how to use the hermit crabs to catch the local fish, which basically jumped on the hook when you offered them the crab.  The next day they came back and cooked us a BBQ, roasting breadfruit on the beach and preparing marinated fish, and I made a cabbage and mango salad to go along.  We were joined by a nutty Italian single-hander named Francesco in the same anchorage, and he brought wine  produced on his vineyard back home in Puglia.  The wine was very good, the company was fun and the conversation interesting to say the least, as the fishermen spoke Polynesian and French, Francesco spoke Italian, Ed spoke English, and Giulia and I were translating to the best of our abilities (which degraded with the afternoon and ingestion of wine / rum / beer, in my case).

Fishermen on the atoll of Manihi come by to trade with us, and end up coming back for a communal BBQ the following day.

8.  Meeting new friends:  We met lovely people all along the way as we made our way through French Polynesia.  Without fail cruisers are always ready to help each other out, and to find any excuse to get together and swap stories.  The best times we had were when we met a French cruising family in Nuku Hiva, and their two children, Chloe and Malthis hit it off tremendously with Giulia.  The parents were lots of fun too!  They have been cruising for seven years now, homeschooling their two kids.  True to the experience we have had with other similarly schooled cruising kids, these two young adults were intelligent, outgoing, mature and well spoken.  It’s amazing what years on the water do for one’s education and ability to interact with all sorts of people.

Giulia hanging out with her new friends Chloe and Malthis in Anahoe Bay in Nuku Hiva. They had a great time messing around ‘after school’ in the afternoon.

7. Flowers, flowers in their hair.  What surprised me the most about French Polynesia was the abundance of deliciously fragrant flowers everywhere.  They grow wild along the roads, in the tropical forests, and in people’s gardens, and the Polynesians love to wear the in their hair and around their necks as beautifully perfumed necklaces.  It is common to see women wearing crowns of flowers, which they have crafted themselves, at restaurants and at special gatherings.  I took to wearing a flower behind my ear on many occasions to enjoy the smells and colors of flowers, as the locals do.

Ed having a good time getting his picture taken with two beautiful local ladies (a mother and daughter) on Huahine

6.  Amazing colors.  The colors of the South Pacific are indescribably beautiful.  My favorites were the many hues of blues and greens of the water.  The water itself was between 90-92 deg F perfect for swimming and snorkeling.  This picture here below was taken in Avea Bay on Huahine island, our favorite spot in French Polynesia.  We liked it so much that we returned there for another week after having already been there for five days.  In the interim we went to Bora Bora and some other places, but nothing compared to the lovely views, snorkeling and friendly folks we met on Huahine.

If you look carefully you see Time Warp anchored in the background of this photo.

5 Tikis: The ancient Polynesians carved tiki statues to protect religious sites or homes.  We saw a number of tikis in our travels, from small tikis on a stone wall at the border of a property, to large statues.

Tiki in Papeete

4. Beautiful sunsets.  Being in a boat means you live mostly outside, and without unobstructed views of water, islands and sky.  During this year and especially during our time in Polynesia we witnessed some stunning sunsets.

Sunset while on Tahaa, with a view of Bora Bora

3. Polynesian outrigger canoes: Guys in Polynesia don’t surf with surfboards, but with their outrigger canoes, demonstrating incredible strength and finesse.  If there aren’t any races going on, they paddle like mad to hop on the wake of a boat, and then surf / paddle along at high speed.  These two guys joined us at the pass in Raiatea, and stuck with us over several miles.  As you can see from their incredible physiques that this is not a sport for couch potatoes.

Canoes in wake of Time Warp on Raiatea

2. Deserted Motus: The islands in the Tuamotus and in the Societies are ringed by coral reefs.  Along with those coral reefs atolls form, or “motus” in the local language.  The vast majority of them aren’t populated, except by crabs, birds and other critters.  We loved exploring these little islands, snorkeling the reefs, spending time on the beach, gathering shells and corals, and looking for hermit crabs.

Deserted atoll a.k.a “motu” on Manihi

1. Quality time with Giulia and Ed.  The best part of the entire experience has without a doubt been spending months of quality time with Giulia and Ed.  We got to enjoy ourselves without worrying about schedules and work.  Our biggest decisions were where to snorkel what to make for dinner; it was all good!

Carla and Giulia at a black pearl farm on Huahine

 

Carla and Ed at Chez Tara, a Polynesian restaurant on Huahine. Time Warp is anchored in the background.

Giulia just hanging out on the boat.

Passage to Polynesia

The day before we pushed off the dock in Mexico to being our 2900 mile passage to Polynesia, Mike the weather guru proclaimed over the cruisers’ radio net, “The weather window is closed.” He continued, “Guys, if you are even thinking about trying to make the jump, now is definitely not the time.”

In Mike’s opinion, if we left Banderas Bay (where we were) we wouldn’t have enough wind to make the connection to the trade winds at about 10 degrees north of the equator, and we’d just float interminably.  Mike had a lot of street cred in both ocean passage making and in weather forecasting, having raced in numerous Pac Cups to Hawaii, and having been the local sailing weather forecaster in Banderas Bay for going on fifteen years.  He was also the local sailmaker for North Sails, as well as the go-to rigger for anyone needing work topside. Were we absolutely crazy to make the decision to fly in the face of his advice, and go for it anyway?

It was a hard decision because we were supposed to meet Giulia, my daughter, in French Polynesia in the beginning of April, and we were already ticking down the days to mid-March.  Even if we left immediately we would be there one week late, at least.  Then there was the problem of the two crew we had on board, Bruce and Robert, both good sailors who signed on to help us make the passage, but who had a finite amount of time they could spend with us.  Already we were two weeks delayed on our start, hoping for an optimal weather window to make the jump and get a ‘good connection to the trades’, and we if waited much more they would have to return back to the States and not do the passage. I was also going to have to abandon the passage because I didn’t want to be separated from Giulia longer than the delay was already causing.

We discussed the weather endlessly among the four of us, me, Ed Bruce and Robert.  In our assessment, the worst that would happen was that we would float for some days, but we knew the weather was going to change in the medium term and set up the normal seasonal patterns that would bring great wind, and in the meantime we would be making at least some progress instead of sitting at the dock in Banderas Bay. Also, the wind was forecast to be light instead of heavy, which meant no danger to us, and we could take the slow start to learn to work together as a crew. Flying in the face of Mike’s expert advice, we decided to push off and go. But, we loaded up with 13 5-gallon cans of diesel, in addition to the 54 gallons we carry in the tank, to make sure we could motor up to 1000 of the 2900 miles we needed to cover, if necessary. We also set specific waypoints and timelines, so that if we weren’t making those waypoints by set dates we would abandon the effort and turn back.

Our biggest milestone during the passage, one well beyond the point of turning back, was undoubtedly the crossing of the equator. It’s a big event in any sailor’s life, when they officially get to call themselves a Shellback, meaning they have sailed across the equator. Initiation rites are administered by the Shellbacks on board, which in this case was just Ed, and all Pollywogs (non Shellbacks) have to go through them. Our initiation rites were infinitely more civilized than the customs of the British sailors of the last centuries, which involved tar and feathers. Instead we toasted Neptune with chilled champagne, and feasted on seared blue fin tuna (which Ed and Bruce caught the day before), and homemade brownies. Robert even made a guest appearance dressed up as Neptune in a costume that we had devised on board, and we snapped pictures.

In the end all of our planning and hard work paid off! While we had a slow 27 day trip to the Marquesas, the first island group one reaches in French Polynesia, it was a safe and uneventful passage. Originally when we planned the trip I was hoping to make a 22 or 23 day passage, so we probably took about four days longer than normal, but we still were one of the first boats from our fleet to get there. Bruce, Robert, Ed and I had a good week to learn to work together before we started getting into the squalls that cluster around the trades, and we got a good rhythm going. As I told them repeatedly, I couldn’t think of three better guys to make the passage with.

Overall, it was an uneventful passage, with the only major equipment failure being the autopilot, which decided it didn’t want to keep a course anymore after about 10 days into the passage. We needed to recalibrate the autopilot’s compass, but didn’t have the flat water to do that in the middle of the Pacific, so that fix waited until we arrived at our destination. But, in four people we were able to hand-steer, no problem, with shifts of 3 hours on and 9 hours off. We made landfall in Nuku Hiva on April 7^th, and were met in the anchorage by Steve, an Aussie from Panniken, on the first Puddle Jump boat to arrive in the Marquesas this year. He swung by in his dingy to welcome us and then disappeared for a few minutes to grab a cold six pack from his fridge to help us celebrate. He was awesome! During the last four days of our passage we had been out of beer for the and Ed was shriveling up like a raisin. The beer was the best beer we ever had, and we were excited to begin our adventures in French Polynesia.

Carla at the top of the mast, helping to troubleshoot a problem with the wind instrument, while we were preparing to leave Mexico.

Before we left La Cruz in Mexico we did a major provisioning to cover us for the month at sea. At the time 6 cases of beer seemed like it would be plenty, but unfortunately, we ran out of beer 4 days short of our destination. We had tons of food though!

Carla and Ed at the equator, moments before Carla became a Shellback.

Robert dressed up as Neptune to help celebrate the crossing of the equator. We sent the picture to Latitude 38, and hope they publish it…

Bruce and Robert enjoying a peaceful sunset on the passage.

Ed fought with this tuna for a good 20 minutes before it finally gave up and let him reel it in. It was probably close to 25 lbs, and we made many lovely meals with it.

While not good for eating, flying fish are all over the place in the South Pacific. They scoot above the water for distances of up to 30-40 yards, skipping off the surface like flat stones on lake surface. When we approached, schools of them would take off in confusion, some darting left, others going right, and making us smile.

Landfall! Here is a picture of Nuku Hiva, our first solid ground after 27 days of passage.

Lazing in La Cruz

 

You know you have entered cruise mode when you find yourself having an animated discussion on what day of the week it is.  Without the regular rhythm of the work week the days run together, especially as the climate almost never changes from 90 degrees and sun, which heightens the sense of timelessness.  We feel ourselves slowing down, being happy with accomplishing one task in a day (maybe), and just hanging out without really thinking about what day it is.  For the past few weeks Ed and I have been lazing in La Cruz de Huanacaxtle and losing track of time, having arrived down the mainland coast from Mazatlan.

La Cruz is in Banderas Bay, just 6 nautical miles from Puerto Vallarta, and is ‘cruisers- central’ with great marina facilities, a yacht club, a sandy beach and a cute small town of little shops and cobblestone streets.  For Pacific Puddle Jumpers, like ourselves, it’s also ground zero, as numerous seminars and workshops take place here to support the Puddle Jump.  So far we’ve had seminars on SSB radio communications, offshore weather, rigging, sailboat electrics & spares, provisioning, and more.  We are psyched because in the coming week we’ll have another in-depth seminar on weather, a session on what to do ‘when big things break’ and also an in-the-water demo and deployment of a life raft where we can all practice on getting into one.  Granted, no seminar will ever replace real experience, but these sessions are definitely better than nothing (and in any case, we hope we never have real-life experience on deploying a life raft!).

 

The beach in La Cruz is just behind the marina where we are docked. Here it is at sunset.

 

What we love the most, perhaps, is the wonderful nature that we’ve seen all over the place since we left Cabo for Mazatlan.  The most fun, perhaps, was an encounter we had with a school of squid during the overnight passage from Cabo to Mazatlan.  During the night, a number of squid launched themselves out of the water and onto our decks, which we found when the sun came up. We believe they were probably trying to escape some dolphins, as we saw a number of dolphins around the boat on the passage.

Squid jumped out of the water and landed on Time Warp’s decks.  We didn’t know squid could fly!

We returned the squid to the ocean, but they left their inky imprints behind, which tell the whole squiddy story

 

Over the past week we have had a lot of fun with a visit from Giulia, who is on school break for a week.  We decided do a short excursion with the boat over to Yelapa, a town accessible exclusively by boat, foot or horseback.  The stunningly beautiful bay and beach lead up to a quaint and peaceful village, and a path through the village reaches a secluded waterfall in the jungle above the palapas (houses with thatched roofs).

Here are some pictures of our visit to Yelapa with Giulia.

Giulia in Yelapa, with a view of the bay and anchorage

 

Giulia getting ready to dunk in the waterfall in Yelapa

 

Time Warp moored at Yelapa. Unfortunately the anchorage was way too rolly, making for an almost sleepless night, even with the flopper stopper.

 

Back in La Cruz we’ve had a great time taking in all the nature, including lots of puffer fish, banana trees, and birds.

Puffer fish abound in La Cruz

 

Just don’t eat the puffer fish. As this poor fish found out, it is poisonous, and so it was its final meal (the tail of the puffer fish is still sticking out of the larger fish’s mouth)

 

Bird in La Cruz. We honestly don’t know what kind of bird it is, but it has a great punk look with the grey, white and yellow ‘faux-hawk’ feathers.

 

Banana trees abound here in La Cruz

 

 

Finally, we want to send best wishes to our friend Lou, who crewed with us from Half Moon Bay to Santa Barbara, and from San Diego to Cabo.  The week after he flew out of Cabo he suffered a catastrophic skiing accident in Tahoe, and has just recently been released from ICU and will have a long road to recovery.  But Lou is one tough dude, and is making great progress.  Lou — we wish you the best, and will look forward to sailing with you again in some place warm and sunny!

 

Lou at the helm on Sonamara, his and Patrice’s Island Packet

 

Ensenada to Cabo San Lucas

Sunset while we were underway.

To be honest, I didn’t feel like we were really cruising until we left the US waters, as until then it almost like being on an extended version of all the coastal and ocean passage making classes I’ve done over the past few years with Club Nautique.  Well, except for the fact that we had lots of beer on board, could take showers (we have a watermaker to top off our water tanks), and thankfully, didn’t have a man overboard drill.  I think Club Nautique prepared me well in that way, since I felt confident and comfortable to sail down the coast after going through their program.

The big day came on January 6th, when Lou rejoined us and he, Ed and I sailed out of San Diego and made the 60 mile or so run down to Ensenada.  We weren’t in Kansas anymore!

This is a snapshot of our chartplotter as we crossed the border from the US into Mexico. Time Warp is officially in Mexico!

I’m not sure what I was expecting in Ensenada, but a few things surprised me when we got there.  First, it seemed like there were more Americans than Mexicans everywhere we went. In the marina no one bothered with the pretense of speaking Spanish.  Second, was the prevelance of pharmaceutical tourism, as the pharmacies in Mexico can sell prescription class drugs over the counter.  The lax policies combined with the regular flow of mega cruise ships sustains a proliferation of pharmacies, and they pretty much line the streets in the tourist areas.  Based on what the pharmacies are marketing, I’d guess there area whole lot of folks out there in need of Viagra and antibiotics.  Just sayin’…

Dozens upon dozens of pharmacies line the streets of Ensenada, attracting the business of ‘pharmaceutical’ tourists. Everywhere in Mexico you can procure prescription drugs over the counter from a pharmacy.

Finally, I was surprised by the fact that dollars and pesos work equally well in Ensenada.  I’ve traveled quite a bit through Europe, Canada and Asia, and everywhere I’ve been folks want you to use their currency, but in Mexico, and especially in Ensenada US dollars are king.

We took off from Ensenada as soon as possible after completing all the required customs and immigration forms, which took the better part of a day.  The next stop was Turtle Bay, about 290 miles down the coast, a two day passage.  The passage was uneventful, and we arrived in Turtle Bay to an idyllic sleepy fishing town with dirt streets and a few shops.  Right after we dropped the hook and took on fuel we made our way to a restaurant for some tacos and beer.

Ed in Turtle Bay, about to enjoy a few well earned beers after a two day passage down the coast from Ensenada.

On the way down the coat of Baja we encountered countless whales, which come down south from Alaska during the winter months to feed and have their calves.  At first I was a little concerned that we might hit one, and do damage to a whale and to the boat, but they pretty much stay out of the way.  My guess is they want to run into us as little as we want to run into them.

In the winter whales migrate down to the warm waters of the Baja Peninsula to feed and to raise their calves. They are so numerous that whale shows are a common occurrence on the water.  Ed had the camera ready at just the right moment to capture this whale breaching.

Besides whales we saw tons of fish, and had great luck with fishing.  Using just a cedar plug with a hook at the end of it we caught this yellow tail (a type of tuna) after having the line in the water for only about 20 minutes.  Even more astoundingly, we later caught a bonita (another type of tuna) when we dropped the line over and it hadn’t even been fully let out.  Basically it wasn’t fishing, it was catching!

This yellow tail fed us well over several meals as sashimi, on the grill, in ceviche and finally poached in olive oil.

Sashimi in the cockpit…

Exceptionally fresh yellow tail sashimi

And we made it to Cabo!

The Arches of Cabo

We stayed in Cabo for four days, catching up on sleep, cleaning the boat, working on the boat, and provisioning for the next leg of the trip.  I even got to go swimming at the beach in 80 degree (!) water.

Marina Del Rey and Newport Beach

Coming down the coast we had the benefit of help from Lou Haggarty, a friend and accomplished sailor, to get us through the longer passages.  Unfortunately, the weather delay in Morro Bay chewed up a lot of time though, so he ended up having to depart us in Santa Barbara to make it back home on time for Holiday with the family (he’ll be rejoining us in San Diego post New Year’s, which is awesome).

Ed and I continued on to Marina Del Rey on our own, where Ed met up with his buddy Eddie and we were accommodated at a berth on the guest dock of the Del Rey Yacht Club (DRYC).  Their club was incredibly luxurious and beautiful, with an elegant lounge area, dining room, pool, youth racing fleet, and spa-like facilities.  I also felt right at home because the club had a Hanukkah dinner the week that we were there.  Who wudda thunk?

While we were there in MDR we also got to meet up with a friend from business school, Richard Carriere.  We went out for sushi and caught up on each other’s lives.  He’s doing fantastic, and is of course super successful in his career… totally no surprise for such a bright guy who’s also great with people.

Here are some pictures from Marina Del Ray:

Approaching Marina Del Rey it looks like there are masts sticking up from behind the buildings. But could a sailboat be that big??

 

Indeed! The masts of the sailboat “Asahi” can be seen from outside the Marina Del Rey harbor. They actually stick up from behind the buildings in front of where the boat is docked. The guy at the fuel docks said she is run by a fulltime crew of 14.

A beautiful sunset at the Del Rey Yacht Club

We continued on to Newport Beach, and arrived there at sunset. Coincidentally it was also one of the nights of their Holiday “Lighted Boats Parade”, where 100’s of boats decked out in lights and music parade up and down Newport Beach Harbor.  We had a hard time finding an anchorage, and ended up anchoring bow and stern on the side of a mooring field where we thought the harbor patrol had indicated that we anchor.  Unfortunately the harbor patrol came by the boat at about 2am to make us move, ugh.  But, it was a beautiful night and we got to see some really fantastically creative lighted boats.

Ed in Newport Beach

One of the many beautiful and creative boats participating in the Newport Beach Lighted Boat Parade.

SV Time Warp in San Diego

We love San Diego!

Ed, Giulia and I came down for a vacation last February, and stayed in Mission Bay right on the Beach.  The weather was warm and we got to play in the sand and even rent a dinghy and go sailing.  Now 10 months later we came back again, this time on our boat, and this time in San Diego Bay.  We still had the beautiful sun and warm weather, but this time our neighbors were sea lions rather than partying surfers.  I’d want to say it was more peace and quiet, but those dang sea lions made a heck of a racket at night with all the barking, as they hauled out on the docks right next to the boat.

While we were there we had a visit from my whole family, with my parents, brother, sister and niece Jessica converging for a few days to see us off.  My parents had 59th (!!!) wedding anniversary while in San Diego, so we had a great dinner out at Eddie V’s steakhouse to celebrate.  Some friends from work had given me a really nice bottle of Caymus wine to send me off in good spirits, and I was saving it for the right occasion, and this was definitely it.  It was awesome.  Thank you Subhi and Hamid!

Here are some pictures of our time so far in San Diego:

Walking on the shore near La Jolla:

Carla and Ed in La Jolla

We spent a day at the San Diego zoo as well, where we got to see the pandas and some gorillas.

The family celebrating at Eddie V’s Steakhouse.  Fantastic dinner!

Celebrating Mom and Dad’s 59th wedding anniversary with the family in San Diego.

Some super noisy neighbors.  Ugh.  The last couple of nights we were there we took to spraying them with the hose.  When they finally realized they were being sprayed, which took some time, they rolled over and shoved off, leaving us in peace.

Noisy dock neighbor

We got to mess around a bit in the kayak and in the dinghy while we were staying at Shelter Island, and here is a picture of me and Giulia paddling.

Carla and Giulia in the Kayak at Shelter Island

And finally, we saw some very pretty sunsets and awesome views while staying on Shelter Island.

View from Shelter Island of San Diego Bay at sunset

From San Francisco to Morro Bay

The first week of December came and went, as the whole San Francisco area and Northern California was enduring a bout of winter storms.  While that was welcome news to drought-ridden California, it meant that we had to delay our departure a bit, from our planned date of December 2nd.  No matter, Ed used the time to finish installing the brand-new (& holy-cow-that’s-expensive) Spectra Watermaker, and I made a last minute dash for the storage unit to unload more stuff.

We ended up pushing of December 6th, with Giulia on board, on a day sail to Half Moon Bay.  On Sunday Livio swung by to pick up Giulia, and we were joined by our friend Lou Haggarty, who is an experienced sailor and all around laid-back and fun guy.  Originally Lou planned to join us all the way down to Marina Del Ray, but we ended up making slow progress down the coast….

Storms caught up with us, so we only made it as far as Morro Bay before we had to hole up and wait out the bad weather.  Newscasters up in the Bay Area amped up the drama, calling it the “Storm of the Century”, and while it was indeed a big one, I believe they were really referring to this century, meaning all of 14 years of it that we’ve had so far.

Anyway, Morro Bay became a sort of Venus-Fly-Trap for us, as it was both beautiful and welcoming — a true oasis of tranquility in worsening seas — but the bar crossing closed the day after we pulled in, and so trapped us there for 5 days total.  There are certainly worse places to wait out a storm (!) — the local yacht club welcomed us at their dock, and we spent days walking around this charming town gawking at sea otters, birds and the insane waves breaking over the sea wall.  Here below are some photos of the first leg of our trip.

Sunset in Morro Bay.

The mommy otter swims on her back with the baby otter in tow on her stomach. So cute!

Fish on a stick and other options for a quick bite in Morro Bay, including fried oreos and fried twinkies. We didn’t go for these, but we did have some excellent fish and chips.

Not having a car anymore requires some hoofing it to the market for provisions (and a folding cart, from Walmart.com, of course!)

Time Warp holed up securely in Morro Bay to wait out the storm.