Aries 32 - Thistledown
friday, june 30th.
I'm out of the marqueses islands. Now I am in tahiti, which is in the society islands. I'm still in the same country though... tahiti nui... or french polynesia or something.
I spent a lot of time on nuka hiva. More than I meant to. I had a good time hanging out in taiohae, the main town, but was spending a lot of money. I went to a couple of restaurants. I tried the poison crux. I ate some food from a little truck that looked like a taco truck... people told me that was the cheap way to eat... but the meal I got out of this little "taco truck" was $9. I drank too many $7 beers and spent too much time using $9/hr internet.
Fruit is essentially free. People just give it to you, since it grows everywhere. I got a whole bunch of ... pompermoo? don't know how you spell it. It's like a giant grape fruit... and I eat it like a grapefruit.. but it's sweeter. they're really good. I dislike grapefruit, but these are good. maybe they are grapefruit, and pompamoo is some marquesan word for grapefruit... I duno, I never really eat grapefruit in the states. It's good though, and big, and sweet. If I'm sitting in the center of town in taiohae, locals will sometimes just come up to me and hand me some fruit. it's nice. someone gave me a bunch of bananas. they go bad quickly, but then I learned to sun dry them. It was going great, but then it rained. so it goes.
There are chinese people living in french polynesia, and it seems like there's some kind of conflict between them and the marquesans. The marquesans are not at all entrepeneurial, and the chinese are. Stores close from 11-2 every day, and it's not like they open much sooner or stay open any later. Maybe they do... how would I know I don't get up that early. There is a morning farmers market that you have to be at at 4am to get anything. The farmers market is kind of dumb though... there isn't anything there that you can't get at the store, and the prices aren't any better, and there's hardly anything there anyways. Once a marquesan was giving me and mike from "good news" a ride to the store... he asked what store we wanted to go to. We only knew of one or two stores, but he got upset saying "what?! you want to give money to the chinese?!?" And then drove us to a store owned by a marquesan.
Aparently trans-genders (is that the correct word?) are comonplace in this culture. There are a lot of "women" with adams apples and 5'oclock shadows. I've heard that there are a lot of boys who are just raised as if they were girls, from birth. kinda weird.
I sailed out of taiohae on june 9th, for a day sail to the northern side of the island. It was a nice day sail, and when I arrived, in a bay called anaho bay, herbert and jonah were there on their boats bamboo and araby. We hung out there for over a week, snorkling, etc.
There were only a few boats anchored in anaho bay. It was nice. Mike was there, a guy we met from a 54' catamaran called good news... really nice boat. he has scuba gear on board so jonah and herbert did some scuba diving. I don't have my certification (I'm hoping to get it here in tahiti somewhere) so I just snorkled. It was really cool... I learned to clear my ears finally and could get to about 30' deep and look around a bit. mike and jonah were just diving underneath goodnews so I could pretty much go everywhere they went, and see everything they were seeing, just couldn't stay down as long. I feel a lot more confident now for when I take scuba lessons.
The snorkling quickly became more of a neccessity than a fun past time. Anaho bay was mostly coral, and we ended up having to anchor in the coral. My primary anchor started to drag, so I put out two more anchors. On my secondary anchor, the rode completely chafed through (there wasn't much chain on the anchor), and on the third anchor, the rode chaffed almost completely through. We had to dive (snorkling) to retrieve the second anchor, because there was no rope on it, and ended up diving to retrieve the third one too because it got fouled on some coral. Jonah ended up getting them for me, because I was up top pulling the lines, but I was able to dive on the anchors other times. I feel like it's... progress.. or something, in my ability to cruise around.. I tried to dive my anchor in mexico and just couldn't do it. Now I can, and it feels good to be capable of it.
The snorkling practice also made it much easier when I cleaned my hull again, and changed another rudder zinc, etc.
I have a speargun and hawaiian sling, but haven't used either yet. in anaho it was all reefs, and the reef fish give you a disease called ciguatera.
Mike had a friend flying in to visit, and had to go pick him up in another bay where there was a road... so me and jonah and herbert hiked over to the other bay that day, picked up some supplies in the store in the other bay, and caught a ride back with mike on his catamaran... it was a nice trip.
Herbert had to go back to taiohae to fix his paperwork, because he still had tilikum on his crew list but she flew home, so we made a trip back to taiohae, me jonah and herbert, on herberts boat. It was three days, one to get back to taiohae, one day in taiohae, and one day back. I think it was around june 16-18. It was interesting to sail on someone elses boat. bamboo is a trimaran, and I don't think I'd ever sailed on a trimaran before. I don't think I would like to own a multihull,... they make a bigger stabler platform, and don't roll as much, but they sort of pound up and down in an uncomfortable way. it made me feel a little nausious. mike's boat was ok like that, but it's 54' and has about 4' of clearance under the bridge. I've heard multihulls are uncomfortable in any size unless there's at least 1 meter of clearance. herb's trimaran probably only has a foot or so.
As we sailed back into anaho bay, we caught a little tuna. I pulled it in, and beat it to death with a winch handle because herb couldn't find a knife... and then fileted it. Soon after dropping the anchor we were diping filets of sashimi in wasabi and soy sauce... it was very good... then we made some sashimi sandwhiches, and herb made some ceviche (letting the acid in lime juice cook the fish), and for dinner that night I made a yellow coconut curried tuna with some rice on the side... we got some good eatin out of that tuna.
A couple of nights we made a fire on the beach... it was quite a nice anchorage. There was good water there too. One afternoon nearly everyone anchored there went to shore to hand-wash their laundry. One day me and herbert walked the beach trying to catch octopus for dinner, but didn't catch any. We must just not have eyes for it, we met a marquesan woman that caught 8 of them.
We've been playing a lot of chess.
I did a lot of cleaning and re-organizing in anaho bay. I threw away or gave away a good bit of stuff. I have more stuff that I need to get rid of, but I might mail some of it home or try to sell some of it, because some of it's good stuff. I have some pretty stupid things though. .. like.. I have my bike helmet and panier bags for my bike, but I gave my bike away when I was in santa barbara. the bags are expensive so I don't want to just throw them away. I should have given them to aubrey when I was in san francisco (my roomate that was a bike messenger). I have a berth clear in my V-berth now, which was really nice on the sail from anaho to tahiti, because I could lay up there and read books, with the book shelf right next to me... and I have access to crawl up to the chain locker now. I moved a lot of stuff around. I put some sails and anchors in the head compartment since I don't use the head anymore anyways. After I get rid of my engine I'll move the stuff from the head compartment to under the cockpit, and then I'll fix the head. When digging through things in the V-berth I found my climbing gear... a lot of it rotten and corroded... it's a big loss.. It felt horrible pulling that stuff out and finding it all pitted and corroded. I should have left it with my friend Ali from umass to hang onto or something. I need to give stuff away more. I hang onto things too much and they really weigh me down and it can be a real waste. I think the cams are ok, which are the most expensive bit, but many of the caribeeners won't be safe to use anymore. Even my ice axe is pretty corroded. I haven't even been climbing yet... I meant to go climbing in mexico, but never got around to it. I pulled out my boxing gloves, and bought a mouth gaurd here in tahiti, so maybe me and jonah can box when he gets down here (he's got gloves too).
Exersize has been an important thing for me to think about. on the pacific crossing I found myself craving something... and eating different foods, and drinking coffee, and tea, and drinking booze, trying to satisfy some craving I was having but couldn't quite pinpoint. I think I was just stir-crazy craving some kind of exercize. I've been trying to figure out what I can do at sea. I tried doing pushups but they are extremely awkward with the boat going up and down. I did some situps in the cockpit with my feet hooked under the traveler line, but I kept falling over. When I try to stretch, I end up bouncing in a way that I don't think is good for me. jonah said he does squats, while holding onto the shrouds. I did this for a while and it worked I guess. herbert says he does yoga. I don't know yoga, but from my experience trying to do stretches I don't think it would work so well for me.. it's probably easier on his multihull. really I need arobic exercize though. even if I could do pushups I'm not sure it would help so much... and that's the problem with the squats, even though they are high repetition / no weight... it's still not that arobic.
On June 20th I sailed out of anaho bay for tahiti, and I arrived on the 27th. It was an excelent sail. nothing major broke, although one of my cockpit winches siezed up... I rebuilt it when I got here, and it was a pain to fix, but eventually I got it working again. There was at least a moderate wind for the entire leg. It was mostly dead down wind, which is sort of a pain, because the boat rolls too much. bamboo loves downwind sailing and hates to go upwind (as do most boats) but I think I'd rather have the wind a bit on the nose than to be totally dead down wind.. on this boat anyways.
Now I'm tied up to the quay in downtown papeete. I need to move to the anchorage, because this spot costs money. There's a race though right now, of some canoe like boats. They have a line in the water for a starting line that I wouldn't be able to get around, so I can't leave right now. also the office is closed and I haven't paid yet. Maybe I'll just sneak away after the race and not pay :-P. I've been to the office a number of times and no-one is ever there.
Herbert and Jonah aren't here yet, instead of coming to tahiti they sailed to caroline island in kiribati. It's an uninhabited atol. It's a different country, but since it's uninhabited no-one can complain about them not checking in (or not clearing out of french polynesia). They're hoping to do some good spearfishing and snorkling and lobster hunting there etc. Supposedly it's possible to anchor in a blind passage on the east side. They might be here soon if they're unable to anchor there. It sounded scetchy, and two of my anchor rodes are ruined, and I want to get a dingy and stuff like that here, so I came straight here. Supposedly aguja is in the anchorage here, but I haven't seen him yet. I saw richard from sail la vie, and he's in the anchorage too. Seacor is over in raiatea now... raiatea sounds cool from Laura's emails, so I think I might head over there soon. I thought I'd do some boat work here in tahiti, but raiatea might actually be better for it. They found a welder there, and I need to get an outboard bracket made so I can comfortably get rid of my engine. There's also a marina there for 60/week if I need a marina in order to get the welding done or something.
I'm getting a little behind. I need to be out of this area of the world by november, for hurricane season, or I'll end up trying to hole up in a sheltered anchorage for the whole winter... spending probably another year in the south pacific because summer is the bad season in se asia. Most people are doing this I think... holing up here for the hurricane season, but then they're all sailing to new zealand or australia next year. I'd rather see if I can get to western kiribati, near the equator, by november or so, and sail through micronesia into south east asia around december. the sailing season for south east asia is approximately december-may. I'm thinking that from here I'll go to somoa or fiji or something, and then head north. who knows what'll happen though... I just have to go where the wind blows me when I can. If I procrastinate too much I'll still be in samoa or something all winter, and then I have to wait till next december or so to go to SE asia. For all I know I might not even go there. It's not the typical route, and the wind isn't as good there... it's what I want to do though. As one cruiser put it yesterday "I see your plans are engraved in jello just like everyone elses."
If I get to american somoa I can get an address with a US zip code... so I can have stuff mailed there through the US post office without it even being an international mailing. I'm thinking I might try to do this.
I got really frustrated trying to check in here. I'm not really officially totally checked into the country until checking in here in tahiti. It's just an exception for cruisers that they put some intermediate stamp in my passport in nuka hiva or hiva oa. They were giving me a hard time because I've been in french polynesia for a month and hadn't checked in yet. they don't seem to understand that I'd arrived in tahiti that day, and had no option to check in properly sooner. To stay more than a month I needed a visa, so I had to run around getting a $30 stamp at the post office, getting photos taken, and getting my bond taken care of. they make you buy a $1200 bond to prove you have airfare if they want to kick you out of the country. If I refused to pay the bond, what would they do though? kick me out of the country and have to pay for my plane ticket since I didn't pay the bond? it's idiotic. If it was at least easy I might not be so pissed off, but they're giving me a hard time about not having done it, and I had to go to 7 banks to do it. One in hiva oa couldn't do (tried twice) , one in nuka hiva couldn't do it (tried twice), the first bank in tahiti doesn't do bonds, the second bank I went to in tahiti said their commision is high and so I should go to socredo bank, socredo said I had to go to another branch office, the other branch office said "no, go to the main branch," and then at the main branch I got in the wrong line so had to wait twice. Every time I went to a bank it was about a half an hour wait in line, and a good long walk as well. I've spent so much of my time here chasing after paperwork. It's just such a waste... of money and time and effort on everyone's part.
I finally got some more film developed... 2 rolls covering from mexico to here. I'll probably upload them as I send this email (I'm writing this on my boat, to send when I get to an internet cafe). When uploaded, the two rolls of pictures will be viewable at: