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Some Pics from Aitutaki. Departure to Rarotonga Tomorrow.

 We’ve had a great time hanging out here in Aitutaki, but because the internet is slow, we haven’t had much ability to post photos to our photo site. Instead, we’ll share some of our favorites here, and we’ll post the rest once we get somewhere more connected. On another note, we found out that 2 of Aitutaki’s motus were host to the Survivor: Cook Islands season. That makes this the second Survivor location we’ve visited on our travels so far. The first was in the Las Perlas Archipelago in Panama. We intend to leave for Rarotonga sometime tomorrow, and should be there by Tuesday midday.

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Out & About in Aitutaki

 We’re definitely beginning to feel some of the chill of the Austral winter here in the Cooks. We had a front roll through yesterday, and today has been very windy and in the 70s most of the day. It was low 60s last night, and Jason and I had to bust out the sleeping bags. We’ve become so accustomed to 85+ degree weather without a/c that I’m not sure how we’ll survive the shock when we land in NZ. In the interest of keeping this short, since I’m typing on my iPod from a hotel bar, these are the top 5 things we’ve learned or seen in Aitutaki: 1. There…

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Safely in Aitutaki, Cook Islands

 We arrived safely into Aitutaki yesterday morning and threaded the very narrow, shallow pass into the lagoon without ever touching bottom…a rare event, we hear. Scooters at Rino’s Rentals were $20 NZ a day for 3 days, so Jason and I grabbed ours and will be off exploring the island today.

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Manta Morning

 We plan to leave Bora Bora for Aitutaki in the Cooks tonight, so in a last ditch effort at seeing some manta rays before we leave, Jason and I booked a dive this morning. We’ve tried to swim with them since the Galapagos, and we never could seem to catch them while they were relaxed and visibility was good, but today really paid off. We saw about 6 manta rays, one of whom was about 4m wide and pregnant! We learned they carry their pregnancy on their back, and it bulges up like the roof of a VW bug, which looks pretty weird. It explains the bulging manta we saw…

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Moorea Tiki Pics and Bora Bora, Week One

 After snorkeling the tikis in Moorea last week, we took off for Bora Bora. The sail took about a day and a half, and we arrived on the early morning of day 3. The three of us were all exhausted from the sail and heavy weather was blowing in, so we took cover behind the mountain on the main island, anchoring in about 90 feet of water off the Bora Bora Yacht Club. Most people moor there instead of anchoring, but several folks had the idea to hide out there before we did, and there were no spare mooring balls. Holding was very good however, and with our oversized anchor…

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Life on Board: Staying fed

 We’ve had some questions along the way about why we get so crazy about the grocery store, or about how we store our food, and with boats, provisioning can be a pretty complex subject, so I thought we’d touch on it here. When setting out on a voyage it’s important to plan how you’re going to feed and water yourself. Some places have better availability and pricing than others, and some remote spots, like the San Blas off the southeast coast of Panama, have no stores at all. For us, it went something like this: Trinidad has big grocery stores and a Price Smart, so that was a good place…

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New Photos Are Up

 We’ve added our latest photos to our photo site. See pics from snorkeling some sunken vehicles off Tahiti, snorkeling underwater tikis in Moorea, and from our impromptu spa day at the Hilton Moorea Spa. We’ve also added a commenting function to the photo site so you can comment on individual photos if you like.

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Final Departure from Tahiti

 We left Tahiti for the last time yesterday, and we’ll be spending today in Moorea so Frank can have some fast Internet while we wait for the wind to pick up. Forecast says it will be building as of this afternoon. Jason and I plan to make a dinghy run to the other side of Oponohu Bay to see the underwater tikis we missed last time we were here. We expect to get to Bora Bora sometime tomorrow afternoon.

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Life on Board: Boat prep and boat kids

 We’ve spent the past few days in Tahiti fixing all the wear and damage inflicted on lines, sails and hardware over the past several months, refilling propane, doing laundry, and doing our final provisioning for Jason’s and my last month on Tahina. We’ve stocked the boat with enough food to feed four for 30 days, and I’m feeling a sense of closure set in on French Polynesia. On Wednesday, we hope to depart for Bora Bora so we can spend our final days in Polynesia doing some diving, scootering, and hiking while awaiting Karen’s return from Texas. Yesterday we took some time off from prep work and did some snorkeling…

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Life on Board: You mean there’s no shower on here?

 Living on a sailboat can pose some interesting challenges to the land-accustomed newcomer. As a sailor, whether you have a water maker or not, fresh water is a precious commodity, and it must therefore be conserved. Sometimes this means washing dishes in saltwater, and many times it means showering only every third day. Either way, keeping yourself, and your things, clean, can turn out to be a whole different ball game on the water than off. Fresh water = $$$ on board, whether it’s for fuel to run the motors or generator in order to make water, or it’s for buying water from a marina onshore for $2 per gallon—sometimes…

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