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Tahina comes in 2nd

 After a spectacular start in light air with great coaching by Jason and great driving by Frank, we worked our way past a very racy monohull flying Kevlar sails and led the pack of 70 boats by the middle of the race. By this time breeze was up to 25-25 with gusts to 30. The cats were coming into their own. We held that lead until the final stretch in Moorea, where we were overtaken while sailing at 16 kts by an Australian daggerboard-style cat, the crew of which says that when they passed us on the leeward side, they were going 19.2 kts! Frank made a valiant effort to…

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Tahiti/Moorea Sailing Rendezvous Today

 We know we’ve been bad about posting while in Tahiti, and we apologize. Tahiti’s been a different experience, and Jason is working on a post to catch you up on it. In the meantime, I’m dropping you a quick one to let you know that the big Puddle Jump rally we’ve been mentioning since we started is happening today. 70 boats will be taking off from Papeete harbor at 9:30 a.m. for the 16-mile sail to Moorea. Winds have been around 25 kts from the south for the past 2 days, so we expect the channel between the islands to be somewhere around 4 meters once we clear the lee…

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Sticking with Tahina

 Yesterday Frank and Karen invited us to stay with them past Tahiti, and they will arrange their cruising schedule in order to get us to Rarotonga in the Cooks. We are very excited to now have the plans set for the remainder of our journey. Jason and I will arrive in Rarotonga most likely in early September and after a small mini-vacation there in a hotel, we plan to catch a plane to New Zealand later that month. Hurrah!

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Ia Orana Tahiti! (or Hello Tahiti!)

 So we’re finally in Papeete! We’ve actually been here since the 10th, but we’ve been very busy cleaning up the boat and getting Tahina ready for Frank and Karen’s friends Gerard and Patty to visit. Jason and I went ashore at Marina Taina yesterday to get some scuba tanks refilled, and we heard a rumor that the airport workers were on strike. Once Frank and Karen got back from the grocery store, they followed up on the rumor, and it turns out all of Tahiti’s civil service workers were on strike. (Very French of them, isn’t it?) So, the story is that the firefighters are on strike, and without firefighters,…

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Life on Board: Weevils

 Yes, I said weevils. Gross, you think? Well it’s pretty much a part of reality for anyone living on board for long periods of time. Because you’re traveling to faraway places with unpredictable groceries available, you generally tend to stock up in places known for good provisioning. The Caribbean is generally pretty good, minus some of the smaller out-islands like the San Blas or the Tobago Keys, but once you start heading west, supplies get way spottier. The goal is to supply yourself with enough of your favorites and your staples in bulk, so that in 3 months, when you’re out of bread and too far away from any bakeries…

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Yet Another Fun Encounter

 This afternoon on Tikehau, Jason and Frank took off to a small island near the pass to do some kite aerial photography. In the process, they stopped to check out a motu just to the south, which had some cool-looking boats parked around it. They ended up meeting Chris O’Callaghan and his wife Greta, resort managers at Ninamu, a joint venture owned by Chris and his partner, who happens to also be the former owner of Billabong. Yes, that’s right, Billabong. They got the full tour, and Jason and Chris got to talking, and we were invited back later for a beer. So we went back this afternoon and I…

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Life on Board: A new series.

 Lara’s post a couple weeks back titled “Weather to depart? Routing and Weather Windows” sparked an idea for a new series within our blog that I thought might be interesting. I’m titling it “Life on Board” and it will highlight topics that are unique to life on board a boat. I thought some of you might enjoy knowing what some of the other aspects of daily life are like living on a boat. Every day may seem like vacation, and largely it is, I’m not going to lie, but it is speckled with special activities related to living aboard. I’m creating this series to have a place to share those…

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Dive, Dive, Dive

 It has been years since I have had the “dive bug” the way I did when I first started diving some 20-odd years ago. It used to be that I couldn’t get enough diving. It was dive, dive, dive all the time. Then, after years of diving the same waters (Florida and the Caribbean), I grew tired of the same thing over and over. This led me to more technical types of diving, which satisfied my need for change for a while. Eventually the same thing happened. I again grew tired of the same old and mostly stopped thinking about diving. Occasionally I would find myself in some far-away place,…

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Finally, usable internet! New photos posted.

 After many frustrating sessions with poor connectivity, here in Rangiroa we have found internet fast enough and stable enough to allow us to catch up on uploading our pictures. Check out the photo updates from Nuku Hiva, Manihi and Manihi Diving. We have several new blog posts in the pipeline as well. Stay tuned…

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In Rangiroa, the 2nd Largest Atoll in the World

 Yesterday morning in the wee hours, we did the thing you’re never recommended to do, and pulled up anchor in Manihi at 3:30 a.m., bound for Rangiroa. We figured we knew the exit path in this atoll well enough to make a safe passage out, and with the help of a GPS track laid over a Google Earth map, Frank managed to get us out A-OK…after Jason dived the anchor to free it from coral rocks…again. Having to SCUBA dive the anchor has been a pretty regular task here in the atolls, and Jason has dived more than one. Good thing we carry tanks aboard. We were aiming to reach…

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