The past month has been filled with so many extraordinary moments. Amelia and her girlfriend Elliott arrived within an hour of our arrival in Nuku Hiva on the 19th of April. Absolutely crazy to have timed it like this after a 30 day passage. To have said it would take 30 days and for it to have been 30 days was quite the feat. I always wanted to arrive with fans on the shore waving and hollering. My wish finally came true and it was two of my favourite people.
It didn’t take us long to get Salty all cleaned and organized and ready for our French Polynesia adventures. Anchorage hoping, island exploring, hiking, cooking, swimming, snorkelling , hammocking, happy houring and diving. Our days have been full.
Some highlights have been our week in Tahuata with the Beez Neez. Swimming with Manta Rays, catching a tuna, making sushi, our village dinghy adventure to find fruit, our pre happy hour beach swims, our huge float party with all our friends and of course back deck parties. Sooo good. I’ll remember that week when ever my heart needs a lift.
We are now onto the next chapter of this adventure….exploring the Tuomotos. It’s so exciting and thrilling. Gets my blood pumping entering and exiting the passes and navigating inside the atolls. It feels so fresh and unspoiled. You feel like you are out in the middle of no where. The skinny bit of land on reef is so flat and low lying it all seems unreal. It makes more sense in my head the areas we stayed without any population. It’s so odd to see a perfect little town nestled in between the inner and outer edge of a reef. People living their entire existence here. They have cars even and it’s so odd as they would only be able to drive a few kms. The areas without people feel a bit like we’ve discovered them lol. We found a way to get to shore which is a challenge as many of the beaches basically have low level reef all the way up to them. Once on shore it felt like outer space to me. Rugged jagged edges of reef. Small salt water ponds and streams. Sharks and crabs and fish everywhere. Tracks in the sand only from crabs and turtles. So many beautiful shells and sponges on the beach. The water is all the different shades of blue and green.
The reef and bommies (an outcrop of reef) are so beautiful with so much color and sea life. The fish are all so vibrantly colourful. The other day Amelia was diving down under me in her yellow swim shirt and a school of yellow and black fish swam with her and it was like she found her tribe.
I have had to try my very best to get use to sharks again. They are everywhere here. As soon as we dropped our anchor in a very remote area, there was two fairly large ones circling the boat. The girls jumped in with our stick (just in case) and went and checked that our anchor was securely set. They said the sharks were way more curious than they had hoped. They came right up in front of them and made eye contact and one behind them. A bit unsettling. By day three though we were having floats in the water out back while they circled around us lol.
I took Amelia and Graham over to a bommie in the dinghy for a snorkel. We anchored the dinghy on one side of it and away they went while I waited in dinghy for them. I could see them swimming around oddly after a bit and then saw them making their way back with sharks following them. They climbed in and said that 3 of the sharks were just way too interested and just seemed territorial so we decided to move on. Unfortunately the anchor was stuck which means that someone would have to jump in and retrieve it. Graham put his mask on and hangs his head over to see how stuck it is and Amelia and I watch as a shark cruises past his head. Yikes!
Eventually Amelia was like I’ll go get it and she jumped in with 4 sharks. These are the memories I’ll cherish for a long time laughing and figuring together.
Another highlight is snorkelling the pass into the atoll when the current wasn’t to heavy and on a very calm day with Uber clarity. I thought i would just stay in the dinghy but we got a few other cruisers in on the fun and I felt safer with a few dinghy’s and more people so I got in. Omg it was crazy good. I was either holding Amelia’s hand or Grahams hand or for while both their hands and drifting along with the current and the sharks and the huge fish. Sunlight streaming in illuminating the reef and all the colours. Vibrant purple like I’ve never seen. Amelia and Elliott diving down under me along the wall of reef to our side and their bubbles coming up all around me. Spectacular.
At one point Amelia thought she found a treasure chest. We were so excited. She was way down under me trying to break it free when Graham let us know it was a battery. Darn.
We also had a couple beach happy hours and bbques with new friends. Always fun to share stories, listen to music and enjoy land life a bit. It was definitely a challenge navigating back to the boat in the dark and through all the bommies.
Ok one last funny story…this blog has been all over the place but I really don’t want to forget all these memories…before we left Marquesas our friends on Beez Neez gave me a couple gummies for my birthday (oh I just remembered that my birthday was such a good day as well! Arriving in Makemo and being spoiled with presents, decorations, eggs Benedict, cupcakes and an epic dinner. I felt very loved)….back to the gummies. So I decide to take one on a night we were going into the beach. It was just going to be the 4 of us and I thought a nice safe night to eat one. Well I take it and we head over. Set up our chairs and music and the gummy begins to take effect and our new friends on the other two boats at the anchorage come over and ask to join us. Needless to say in my mind it was a very strange night. I laughed lots. Amelia and Elliott said I seemed normal. Well I did not feel normal! I thought it seemed everyone was stoned as well. It felt like I had way more clarity as everyone spoke on the nuances of what they were saying and I felt so cringey. Lol. Watching or spectating on how conversation volleys from one person to another. How we laugh. I remember laughing so hard my face hurt. I remember wondering if I should be laughing so hard. Oiy. Soooo I don’t think I’ll be doing another gummy anytime soon lol. As much as Amelia and Elliott probably want me to. ;-)
Anyway it was probably safe to mention this story at the end of this very long blog, as I can’t imagine anyone reading this whole thing.
It’s the middle of the night now and we are sailing to Fakarava. The sky is lite up with stars. You can see the Milky Way like a stream across the sky. So beautiful. We are sailing downwind gently rocking back and forth. Everyone is sleeping. I just finished a HUGE bowl of popcorn. So good. I am hoping the wind picks up as predicted because I want to arrive for slack water at 8:30 am but that means we have to be doing 6.2 knots rather than the 5.4 knots I’m currently seeing.
Wish us luck!
