Summer Days

You know those summer days where the sky is clear blue and the air smells fresh. The sun heats your skin til it is warm to the touch but there is enough of a light breeze to keep you from getting sweaty. I am talking pure perfection for a day. That was today for us.

At about 9am this morning we called Tahiti Port Control and got the go ahead to depart the island and away we sailed. It has only been three weeks but it feels like so long since we have sailed. It felt so good to raise the main and shake out the Genoa and finally cut the engine. Beautiful, peaceful, wonderful sailing. Artemo was leaned over just enough to cut through the French Polynesian waters like she was dancing. I kept wishing my family (the 4 present excluded :-)) could be here to experience the moments like these with me. I miss them. Every perfect day requires dolphins and this day delivered.

We all watched as Tahiti got smaller behind us and the island of Moorea became clearer. I love that we all still get really excited about a new place. We all were up on deck pointing and ooohing and awwwwing as the most beautiful island unfolded before us.

As we came in the pass for the island a boat that we had met in Panama radio'd us and gave us the skinny on the anchorage. They let us know that there was enough room for us in the beautiful crystal clear anchorage to our port side. They said it was shallow but that the sun was just perfect that we would be able to avoid any reef as we came in.

Each day is a new experience and truth be told we tend to avoid anything shallow in Artemo or anything not considered "easy" when anchoring. Well I am so happy that we just went with his advice on this one. We came in and I watched as our depth indicator went from 15 all the way to 1.3 meters....We have never been quite sure if it was below the keel or from the surface of the water...well now we know it is below the keel. Graham is able to stand on the ocean floor below our boat and the keel of our boat starts at his shoulders! Of course being Graham his first thoughts are that he is going to be able to clean the hull really well. ha.

The water is sooooo clear it is insane. Once we were anchored Alex dove the anchored and assured me we weren't sitting on the ocean floor and then it was time for a family swim. Once we were all dried off and enjoying the view I checked for wifi and since it is the perfect day....voila...free internet! Totally crazy. It is gone now but it was good while it lasted.

.....and now as the sun has set and the happy hour drinks have been drunk ....you might ask what we are doing onboard our little Canadian home.....watching Ferris Buellers Day off of course!

Pull Me Up

Yesterday Alex and I went into the marina with the dinghy to do the check-out for Tahiti. When we arrived at the dinghy dock I climbed forward and had to climb into another dinghy and then onto the dock to tie us off. As I am leaned over tying off I see out of the corner of my eye.....Alex's shoe fly over my head and across the dock and into the water on the other side.

Well, here I must pause and tell you that shoes are like gold in Tahiti. Everything here is so expensive. It is really unbelieveable. So with this in mind I realize that I must rescue the shoe.....

On the other side of the dock is a big power boat. I put one arm on the boat and one arm on the dock and try and just lower myself down and hook the croc with my foot. Bad plan.....I can't hold my body weight up (I had hurt my arm the week before) and I sink into the yucky marina water up to my waste and manage to hold myself there. I look over at this point and Alex is still sitting in the dinghy with his mouth wide open in shock. I ask him....ok I yell at him, to get the heck over here and help me out of the water.

The dock is covered in coral and urchins and I really don't want to have to swim out around the power boat and back over to the dinghy. Yuck. He finally gets over to me and I manage to hook his shoe enough to move it closer to the dock for him to grab with his foot and then I tell him he has to pull me up with my one good arm. I struck the fear of god in him and told him that if he let me go....there would be heck to pay. He managed to pull me up. Amazing what a little fear of mother can do.

I asked him as I stood sopping wet and angry, what the heck he was thinking flinging his shoe? Didn't he consider the consequence? That it might fly over the other side....His reply was, "It entered my head for a second but then it was gone".

At this point all that was left to do was to......LAUGH. OMG...we laughed. It was pretty funny. We put on quite a show for everyone. I am now waiting for the absolute perfect moment to toss him in......my day will come and it is going to be soooooo sweet.

ps....We are checked out of Tahiti and hope to leave on Saturday (weather permitting). We just had the perfect evening onboard Artemo with our friends from AKKA and Quest. Home made carmel corn, brandy nut brie, baquette, hummus, meats, olives, cheese, banana muffins.....rum punch.....man I love happy hour/evening....

Running Man

Simpatica's Blog with Photos of the Day

Hello Casting Off readers, it is Alex here writing a special one of a kind blog……

Today we spent our whole day on Simpatica. We met Simpatica about a half a year ago on our first landfall from Cartagena to San Blas. We had been beat up and tossed around by a giant storm. We were all stressed and needed a little fun. In enters Simpatica!

They drove over to us in their dinghy and invited us to sundowners. We went over to the 47 foot Katana catamaran and had a blast. The boat has a washer and drier, microwave, hot running water, air conditioning, ice maker, freezer and a whole bunch of awesome toys. Julie and Louis (not Julie Perry) are awesome chefs and we ate like kings. We met up in different places as our trips progressed, like in Panama or in the middle of the ocean on our way to Galapagos. Finally we met in Papette, Tahiti which is where we are now.
Last night we had Louis over for drinks. Julie wasn’t there because she went back home to Australia. He said he was having a party… a boat washing party. He invited Amelia and I and the Gromit kids to a day of swimming, fun and fresh water cleaning.

The next day we made our way over to Simpatica. It was me, Melia and Mia from Gromit to begin with. The two other Gromits were finishing school. We started off by raising a giant tarp to cover the front of the catamaran and cleaned the window covers. Then we started to wash the deck and continued along for awhile. We also were spraying each other because a fresh water shower is something very rare around Artemo. We also were jumping off the sides of the boat.

Just as we started cleaning the cockpit Zoë from Gromit stopped by and she continued with the fun. Liam couldn’t come yet because he still had some chores to do. We finished cleaning the cockpit and we went out and dropped the kayaks into the water. We took the paddles apart so they were in two and paddled it like a canoe. We paddled under the middle of the catamaran. We then made a fruit smoothie which is something we can’t make on Artemo…no ice, no frozen fruit and it was AWESOME. We then made lunch which was fried ground beef with Cajon sause on rice and kidney beans it was great.

After that the apples on Simpatica sparked an interest for me since I know a recipe called Social Apple Betty. It’s really quick and really good and it’s only four ingredients total. Zoe and I then drove back to Artemo in the giant Simpatica dinghy with a 25 horse power engine. We went FAST! We got the recipe and made it back driving responsibly.

Break Break….. have tried to get Alex to finish the blog to no avail, so I will pick up the story from here. Unfortunately though all I can give you is our point of view.....

Later in the afternoon we got a radio call from the kids asking if they could stay the night. I wouldn’t give them a "yes" on the radio since I just couldn’t believe that Louis really would want 5 kids for the night after having them all day. We all met up at Gromits for burgers and sure enough Louis was in good spirits and said he wanted to give us all a night off and was happy to have the kids over. He said that he had a great time with the kids all day and that the "boat washing" party was a success. The kids let out hoots and hollers when they finally had the "YES" they had been waiting for. Graham and I were hooting and hollering to ourselves to!

We dropped the kids off with their mats, sheets and pillows and on the front of this big beautiful catamaran where there is a trampoline like area they all made their beds. Louis then got out the flat screen tv and positioned it outside for them all. He put on “Avatar” and made them a big batch of popcorn and they were all in heaven. I guess they all were asleep before the movie had even ended. The next morning they made crepes and the fun continued til lunch.

The kids all had what they say is, 'The best day ever!' I wish you all could meet Louis. He is fun, boisterous and kind with just the right amount of crazy thrown in to make him interesting. When we did the crossing from Panama to Galapagos we were in SSB contact with Louis daily and we would track each other’s coordinates. About 8 days out he finds us and does a drive by in the middle of the ocean in big seas and wind. As he passes us he goes to the front of the cat and does the running man! Totally classic.

We all feel really lucky to include Louis and Julie in our cruising circle of friends and we can’t wait to meet up with them again down the road.

Piece of Metal

From Tahiti Fun

Being the voyagers we are we have gone….NOWHERE! ha. We woke up the next morning and it was blowing a bit and we thought ……let’s stay awhile longer. We have decided for the moment to wait for our boat parts and then head off to Moorea and then on to Bora Bora.

Another deciding factor was that the kids friends arrived in the morning at the anchorage and the hope of a play with them was enticing the kids to stay. They arranged to get together with Robin (Alex’s friend) and Julie (Amelia’s friend). I gave them a little freedom and they all went off to grab ice creams together from….McDONALDS!

I found it funny that once they were back at the boat the first thing Robin asked to do was to see Alex’s book selection. Once he had a series to borrow decided on it was time to jump in the water to cool off and then they read their books together in the cockpit. A bit different than backpacks strewn all over the floor in Toronto and Alex and his buddy’s playing Calling of Duty upon my arrival home from work. Don’t worry though…Alex is still dreaming of his Uncle’s X-box.

They all ended the visit by flying around the boat on the halyards. I only heard a few smacks and crashes. I brought them into the marina to find their parents and as we were walking towards the dinghy bar we could see a man off in the distance walking towards us with a piece of metal in his hand. Alex says, “Hey I think that is Dad and he has the piece of metal he was looking for”. Robin says, “It might be my Dad. He was looking for a piece of metal today to”. This totally hit my funny bone. To funny that the world we now live in has two friends who’s Dads could be coming home with a piece of metal!

Once we had dropped off Robin and Julie we headed over to our friends boat Salamander for sundowners. We enjoyed sparkling white wine (in a bottle!!!....we have only had boxed wine since Panama) and a beautiful assortment of French cheeses and baguette. Happy hour is my favorite time of day J.

All in all I am pretty happy we haven’t headed out yet. Yesterday Graham and I even spent the day together having our own adventure. We hopped on a local bus and found some beautiful caves. It was really nice to spend the day together without either of us having to compete for our attention. Absolutely perfect and it turns out I still really like the guy and vice versa I think.

We are back to doing chores today such as ….taxes, banking, home school registration, and the never-ending boat maintenance. Alex’s flu has hit us all except for Graham, so everyone cross your fingers the Captain doesn’t get sick cause you know what that means…..lol

Ps…..The Captain is now sick….wish us luck J

Voyagers

We are voyagers. I love being voyagers. I am so totally hooked on the feeling of....."Where should we go today?" It is really, really cool to just be able to pick up and go and your home goes with you. I enjoy our stops but we are on a journey and we need to keep moving, to keep looking forward. It is so exciting.

Tahiti has been a cool stop on this journey. It has been our first taste of real civilization since we left Panama City. It was a shock to walk into the huge air conditioned grocery store but it felt sooooo good. Unfortunately the prices are SKY HIGH! Thank goodness I bought enough groceries to get us to New Zealand. I feel so proud each time Graham runs out of something and I can produce another bottle, jar or bag of it and he is so happy with my shop job. You know I love the kudos. The only things we need to stock up on are fruit, veggies, cheese and meat. We spent about $200. I think we are doing pretty good with our budget. We decided that the fruit and veggies were to expensive in the grocery store though and we had heard there was a farmers market at 6am on Sunday mornings where they were much cheaper. This means that for the past 2 Sundays we have woke up at 5am and taken the dinghy in the dark all the way into town (about 3 miles). We carefully find our way via the red and green buoys. One wrong turn and you end up on the jagged reef. We had a couple hairy carry moments of Amelia yelling...."Dad REEF"!! Regardless we saved some money and had an adventure! Gotta love that.

We also managed to squeeze in a Tahiti tour Perry style. We took our dinghy into town and saved the taxi fare. We took the kids to the food vendors in the open market and bought baguette sandwiches for our lunch. ($2 each) We jumped on the number 1 bus to the end of the line. ($4) We hiked from the end of the line up a mountain into the lush Tahiti landscape to a waterfall. Pretty neat to do given the fact that practically no one speaks English.

We did have a few bumps in the plan though. The first one was a HUGE centipede revealing itself to me from under a leaf on the trail as Amelia and I hiked. Scared the crap out of me and I heard these things are extremely poisonous. Second bump was the fact that when we were almost there Alex started feeling sick and weak with his cold. It was decided that we would turn around and Graham and Amelia would continue on and meet us back at the park in Papette. I didn't realize he was feeling that sick. I felt terrible for pushing him that far. Luckily as soon as we turned around and hiked back to the road a truck came along and offered us a drive to the bus stop! The third bump was the fact that I forgot to leave Graham and Amelia with the instructions for getting to the base of the waterfall.....ooops. They hiked up, up, up and finally they looked across and they were above the stunning waterfall. They said it was really gorgeous but they were so looking forward to a swim. Ha. Well we chalk these Perry Style Tours up to character builders and the good news is that the whole day only cost us.....$16.

Tomorrow we are off voyaging again! We are heading to the island of Moorea which is only 20 miles away. The guide book says that it is one of the most photographic islands in the world? Wish I had google to see what it has to say. We met a guy on the bus to the falls who lives on the island and gave us his number. He said we should call once we are there and he will show us around. I am looking forward to meeting his family and hearing his story.

Excited for tomorrow and really grateful for today......