Pacific Ocean – Southern Hemisphere 19 April 2010 09.8031S 139.0306W
Apologies for leaving you at “We made it,” without even a little bit of description to bring you along. I knew once we arrived, we’d be consumed by the overwhelming amount of activities that come with an arrival in a new port. OK, overwhelming is relative, and most of you achieve more in a day than we’ve achieved in four (already!?); still compared to our passage days, it feels very busy here.
But first the arrival. There is something surreal, about the direct contrast between our last land sighting and this. Imagine Isla Clarion with it’s ancient rugged flowing plate tectonic red and yellow igneous rock cliffs, and it’s dry climate and spare vegetation – a few cactus, some dried yellow grasses, no other trees or greenery. Then picture 17 days of That Blue below with sky blue above – interrupted only by night’s dark seas with phosphorescence and dark skies with stars. Then imagine the essence of tropical paradise that all of you have tucked away – an island with high steep brand new (in the history of time new) jagged volcanic rock cliffs, dripping with tropical plants, the rainy weather weight of these plants destroying volcanic rock walls, sliding down vertical cliffs in giant mudslides to rest in lush sloppy valleys. All those plants are growing, flowering, dying, and composting at an accelerated rate in the heat and rain. There’s more rain here in a day than on Isla Clarion in a year (and they say there is a drought here now, an el Nino phenomena – only one rain shower in the evening every day, but too short, barely a refreshment). Those sweet smells of growth and rebirth carried far out to sea and the scents were more powerful than the first sights of land. Maybe because the very first sighting was just an impression of a giant jagged black mass darker even than the moonless pitch black early morning sky; while the smells sailed across that blackness, and screamed, “Tropical paradise here!” As the sun rose it lit up the black mass painting it deep lush green. That contrast: dry to humid, browns to greens, old to new, scent of sage to scent of plumeria, cool nights to hot nights – make it seem as if all our senses were flipped on end when we flipped hemispheres.
The initial impact was amazing, but very quickly on arriving all the busy-ness started. There’s the anchor to set, the dinghy to launch, desperate cravings for fresh fruits, vegetables (and of course cheeseburgers) to be appeased, paperwork and officials to deal with, a huge mess below to begin to tackle, a huge mess above to scrub, colonies of gooseneck barnacles on our bottom to dislodge, sleep to catch up on, new friends to meet (putting faces to those we’ve heard on the radio), school to start up again, and last but certainly not least, this incredible island to explore.
Dad, you’ll be thrilled to know that the boats that had arrived, who had tracked our progress through the net, were all sure we were a catamaran we’d advanced so quickly on the front pack. The southern trades were truly epic for Silver Lining.
Our radio email can’t make it past the high volcanic cliffs surrounding us, and free wifi has not arrived in the cafes here. There is a weak signal in the anchorage, but it’s slow and pricey. So after four days, I’m just now getting around to checking email, trying to find the good stuff in all the spam, which is especially frustrating when you’re paying for slow wifi by the minute – too bad there’s not some way to reverse the charges, back to the spammers! I’m not sure when we’ll manage to start posting some pictures, we may need to wait for a bigger town with better access. With all there is to do in a day on land, we’ll likely be back to our Baja schedule of postings (uh…almost weekly?). But know that we are happy and well.
Tomorrow, we’ll be renting a car to go visit Gauguin’s village where he painted many famous works, and some archaeological ruins, tikis and petroglyphs; and there will likely be some amazing views up higher than we can walk.
xoxomo