Very Near Raivave 30 June 2010 23.9564S 146.7695W

The winds have calmed a smidge (20 knots instead of 30plus). I’m feeling better, Kennan’s been immersed in a book series since we left (so not feeling tooo seasick). Logan was sick the first day, but then was loving surfing down the faces of those big waves, periodically getting splashed, and loving watching the shearwaters and storm petrels doing their acrobatic antics. At one point, he said he wished he could soar up the face of a wave like that and spin back around to plunge back down, and I responded that those kite surfers do just that. He said, “no I mean I want to have billions of years of evolution behind me perfecting me for just that movement.” So I don’t know if he’ll be taking up kite surfing anytime soon. Once you’re not seasick, it really is spectacular sailing, and Silver Lining’s is performing beautifully, she may not have billions of years of evolution behind her, but humans have been working this sailing thing for thousands of years, and Gary seems to have taken advantage of all that and perfected her for this kind of weather. We’ve had a number of 175-mile-plus days (that’s straight line way made good toward goal in 24 hours). That probably seems like an amazingly slow pace to land lovers in the crowd, but it’s actually not to bad for a boat our size and weight.

I’m back to my dog watch now. It’s interesting how in 4 hours my mood can swing. When I’m still sluggish and sleep deprived from a too short nap, that first half hour crawls by at a painfully slow pace, all I can think about is crawling back in or curling up by the mast and hoping it all goes away. Then as I become more aware of my surroundings, getting a feel for the night’s wind and weather, stars or clouds, rain or wind or calm, my mind drifts into contemplative mode, sometimes digging up a very old memory to cuddle with, sometimes writing mental letters to all of you, sometimes solving life’s big problems, or wondering at it’s great mysteries. I think it’s the kind of time, that modern life just doesn’t leave room for. I don’t know that now having this time makes me a better or healthier person, but it sure is enjoyable. When I’ve completed my drifting, sometimes I’ll read a little, or if the weather is too rough to bring a book on deck, I’ll listen to the kids podcasts (the current favorite onboard are the radiolab podcasts), or cut loose dancing and singing along to the eclectic mix of music magically available to me now-a-days – it’s great not having an audience so I can goof off all I want. By the end of my watch, I’m tackling projects, trying to mix bread ingredients below, and bring them up to kneed, or straightening the cockpit and arrange all the lines, dry the cushions. By the end, I’m amazed how fast 4 hours can fly by, and wondering how I could ever have felt that the first half hour was tedious. The task of keeping the boat trimmed and keeping watch for any other boats (we’ve not seen one this trip), has a different feel from beginning to end, at the beginning I’m grumbling about the lines cutting into my hands, or a bump to a shin, or the fact that I have to kneel on hard steel to do a maneuver, since it’s too wet on deck for the cockpit cushions, or whining to myself about having to stand up yet again to do my 360 degree scan of the horizon. By the end I’m thrilled at the new strength in my hands that wasn’t there 6 months ago and wishing for a wind shift so I can keep them in shape, and watching for boats while dancing is pretty fun. All in 4 hours.

xoxomo

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Very Near the Tropic of Capricorn 28 June 2010 22.9005S 141.6165W

I have mixed feelings about passages, there are blissful moments and there are hellish moments. Then there are even some of those blissful hellish moments – kind of like life I guess. Yesterday’s email silence was due to a bout of seasickness. Usually I get the variety where you feel tired and irritated, but nothing a big gulp of fresh air won’t fix. Night before last was of a variety I’ve not experienced since sailing pregnant. Frank had to take my watch and his, by morning I was barely able to stick my head out and oooh the seas I could see! Big drifting blue mountains, house sized swells actually, looming behind Frank’s head. The seas hadn’t calmed but my stomach had, so Frank did get some rest, in fact I was not able to return inside till evening, so I think he got some good rest. The sunset lit up the buffalo sized puffy white caps, to match the puffy clouds above all peachy/pink sorbet. All I could think was, “mmmm, peach sorbet, that would make a nice lining for the path to my stomach right now. Alas, no peach sorbet in sight, the closest we have would be canned peaches…mmm canned peaches, if I only had the fortitude to dig through the cupboards to find them.”

Inside looks like the wind outside penetrated the steel and soared through the cabin. Frank has declared the aft cabin a “zone sinistre” – disaster area – another “faux ami” in french although it is looking a bit sinister. The whole boat is looking downright sinister, but the fact that we forgot to buckle in the books, made the most impressive mess in back. Our swabs, claim that they were only hired to swab the deck, not act as cleaning ladies. Those union workers!

It’s beautiful and it sucks, and more good news is we’re making good way, and I’m feeling better, but I sure wish the weather report didn’t have identical weather reported for the next 4 days, steady 25 knot winds east/southeast with gusts to 40. Yes it’s still big and rough, Otto, keeps beeping at me that he can’t keep course, so the good news for you is this one is short:) I’m off to gulp some of that fresh air and have some words with Otto.

xoxomo

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Taravai, Mangareva 26 June 2010 23.1468S 135.0227W

Two weeks in the Gambiers felt way too short. I think that may be my new mantra each time we take leave. It’s not a big place, but so beautiful, so much to see, and such pleasant people. The last couple days we spent on the island Taravai, which has 3-5 year-round inhabitants, and another 3-5 weekend only inhabitants, but it has room in it’s little church for a hundred or more people (none of the 3-5 inhabitants is a priest though). The grounds were beautifully maintained by a hardworking and friendly young local guy. He gave us the tour lamenting that all the other young folks, choose to move or stay in the village across the bay, despite the pristine setting, abundant fruits and great fishing. He grew up on the island, and when his grandfather passed away a couple years back he brought his wife and son to live there. While we visited the island’s population was drastically reduced; she the boy were gone to Tahiti for a month to take care of her ailing mom, and a French couple who lived down the beach, were off on vacation. Apparently they’d sailed there, fell in love with the place, and never left. Even on our short visit I had no trouble seeing how that could happen.

The village at Taravai has it’s own mini lagoon, the reefs of which act as a protective barrier to boats at anchor, or a vicious barrier to boats trying to enter the wrong way as we discovered. Silver Lining kissed a coral head on our way in, the area is not well charted, and the small entry channel was only partially marked, so we strayed a bit from the channel, bumped over the reef and landed safely in the lagoon. We were not going very fast and the wind and swell were calm when we entered. I was below checking our backup depth sounder, and keeping an eye on the known shallow spots on the chart (not all marked exactly). It was a stressful moment, definitely a moment when steel, eases the stress and makes one bolder than maybe one should be. But Frank did admit at one point that the coral just kept coming up and up, and there would not have been room to turn around, backing out is not a precise thing given our prop walk, and the clear water was oh so close, so he piloted her on through (and up and over). The weather had been windy and more wind was forecasted so before the winds came up again Frank and I went back and sounded the whole area, our goal was to make a more graceful exit, especially if we needed to leave in haste. The water was crystal clear and from the dinghy we could see the broken bits where we’d touched. It looked like knee-deep water to me, but our sounding showed a little over 6′ – apparently even though our waterline is looking better than when we left, we’re still a little over our design depth of – 6′. I guess we still need to loose some weight. Let’s just say we widened the channel a hair. I felt guilty about messing with the corral, but given the island’s history, ours was a drip in a vast ocean of abuse the reefs here have seen. All these churches and buildings that crazy priest had built were built from coral dug up from these lagoons. And there’s a huge quantity of overwater bungalows for pearl farming all around Mangareva. No wonder cyguatera is rampant with the reef fish here. Still I’m very sorry and send my apologies to the poor octopus who’s awning we trashed. Silver Lining is of course just fine.

Inside the lagoon, the swell doesn’t penetrate, so the wind can clock around from any direction and the lagoon stays flat. Last night we got a chance to test the safety of our anchorage (and the strength of our ground tackle), when the winds came first from the northwest at 40 plus knots, then did a 180 degree swing at about 3 a.m. turning southeast at 50 plus knots. During the wind shift Silver Lining did a 500 foot dance across the lagoon (or slightly less, our chain is about 250′ and we were anchored in 65’of water), till the chain tightened at the other end, and we were pointing in the opposite direction. There was a moment there, where laying in bed, you could feel the boat sideways to the wind, healing over, normally a sign that the anchor is no longer anchored, but with the radical wind shift we waited, waited, counted, and breathed a sigh of relief, as the anchor held, and the bow spun around into the wind where it’s supposed to be in a 50 knot blow. We were thrilled not to be doing any midnight deck calisthenics. This morning when we hauled up the anchor, we’d gotten most of the scope in, and the anchor and chain were vertical, the electric windlass, gave a groan before the anchor released it’s hold. It came up with the finest thickest glob of light gray mud I’d ever seen. I think Frank said the windless is rated to 1 ton before it gives that groan, so without any scope at all, we had one ton of holding. Logan playing with a wad of the mud afterward said, “The anchor must have been stuck like peanut butter to the roof of a squirrels mouth.”

Even though we’re now a few hours east of here, I’ve put our anchorage position, hopefully there will be a few pretty photos already up on Google earth that you can see since we may not be posting our photos, till we get to a better connected country!

xoxomo

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Rikitea, Mangareva 18 June 2010 23.1148S 134.9672W

This has definitely been worth the uncomfortable detour. The physical terrain of the Gambiers, is like a mix between the Marqueses and the Tuamotus. Here the outer reef is broken in more spots than most of the Tuamotus, and the inner islands have worn down more than the Marqueses (or sunk more?). So the “lagoon” here has multiple islands, and the reef’s motus have more water flowing between them. Most of the 10 or so boats we’ve seen here, come from Chile, Pitcairn and/or Easter Island (in September many boats jump from here to Chile). It’s not the ideal place to provision (no gas station, no bank), but the people are very friendly, the sights are spectacular and it just has a comfy, stay-awhile vibe.

We’re still on the main island of Mangareva, population around 1000 (according to one shop owner 300 employed, 60 retired, the rest children). Pearl farming started here, and spread to the rest of French Polynesia. They claim that the cooler water of this lagoon, makes for more colorful iridescent black pearls. But even if the pearl quality were identical, as the birth place, these farms are well established, and continue to be profitable (subsidies in the 90s created an overabundance of pearl farming and encouraged inexperienced individuals to try their hand at pearls – many of them have gone belly-up). Here they know what they are doing, and the community prospers. The architecture is unusual, thanks to a crazy priest back in the early 1800s who worked the locals to death (literally) tearing up the coral reefs to build an amazing quantity of buildings, walls, towers, churches and one huge cathedral. As a result, the lagoon fish are inedible from ciguatera, and there are more crumbling churches than such a small island can populate, run or maintain (coral and sea sand don’t make great building materials unless you can remove the salt), but it’s incredibly picturesque, with lots of large colorful fish in the lagoons, and bright white buildings with blue trim (colors of the Gambiers flag). Yards here are the pride and joy of their owners, with abundant tropical fruits and flowers. The well established pearl farms have equally picturesque over-water bungalows for working with the oysters (cleaning, greffing – seeding?, harvesting etc.). The lagoon is littered with pearl farm buoys, so navigating between islands is a fairweather journey – one we have not yet attempted given all there is to see and do here on Mangareva.

There are a number of well cleared, well marked trails, to the top of the two peaks, and trails traversing the island, as well as a quiet country road that circles the island; so we’ve worn ourselves out exploring. I thought all the hikes in the Marqueses would have prepared us, but a week at sea, and a week in the flat Tuamotus stole our hard earned stamina away, and it was like starting from scratch. The Mount Duff hike was particularly challenging (and slippery the day after a major rainfall), but the view was worth every step (and even every slip). I had a major case of vertigo at the top, the ridge trail is solid enough, but both sides are steep, and one side is literally a vertical drop of 100s of feet. Frank kept telling me to just focus on the trail, but how are you supposed to do that when you’re standing on top of the world with an amazing 360 degree aerial view of islands and coves and reefs and lagoon, with tropic birds overhead, and sheerwaters in courtship below you? You are compelled to look beyond the trail (then struggle to move the right leg that just unexpectedly locked up).

Today the kids and I visited a parochial 3 year trade school “Les Freres du Sacre Couer, Centre Educatif de Development” (sewing, woodworking, metalworking, cooking, jewelry, agriculture, beekeeping, and some technical drawing). We had a full tour of the “Nacre” studio where they’re learning to carve and sculpt the black pearl shells. Besides their own projects, students are refurbishing all the liturgical objects for the Cathedral here (also undergoing a full renovation). It was fun to see the kids at work and there was a surfeit of gorgeous eye-candy to feast on. Frank is anxious to see some of the other islands in the lagoon, but I’m hoping I can convince him to stay another day to see the end-of-year open house at the school, they’ll be displaying and selling all their wares. Maybe we’ll have to save the Australes for next year, and spend more time here. Once we head east, the winds won’t be at our back if we want to return here.

I would love to share some images of this oh so photogenic spot, but internet is worse than ever. I’ve barely been able to check email, and websurfing is pretty much impossible. I think it’s time we take one of the Ws off of “World Wide Web” It may be a wide web for you all, but “world” is still just wishful thinking.

On the homeschool front, Logan and Kennan finished their Algebra book! That’s a year’s worth of math in 6.5 months, and they’re getting it! The other subjects aren’t as easy for me to judge, but they’re reading profusely and we’re surrounded daily by history, geology, geography, science and PE. Writing more is our next big focus.

xoxomo

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Rikitea, Mangareva 12 June 2010 23.1148S 134.9672W

We arrived last night, it’s beautiful here! But definitely cooler, we’ll need more than just the sheet for covers at night here. The past two night watches we were even wearing long pants.

Back to landlife. We’re off to check-in with the Gendarmes, and to see if there is fresh bread in town.

More soon, xoxomo

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Motu Logan 12 June 2010

17.7828S 140.6789W

In case anyone wants to visit, I thought I’d follow up with the coordinates for Motu Logan on Amanu Atoll.

Also I was reading Typee aloud with the kids yesterday and came across some great advice from Melville. He gives it after describing his escape from the ship in Nuku Hiva, a miserable first night and a couple long harrowing days trying to make way in that unfriendly terrain. Logan was listening raptly and nodding:

“…and I recommend all adventurous youths who abandon vessels in romantic islands during the rainy season to provide themselves with umbrellas.”

I told him he should have finished Typee before we left Nuku Hiva!

xoxomo

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At Sea, Oh So Close to Les Gambiers 12 June 2010 (the dog watch again) 22.1976S 136.1278W

It’s glassy flat calm, not a cloud in the sky, and crystal clear visibility. It’s a moonless night, so you can’t quite see the horizon, but the stars are in gala form, bright enough to reflect off the water. You can even see the Milky Way reflected, sliding past a vague horizon all the way to the side of our hull. Phosphorescence tonight is in bright pinpoint form, not the glowy foamy sort, but big bright starlike points of green. These phosphorescent constellations ride our wake out to collide with the Milky Way. On the horizon I keep seeing fishing boats, I can clearly make out red, green and white lights, it’s disconcerting when those fishing boats float slowly up into the sky ahead.

Our ETA was down to 10 hours this afternoon, when a nice breeze helped us pick up speed (and morale). Now we’re motoring along and the ETA is back down to 24 hours. So much for the hoped for early morning arrival.

I didn’t get a chance to tell much about our child abandonment case. Logan desperately wanted to be left alone on a deserted island, so we found him a perfect Motu, claimed it as Motu Logan and dropped him off one morning. He’d been working on his list of needed items for weeks, and had it pared down to less than 10: Hammock, fire starter, fishing hooks, line, machete, TiFeFe (Tahition light cotton blanket), journal, pen, and Ukulele. He’d constructed his Hammock test drove it, and had practiced opening coconuts with the machete (without loosing the precious liquid inside). He’d been hoping for a tarp, but we had none on board, so he figured he could make do with palm fronds if it rained. We also made him take the handheld VHF in case of emergency.

Motu Logan was a ways from the boat, but Frank, Kennan and I visited in the course of our beachcombing, each bearing gifts we’d found on the reef. Kennan’s find was the most useful, a small camping pad to soften the bite of the hammock knots (with one TiFeFe, Logan did not quite make it through a whole night on his test drive, and he was hoping two would soften things, the pad made all the difference). I don’t think Kennan’s toothbrush find was used.

Logan only called once in the late afternoon. His fire sparker was working, but nothing would take flame. It’s amazing how humid an atoll can be in the evening. Frank jumped in the dinghy with a lighter, which turned out to be empty, so he used a little dinghy gas to catch the spark and POOOF that worked (that did require parental supervision). It took awhile for Frank to return, but he reported back that Logan had already speared a small grouper so he would not starve (the spear head was another Kennan find). He tried to spear an octopus, but “They’re smarter than they look,” he said. Apparently he tried under the rock where he’d first seen it, but it had moved to an adjacent rock, when Logan moved to that rock, the octopus stole his spearhead. Frank was also delayed by a request from Logan to help him chase off sharks out on the reef so he could collect some snails to toss on the fire (a local delicacy we’d tried a couple nights before). Logan’s reef was surrounded by shark infested waters (little 1-3 foot reef sharks, normally not too troublesome, but it doesn’t hurt to have your dad help toss rocks at them if they get too curious).

I know that I’m not the only mom, who has experienced a case of nerves when their budding teenagers take off on their own. If it wasn’t Motu Logan, it would have been a concert, or a party or a dance equally fraught with potential dangers in L.A. I probably slept as poorly as Logan that night, especially at 4 in the morning when it started pouring rain. The VHF was on all night and he didn’t call once. By morning, I was straining my eyes to see if I could see any movement on Motu Logan, finally I thought I saw him wandering with his black Uke bag. I made Frank go and check if Logan wanted to come over for crepes for breakfast. I could have gone, but there are some moments in life off limits for mothers, kissing them before they go into kindergarten is one, rushing to save them on their first motu outing is another.

Frank came back with Logan and supplies. One night was enough. He had gotten really wet, but didn’t think we’d leave the VHF on all night, so didn’t call. Lessons: it’s hard to sleep when you’re shivering, grouper is delicious fresh off the campfire, there’s nothing better than playing the Ukulele at sunrise, but it’s hard to write in a hammock, it’s impossible to get to coconuts that have fallen in the night before the hermit crabs, and campfires are a lot more fun when there’s someone to share them with (Scurvy* had up and disappeared on him). All and all I think it was a successful rite of passage. I haven’t asked him if he discovered a new spirit name, but he did say he wants to come back as an octopus in his next life.

I can’t believe he actually speared, cooked and ate the grouper. My boy is all grown up!

I better go make sure those fishing boats are still launching themselves into the sky. I wouldn’t want to be on a collision course with one.

xoxomo

*Scurvy the Rat, is a stowaway on board. He’s taken to sending messages using our computer, but since he’s a pie-rat, and has Bligh’s own bad language, I have to edit his messages before posting publicly. In the Marqueses, I posted a collection of his notes on the www.silverliningacademy.org site – click on “Scurvy’s Blog” I’ll update with his latest when next we get internet. He’s quite a character, but he’s definitely growing on us (well some of us…he is a rat!)

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At Sea, SouthEastern Tuamotus 10 June 2010 21.2512S 137.4749W

Wishing away the sloppy seas, meant wishing away the wind. We’re now nearly becalmed, sailing at a breakneck speed of 1-2 knots. I realize to the mathematicians amongst you that 1-2 is a significant range, 2 being double the speed of one, but that significance is lost on me right now. As we get closer to our goal, our ETA still seems to stay at 3-4 days even though we’ve now been at it for over 2 days – a familiar feeling for a project manager!

Marc requested that I go into more detail about the atoll Mururoa which is no longer on our track, but is well west of us now (whew). It’s a potentially hot topic, and given my own anti-conflict stance, I hesitate, but it’s probably worth stirring the pot a bit.

I’m sure there is better background information on the web, but a quick summary: Mururoa and Fangataufa are two atolls very near us now, where the French did their nuclear weapons testing. French military activity in FP, has been driven primarily by this activity, and since the last test (late 1990s? check the Google for me), France has pretty much removed all military presence here, except a few guardians, to keep people away from these two hotspots. To the locals, the downside is that the military brought a huge influx of cash to their economy, which created a very big bureaucracy machine of government funded jobs for Polynesians. As the military pull out of certain communities, the collapse back to farming Copra has been a brutal drop for many. The upside is that whether or not FP declares independence from France, they will always have income from the leasing of these two atolls. By “always” I flash on the image of a guardian of the atolls 1000 years, or 100,000 years from now still paid for by France. Fantasy/scifi novel material for sure, imagine 100,000 years from now, a specially trained gatekeeper keeping guard, he learned the task from his father and his father’s father before him, but no one is sure anymore what they are keeping guard of, so they eliminate that line item from their budget and some future evil begins to harvest this rare healthy atoll, opening a pandoras box in paradise, and world destruction ensues. What a plotline. Or maybe by then global warming will have risen water levels faster than reefs can grow, and it will all be underwater. I wonder if they still have to pay the lease, if the island no longer exists.

As most of you know, this is a sail down memory lane for Frank, but you may not know that he is one of the few people on the planet who has actually visited Mururoa. Not all of his navigation in these waters was on fishing boats. He had an amazing introduction to FP, on a cruise arranged by the French goverment, in the form of his military service aboard the “Blavet” (originally given to France by us at the end of WWII). The noble Blavet, spent it’s last pre-retirement years here in French Polynesia, basically as a supply ship to military bases in the area. Frank had the dubious good fortune, of visiting many of the islands and atolls in French Polynesian waters aboard the “Blavet” until at the end of his year of service, she was decommissioned (some would say having him aboard, was the last nail in her coffin). Many of Franks stories the past couple weeks have been, “that’s where I broke my toe playing soccer with a coconut” “That’s where the ship blew it’s horn in the morning, to try to get us to come back from a long night of partying”, “I didn’t get to visit that island, because they wouldn’t let us ashore for awhile,” “that’s where the Marquaian, angry at not being allowed to visit his village “accidentally” rolled the launch with the captain the administrator and his wife in their whitey whites on an official visit to the Mayor.” The good news is, the kids look at him like he’s crazy, so I’m not too worried they’ll follow in his mischievous footsteps.

But his stories of Mururoa, are different, he didn’t goof off there – well except for one snorkeling event, normally not allowed, but there’s always a valid excuse to dive a boat, and the reef was just a short swim from there. He says he’s never seen such amazingly large fish, shells, sealife on a reef in FP. Apparently nuclear testing has done for the marinelife here, what Camp Pendelton has done for preserving a section of California Coast. Being untouched by humans (other than a periodic earthquake like jolt once in awhile) has resulted in prolific sealife unmatched at any of the other overfished atolls. The testing at Mururoa all occurred miles below the sea surface deep in the basalt, there is reportedly no radioactive leakage (this is one area of conflict, some claim that independent testing was not allowed, and that there’s likely a cover up etc.), but other than a cracks in the reef from the shake which do not extend deep into the basalt there was supposedly little damage to the atoll (reefs crack and break from external swells and big weather as well). The second atoll Fangataufa is different, no one goes there, and there is radioactive material from early surface tests.

There is some irony, given all the valid concerns about the impact of nuclear on the environment, that on the surface anyway, human impact has been more devastating to these atolls. Atolls are cleared and burned of many of their indigenous plants for the planting of Coconut trees. These same native plants grow bushier at the edges and would provide better protection from hurricanes if they were left as a break in front of the coconut groves. Even with the threat of ciguatera (potentially fatal nerve disease from toxic reef fish – toxins that arise when reefs are messed with by people or hurricanes), overfishing is still rampant. Excessive pearl farming is creating new problems in the balance of ecosystems, the list goes on.

It’s difficult as an American to be openly critical, without first looking at home. Compared to our own tests and arsenal, France’s nuclear weapons program is tiny, as were the tests themselves. I wonder if we pay Nevada for some kind of eternity guardianship? Debating the complexities of this topic would be much better over dinner and a bottle of wine.

A long post, flat calm, and we’re still quickly going nowhere. Time flies when you’re having fun. Thanks for giving me something to do on this dog watch.

xoxomo

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At Sea, SouthEastern Tuamotus
8 June 2010
20.1116S 138.9331W

left from Amanu: 17.7300S 140.6513W

I’m not exactly sure what we were collectively thinking. Frank woke up 2 mornings ago, in our idyllic super protected anchorage in the far North of Amanu, smelled the north wind, and in his most boyish excited voice, asked if I wanted to see Les Gambiers. I have a hard time refusing when he’s already excited about the prospect of something. So off we sailed to ride the tail of a storm southeast to Les Gambiers, the southeastermnomst islands in French Polynesia. A day and a half later, I keep flashing on that moment, I was lying languidly reading “The Book Thief” basking in the prospect of another 4-7 days of atoll life relaxing into snorkeling, beachcomging, drinking fresh coconuts, reefwalking, reading = a real vacation after the busyness of the Marqueses. Frank had just the evening before, developed a schedule of approximate destinations between now and next December, starting with the Australes in another week or so. Life was good. Next thing you know we’re pulling up the dinghy, trying to make the boat sea ready again (atoll anchorages are delightfully flat): packing stowing, dealing with the junkyard on the back deck. Can someone tell me what I was thinking?

I don’t really know that much about where we’re going, we don’t have a guidebook on board (I’m brewing up a discussion on guidebooks for another day). So we’ll be discovering as we go. I know a lot about where we are now, the wind and squalls are coming at us out of the North/Northwest, the seas are coming from all directions, and we are trying to head due Southeast to Rikitea. Tonight’s goal is to steer clear of the atoll Miruroa “Zone Interdit.”

I still got to finish “The Book Thief,” so I don’t know why I’m complaining.

And this morning’s sunrise was a most spectacular show. Every point on the compass rose was blooming a different palette of colors. Behind us to the north, pale sky blue and pink hues peaked past high wispy wave shaped white clouds. To the west and close, dark squall clouds glowed an ominous ochre color and two rainbows at different locations faded in and out. To the south the Ochre brightened to a deep yellow and pink. And East was an amazing mash of multiple sunrises. Layer upon layer of different cloud types played off one another passing colors back and forth in an amazing display. At one point a cameo shaped whole in soft yellow glowing storm clouds with golden edges afire revealed high sharply contrasting sand dune-like ripples of brilliant tangerine orange against sky blue, as the ripples approached the horizon, they blended into a citron yellow foam, which combined with the blue sky to create a green haze. There was no way to photograph this 360x3D realtime performance. It lasted a good 15 minutes, and the sun did not actually show his face till the costumes had been removed, and the clouds had dressed in their quieter whites and grays for the day. High and bright, he emerged and smiled on our thirsty solar panels.

Somehow that dramatic sunrise matched my mood. Lots of complex conflicting feelings: excited to be going to a new unexpected place, regretful of the missed opportunities to laze about and to visit the village at Amanu, and angry at this sloppy sea pushing at us from all sides. Weather that brings so many cloud types flying past each other in opposite directions, brings equally confused seas. Every cloud may have a Silver Lining, but today, Silver Lining has seen every kind of cloud.

xoxomo

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Adjacent to Motu Logan, Tuamotus 5 June 2010 17.7686S 140.6737W

Our back deck looks like a junkyard – Frank and Kennan’s own paradise. They’re back there now, taking apart an old defunct fishing buoy with a VHF transmitter and antenna. I’m trying to get Kennan to write an article for “Make Magazine” about “Makers in Paradise.” Yes, the beach combing here is incredible. Yesterday Frank found an old glass float – probably over 100 years old. He’s also collecting the egg shaped hard foam buoys, to make a beaded necklace for Silver Lining (protection for the nasty old concrete and wood docks and piers we see here, designed more for really big ships – our inflatable fenders are jello when they come between SL’s 20 tons and one of those quays). Kennan found two toothbrushes and a camping sleeping pad, which he delivered to “Motu Logan”- supply donations for Logan’s abandon ship adventure. At one point I said, “Boy it would be nice to find a bucket that didn’t fall to pieces in the sun” (we’ve broken a few). Lo and Behold, Frank comes back with an intact bucket. As we were walking through the coconut groves a gust of wind gave Kennan worries, and he decided an essential item for motu explorations was a hardhat – voila – today I found him a hardhat. Ask and you shall receive. This must be where all the rainbows land; there are treasures galore and an abundance of squalls.

The downside is that not all of this stuff is healthy for a reef. We’ve decided, based on the evidence we’ve seen, that scientists take a close second to fisherman in the creation of beach trash, maybe vying for first since their devices have bigger more lethal batteries than the fisherman’s. We’ve found an incredible number of little aluminum boxes with damaged weather instruments (pressure, temp, etc.) Probably dropped around the oceans of the world by balloon – each with it’s little solar panel, each with it’s little battery pack. Their graveyard is here. Frank picked up one giant flying saucer-like beast that we think may have been used to transmit ocean current information. If so Kennan is keen on getting the GPS sensor out of it. But beach-combing is not exactly finders keepers. International Maritime law has specific rules about who owns what, anything of value and you can be sure it would get complicated. So we’ve asked our correspondents to research that particular buoy for us, and let us know if we should relaunch it back out at sea or leave it.*

We did discuss a potential career as fishing buoy retrievers. Many of the buoys are nice expensive ones, we thought that, like the guys that go around collecting shopping carts in L.A., then returning them to the stores for a fee, we could do the same with buoys. That would be a sight to behold, Silver Lining arriving in port with a deck load of brightly colored round gum-balls. All we need is a good cargo net – hey I think I saw a big fishing net that would fit the bill.

xoxomo

*Update: the flying saucer was a fishing bouy of some kind probably outfitted with a transmitter, to allow fishing boats to find there nets, or their rafts. But it looks impregnable, so it will stay where it lay.

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