Tahiti

Bill,

All is going well here, tomorrow I pick up my parts from Laurent, I don't know how much he wants to charge me yet. thanks for sending those parts and my mail along to me. I had a great sail around the Island of Tahiti, I've got it pasted in here after this for you.

Katherine is off to the Space Cadets in Quebec, that girl will do well, she has a good brain on her shoulders. What if she becomes a famous astronautess and we all get called by CBC for the family interviews whilst she is spinning around the planet? I'm claiming most influential Uncle, you get the most influential and generous daddie.

I still haven't heard from my kid for almost a month now, I gotta get to the phone tomorrow and call the monster to make sure he remembers his most influential and generous daddie.

I'm just kind of idling here in Tahiti for the moment, waiting to see if some crew shows up that wants to jump ship. No such luck so far, but I'm getting better at meeting people on my travels. Shows to go ya, that a happy smile and chattering french-butcher can stop people for a minute on their busy way.

Here's the latest instalment of the Voyage of Island Prism::::::::: (PS Lorraine and Carol already got it direct)

I had a pleasant sail around Tahiti this past week. My engine parts have not arrived and that big colourful Genakker is in for repairs, so I really didn't have any need to hang around expensive Papeete. Tahiti is a great island, the reef is offshore and inside the reef the water is generally about 100 feet deep. I wouldn't describe it as a round lagoon, but a lagoon that is about half or one mile wide and all along the shore. There are many passes into the lagoon from the ocean, so you can enter a well marked deep channel and then travel in protected waters for many miles along the coast.

I left the Papeete harbour and sailed south down the coast to the Tahiti Yacht club. It was in a very protected anchorage and they have mooring balls set up for visitors, so I tied up to a mooring ball for free for one night. There was a big Carrefour, the french version of WalMart close by, so I stocked up and then spent the afternoon swimming in the crystal clear waters. Well, the dingie was not tied very well and it got loose and was blown downwind to the shore, so that was the real reason I had to go swimming. Later in the evening, I heard the Polynesian Drums, they are very exciting to hear. I went ashore and found the Polynesians doing their native dances in a well lit stadium. It seems that every village has a large dance troupe and in June they all go to the competition in downtown Papeete. The dance troupe meets once a week or so and they practice and so that is what I was watching. It's a pretty exciting dance, the drums are loud and very powerful, and they have about 10 drummers and the girls, in this troupe there was about 4 lines of 10 girls each line all dance that Polynesian dance of the shimming derrieres. It's not lewd or rude, but they are very feminine doing their dance. They wear sports bras and a short skirt open at one side but rather tight and low on their hips. The guys, about 5 lines of 4 guys, dance with them, but apart, and they really put a great effort into it as well. I took alot of movie of the dancing, and the one girl I found to film could really shake her derriere and looked very good doing it.

I wanted to go to the world famous Tahiti Yacht Club bar, but it was closed, so I just went back to Prism for an early night. Next day I was up and around midmorning the wind came up and I sailed south to another pass and stayed in an anchorage, nothing to note there. The next day was off to the next south pass and in there was a great little village and this was the anchorage where Captain Cook spent a lot of time. A big river flows out of the middle of Tahiti there and the bay is excellent holding sand in 30 feet of water, and the low land of the village lets the trade winds blow you off the beach, an excellent anchorage. I stayed there for two nights, it was the weekend and all the Polynesians came from town to camp on the grassy banks of the river.

The first night I went ashore and a family had set up a barbeque and for less than 4$ you could get a small batch of fries and a shiskebob of very tasty meat, so I sat there and ate three orders. They didn't sell beer so I had to walk to the village store and buy 6 cold beer, which I was allowed to drink with my food. Whilst I was eating the local guys had gathered right there to play Bolls. That’s kind of like lawn bowling on the gravel parking lot, they seemed to really get into it. Other guys gathered to play the ukuleles and guitars and sing, and they did a great job of that. There was one old guy, maybe 60 or so, he sang loud and clear and very well. There came to be about 15 guys singing and playing before the evening was over and I went home to the boat. I don't know where the women were, I missed them though.

Next day I figured I would just stay in the nice anchorage another day, it being Sunday and I wanted to go to church anyways. I got to the Catholic church at 8 AM, the mass was just starting. I've really enjoyed going to the churches here in Polynesia since they sing so lovely, it's like you are inside the choir, everybody sings the whole service and there isn't very much long boring praying or sermonizing. Except for this village and this Catholic Church, the priest was sermonizing in French, but you could tell that there was fire and damnation going on, and quite likely close by.

At 9 I left there and on the way back to the boat passed by the Protestant Church, which was just getting going, so I though, hey what's another hour, and this church sounded a bit more upbeat. Inside we were sitting in groups and each group had a choir leader, but the group up front had a real leader, she sang and waved arms and strode around to the other groups and pointed to non-singers (including me). Anyways this carried on for over almost an hour before the service began, and it did pay off since during the service the singing was very very good. There was even a hymn that I could join in with. And the sermon was easy enough that I could dooze off. Then the collection began and of course there was alot of singing, and each group had to go put their money on the table and there were lots of people quickly counting the collection of that group. My group went first and we were well praised in song for our total contribution, which I think was announced a few seconds after we had sat down. Next group went up and it wasn't as good for them, they didn't give as much as we did. They got a bit of singing, but the singing they got meant they had to get up and have another parade past the money table. By this time it was getting a bit of too much church for me, so I slipped out the back and got back to my boat.

I was thinking about another swim, the water there was very clear and warm, when two Polynesian ladies paddled up in kayaks to say hello. They invited me to join their family for lunch, so I did and had a great time talking and flirting with the one lady. she was about 21, 4 feet tall, and 275 pounds. No wonder either, they eat a lot of very fattening food, deep fried bread dough, starchy breadfruit and starchy other root vegetables and a lot of coconut, and wash it down with gallons of real Coke. I invited them for a sail on Prism, and the wind was blowing a good bit, but there were no waves in this big lagoon. I put a reef in the main before I even hoisted it and we flew across the lagoon, heeled right over and what a great sail. But the girls were sitting quietly, looking very seasick, so quickly back to anchor and get them back ashore with the zodiac. They packed up their camp and left for home and work on Monday morning.

I had a great talk with their man, Monsieur King. He works for ACE hardware and wanted to practice his english. The Polynesians don't really like the French very much, and I kind of don't blame them. So whenever I try my broken french on the Polynesians, they often reply in english and want to talk a lot. Whenever I try my broken french on a Frenchman, they make a big deal of my mispronunciations and then jabber away in fast Parisian French. I just look at them and say you have to speak slower and like I was a five year old. but they won't.

Next morning I was up at 4 AM and I left the anchorage and headed into the Southeast Trades. I had to sail around the bottom of Tahiti and it was a lee shore and had a nasty reef, that wasn't very well charted. So I gave a lot of sea room to the reef and had a great sail. That shore of Tahiti is deserted, no road can get across the mountains that dive straight into the lagoons, I would love to explore that shore if I had time and crew. I came up the SouthWest coast of Tahiti and back into civilization and into the pass and down the shoreline to a place called Teahupoo, but pronounced Chiapoo, like the poo that a Chia pet would do. It is a world famous place in the Surfing world. I got there and there was a really nice dock to tie up too, so I did and then went to the marina office to pay, and it was free. Seems the people who built it and the people who run it can't agree on a tariff, so it's free.

The surf comes from the waves that come up from the Southern Ocean and break onto the outer reef. It's crazy dangerous because if you don't get off the wave in time, it pounds you onto the coral reef. Only the crazy or best surfers surf it. If you surf it when the swell is coming from the Southeast, you are guaranteed to be stain on the coral, the swell has to be coming from the South or better yet the southwest. Anyways the day I was there it was a Southeast swell, so nobody was surfing and the place was deserted and very boring. Except that night the drums started up again and so it was off to the well lit sports complex and watched the dance practice. This troupe was better again, they had a "Masters" division of older ladies, and they could still shimmy and they had the rhythm down perfect. The dance leader lady would often stop the pretty young girls, dismiss them and bring on the masters to demonstrate the dance. The guys were also pretty bad and the dance leader lady watched in disgust and even dismissed a couple of guys, who then went off into a corner and did play fighting. She seemed to give the other guys a lecture but that didn't really help.

Next day I set sail with a strong following wind and made it all the way back to Papeete before dark. Now I'm here trying to find my engine parts, waiting to pick up my sail and looking for crew. No luck on any off that so far, but I've only been here one day.

I might go back down to Teahupoo later this week, there is a world champion surf competition scheduled and the waves are forecast to be good for it. There might be a lot of people there and it could be a lot of fun. If there is room at the free dock, I might even have a party on Prism.

The Polynesians are not like they used to be and like we imagine them. In Captain Cooks day, you could have a Tahitian girl for a nail, now Prism being fibreglass I thought ahead and brought a bag of nails. But nowadays they are much more proper, what with the missionaries, TV and all. They still look great, every Tahitian girl has long hair, doesn't wear a lot of clothes due to the heat, and many are tall and very slim. They don't seem to age very well, they get heavy. The guys can also look good, they do a lot of kayaking here and have very muscular upper bodies. But they don't age well either, they get heavy and everyone here smokes, everywhere all the time. So to think that you can sail to French Polynesia and have lots of fun with the local ladies for a bag of nails, not true. But they look good dancing and the guys can really pound mean drums. -----------------

And that's about that for another adventure, I am hoping that the weekend in Teahupoo is more exciting than before and I think it might be. Another adventure might be a return to the main harbour of Papeete, the dock is now free for the first night and so I might just wander up there for Friday night to see what might be taking place in the local waterfront divey bars. I don't think there will be another boatload of drunken Americans, but there are a lot of boats in now that the cruising season is getting into full swing here in Tahiti.

Jimsh

Tuamoto

Bill

Here's my journal for the last week or so.

I'm anchored out for free close to the Tania Marina, it's great here. Lots of people lots of surfing, I'm looking for anchor chain (I'm short about 100 feet or so), a surfboard, some provisions, some small parts, those parts you sent me. I might go up to Papeete tomorrow, Saturday and anchor there so as to be closer to the touristas and the possibility of inviting a very shapely one out for a sail.

Excellent news about Katherine working for the Canadian Space Agency, but does that mean that I won't be able to learn to parasail for free??? I hope that she gives up on this responsible route she seems to be on and gets back onto the "Daddy, can you set me up with a parasailing outfit in Whistler"???? Maybe if you won't I will set her up. Oh well, maybe some day she'll be an astronaut, probably pays more than crashing tourists into the cliffs of Whistler. Oh to be young and foolish and dream of dumb things like surfing in Tahiti.

OK, I'm off for the usual first day in port, laundry, shopping, hunt for parts, hunt for surfboard. Life is tough out here. I'm working on chapter two of the book, the one that goes after 'Mom and her new boyfriend'. also working on the screenplay for 'Slapshot 3', that's gonna make me a lot of money when it goes to bigscreen and DVD. without further ado:::

Have arrived safe and sound at the Tuamotus, specifically Anse Amyot on the atoll of Toau. This is more like the south Pacific we all think about. The Marquises were big huge volcanic mountains with big cliffs around the anchorages. The anchorages were open to either the South Pacific Southeast trade winds, or the swell generated by such. Anse Amyot is wide open to the sun and sky, there is nothing higher than the coconut tree. Nonetheless, if stood beneath, they are especially tall when shedding 15 pound coconuts. The one I saw shedding could have killed you with its height, if it hit you on the head.

At the last minute in Ua Pou, a french guy in a catamaran with a beautiful African wife, told me go to Anse Amyot, C'est superbe! Well OK, and for me the greatly added feature is the strong mooring buoys so no tense anchoring in coral, and all it is in a little bight in the coral reef, so there is no pass involved. Just approach by the open ocean, line up 2 navigation buoys (keep one exactly in front of the other one on the way in and you are right in the middle of the short channel, and then simply tye up to the mooring buoy.

In fact it wasn't that hard for me, the local proprietress of the local restaurant came out in her speedboat, with her mother and her sister and her sister's two kids and her friend and her two kids, and they guided me in and picked up the mooring buoy and handed it to me. It was très facile, and perfect for my first landing at the Dangerous Archipelago.

The Dangerous Archipelago, so named because of the many shipwrecks here. The currents are strong, we are at the receiving end of the currents generated by the 3000 uninterrupted miles of South East trades. The Islands are very low, you can't see them until you are very close, generally about 8 miles. The islands raise up from thousands of feet of ocean, in a vertical cliff of coral, so if you hear the waves splashing, you have about 200 feet to the rocks ahead and 2000 feet to the rocks below. In many places the reef is not visible, it is just a couple of feet below the surface. Not like the entrance to Bamfield, were you can come in by watching the shore. Or the depth sounder if the fog is in. Or the radar. In the olden days of sextant and compass, a lot of ships were wrecked.

Today though, I got both GPS's fired up and so I was able to sail 4 days from Ua Pou, beam reach across the south Pacific Southeast Tradewinds and come to an X on the chart (paper). I was a little early since the trades were very strong for me. I set up a beam reach about an hour out of Ua Pou and 4 days later I dis-engaged the wind vane and sailed to the X. I was a little early, it still being 3 AM on a very dark night, last day or two of this moon, and so I hove to on a double reefed main, no headsail, helm down to lee and had a short nap. At dawn I proceeded into the pass, well really it was 15 miles wide between two outer Islands, their names are Polynesian, I called them A Island and K Island. I only saw K Island, the other was never visible to me, but the radar did see it. but the GPS's were in agreement, and the wind blew unabated by the coconut trees 7 miles off, so I sailed down between the two islands, turned and ran downwind until I saw the North end of Toau, and then here into this aforementioned nook in the reef.

I came bearing lots of gifts. I gave Valantine, the proprietress, a dozen ripe avocados from the Marquises. They were great to eat, I ate at least one every day from the Marquises, but they are a bit rich for my system, though they are certainly painless as they seem to pass right through. Anyways, I had enough of them, and there was no need to save them since they were ripe. She gave me a tour of her village, Matarina, built on the shores of Anse Amyot. Her mother Violet lives right behind her, and her sister Leesa has the 'pension' next door. There is a radiopayphone, but as yet I can't get it to dial North America. The pension is empty but very nice, Leesa runs it with her two teenagers and two sub teenagers. The guys were sitting around drinking beer out of coolers from the village of Fakarava, but pronounced Fukarava. I said goodnight to the drinking and came home to bed. Later that night one of the guys from away came around to buy some whiskey, but I said no, I'm not selling any whiskey. I was selling fruit that I came from Marquises with.

Next morning I got up and went for a swim in the coral around Prism. I can see at once why the anchoring in coral is a very strictly an all chain event. That stuff is sharp and it is huge. Great round balls, 15 feet across and high grow out of the sandy bottom, I'm sure that chain will survive, but even then you would have to dive to retrieve chain wrapped around one of those. One of those, there are about a million of those. I tried to get down to my mooring ball's anchor, but couldn't dive that deep, I will try again tomorrow with more gusto. Prism looks great underwater, but getting some growth around the spots where the bottom paint wasn't very thick. The prop had a bit of a barnacle patch on it in the Marquises, I knocked that off then. I have two flat headed remores attached to the bottom of the keel, but they wouldn't stay on the same side as me, they kept going to the other side and I couldn't get a good photo.

I packed to two shopping bags of fruit one for Valantine and one for Leesa and went ashore, but neither were there. Leeza and all her family were on the boat headed back for Fakarava, Valantine was out tending her fish traps with her husband Gaston. I met Torowa, and he and I smoked a couple of cigarettes before going fishing. To go fishing, we tied a floating plastic box to the front of the dingy and we both snorkelled. Me towing the box and boat, him diving and spearing. As he speared, I brought the box to him, he threw in the fish and we kept fishing. I had my camera with me and took some great photos of him and then a shark came by and I started to get some great photos of the shark, I thought, but as it turned out the camera was gone blank. I turned it on and off, to reset, but when it reset it was gobbley gook on the screen and then it was dead. I personally think it was dead, it's always a bad sign when a digital underwater camera goes wonky underwater. But we will never know. Shortly some unknown time after that, the stupid thing slipped out of my velcroed back pocket and is now some where on the bottom of Anse Amyot.

In the end, I'm not sure why we took the dingy, because we only drove to the other side of the Anse Amyot, about 100 yards and swam back. We saw that shark again and Torowa threatened to shot it and it took right off. Not like the other stupid fish, that would slowly swim away as Torowa slowly overtook them, until he was a couple of feet back and he could easily shoot them in the back of the head. Into the bucket. Then a big parrot fish came into view, and it took a couple of dives before it got caught up with. First shot, just a flesh wound and now it became a bit more of a chase and the fish was a bit more spooked. It would have got away, but I played my part and swam ahead forcing it back to Dick for the coupe de gras. Torowa got alot of fish. The last were rather small but very tasty. They just tried to camouflage into the coral, but Torowa could see that. He simply put the spear to their heads and that fast he had 5 in 5 shots. And surprise we were right in front of his house, so onto his wharf, have a coffee and a smoke and clean fish. Torowa gave me the grunt job, I had to reverse scrape all the fish to get the coarse scales off. He did the final cleaning.

After that I went over to the other sailboat, Jean from Papeete and he gave me lots of good advise on how to get into the next port. I can't stay here for long, I have to get to a post Office to get a stamp for a visa. My month is about to run out, on 10 April, so I have to get a simple visa extension from the post office for another two months.

I returned to Chez Torowa and ate the fish. I must admit, I ate only the cooked fish, I left the poisson cru or raw cooked only in lemon juice fish for Torowa. I might have liked it, but Torowa's sanitation was near zero and I prefer my chances with cooked fish.

I also gave the fruit to Valantine as she did return with her husband Gaston, and since Leesa and family was gone, Valantine's mother got the other bag.

I met Gaston, he was an interesting fellow and I was invited to the Pentecostal service to start at 10 AM sunday, a much better time than the Marquisesian 8 AM. So far the Pentecostal crowd is easier to wake up to, than the Catholic crowd.

Next morning it was up at my convenience and off to the church, I landed at Torowa's dock at his waved in invitation, and he had two guys as guests and they were having an early morning smoke of marijuana, I quickly declined and off to church. the Church was very small, big enough for a dozen chairs and a kitchen table as the pulpit. We sang some hymns, I wasn't much help with any of the singing and then Valantine took the pulpit and commenced the Pentecostal sermon, in french rather than Polynesian, so I had a chance of following. It was good that the church was in the middle of the village because the sinners were easily pointed out, to her left and her right. Her brother Dick was smoking too many cigarettes, too much marijuana and selling the marijuana to the workers on the pearl farms. Off to her left her sister Leeza, four children and no husband. All was not well in the little village in paradise. She asked us each when we had seen the light and accepted Jesus into our hearts, I was a bit ambidextrous on this one, hoping that He would soon come to me etc etc etc. Her husband Gaston gave some good answers, but also a couple of wrong answers, and had to be corrected from the pulpit. We prayed for a lot of people, not Leeza nor Dick, and gave thanks for lots of stuff and sang some more and then after two hours, out of church and back to her restaurant for coffee and cake.

Gaston was called when some jackfish were seen from the front porch, and so he quietly slipped into the water and hid under his dock, until he speared a nice one. In a couple of minutes, a couple of feet away, he speared another, quite a large one, and that was the end of the days work. A bit of fish cleaning and I even got one piece and then I retired to my boat. I invited them out for a visit, and I kept part of the fish back from the frying pan and Valantine was asked to make poisson cru with the remainder, the raw fish cooked in lime juice, the limes from the Marquises and it was very good. We had some Canadian Club to go with it and an enjoyable visit all around, my french being sort of passable. Gaston was amused and in complete agreeance with my assessment of Torowa's sanitation, and Valantine gave Dick some more trouble. Leeza was spared a bit, she was a good pension manager it seems. Then, the small amount of Canadian Club in the bottle being exhausted, they travelled over to Jean's boat, later I joined them to take on some Glenlivet.

The storm that has been worrying me these past 3 days has intensified and thankfully seems to have travelled off to the south of us. I thought that it might come straight down the trades and develop into a late season hurricane, but it went southwest and looks to just send us a lot of swell but no wind. I am pretty afraid of these Dangerous Islands, the navigation is no problem with the accurate GPS, but the anchoring in coral with rope and chain remains as dangerous as it ever was. These lagoons are 15 or 10 miles across and the waves can build in those miles, and I am nervous of being shipwrecked like all the shipwrecks before me on the chart. They were shipwrecked when the wind switched and came down that long lagoon and then the short steep waves wore their anchors out of the sand, into the coral and they ended up on the shores of the lagoon.

I left Anse Amyot this morning with Jean in his boat Vanessa right behind, and sailed in a lovely North breeze to this small village of Apataki. The pass was very easy and at the end of the pass is a cement pier, and we are tied up, Prism behind Vanessa, and we can remain here until tomorrow at least. Tomorrow, I must go to the Post Office to get my visa extended to three months, on the 10th of April, my visa is expired. Apparently it is very easy to get the visa extended at the post Office, and that is why I am here in Apataki. So another night in the Dangerous Islands, tied safely to this dock, but tomorrow night it's either face the southern storms swell and off to Tahiti or return to Anse Amyot, or go upstream into the lagoon following Jean and face my coral anchoring fears.

Since it seems so lonely in Paradise and since it is a bit boring without a camera and since I'm nervous of the Dangerous Islands and since there are likely to be alot more little bits of Paradise in this huge south Pacific (the Friendly Islands are after Tahiti and they speak English), I am leaning towards Tahiti. Midnight is another weather check, see what the heck that intense Low pressure is doing south of us. If it's just swell to bother me on the way to Tahiti, I think I might just go to Tahiti.

Tuesday the 8th of April

After a noisy night at the cement pier of Apataki (the power house, the kids, their boombox and beer being right here), up early to the post office. Alas no, he couldn't extend my visa, but he directed me to the municipal office. There the gentleman patiently heard my request, but on seeing the stamps in my passport were from the Gendarmerie, he declined to issue any visa. He referred me to the Gendarerie in Rangiroa or Papeete. Well, enough discussed, I left at once and set course for Papeete. No charts of Rangiroa in the Dangerous Isles and no desire to visit anymore lonely paradise, I'm on course Papeete as I type and you read.

That little storm had me vexed for a couple of days and that was the real reason for my delay in the Tuamotus, as well as everyone saying how lovely they were, and I must really stop there. I, inexperienced in the ways of hurricanes, was concerned that the tight little low was in the forming grounds of late season hurricanes. I was worried that it would catch me and I would become a statistic of a late season hurricane, but no, it seems that I was worried for nought. The low did intensify and then it has charged off to the southwest, giving the Gambier Islands a damn good pasting.

The Tuamotus are lovely, the water is very clear, the fish are everywhere and brilliant colours. but I'm leaving them behind, and the small breeze is drifting me towards Papeete, wing on wing, at 3.5 knots on the GPS. At this rate, Papeete in about 3 or 4 days. Prism is behaving very well, just enough wind to keep the sails full in this south swell, steering by the Raymarine tiller pilot hooked up to the Cap Horn windvane water rudder. And now I live another day typing my message on my own computer instead of penning it on borrowed paper from the Wayward Home for Lost Seamen after a late season hurricane in the Dangerous Islands. Luck, good planning, or good worrying?

Editor's note: Anse Amyot is located at 15d 48m 08s S by 146d 09m 00s W, pictured below: