French Polynesia

(click on the map to go there)

If you look at a map you'll see that the nearest land west of the Galapagos is about 3000nm away. If you're lucky you might reach the Marquesas in less than 3 weeks, but don't bet on it. You try to play the currents but they can be hard to find and often occur where there's no wind. You also become acquainted with a common feature of the South Pacific, which is no wind coupled with big swells, the latter being the result of storms in the Southern Ocean. In our case it took 24 days, mostly because we discovered you can become becalmed many degrees away from the Equator.

This passage takes some patience, but it's not always boring. For example, we discovered our watermaker started putting salty water into our main water tank a few days west of the Galapagos, thus ruining 200 gal of fresh water. Fortunately, we had 15 gals in jugs on deck, but that's not much for 3 weeks and toward the end we'd start fussing at one another for guzzling the Crystal Light. This might have been worse but the Captain did have a store of fresh water in the form of dozens of 12-packs of Panama-brand brewskies. So, there is excitement after all, or at least quiet desperation.

We got to where we'd become excited upon hearing the sound of water moving past the hull, which meant we were going over 2 kts. We spent over 3 weeks without seeing a single ship or airplane, not even a bird. If you think the world is crowded, just try this passage.

As you can see, one thing you can do while not dying of thirst (I'm obviously not dying of hunger) is catch fish. The one on the left is a yellowfin tuna; I tried a better pose but he kept bleeding all over the deck. On the right we see a Dorado/Mahi-mahi, a tragically beautiful fish. It starts with a golden hue, which turns silver as it dies, then goes back to gold. I hate the fish-killing part, which is why we give'm a shot of rum to put them down. The first fish I caught, a beautiful bluefin tuna, was such a tough victim that he and I got drunk together, sitting on the stern.

Speaking of killing & cleaning fish, this is not always easy to do in the middle of the ocean. The deck is heaving in the swell or just heeled way over and fish slime is slippery. I've also noticed the crew is reluctant to help when I've waving a filet knife around while trying to hold on. We lashed a cutting board to the stern but after awhile it starts to look like a pagan altar. I can also attest that fish blood is hard to remove after weeks of baking in the sun. When we return we plan to install a cutting board on the pulpit in the hope that makes it less messy.

Join us as we sail on to The Marquesas!

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