It was a pretty simple day. We got up late, dinghied into the dock, walked into town and bought some groceries. Four six packs of beer, four steaks, a pound bag of shrimp, bottle of white wine and some miscellaneous dry goods like mayonnaise, pate, crackers and a couple other things. $180. That’s why we loaded Charisma down with supplies back in Mexico. We have enough of the basic commodities to make it to New Zealand in November. In the mean time, we just resupply some of the perishables and things we didn’t anticipate we’d go through as much or as fast.

We did some walking, found an internet hot spot to check bank balances with. It might be fast enough to send a few pictures tomorrow, but we’re not sure. Today was a holiday, so no-one was around. We’ll see.

Ended the day going to cocktails with Orcinius to our friends from La Cruz on Bright Angel. Nice to see Bob and Linda. Then we all took two dinghies into the beach and hiked up the hill to The Pearl Lodge, which is a very nice restaurant/hotel up the hill from the beach. In fact it’s about the only one around on this island. Nice to just relax and have someone else cook dinner while we all caught up and told stories.

Dinghy ride back through the light surf. You always get at least a little wet going anywhere and this was no exception. Wet feet, shoes and butts all the way around getting the boat off the beach and into deep enough water to row out where we could start the outboard.

That’s it. We’re just bidding our time before tomorrow when we can get fuel and prepare to leave for the Tuamotus. Hopefully on Wed, but there’s a big low off New Zealand that might be throwing some weather and/or unfavorable swells toward our destination. We’ll see.

Ann and John meet the Bishop

Ann went to church early in the morning. Our friends on Orcinius were nice enough to pick her up at 0715 in their dinghy and they headed ashore. Their mission: church. Mine for the day was to charge the batteries with our new alternator (it’s been cloudy/rainy so the solar panels are at half capacity) and run the watermaker as we’re running low on water. Done and done.

Meanwhile, Ann, Lisa and John reported that the service was beautiful, the singing outstanding and a surprise, the Bishop of the Marquesas was present. Ann got to kiss his ring and then later talk with him. He is Polynesian, but has spent some time in Los Angeles and San Francisco and was very fond of SF. After church they toured town and bought some more supplies for the next leg (beer, we are almost out of Modela and are on to Hinano). Since it was Sunday, the stores were only open until 1130. Tomorrow is some sort of holiday we haven’t figured out yet, and again the stores are only open half day, so we’re going to have to get things done early. We’re hoping we can fuel, but that may have to wait until Tuesday.

Bob spent most of the day on the boat plotting the next leg. There are so many options/atolls in the Tuamotus. We have to decide what course we want to take and which ones to visit. Despite the number, a lot are “disqualified” because of being too difficult or dangerous to visit. Atolls in general are notorious for being difficult to enter. You have a giant basin inside the atoll that is ebbing and flooding twice a day through one or two small openings in the coral fringe. The result is currents of 6 to 10 knots bursting through the openings at certain times making for hazardous/difficult navigation and control of the boat. The trick is to approach them at slack water. The problem is that slack water is not always when the charts say it should be. The other issue is once you run the gauntlet and get inside, you are then presented with numerous coral heads lying just under water. Unless the sky conditions are just right (typically you want the sun a little behind you with no clouds and a little wind for maximum visibility into the water) you can’t see the coral and could bump into it. Well, it would likely be more of a CRASH! than a bump, so we want to avoid that too. If everything’s right, you can see 50-100 feet deep and thus can navigate around the obstacles. As of now, we’re looking at a “central” route (versus Northern or Southern route) through the atolls. The central route is less traveled than the Northern but the navigation is a bit more challenging and the atolls somewhat more difficult. We’ll see. For now, ones we’re looking at include: Raroia (our proposed landfall and the place Thor Hyerdahl and Kon Tiki make landfall from South America when he was trying to prove his theory of ancient migration into Polynesia), Kauehi, Toau, Rangiroa, Apatiki, Tikehau. In reality we’ll probably only have time to spend on three out of five. The list is still in flux.

The other fun thing about today was about the utility of having a ham radio license. We haven’t had time to use it much since making landfall, but as we’re getting ready to go back to sea (the Tuamotus are about 400 miles away, which is a three to four day trip) we’re been listening to some of the ham nets. Today we talked with some of our friends who are a week or so ahead of us and already in the Tuamotus. They are 400+ miles away. We also contacted our friend Dave from Camanoe who recently left Mexico for Hawaii. We successfully chatted for a while and exchanged our radio email addresses. Dave was about 300 miles off of Baja, or about 2800 miles away from where we are and we were able to sustain a conversation. It’s fun on two levels: One you can chat up people that far away without wires. Two, we now have friends cruising all over the Pacific that we are keeping in touch with.

Also, while here we’ve found that we’re not the only ones with a major breakdown (the alternator) in a place where there just are not any spare parts. We also consider ourselves lucky we fixed it so easily (knock on wood!) Orcinius has been waiting for two weeks to get parts for their outboard motor which is being cantankerous. ShantiAna caught a spinnaker sheet in their prop which wrapped around the shaft so tightly it stalled the engine and caused it to torque so hard it broke an engine mount. Picara is waiting for a new exhaust manifold as their burst in transit. All the stuff that has to ship in has to come through Tahiti. There is lots of paperwork and import fees and very little infrastructure to get stuff here. As I have mentioned, it was a miracle (and some hard work yesterday) that we found, adapted and replaced our alternator in a relatively short time. While we could have made it to Tahiti without it, I wouldn’t have chanced going through the Tuamotus without solid electrical capacity to run the radar/GPS. People used to do it, but there’re also a lot wrecks out here to testify to the difficulty of doing it successfully.

So, we rested today. Tomorrow we finish preparing for the next leg and hopefully leave on Tuesday. Back at sea again after a month in a delightful place called the Marquesas. Wonderful people, amazing vistas, a fun time and we both have our tattoos to remind us of this place and the journey to get here long, long, long` after we’ve left.

Sure had it today. Actually more than just two. It was a crazy day with all kinds of stuff.

First, Ann went in to the wharf with our friends from Orcinius to the Farmers Market at 0530. I slept in to prepare myself for a day of trying to install the new alternator. She not only scored some good vegetables, which are hard to find in the islands, but also brought back: chocolate eclairs (!), croissants (!) and a three pound lobster (!!) More on the lobster later. The eclairs and croissants were delicious. We had coffee and pastries at 0630 when she came back.

Second, I prepared to tackle the dreaded alternator installation. First off, let me quote our friend Mark from Blue Rodeo who told me that he wants his tombstone to say; “Nothings ever easy”. That would be the quote of the day for replacing the alternator. We had fingers crossed on this because it’s been cloudy and were not quite keeping up with our energy needs with just the solar panels unless we severely conserve. That means no fans (!!!), no water-maker, curtailed refrigerator (kept at 50 degrees instead of 40 degrees and no ice (!!!!!!). As I mentioned yesterday, John had one he didn’t need. Turns out it was exactly the same make and model. So, I thought everything would go like clockwork and we’d be back making ice by 1030. “Nothing’s easy” as Mark says. The “same” make and model had a different flange where it bolts on to the bottom support point. My broken one had a one inch thick flange. The new one had a two inch thick flange. It wouldn’t fit. Enter John once again. He has an angle grinder. You have to see this thing in action to believe it, but to shorten the story I’ll just say that he basically cut an inch of thickness off of the mount making it an exact fit to my old one. Back to Charisma with the newly trimmed alternator. After much swearing, some adjusting, bolt tightening, fan-belt judo and careful reconnecting of the 12 volt wires to the alternator terminals (I’ve been known to short the plus and minus terminals by touching them together with the wrenc-; the space is very small and hard to work in), the new alternator was ready for the ultimate test. Would it blow up and burn, or would it work. Ann was stationed at the helm to start the engine; I was below watching the charge indicator looking for any sign the thing might burn us down if installed incorrectly. OK, “start her up!” Ann murmured a couple “Hail Marys” and turned the switch, the beast came alive in all its cranking, clanking glory and as I watched, the amp-meter climbed. “It’s working! We have electricity!” Then it was a matter of leaving it on for a while to make sure there are no issues. I’ll check it again after a couple hours to make sure the belt stays tight, etc. But, huge emotional relief. We went from; “uh oh, we’re going to be here a couple weeks fixing this”, to “wow, how did we get so lucky to fix that in a day!” So, chalk up another thing I’ve never done before that I can now fix and that I hope I never have to fix again (with the grinding help from John). That was a BIG second thing. The third was we went into town to buy some supplies. Some good finds including more eggplant!. We’ll do more on Monday closer to our departure for the Tuamotus.

Fourth: I would be remiss if I didn’t mention that while I was down in the cabin sweating, swearing and in general carrying on, Ann was quietly floating in the dinghy scrubbing the waterline which gets filthy, dirty when you’re cruising. It turns brown with sea gunk and barnacles. It’s not easy to scrub off, in fact, it’s just plain hard work, but she did it hanging onto the dinghy, sometimes upside down, and the side of the boat in shark infested waters. We did tell you that after our arrival yesterday Ann spotted a six inch fin swimming around Charisma, right? We now look good again with a nice, clean hull.

Fifth: back on Charisma and it’s time for COCKTAILS! Yay! We’ll deserved today.

The sixth and last part of the day was the lobster dinner. The lobster was too big for the BBQ, so I pulled the tail and legs off, cut the tail in half down the middle, slathered some butter on it and threw the legs and tail sections on the grill. Yummmmy, is all Ann had to say between bites dripping with melted butter.

So, an emotional rollercoaster and we’re both exhausted, but a good ending in a cruiser’s day. Things break, you fix them. Opportunities present themselves, you take advantage of them (the lobsters). I’m finding that if you worry about what’s going to break next, you don’t have fun. You have fun, when you just go with it and know that whatever breaks (and things inevitably do), you’ll somehow find a way to fix them. Sometimes there’s also a lot of luck involved, but that’s part of the adventure.

We repositioned 20 miles south today to the main town on Nuku Hiva. We’re here mostly for fuel and food, but yesterday our alternator kicked the bucket, this time for good (I could smell the burnt electrical smell), so we’re also here to fix that.

After starting out around 0900 we got in here around 1430. It’s like a reunion of the boats who have crossed the Pacific. There’s at least 10 other boats we know who are here re-supplying as well. So, we all decided to go into town for pizza of all things, in Polynesian. It’s owned by a nice Polynesian lady and we all had a wonderful time catching up.

So, after finding out the alternator was not charging and trying all the tricks to get it online, but finally deciding it has really quit this time, I spent the last 24 hours worrying that we might be stuck here for days and weeks trying to get a new one. Enter John from Orcinius. He said he had a “bunch” of alternators and I should come over to his boat and check them out. Turns out that two of the ones he’s carrying are almost the exact same one I have. There is a dimensional thickness difference on the bottom flange that attaches to the engine mount, but I noticed that the mount itself looks to be adjustable. So…fingers crossed, tomorrow I’m going to take the old one out and try and get the new one to fit. If it does, John has really saved the day. Ironically, he’s been waiting for a week for parts to his dinghy engine. The shipment keeps getting screwed up and he’s just sitting here waiting. Frustrating.

Cross fingers. If we don’t post tomorrow it’s because we’re saving energy. Fortunately the solar panels do a fairly good job, but it’s been cloudy so they are not keeping up with all our needs and the shortwave is one that is not essential. We are even writing this by headlamp to save every amp possible.

Hopefully, though we’ll post success. If not, we could be here a while.

Stay tuned…

We’re just taking it easy today. No adventures or anything. Did a few boat projects, Ann did the laundry (which is actually a huge undertaking), I dove on the anchor (more on that below) and we rowed ashore for a little walk. We’re getting ready to leave tomorrow morning and sail the 20 miles down to Taiohae Bay on the south side of the island. That is the largest town out here and best chance to provision for the next month that we’ll spend in the Tuamotus. We won’t find much in the way of fresh anything there, so whatever we can carry and keep is what we’ll have. Otherwise, it’s pasta, potatoes, well, you get the picture. We also need fuel and it’s the only semi-reliable place in the Marquesas to get it.

About the anchor- several other boats in our little bay had a hard time getting their anchors up. Apparently their chain tangled on rock. One boat needed a diver from one of the other boats. He spent more than ½ an hour under water trying to untangle things. Word has it that as long as you are in 40 feet of water, you’re over sand, but closer in and you get the coral/rock problem. We dropped just in 40 feet, so I’m keeping my fingers crossed. Everyone else including our friends on Orcinius who are behind us and closer in, have had problems. Orcinius and we have agreed to leave at the same time tomorrow. That way if one has a problem, the other can hang around and help. There’s no-one else except a couple other boats and nothing on shore. Not like you can call the tow truck.

I’m making some curry dinner right now since we were lucky to find a couple eggplants and some onions and string beans! They are the long French kind. I’m sautéing the eggplant, onion, a wild pepper, and tomatoes we found from a local who grew them, in olive oil and coconut milk. Later I’ll add some of Ann’s home-made yogurt, curry powder, then serve over rice. Fried bananas in coconut cream on the side. Unbelievably we’re getting close to out of bananas. The last two days we’ve collected a dozen mangoes though, so soon we’ll have a “mango problem” as they all ripen. I’ll probably be making some mango curry. I think we may have also collected enough limes to get us to Tahiti. There are lots of wild lime trees, so we procured a small backpack full. People tell us we may be able to trade for stuff with the limes when we’re in Tuamotus.

While the curry was simmering, we stopped for evening Charismas. The Australian boat, Samba, that was near us stopped by to share some vegetable news with us. Apparently they hiked around the bay to the west and found a vegetable gardener. So they are going around the anchorage telling everyone. They also had some books to share with us so Pete took our thumb drive and brought back some good books. Unfortunately, both boats suddenly seemed to be closer than normal. Could be a wind change or that one of our anchors had come unhooked from a coral head. We let Pete know that we would be happy to re-anchor if he felt it necessary. Politeness abounds here. Pete said he’d just watch it and call us if he thought it was becoming a problem. As dusk was setting we decided, why wait? So in a half of an hour’s time we pulled up our anchor, moved and re-anchored further out so we all could sleep better. Not bad.

With our friends John and Lisa from Orcinius. On this hike we filled our backpack with limes growing wild on the hillside. Enough for Charismas all the way to Tahiti!

View from the top of the ridge. Then down to the other bay for some sightseeing and all the way back.

In the jungle on the way over and back

And I do mean “over”. Wow, did we get some exercise today. The proposed hike was from Anaho to Hatiheu, which is the next bay over. There are two “saddles” in the hillside here. One is a low saddle that looks obvious, but it turns out terminates over a cliff on the other side. The other saddle is high, high up the seemingly vertical mountain side. “We’re going there?!” was my comment. But, we decided if we could find a trail, we would attempt it.

First, we collected our friends John and Lisa on Orcinius. Or to be more correct, they collected us. They came over in their dinghy and the four of us rode in. Nothing’s really very easy here. Sometimes the dinghy rides are hair-raising, death defying trips through the surf. This time, we had to find an entrance through the coral that stands outside the reef. Fortunately the sun came out and we could clearly see the really light blue water which signaled the path.

Once inside, we anchored the dinghy in the very shallow water off the beach and waded in. We were in knee high water at fairly low tide. This was to become more interesting later in the day when we came back.

Off we went down the beach looking for the path over the mountain. We ran into a couple locals and tried to ask in our best French, which is none too good, how to get over the hill. We consistently received a pointed finger down the beach and a somewhat skeptical look, so we knew we were headed in the right direction.

We finally ran across a path that went at right angles to the beach and disappeared into the jungle. A likely looking trail! So, we followed it a bit and almost immediately it started going uphill…very steeply. Aha! So up we went. And up. And up. After almost an hour of switchbacks combined with occasional stops to pick fruit (wild mangoes and limes) we broke out of the jungle on the top of the ridge. What a view! The only problem we saw at this point was that it was starting to squall and rain. Hard. It was getting very muddy. And while we WERE on the top of the ridge, we were only half way. We now had to go back down to sea level to the next bay. That meant we also had to go all the way back up and down again to get back. Oh well, what the heck. An adventure a day and all that.

After about two hours and much slipping, sliding giggling and such we finally came out of the jungle to the seashore. We were in Hatiheu Bay. It’s a typically small town. One street, a few houses and a Catholic Church. In this case, there was also a very good little restaurant. We were pooped, so a beer and some food sounded great! Again, a typical spot. No doors or windows, just a roof and a view out onto the endless Pacific Ocean. Beautiful. The waitress brought a hand written sign for a menu and we ordered; Poisson Cru (Ann), Goat Curry (John), Sauteed Prawns (Lisa) and I had Poisson Grille. All came with delicious sides of breadfruit and tomatoes with cucumbers. Yummm. The beer hit the spot too. After lunch the proprietress walked around to a stream just outside the roof and started throwing scraps in the water. And it started boiling! We thought it must be piranhas and ran outside to watch the commotion. Turned out to be fresh water eels and they were going nuts. There were probably a dozen of them, each at least three feet long and four inches across at their head. The grabbed the scraps, bones and all. Whew, don’t wade across that stream anytime near lunch time.

Lunch was followed by a little walk around town (which took about 10 minutes) and then we could delay no more the hike back up the steep hillside and over back to our bay. We got back around 4PM or so and found it was now high tide. The dinghy we left anchored in knee deep water was now neck deep. So like the locals do, John and I waded out (almost swam), pulled the anchor and walked the dinghy back in towards the beach so Ann and Lisa could get in. In the mean time I was thinking about the shark attack reported here a couple weeks ago. Turns out I should have been looking more at my feet. Ann and Lisa had seen a couple stingrays in the sand. They can leave a nasty sting if you don’t shuffle your feet and kind of nudge them out of the way. Got lucky this time that I didn’t step on one while watching for sharks.

We got back to Charisma, cleaned the fruit we picked (nothing goes into the boat that hasn’t been soaked in a germicide, we’re very careful to keep bugs out) and mixed a couple of Charismas with which to watch the sunset. Just as we settled down to enjoy our cocktails, the young guy on the boat next to us came over in his dinghy to say “hi”. We met him and his cousin on the beach today and he came over to just get to know us better. That’s one of the things we love about cruising. The camaraderie is phenomenal. Jessie (his name and his boat is Obelisk) is 30 years old. He scraped together enough money to buy a sound boat that needed a lot of work so he could sail around the world. So far he has come from Chesapeake Bay via Bahamas, Azores, West Africa, East South American, around Cape Horn, etc. So we chatted a while until a squall started spitting and he decided it best to get back. We’ll look forward to seeing more of him and his cousin.

Well, that’s our day today. Like I said, an adventure a day is all we ask.

Position: 08 degrees, 49 minutes South; 140 degrees, 03 minutes West

Our anchorage in Anaho Bay

We are getting ready to move out of the Marquesas and on to the Tuamotu’s. But we need to see a little more of Nuku Hiva first, then get some fuel. We haven’t fueled since Mexico back at the end of March. By my calculations we still have about 15 gallons of diesel (and have used 60, most of which has been to charge the batteries on days when there’s not enough sun to fully charge them with the solar panels). I’m not looking forward to filling up. It’s not like in California, or Mexico for that matter, where you pull up to the fuel dock. Here, you have to Med Moor. That means you have to anchor just in front of the concrete dock and back up-hoping the anchor holds you just off the dock. You put a stern line out to hold the boat against the surge. If you are able to accomplish that, then you need to get in your dinghy and get the fuel hose, bring it out to the boat, that is still hopefully stationed 10 feet or so off the dock pointing straight out and not bashing into it as the waves surge you five feet backward and forward. If all that goes well, you can begin fueling. The alternative is to take our two jerry cans which are five gallons each, back and forth in the dinghy until the tank is full.

Our last port here will be Taiohae Bay which is the only place that has fuel. The issue this last week was that they ran out. The supply ship supposedly came in today, but there are a bunch of boats in there waiting and we didn’t want to be last in line, so we decided to sail around to Anaho on the North side of the island then back for fuel. The sail made for a very long day and we got here just an hour before dark. I was thinking there would be a 30 percent chance we wouldn’t make it before dark and would have to stand off for the night and come in tomorrow morning, but we got some favorable wind shifts and made it just in time. The wind shifts come from the squalls. They come down from East of the island and go roughly to the West. If you can get on the North side of the squall, you get “lifted” which basically means you can sail a more favorable line and not have to tack back and forth. So, I played the lifts in the squalls and that just made the difference.

The sail around the island to the North side was against 15 knot winds gusting to 25 and six foot seas. The weather was mostly cloudy. It was pretty dramatic getting into Anaho at almost dusk with the squalls hiding the high peaks around the bay. We even had to slow down and wait out the final squall as we were entering the bay as it completely obliterated our vision. We didn’t want to go in blind. We can’t wait to see the high peaks around the bay tomorrow.

The other thing I’ve learned when coming into a new anchorage is when you see a “line” of boats anchored DON’T go behind them. That’s what we saw here and sure enough, the five boats already here were anchored just in front of the reef. If I had gone behind them (which was tempting as there’s a nice beach and it looked like you could just anchor there) we would have hit the reef.

So, anchor down, had a Charisma, took a shower in the cockpit and prepared dinner. Made an omelette and sautéed bananas. The bananas are an easy way for anyone to get a taste of the tropics. Here’s the dead simple recipe: Get some ripe bananas. Peel and cut in half lengthwise. Put in frying pan with some coconut crème (you can get it in a box, it’s sweetened, so cut it with a little water) and just simmer on low with a lid while you’re cooking dinner. About 15 minutes in our case. Put on a serving dish and sprinkle cinnamon over the top. Yum, yum YUM!

We’re going to spend a couple days in this neighborhood hiking and such. Maybe visit one other bay on this side of the island and then on to Taiohae for fuel some fresh food if we can find it and then the four or five day voyage South to the Tuamotus where we’ll spend some weeks (depending on weather and fun) before heading to Tahiti sometime around the end of June. Where the Marquesas have been soaring peaks and green jungles, the Tuamotus are basically coral reefs. Most of them are only as tall as the palm trees that grow there. Should make for a very interesting contrast. They are known for tremendous snorkeling and diving as the water is said to be so clear you can see down 100 feet.

Some housekeeping: The tattoos are doing really well and looking good. Ann’s had some redness for a couple days, but that’s gone now. The “damaged” skin from the tattooing is peeling off and voila, we’re looking good!

Robin and Mike: is the Light Speed you know a catamaran or monohull. The cat is in the Marquesas, but the monohull went to Easter Island and we haven’t seen those guys. Ironic that there were two boats with the same name, right? Wrong! There were two Charismas too! We became known as Charisma – San Francisco vs. Charisma -Seattle!

Position: 08 degrees, 49 minutes South; 140 degrees, 03 minutes West

We are getting ready to move out of the Marquesas and on to the Tuamotu’s. But we need to see a little more of Nuku Hiva first, then get some fuel. We haven’t fueled since Mexico back at the end of March. By my calculations we still have about 15 gallons of diesel (and have used 60, most of which has been to charge the batteries on days when there’s not enough sun to fully charge them with the solar panels). I’m not looking forward to filling up. It’s not like in California, or Mexico for that matter, where you pull up to the fuel dock. Here, you have to Med Moor. That means you have to anchor just in front of the concrete dock and back up-hoping the anchor holds you just off the dock. You put a stern line out to hold the boat against the surge. If you are able to accomplish that, then you need to get in your dinghy and get the fuel hose, bring it out to the boat, that is still hopefully stationed 10 feet or so off the dock pointing straight out and not bashing into it as the waves surge you five feet backward and forward. If all that goes well, you can begin fueling. The alternative is to take our two jerry cans which are five gallons each, back and forth in the dinghy until the tank is full.

Our last port here will be Taiohae Bay which is the only place that has fuel. The issue this last week was that they ran out. The supply ship supposedly came in today, but there are a bunch of boats in there waiting and we didn’t want to be last in line, so we decided to sail around to Anaho on the North side of the island then back for fuel. The sail made for a very long day and we got here just an hour before dark. I was thinking there would be a 30 percent chance we wouldn’t make it before dark and would have to stand off for the night and come in tomorrow morning, but we got some favorable wind shifts and made it just in time. The wind shifts come from the squalls. They come down from East of the island and go roughly to the West. If you can get on the North side of the squall, you get “lifted” which basically means you can sail a more favorable line and not have to tack back and forth. So, I played the lifts in the squalls and that just made the difference.

The sail around the island to the North side was against 15 knot winds gusting to 25 and six foot seas. The weather was mostly cloudy. It was pretty dramatic getting into Anaho at almost dusk with the squalls hiding the high peaks around the bay. We even had to slow down and wait out the final squall as we were entering the bay as it completely obliterated our vision. We didn’t want to go in blind. We can’t wait to see the high peaks around the bay tomorrow.

The other thing I’ve learned when coming into a new anchorage is when you see a “line” of boats anchored DON’T go behind them. That’s what we saw here and sure enough, the five boats already here were anchored just in front of the reef. If I had gone behind them (which was tempting as there’s a nice beach and it looked like you could just anchor there) we would have hit the reef.

So, anchor down, had a Charisma, took a shower in the cockpit and prepared dinner. Made an omelette and sautéed bananas. The bananas are an easy way for anyone to get a taste of the tropics. Here’s the dead simple recipe: Get some ripe bananas. Peel and cut in half lengthwise. Put in frying pan with some coconut crème (you can get it in a box, it’s sweetened, so cut it with a little water) and just simmer on low with a lid while you’re cooking dinner. About 15 minutes in our case. Put on a serving dish and sprinkle cinnamon over the top. Yum, yum YUM!

We’re going to spend a couple days in this neighborhood hiking and such. Maybe visit one other bay on this side of the island and then on to Taiohae for fuel some fresh food if we can find it and then the four or five day voyage South to the Tuamotus where we’ll spend some weeks (depending on weather and fun) before heading to Tahiti sometime around the end of June. Where the Marquesas have been soaring peaks and green jungles, the Tuamotus are basically coral reefs. Most of them are only as tall as the palm trees that grow there. Should make for a very interesting contrast. They are known for tremendous snorkeling and diving as the water is said to be so clear you can see down 100 feet.

Some housekeeping: The tattoos are doing really well and looking good. Ann’s had some redness for a couple days, but that’s gone now. The “damaged” skin from the tattooing is peeling off and voila, we’re looking good!

Robin and Mike: is the Light Speed you know a catamaran or monohull. The cat is in the Marquesas, but the monohull went to Easter Island and we haven’t seen those guys. Ironic that there were two boats with the same name, right? Wrong! There were two Charismas too! We became known as Charisma – San Francisco vs. Charisma -Seattle!

Same Position As Yesterday

By the way, I forgot to credit Elan with discovering my error in the position earlier this week. When we checked in here at Baie De Taioa, I wrote 149 degrees West, when the actual Longitude was/is 140 degrees West. Oh well. Unlike the blog, I DO double check the GPS when I’m inputting nav data. So, thanks Elan, glad somone’s watching. My daughter Christine also tells us you are still updating our position on our Facebook pages, so thanks for that too.

And Jerry, you keep saying we should write a book. Well, if we do, your replies to our blog are going in it because they are more often than not hysterical. Thanks very much for the entertainment. We look forward to your comments.

OK, so on to today. Unfortunately for our readers, this wasn’t a very exciting day. Some of you may have noticed that we actually rarely have a quiet, boring day. Well, today we caught up with quiet and boring. Actually, it rained a lot today, so it was nice to be able to just hang out on the boat in this stunningly beautiful little bay. Ann did some more laundry (the bed sheets which take a lot of time) and I did some more miscellaneous boat projects. The more important project being our new privacy curtain that hooks to the lifelines around the cockpit. Now we can take a shower in the cockpit without the whole anchorage knowing or watching!

The Chicken Curry last night turned out great. Way cool to cook authentic Polynesian. As Ann wrote, we learned how to make coconut milk for the curry and conveniently had two coconuts on board. I cracked one (you use the back side of the machete not the sharp side) and scraped out the meat. Then mixed it with some water and squeezed it through some cheesecloth we had. Voila! (Bob is practicing his French!) The more authentic way is to squeeze it through coconut husk, but we didn’t have any. Just the nut. Also, after squeezing the scraped coconut, the Polynesians feed the result to their pigs. We also don’t have a pig. I made a ton of curry paste with the milk, curry, onion, etc and have enough for tomorrow night with some frozen shrimp we picked up. One last benefit of using the coconut- we’re about to sit down to some sliced coconut with Nutella. Yum!

OK, Ann said I had to give up my secret on how to harvest bananas so the future cruisers who are reading this will know. The big problem with getting a stalk of bananas in the wild is that they always grow about 15 feet in the air. You look up longingly and thin, “If I only had a ladder”. But, turns out you don’t need a ladder or even a fancy 15 foot long pole. I DO recommend you buy a machete because it’s incredibly useful in the tropics, but strictly speaking you can even do it with just a knife. The secret is that you cut down the whole tree the stalk is on. We watched a REAL Polynesian do it. It helps to weigh about 300 pounds like the gentleman who showed us. If you weigh less than 300 pounds, make deeper cuts into the tree (see below) Don’t worry about cutting down the tree, the banana tree needs to be cut down. It’s really more like a fern on steroids. A new stalk of bananas will only grow on a freshly cut tree so you’re doing it a favor.

So…now pay attention, you could get hurt if you do this wrong. You find a likely looking stalk. This will have about 100 still green bananas on it and it will be 15 feet or so above your head. It helps to have a couple friends who also want some bananas because they will pretty much all ripen at the same time (actually, we hang some in the cockpit on the stalk, put some in the icebox and some in the fruit hammock in the cabin, so they ripen at somewhat different times, but it still helps to have friends). Carefully approach the banana tree. At about head height, you whack it lightly with your machete. Count your fingers both before and after this step. If you have fewer fingers than before, stop harvesting bananas right away and take up needlepoint or something else. But, as usual I digress. Now, you’ll note that the light whacking has only dented the tree. But these trees are pretty hollow and very fibrous, so if you now PUSH the tree below the machete mark very aggressively, it will start to tear and maybe break. Or not. If nothing happens, whack it (“whack” is a technical term that us banana harvesters use down here) again and make a slightly deeper cut. It still hopefully has not fallen on you yet and is standing but weakened. Again, push hard below the whack mark. It should start to bend over above the machete line from the combination of cutting and pushing. Your goal here is to do this with a great deal of caution combined with silly abandon (you are after all, standing here in the jungle, with a two foot long sword whacking at a tree with about fifty pounds of bananas ready to fall on your head). Anyway, your goal is to do this with such precise control that the tree begins to fall very slowly. The fibers that have not yet been whacked at by your machete are still trying to hold it up, the others have long since given way to your newly discovered native spirit and your machete. If all goes well, the tree will gracefully bend and crack and deliver the bananas gently and gracefully into your waiting arms, where you will grasp them to keep them from hitting the ground and bruising. If you didn’t do this correctly…it’s not my responsibility but do make sure your health insurance premiums are fully paid.

Once you have successfully harvested a stalk of bananas and are standing in the middle of the jungle with a “downed” banana tree, use your machete to turn the cut part of the tree into humus. In other words chop up the leaves and trunk so it will decompose. Leave about three feet of the trunk of the tree intact above the ground and before you know it a new tree will grow out of this. You have done the jungle a favor. All is well and you will be eating lots of bananas, baked bananas, fried bananas, mashed bananas and banana bread. You may come to hate bananas. Your next step is to learn to identify and successfully harvest papayas, but that’s another story.

Now that I’ve divulged my super-secret banana technique, I will go on to report that we ended this Sunday in Daniel’s Bay with cocktails on Orcinius. John and Lisa are delightful people who we met in La Paz. After that, they went to the Galapagos and we went across to mainland Mexico, but we have been fortunate enough to be reunited here 3000 miles away. We had a wonderful evening sitting on the “veranda” in their catamaran which is anchored about 50 yards away. Nice.

Position: Still in Daniel’s Bay

A little rain and a phenomenal rainbow!

No big hikes today. No change in location. Just chillin’ in Daniel’s Bay. Sometimes we just stay aboard and enjoy the beautiful bay. Today was one of those days, kind of. Bob spent the morning doing miscellaneous small chores like fixing the flag pole holder so we can proudly fly our American flag and then fixing some wobbly connections on the solar panels. The kind of things that bug you as you sail but get forgotten when the anchor goes down. I spent the day getting caught up on laundry. It never gets faster or easier. Always a chore but I love to bring it in off of the lifelines and having it smell fresh! I don’t even mind folding it and putting it away because it means the job is done! Kills me that it took 4 hours to do! And to finish my day I read a book about James Michener’s South Pacific by Stephen May. It is so fun to know that either we are on our way there or we are currently in the locations that are being described. And when I chose to, I could look up and inhale this beautiful bay! And as an added treat I could smell Bob preparing dinner early – he made Chicken Curry with fresh coconut milk. Since I learned how to make coconut milk back at Fatu Hiva I was able to explain it to Bob. Using cheese cloth and the fresh coconut we got yesterday (and an oyster shucker to get the coconut out and grated) Bob made his own coconut milk to put in the curry. (It is currently reheating on the stove so I am only assuming that the divine smell was an accurate indication of the quality of meal.) So it was a quite productive day. One interesting moment came when the catamaran named Seque “went for a walk about”. Now my friends know that I find nothing unusual with cats that go for walks as every time in Pleasant Hill that I took my dog, Grover, for a walk, one of my cats, Tiger, insisted on coming with. So a cat on a walk seems normal. Only this one was a very large catamaran, about 60 feet long and 30,000 lbs, whose anchor started dragging while the occupants were hiking to the waterfall. Luckily someone in the anchorage noticed and all hands were actively putting down another anchor for the wandering boat until the owners returned. No damage done. The boat behind them, Lightspeed – also a catamaran, moved to be in front of the wandering cat. Too bad Seque later relocated themselves and now are anchored in front of us. Hopefully they did a better job of anchoring this time so we can have a peaceful night.