Bonjour,
Merci! Merci! Merci beaucop! I have received many replies, read them and re-read them, reminisced, laughed, may have even teared up a little when my sister wrote about my little nephew Charlie, him and I got along very well while I was working and staying at their home. I thoroughly enjoyed each reply and sincerely appreciated them, I apologize for not responding to everyone personally, unfortunately internet access is difficult and costly so I hope these mass letters will to suffice to keep everybody responding. Many people have asked questions and requested pictures so this is my best effort to accommodate.
My dear friend Sandi from Pender Island asked, “Was the boat as awesome as you said it was?” Well smart ass it was even awesomer. In 37 days of sailing, perhaps even pushing her a bit I replaced a cotter pin in the gooseneck, sprayed some lube on a squeaky block that was annoying me and replaced one of the self steering lines that chaffed through on day 35. I like to think this was due to my diligent preparations and meticulous maintenance. I definitely fared better than some, there is close to new catamaran here that lost its mast and happened upon a tanker who lowered them three barrels of diesel so they could motor the rest of the way. Most sailors here where impressed with my passage time for the size of the boat and the fact that I did it solo without motoring once. There are two single handers here who were at sea longer than me. My Swiss friend Christian was 52 days out of Panama on a tri-marran that I would have gave second thoughts to sailing across Cultas Lake, he hit a whale and had to employ the help of a fishing boat at sea who did some welding for him. On the other hand my surfer friend Shane from Santa Cruz sailed here solo on a boat he bought for a dollar on Craig’s List without any problems and he didn’t even have self steering. A 67 year old Hawaiian sailor who I find quite interesting sailed here but insists he is not a cruiser and can’t wait to leave to go home, just as soon as his wife leaves from flying in with his passport that he forgot, yet says he is too impatient and motors through the calms. The boat was wonderful, safe and even after 9 years together I still think she is the prettiest girl at the party.
Anything I write about my diet is going to boring because that is what it was. I am not a big food person which suits this life very well. I arrived with over half of my drinking water and probably around the same of the water in my tank I used for cooking and cleaning. I ate whatever was easiest after my ice melted around day 12. Those first days I ate lots of eggs, cheese, and ham. I should have brought more fresh fruit as my apples and oranges ran out around 2 weeks or so, before they started going bad. After that it was cans of fruit and granola or oatmeal for breakfast and a hearty dinner of canned some shit with crackers. I made the mistake of bringing some cans of things I had never tried for variety, I doubt the fish I donated them too even ate them. I baked chocolate chip cookies which where a treat but for the trouble it was worth I should have just brought store bought ones, stove top jiffy-pop was fun and I ran out of jujubes way to early. As I was getting nearer to land I did start fantasizing a bit and was mostly looking forward to something cold, preferably beer and cheese, I love cheese. The supply ship which comes twice a month arrived yesterday so most of the stores where fairly empty and I wasn’t able to by cheese until yesterday, nothing like a small wheel of gouda for breakfast with fresh baked French bread.
I think I seen maybe two ships after the ones I got to relay a message. One was a fishing boat out of Panama, I had heard talking on the VHF but it was not English and a while later I seen a ship on the horizon and they hailed again. I explained I only spoke English and figured out that the captain must have seen me on his radar and came to check to make sure I was OK. He spoke broken English and asked if I needed any food or water, where I was from and where I was going, he also gave me the weather forecast. It was actually pretty heart warming. He passed about 200ft from starboard side and then crossed within 100ft of my bow with over a dozen crew members all staring and waving from all over the 200+ft fishing boat. I didn’t ask him to relay a message as I doubted it would make it with the language barrier. Other than that pretty much nothing out there. There are no reported incidents of piracy in the south pacific and it is not something I need to worry about thankfully.
As far as being alone goes I am pretty good at it, almost like there is something wrong with me. I did not really miss human contact while I was out there, that is not to say I wasn’t looking forward to having a conversation. It seems to me everybody speaks at least 2 languages except Canadians and Americans. Sometimes I feel like a bit of a jerk. The locals speak Marquesan, French and a little English, my Swiss friend speaks Swiss, German, French, Spanish and English, my German buddy German, French and English. On my first evening on shore I was wondering around and heard two girls speaking English I immediately started talking with them, very enjoyable. They were a group of four, early to mid twenties, from the Eastern Seaboard of the states working as professional crew. They are delivering an 80ft ketch from Panama via the Galapagos for a 46 year old business man from Guelph, Ontario and his 29 year old Ecuadorian girlfriend. Charlie and Monet are flying home to New England today and Maxine to Alaska to work on fishing charter boats, Ted will stay and sail the boat with the owner for 3-1/2 weeks. They are paid well to sail the boat to where the owner wants and then flown home, while I’m figuring out many dollars a 600 Polynesian francs beer is they are pulling out the owners visa. Most other cruisers are older than I am but a boat sailed by two Kiwi brothers and ones Slovakian girlfriend just arrived, they are around my age and I had dinner with them and two of their friends last night. The two friends flew in from Tahiti as they are on vacation from working as professional crew on a 150ft sail boat. The privately owned boat employs a crew of ten full time and was recently in Vancouver so it was nice to talk a bit of back home with them. So far all cruisers are friendly and although I would like to get know the locals and their culture more it is difficult without speaking French, I will continue to observe and will tell you more about it and send pictures when I can.
French Polynesia consists of three groups of Islands, the Marquesas, Tuamotus and Society Islands. Tahiti in the Society Islands is the main island and has the capital city of Papeete where the international airport is. Evan and Chloe are to arrive there near the end of July. I do not have enough time to properly explore all the islands here as I want my kids to have as much time here as possible before they go back to school. My plan is to check out one more bay on this island then stop at one island in the Tuamotus before arriving in Papeete with plenty of time to spare before Evan and Chloe’s flight. I will not get any internet in the next bay but am pretty sure they have it at Rangiroa Atoll so my next e-mail may not be for another week and a half or so.
Until then my friends,
Jonathan