Land Ho

Hotspur in the Sea of Cortez

Not ours sadly. As appealing as it is would be we, haven’t slipped the lines and set off for somewhere new. But we have had the privilege of following our dear friends Jim, Meri and Carolyne aboard Hotspur as they crossed the Pacific toward the Marquesas.

 

We miss this lovely family and hope they have a blast in the pacific

Evan provided them with weather routing and as seasoned shellbacks (ha!) Maia and I emailed them with tidbits of information and encouragement. Reading their emails and blog posts brought back a lot of memories of our own crossing three years ago. One thing that felt familiar was their initial unease followed by a palpable joy and excitement as they found their rhythm and discovered just what a wondrous experience crossing an ocean is.

It’s not always easy—like us they had their fair share of breakdowns and testing moments. But I think joy comes from not being knocked out by them—by reaching down through the fear and frustration and discovering you really can make it to port on a broken rudder (us) or that you have the skills to fix an autopilot without directions, several times (them). The fun also comes from being a family out there—you’re together, alone in the middle of the ocean, every minute of everyday, and somehow sometime after you arrive and the world gets busy again, it feels like it may not have been enough.

It might be a long way to come for a play date--but Maia hopes they catch us somewhere

I’m excited and envious for the hours, weeks and months that Jim, Meri and Carolyne have coming up. Making landfall can only be described as magical. Despite our modern technology: the radios, GPS, heck, the charts(!) it still feels like you’ve reached back through the centuries and crossed wakes with the navigators when you sight land.

It’s not often you get to sail into your dreams and live them full on. As I picture them making landfall I can smell the floral sweet tiaré mingled with warm heavy jungle; I can hear the drums back in the hills and kids laughing on shore; And I can recall my own giddy excitement as I stepped on land after several weeks at sea only to have my legs wobble as though they were giggling in glee.

 

Landfall Bora Bora

To celebrate their accomplishment I’ve been playing sailing music and dreaming about our next landfall, wherever it may be.

Sewn Souvenirs Part Deux

We’ve learned so much while out cruising. I don’t just mean the things you’d expect to learn: offshore sailing, local history, how to say ‘where’s the bathroom’ in smattering of foreign languages or even how to husk a coconut. No, we’ve learned all sorts of cool things we never even knew were out there to learn: how to custom dye fabric, how to set up a slack line, why that weird looking fish is doing what it’s doing…

Cruisers have some of the most diverse skills and backgrounds of any group of people we’ve ever met. We’ve met botanists and biologists, astronomers, engineers and IT guys, doctors, lawyers and investment bankers, jewellery makers and stunt drivers, and the guy who invented the forth squeeze for orange juice.

And from so many of them we’ve learned things. Real things. Useful things—like which leaf makes a poultice that can help heal wounds, and how to find constellations in the new-to-us southern sky and how to take that huge coin collection and turn it into beautiful keepsakes.

Lauren girl from Pico was our jewellery maker in the Pacific. Lauren’s grandmother taught her to make gorgeous embroidered bead jewellery, and she passed on her skills and knowledge to Amanda from Britannia, who also makes stunning embroidered bead jewellery, and Amanda kindly passed on some of her skills and knowledge to Maia, who aspires to make wonderful embroidered bead jewellery.

Amanda and Lauren's work as inspiration

 Maia is actually doing really well with her new found skills. Her first piece caught the eye of the kids on Viatrix (a lovely French Canadian family we’ve been spending time with) and they asked to learn so she invited them and the girls from Dorénavant (another lovely French Canadian family we’re spending time with—in fact there are currently six Canadian boats here in Brissie, the most we’ve encountered in one harbour since Mexico) over for a jewelry making class.

The class was both a French lesson (Maia can now swear and threaten to eat small children) and a jewelry making class. And as the kids sewed and giggled and Maia struggled with the ‘r’ sound in Merde! while the other kids tried to keep their beads even, I thought about how far this lesson had traveled: from Lauren’s grandmother to her, and then across oceans and cultures. And soon it will spread even further.

Healthcare for Cruisers

It’s one of those questions that comes up again and again—‘are we covered by health insurance, if so which insurance, what does it cost, and what does it cover?’

First off a caveat—we’re Canadian so our worst case scenario is even if we have been out of the country long enough that we’ve lost our healthcare coverage (this varies from province—but the cut-off is typically 183 days per year with some provinces allowing you to be out longer as long as you have an intent to return) our coverage will resume after a waiting period (typically three mos—but there are provinces with no wait period).

cruisers need to take preventative measures when it comes to staying healthy--rescues are hard to come by

That said, this is what we’ve done:

US West Coast—We were insured beyond our basic Canadian insurance. Our Canadian insurance reimburses costs up to what it pays in Canada—which comes no where close to the US cost of healthcare, so we decided ages ago never to be in the US without some sort of additional coverage—we always have visitors insurance for the US no matter how brief the visit might be. On the trip down the coast we didn’t need to use it.

Mexico—We maintained our Canadian coverage but had no supplemental coverage for Mexico. We had one bad experience in Mexico—we needed to update vaccines and in Santa Rosalia the Doctor offered to get us them—charged $80 in advance, then failed to get the vaxes or to reimburse us. But this was an exception.

Mexico is one of the countries that is considered great for routine healthcare (others we've heard raves about include French Polynesia (we got free vaxes in Nuku Hiva), and Malaysia). And both La Paz and La Cruz are popular for check-ups. Typically treatment was excellent and modern—my skin cancer checks (I went for two, Ev had one) were accurate and affordable ($125 for a full screen and biopsy). Treatment for pneumonia was straightforward--two doctor visits ($30, $50), x-rays ($25), inhalers ($50).

During our 18 months we also visited local dentists every six mos—basic cleanings were around $30, fillings another $30 and Evan needed a root canal which ended up in the $600 range. Keep in mind Mexican dentists rarely use x-rays and rely on physical signs of decay. So our rule of thumb is to visit the same dentist at the same time as another family. If too many cavities are found we know we’ve hit on someone who’s too enthusiastic with the drill and we all move on.

Between preventative care, prescriptions, two eye doctor visits and glasses and contacts for Ev (we got Maia's glasses in Canada), skin-cancer check-ups and a root canal, treatment for pneumonia our expenses were about $1200 for the 16 months we were in Mexico. We could have squeezed in check-ups on a visit home the first year, but we were confident enough in the Mexican system that for preventative care and day-to-day follow-up care we were happy.

Crossing the South Pacific we carried Dan evacuation insurance. This insurance can evacuate us to a place we can be treated—but it doesn’t cover treatment costs once you’re there—so having a plan about where to go is vital. We did get some prescription drugs—anti-malarials in Vanuatu ($20), cream for a skin infection in French Poly $30.

In Australia we have bought basic insurance (ranges from $150/per month per family up). Dental is out of pocket—Ev and I went to the school and had checkups for $60 each, Maia went to a local dentist and her check-up and cleaning was $200 and a filling was $210. I’ve had a ‘well-woman’ check-up $110 and a skin check for $185. Evan saw a Dr. for sore knees which came to $75 plus $133 for x-rays (should get some of these expenditures back).

So all this said—there really is no one medical insurance answer. It varies according to how long you are away from your home country and where you spend your time while away. Our basic plan is to keep up to date on all preventative healthcare—we vaccinate for whatever the locals are vaxing against (assuming we may be even more susceptible), we take our anti-malarials or whatever preventative drugs are needed, we get check-ups, we don’t let things linger (too long…)and we buy insurance when we're in more expensive countries.


Staying on top of things is vital to staying healthy though.

Pacific Passage Weather Thoughts

Evan here. I thought I'd pass on some thoughts about weather across the Pacific. Hopefully these hints and ideas will prove useful to future sailors crossing in the following years.

Getting a good grasp of South Pacific weather was really important to us having a successful time. Most weather texts do a poor job of S. Hemisphere weather. Read (& re-read until you are sick of it) Jim Corenman's “South Pacific Weather” 1994 letter – found at the Latitude 38 site.

s/v Soggy Paws website has a good listing of a number of these weather documents.

http://www.svsoggypaws.com/pacwx-understanding.htm

Read and understand how the cycles of highs and lows that track W to E affect the weather in the tropics. For example it wasn't until F. Polynesia that I realized how a big High will reinforce (strengthen) the SE trades. Read anything else you can get on the S Pacific weather systems. I think our understanding of weather systems was probably better than most cruisers and we never saw more than 25 knots of sustained wind on a passage (more in short lived squalls, but you can't predict them and they really don't affect your comfort).

Have a strategy for crossing the ITCZ at right angles to the equator – not at an angle which extends your time in this area of confused seas and thunderstorms. It is important to recognize the further west you go before crossing the equator, the closer to the wind you will have to sail to get to the Marquesas in typical SE trades. Even crossing at around 128 deg. as we did, we still had BIG beam seas that were uncomfortable for several days. Those crossing around 132-4 had winds well forward of the beam when they headed south.

Concentrate on the big picture as well as local conditions. Every few days it's a good idea to get a large area, coarse GRIB at say 2x2 deg resolution and covers a week or so.

Weather Resources underway 

GRIB files are used by everybody – but they have lots of limitations. Understand the limitations and you will use them better. They are prepared by computers with NO human intervention. Unless you are looking at multiple models, you might miss something that a particular model is not showing. They don't show fronts, and the associated strong winds though they usually get the frontal wind shift. If you see a strong wind shift with nearby low winds beware – that is probably a front with strong winds!

Before you leave cheap and good internet coverage – check out the various fax options from NOAA and find the correct ones for your area. Their schedule covers a lot of areas so I printed it out and used a highlighter on the few ones that I liked. Bookmark the NOAA fax, Fiji weather maps etc. so when you are using expensive internet in F. Polynesia you can go straight to the correct page.

So also use weatherfaxes and online weather maps when you have internet access. The ones I found most useful were the E and Central Pacific 24,48,72 hr surface faxes from NOAA Honolulu, and close to Australia, the 1,2,3,4 day MSLP forecasts from Australia. NOAA GOES IR satellite pics showed the ITCZ pretty well, but you can't really pick a good area to cross; it changes so fast and moves so much daily The NZ Metservice color fax series is useful for those passaging to NZ.

I didn't ever get good reception from NZ faxes but for those passaging to NZ would probably do best to pick these up, even though they only go to 72 hrs prognosis. The Aus met office online also has a 10 day pressure series that is good to see how fast H and L's are travelling across the continent. The systems to watch (mainly) seem to be S of Australia because they hit the Tasman sea and then turn northward a bit.

I really like the NADI fleet code (send “fleet.nadi”) issued by the Fiji met office. It's only a current surface analysis but you can usually pick out the SPCZ on it. It is usually shown as a trough though. You will need an auxiliary program like Physplot to turn this text file into a weather chart. If you are online you can get the Fiji current chart in better detail from the Fiji met office website. Pick the “new chart”s - it's in colour and is clearer than the B&W versions. NADI also offers text email forecasts for Fiji, Tonga, Cooks and Samoa – but we only got the Fiji versions so I can't comment on the accuracy for other areas. The Fiji forecasts were OK but they only cover one area (Fiji) which is ~300 x 300 miles; too big for a single forecast.

Do get faxes for multiple days in a row before and on a passage. You will see how the systems are moving, and how they are likely to affect you. And don't forget, winds circulate CCW around a H in the S. Hemisphere!

Religiously get Bob McDavitt's weekly weathergram (online via his blog or email via saildocs “nz.wgrm”) every Sunday night NZ time. He can spot big picture stuff for the week ahead very accurately.

The F.Polynesia email forecast (send “fr.poly”) is a bit repetitive (showers and squalls every day), and it is in French so you will need a French – English weather terms dictionary to translate it, but if it says 25+ knots pay attention because conditions are usually ugly when the winds get that strong. Hide in a decent anchorage if you can. You need to have the F. Poly sea areas JPEG chart to understand what area “A25” means.

Australia also has a number of marine forecast documents available through saildocs.

Web sites I use for weather:

http://weather.noaa.gov/fax/hawaii.shtml Honolulu weather faxes – forget the wind/wave charts; they are too general and have weather arrows for only 5 degree squares. Pick the surface charts and 24, 48, and 72 hour forecasts. The colour ones are easier to understand

http://www.bom.gov.au/australia/charts/viewer/index.shtml Australia surface analysis – and forecast maps for the future (click the “Play” buttoms at top)

http://www.bom.gov.au/australia/charts/4day_col.shtml The 4 day map for low bandwidth connections

http://www.met.gov.fj/ Fiji met office

http://www.met.gov.fj/sat-map.html Fiji weather maps – you want the “new” surface maps in colour

http://www.meteo.pf/ French Polynesia met office - in French

http://www.metservice.com/national/maps-rain-radar/maps/tasman-sea-nz-colour-series 

NZ weather charts for a few days prognosis

Trade Wind Sailing - and thoughts about routes

The trade winds are generally SE, but they can be S or E or beyond, depending on what the recent H or L that has passed is doing to them. So if you are crossing the Pacific from E to W, you want trades that have more E than S in them for the most comfortable rides. For monohull owners, that also means you should think of biasing your boats cargo, fuel and water loads to the port side of the boat to reduce heeling (as much as you can anyway) in the southern hemisphere. For cat owners, we all seemed to agree beam seas are the most uncomfortable (and noisy as the waves slap the stbd inboard hull). It's important to understand on which passage you might want really E biased trades. The Marquesas to the Tuamotoas or Bora Bora to Raratonga for instance are more SW courses, so anything you can get in an ESE or E trade wind is more comfortable.

Cold Fronts

Generally warm fronts don't seem to appear on weather charts, and only cold fronts or occluded fronts are shown. Cold fronts will usually bring a dramatic wind shift to the NE, N, then NW, and finally SW before shifting back into the normal SE quadrant. If it's a vigorous cold front expect nasty conditions in it's vicinity. Naturally W quadrant winds are headwinds, and are to be avoided so avoid cold fronts when you can. If one is going to hit you for certain, head N in advance of the front. Cold fronts get weaker closer to the equator. As the wind clocks into the W you can then bear off back to your rhumb line and not have to beat.

Warm fronts are not as nasty, and generally turn into occluded (mixed warm and cold air masses) in the tropics. Don't ignore them but you probably won't see them as much more than some rain.

Sailing to Australia route choices

The obvious route is Vanuatu – New Caledonia (Noumea) – Brisbane. The less obvious one that I would suggest and recommend is Vanuatu – Chesterfield Reef – Bundaberg. Here's why

• Vanuatu to Noumea is very strongly SSW course so in typical SE trades you might end up beating. Ugh.
• Noumea to Brisbane is about 700 n.m. and you are more likely to have a cold front hit you on the way because the cold fronts are coming along every 7 days and you are sailing into their direction of movement, increasing the closing rate. It's also a longer passage to try to get a decent window
• Vanuatu to Chesterfield is about 500 and Chesterfield to Bundie is about 450 miles; much easier to get a decent window. The sailing angles with the trades are easier too
• Chesterfield is absolutely lovely
• Chesterfield to Bundie is further north, so cold fronts are weaker if you do hit one. Get to Bundie and then coastal hop to Brisbane, through the beautiful Fraser Island and Great Sandy Strait.

Class dismissed – oh are there any questions?

Closing with Australia

Connect 4 in 20 knots

We should be able to shout 'land ho' sometime later this evening or early tomorrow. Although, as the wind dies (and we throw every sail we have at the problem), our eta has shifted from 8 pm, to 10 pm, to midnight, to 3 am... No matter--once we are in we still have to wait our turn for clearance and with some eight boats due to arrive tomorrow, who knows when we'll officially be in Oz.
We're still in visual range of three of the four boats we left Chesterfield with--a fact that has made Evan gleeful, given they are all monohulls in the 50+' range. Connect 4 has dropped to about 60 miles behind us and turned on their motor in the wee hours. We're still making over 5 knots so won't be adding our motor for a while.
We're in a strange limbo today. When the sailing was hard and fast, and we needed to concentrate on staying upright and not getting hurtled across the cabin, Australia still seemed far away. But today, as we ghost along in flat seas, and we can calculate that we have less than 100 miles to go of our 7500 mile, seven month, six country journey it feels like we're ready to be done.

Discovery and Karynia I in the home stretch

 Maia is struggling to concentrate on school and is dancing around, while Evan is doing a final cleaning and sorting for quarantine. I'm trying to decide what final dishes to cook, and what food we should simply sacrifice. None of us really wants to nap. Kirk from Discovery calls over every hour or so to find out what sail tweaking we are doing to keep our speed up--so I think the last-day jitters are going around.
I've tried to figure out why this landfall is so different than the others. For our friends, who are returning home or ending their cruises, the significance is clear. But for us it's simply another stop over. But I guess it's also the point where we can say we've sailed across the Pacific Ocean. It's like we've graduated or something. Similar to the way arriving in Mexico marked the voyage south.
Today our Ipod is set to a playlist of sailing songs. And despite the beauty of the sail our eyes are glued to the horizon.
"Land ho, I need some wind to make this dream complete."
S 23 50
E 153 38
86 to Bundie
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Stalking the Turtle

There are nine boats in the anchorage now. Over the course of yesterday boat after boat pulled in. If they had kept sailing they would have been hard pressed to reach Australia before the time customs closes on Friday. It sounds like WGD is going to just squeak in under the deadline tomorrow.

We've decided we actually need to leave here and are planning for a Monday arrival. Connect 4 will leave tonight (they're a bit slower than us) and we'll leave tomorrow am. So last night we had our final evening here as a group. All the boats brought something for a potluck on shore and we caught up with old friends (Sudden Stops pulled in) and met a few people we'd only heard on the radio up until now. Mainly though our little core group of three boats soaked in our last moments together.
Around 10pm four of us headed off on turtle patrol--growing silent each time we sighted a shadow in the water or a lump on the beach. At one point we took up station on the sandbar between two islands--giving us a clear few of two spans of beach. A while later we walked further, past fresh nests and meandering turtle tracks. Turtle paths look most like tractor tracts. The flipper marks appear as tire treads and the body (which for all intents is dragged through the sand) leaves a hollow trail in between.

Even though the sand is bright white in the moonlight it's hard to tell the difference between rocks and turtles. At one point the four of us stood silently, watching a dark shape for movement, taking a stealthy step now and again, until it was clear we had snuck up on a rock.
Then when we were ready to turn back Cheryl spotted what we thought was another rock. She snuck up slowly, taking step after step, trying to decide if she was looking at a rock-shaped turtle, or a turtle shaped rock. A few metres from the shape she saw movement and began to back toward us--signalling 'turtle!' with subtle arm movements.
The four of us (Cheryl, Steve, Eric from Discovery and me) found a spot up on the top of the beach and began to watch.
"I think it moved!"
"No, that was a shadow."
Are you sure it's a turtle?"
Time passed and we imagined movement and then decided nothing had changed.
Then we all saw her move her head.
"Should someone go back to the fire and get Evan and the kids?"
Cheryl started the trek back and Steve, Eric and I huddled together and waited for more movement. Nothing happened.
"Are we sure she's alive? It would be terrible to bring the kids to see a dead turtle."
Finally she moved her back fins and seemed to shuffle forward. Then she stopped. We'd heard they find the effort of getting up the beach exhausting and tended to nap a bit as they progressed, but our turtle seemed to be narcoleptic. Evan and the kids arrived and joined out huddle and we watched. One by one the kids fell asleep. Now and again the turtle would move a fin or look around, but as it passed midnight and grew cooler we decided to leave her in peace and call it a night.
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Desert Island Days--Chesterfield Reef

We've been diving on a reef structure near the anchorage. It's not big, the walls only go to 60' or so and the windward side has some coral damage from a storm. But it's only a 5 minute dinghy ride and there are no currents--so it's perfect for all the novice divers in our group. It's also the most diverse bit of ocean I've ever seen. It has more types of sponges, coral (with colours that run through the rainbow), more species of fish (including four types of anenome 'clown' fish, eels, sharks, puffers, parrots) and more types of giant clams than I've ever seen in one place. And this is just one bommie of hundreds. It's not even the main reef.

As you can guess we haven't left. WGD felt like they needed to get to Oz. But Connect 4, Discovery and us didn't feel ready to leave our uncharted island for a known destination. The kids wanted to camp on shore again, we wanted to dive and we all want to try again to see nesting turtles.
But because we are all at the end of our provisions we've needed to pool our resources and share out what we have. We've been swapping and trading--sugar for flour, butter for popcorn, potatoes for onions, rice for beans, milk for wine, toilet paper for... Well if someone needs toilet paper you just hand it over. Beachside potlucks keep meals from getting too monotonous. And while we've all tucked away just enough food to last for the passage. We've begun to raid our ditch bag for powerbars and eased up on our definition of vegetable.

While it is isolated and ideal here, sadly it's not pristine. The hermit crab that we found housed in a plastic bottle cap wasn't the most dramatic example, that was probably the bird nesting on a Styrofoam container, but it was poignant. We've filled two black garbage bags with washed up plastic bottles, shoes, fishing gear, plastic grates and lawn chair bits and more appears at high tide.
Everyday.

We're almost 500 miles from the nearest inhabited land. We're experiencing the teeming vitality that once was found throughout the Pacific.
But what makes Chesterfield wondrous--also makes it heartbreaking. Even here we've managed to pollute.
I have never felt so enthralled or helpless.
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Be Calmed -the way to Oz day 4

Last night we saw the stars reflected in the ocean. Pinpoints of light shimmering like phosphorescence in a glassy sea. The three of us stood and marvelled--we've never seen the open ocean so still.
We expected a light wind passage--but not a no wind one. But for 10-14 hours yesterday there wasn't even a whisper. We motored at low throttle--trying to make progress against the current (and to keep the boat cool) but we haven't enough fuel to motor all the way to Australia. Even motoring all the way to Chesterfield would push things.

But this morning after exiting the Grand Passage at the northern end of New Caledonia we found the breeze again. It's not strong and it's too far forward for us to use our spinnaker--but if we jump from squall to squall we can average 5 knots. The sky up ahead is blue though--so we may lose the little bit extra that comes from the unsettled patches.
Beyond the fact this is a slow passage it's still nice to be out hear. We're chatting twice a day with WGD, Connect 4 and Discovery and everyone is in good spirits as they urge their boats along.
S 18 39
E 163 06
728 to Bundaberg
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Fiji without Baggage

Last week when we were cleaning our boat up in anticipation of our next set of guests (Jen, Peder, Anja and Cara) I felt pretty good about making enough sleeping space for four extra people—but when it came to their luggage I was a bit worried. “I guess we could stack it on Maia’s desk or your work bench,” I told Evan “But you’ld really have to clean your workbench off…”

When they arrived, I was impressed: four people, three backpacks. For a month in Fiji and Australia. And one of the bags had to be for us—they were bringing spectra rigging, a hard drive, power tools and Maia’s b-day gifts…

Then Jen explained the airline had lost their luggage. All of it. Jen was stressed—especially about our stuff. I, interestingly enough, was not. I wasn’t even concerned. As I double-checked my frame of mind (there was dark chocolate in that luggage) I realized that barring the odd day of excessive over-reaction (like, umm, last week when the boat was really messy and there was no place for luggage) I’m taking a lot of stuff in stride these days. Even stuff like the airline losing our very difficult to replace rigging, which we absolutely need before heading to Vanuatu.

Having guests without luggage meant we needed to change plans. Something we’re getting really good at and that I’ve learned isn’t worth fussing over (well, mostly learned). So rather than pulling out of Lautoka shortly after they arrived—we took them in to shop. Taking a jetlagged family of four shopping in a congested (and very foreign seeming) city is not as easy as you might think. Stores don’t have the combination of things you might expect in them—and we needed to go to several, just to find the basics.

kava while sailing

 Eventually we sort of had them outfitted and we were underway back to Musket Cove. Once we were out on the water Fiji began to work her magic. The islands came into view, the water turned turquoise and the reef showed up in the distance. Maia did an oral report for school for all of us—teaching our friends about Fijian customs and running a kava ceremony. Then we all went for a snorkel. As the stars rose and brightened, and the kids went limp from exhaustion, we called it a night.

Maia's b-day party--complete with cake and kids

 The next few days were a whirlwind of beach walks, pool time, play dates and Maia’s long awaited birthday party, the one that she simply trusted would someday occur--complete with games, cake and a bunch of kids (although the presents from home were with the lost luggage).

As the kids played hide and seek (adapting the game to fit the terrain—the best hiding place was up a palm tree…) I thought about all the lessons I’ve learned while cruising: Adapting to new food and new cultures; making do with what we have; letting go of expectations; figuring out how to fix just about anything; learning to count on family, friends and the occasional stranger for help and support. And I understood that in many ways travelling without baggage really is the ideal.

Most people we know seem to see the Pacific crossing as a great opportunity to engage in some sort of self-improvement and personal growth. Personally, I had a bit of a list: I wanted to confront my fears, learn to live in the moment, fully engage with my family, lose weight, get fit… You know—little stuff. The lessons I got though were different ones and every time I thought I had it figured out, it all slipped away—defying my expectations. Reminding me that being in complete control of your life is pretty much an illusion.

The luggage showed up—and with it everything we need to make the last leg of our trip (our new sail also arrived—more on that soon). And our dear friends—who we realized were not only our first guests on Ceilydh (helping us deliver her home after we bought her in 2004) but that Anja and Cara were Maia’s first sleepover guests when we first moved aboard)—flew on to the next leg of their adventure.

We’re now working hard to prepare the boat for the next six weeks of travel and I’m trying to prepare myself—to make sure I enjoy all of it without expectation and stress. Hopefully I’ll leave my baggage in Fiji.

From Silence to City

 When I last blogged (it seems like so long ago!) we were still at anchor in a peaceful cove. A few local fishermen had yet to stop by and visit and offer us some of their day’s catch—because to them we were part of the village: a village we had no idea was there and couldn’t see. But no matter—we offered them baseball hats and school supplies for the village kids and chatted about weather and fishing and enjoyed their company.

And sailed on: Which is our theme here as we seem to rush through the ports.

A month isn’t going to be long enough for Fiji. Especially with projects to complete and plans for Australia needing sorting. If I did this again I’d go from Tonga to NZ and then return to spend an entire second season in Fiji and Vanuatu. Especially now with so many formally Med-bound boats beginning to back up in SE Asia--there really is no reason to get there quickly.

From Vatia Lailai we sailed on to Lautoka, an industrial sugar mill town where I realized we were just about the only white faces. It was my noticing, more than the fact itself that surprised me—when we were walking down the street we saw a couple of shiny-pink tourists. They stood out so completely against the backdrop of Fijians that I realized we must be equally obvious looking.

I tend to forget.

 Lautoka is affordable—and with Maia seeming to double in size on a near monthly basis it looked like a good place to outfit her in clothes that fit again. She and I set off with a shopping list (being a good cat sailor I had her pull out everything she had grown out of to donate—then we could replace those items only—rather than her doing what I do and just accumulate more clothes…) and a budget.

Lautoka has both a local clothing industry—with nice locally made things for a good prices, as well as several shops where last years’ (or the year before) brand name clothes are sold off at a bargain. We rarely paid more than $10 f ($6) for an item of clothing and most were in the $5 range. By the time we had finished shopping Maia was fully outfitted in up to date tween fashions and I had a pretty new dress.

The other shopper’s paradise in Latoka is the market. It’s good we started with the smaller versions in previous ports—because this large cavernous building could overwhelm otherwise. We stocked up on the normal fruits and veggies, but having ditched Evan for our girl’s shopping day, we also decided to pop into the handicraft market (claiming it was research for our upcoming visit from the NessetsJ) I’m a little addicted to tapas and the Fijian ones are gorgeous and affordable. So we stocked up.

Lautoka isn’t beautiful. It’s noisy and busy and the fact it had streetlights! multi-story buildings! so may shops! made us realize that other than Papette it’s been  five months since we were last in a city, or even a biggish town. But Lautoka is incredibly friendly and as the kind of person who tends to gravitate toward non-tourist centres (I’m also not that keen on ex-pat towns—they always strike me as a cross between summer camp and a dysfunctional family reunion…) it is the kind of city I love: easy to navigate, everything we need and lots of cheerful energy.

Our stay was brief though—we wanted to get to Musket Cove for the regatta and to reunite Maia with her friends (and us with our friends) on Mamalu and Connect 4.

So we sailed on.

Four Colours of Vegetables!

I haven't begrudged a single $4 carrot on this trip.

Well, the $14 lettuce that I bought in Makemo (but hey, it was a three pack of romaine hearts) did cause a moment of marital strife. But for the most part we knew what we were getting into, and when we left Mexico our lockers were filled to bursting with all manner of tinned, dried and heavily processed food-like stuff.

That $4 carrot (and in its defense it was sort of biggish...)? Well, it wasn't really a necessity, at least not according to the lore of old-school sailors who live off of potted meats, mushy tinned peas and rum (and clearly even they stocked up before reaching the South Pacific...).

But before we left Vancouver I spent two years penning a natural living column and came to the conclusion that what we eat is sort of important. My guru, Michael Pollan (eat food, not to much, mostly vegetables), would be rendered speechless (appetiteless?) by a diet that consists of white bread, white rice, white fish, spam, taro, cassava, breadfruit, coconut, banana and the occasional sweet potato. And so we made the decision to supplement the local menu and our heavily processed stores with fresh fruits and veggies—at any cost. After all—we've dragged a growing child into the hinterlands and away from our organic farmer’s market, the least we can do is make sure she ingests something green now and again.

The cost, it turned out, was mostly palatable. What was lacking was variety.

 Actually what was lacking was having a clue what to do with the few local veggies that were available—because, you see, we had no idea what half the stuff was. And even less idea how to make them edible. And seriously, this is an important detail. Taro leaves for example (which we recently discovered are really delicious and we should have been eating from day one) can make you sick if you don't cook them enough. And who knows what that large, lumpy, reddish root(?) with spines would have tasted like if we got it wrong.

Fiji has made up for four months of high-priced (and often wilted) produce. We still don't always know what things are. But now, rather than getting the name of a new veggie in a language we only have a basic grasp of, we get the name in English and almost always we get cooking directions and a recipe or two. In a few cases I've received cooking lessons and a taste of the finished dish.

$1 Fijian worth of a yam thing...

And stuff is cheap. I spent $20 Fijian (around $12) and got 7 coconuts, a pile of eggplant, 6 bok choy, taro leaves for a lifetime, a huge yam thing, cooking bananas, green beans, tomatoes, cilantro, carrots, 8 cucumbers, a squash-like pumpkin, ginger, pineapple and a shiny, spiny thing.

And tonight—dinner included fresh veggies in four colours. Four!!

What we’ve been eating:

Dalo (also known as taro): A dry starchy rootcrop which is boiled and often served cold and sliced like bread with dinner.

Dalo leaves: The young leaves (look for ones with green stems) taste like spinach when cooked—unlike the green leafy stuff that the locals call spinach… It has to be well cooked though. Our two favourite dishes are rourou and palusami.

Tavikoa (tapioka or cassava): Also a rootcrop with a bland taste that's lot starchier than dalo. You get given huge piles of this stuff—it does grate up nicely and works well in desserts.

Miti: Thick coconut cream combined with onions, chillies, lemon juice, salt and pepper. We have a coconut grater and have learned to make our own cream. Maia can make enough cream for dinner from one coconut in about 20 minutes.

Yams: We’ve been getting yams and sweet potatoes that look like the ones from home (orange, red and white) as well as giant real yams which are very gooey to work with but really tasty.

Rourou

1 litre water

15 mls baking soda

20 young taro leaves (washed stems removed and chopped up)

Coconut oil

1 chopped onion

5 cloves garlic

2 cups coconut cream

Salt and pepper to taste

Add taro leaves to boiling water with soda and cook for 10 minutes with the lid on.

Drain and set aside.

Heat the oil and fry the onion for one minute add garlic and chilies if you like.

Add the taro back in and sauté 5 minutes

Add the cream and bring to a boil (the leaves should be nearly dissolved)

Serve on rice

Palusami

Stuffed Leaves:

Wash and stack 3-4 leaves for each bundle. Cook 2 diced onions in oil until tender. Add meat (the locals use corned beef or fish but we’re trying to use up our tinned beef and chicken), garlic, lemon and a cup or two of coconut cream. Put the mixture on your leaves and fold into a bundle then wrap with tinfoil. Bake 45 minutes at 350 degrees.

Casserole:

Line the bottom of a pan with 1/3 your taro leaves. Cook up your mixture. Pour ½ the mixture over the leaves, and top with the next 1/3 and repeat. Cover pan tightly with foil and bake at 350 degrees for 30 to 60 minutes.

I Came to Share Bananas

My tattoo, which I got when we arrived in the Marquesas, tells a story. It says that I travelled a long distance by boat with Evan and Maia, that I came with peace and love, and that I came to share bananas.

I questioned this last bit when the tattoo artist imprinted it permanently on my ankle. I thought perhaps I misunderstood. I thought of all the ways that it could be misconstrued. And then it became an anecdote; a story to go along the ones about being befriended by a Marquesan named Roo who took us on a hike to our first Marae and gave us bananas, and of diving with sharks, and meeting ukulele makers, and becoming fast friends with fabulous people.

following James...

 Sometimes there’s symmetry to travel; where the story may seem to meander but in the end the ending mirrors the beginning: I came to French Polynesia to share bananas is where my story started—and today I discovered this is also where it is ending up.

the Ceilydhs and Don Quixotes

 We set out this morning with the DQ family on a trip up the river at the head of Baia Faaroa on Raiatea. We motored along—enjoying pretty plants, and attractive birds, majestic vistas, and serene scenes. And I wondered why the dude in the kayak would chose to follow so close to the dinghies that he ended up sucking up our exhaust fumes.

When we hit the rapids we learned the dude’s name was James and this was his valley and if we liked, he’d tour us through a plantation on the way back—no cost. And so we went (although we did make black jokes about being cooked and eaten because well, they did that here…).

James is an awesome tour guide—we learned what we could eat (good for you) and shouldn’t eat (not good for you). We learned the names of plants (especially the poisonous ones). We picked sour saps, passion fruit and papaya, green beans and taro. We drank coconut milk and collected pamplemous and all the way James told us stories that we may, or may not, have entirely understood (not sure if the dogs were an eat, or no eat, for example…).

Eventually we headed home. But then—not far from the mouth of the river he stopped us (as the DQ’s blithely headed on), “to get your bananas.” He cut us a huge stock. Enough for an army of banana eaters. And then he asked if we’d like to go to the Marae. The marae was not for today (after a visit to the firestation where we think James was trying to borrow a truck he suggested a different outing)—so we went for an afternoon hike and for a visit to a vanilla plantation.

 There is still some of that old sailor’s romance and mystic to French Polynesia. There’s an underlying adherence to old customs that are familiar to anyone who has ever dreamed of sailing off to a South Sea’s island. And this means there are people like James—who quietly follow you up a river so they can simply be hospitable. And they remind us that we sailed a very long way so we could share bananas.