The gritty details: August 10, 2006
Hey all We are well
ok, I have received some requests for more information on our crossings.
So here goes.
First let me provide some background so if you are planning a similar trip and are interested in provisioning, this may make more sense.
ZAYA is a Pearson 365, and is 36 ft long, carries 50 gallons of fuel, 150 gallons of water, and a considerable amount of storage space that we have allotted for food. The “piece de resistance” is a full-sized shower. We have room for a serious amount of books as we have developed a cooking and reference section plus a growing collection of numerous recreational books. At one point, we had two full sized bikes, which proved a bit too cumbersome, so they were sold in Ecuador to two really happy security guards. We have equipment for hiking, backpacking, and not one but two guitars - one full sized and the other for travel. As we have discovered, there is a lot of space and with a fiberglass boat, one can cut open new sections and discover entirely new storage areas (like under the stove!).
Electronics:
Because we are all becoming more and more dependent on electronics, I would recommend having one dedicated computer ( extra batteries) which never leaves the boat that has very few extraneous files or unneeded software in order to allow the computer to be as efficient as possible. In choosing a laptop, try and find one that is very energy efficient. We learned there can be a considerable difference in power consumption between various models. As we learned, boats and electronics do not always mix. We had one laptop screen decompose in while in Jamaica (we assume due to humidity), and then another laptop had chips burnout in the Pacific. We were lucky to have had three computers and thanks to my parents who were kind enough to ship one to us in the middle of the trip. We also had copies of charts for the Pacific, and made sure that we always printed out our landfall prior to departure in case any of the electronics went down. We also had a small home printer in order to print crew lists and print detailed landfall information.
Computer Software:
We used MaxSea for charts, MScan Meteo Fax, and Visual Passage Planner while we still had paper charts or printouts for where ever we went.
SSB
We have an Icom 700 Pro SSB with appropriate tuner. It does a good job, but we were both quite frustrated with the Marine model as you can't tune it by using a dial. You have to punch in the station each time. Therefore there is no way to search for stations, for say news. It also means one cannot adjust the level of output and therefore save power. I would recommend a Ham radio if one has a choice. Along with the SSB, we have been using a Kamtronics KAMPlus modem. It uses a radio protocal called Pactor 1 meaning it is very slow for email, but it gets the job done and the $125 +/- versus $1,000 (for the more modern Pactor III) really meant there was nothing to consider.
Here is are two great sources for antennas and cables etc, Both are very decent and honest folks who were very helpful in getting the right cables and materials for making the correct antenna for our boat.
Buck Communications email support@buxcomm.com
http://buxcommco.com
http://packetradio.com/
115 Luenburg Dr.
Evington, Virginia 24550
tel. 866 300 1969
tel. 800 726 2919
"Mike Spivak"
Mike's Electronics (1-800-427-3066) in Florida.
1001 NW 52nd St.
Ft Lauderdale, FL 33309
Tel: 954-491-7110
Fax: 954-491-7011
Toll Free: 800-427-3066
The SSB is a lot of fun on passages in order to listen and participate in many of the communications on the nets. Here you can sign in give your position, weather conditions, sea state, etc. It was nice to hear how other boats are doing and where they are. During our Pacific crossing we were checking in the morning and evening with the same boats. JP thought it was a bit ridiculous to talk to people every 40 or 50 miles. For those of us who do talk and enjoy speaking with other people beyond our sailing partners. It is fun to hear who caught fish or has had good wind. There are numerous nets for each region. We know of some boats whose crew signed onto 5 nets at a time. This would take hours and you could certainly spend your entire day on the radio.
VHF
We have both handheld and mounted VHF radios. For the handheld VHF, we keep a battery adapter and numerous batteries in the ditch bag in case we ever had to abandon ship.
GPS
We had a Garmin 72, another Garmin, and an another older VHF from the previous owners which we kept in the ditch bag for emergencies.
Getting Weather
In the US we used the VHF primarily with the US coast guard. These are generally accurate, but the recordings are not updated as much as the weatherfax is. In the Bahamas we listened to Chris Parker. We contacted South Bound II, Herb Heidelburgh for advice on our Jamaica to Panama crossing. Although, he has been reported to be quite short with people, he was much nicer than people had described, he did want us doing all sorts of manuevering in order to find the ideal conditions. After Jamaica, we used Weatherfax, Meteo Scan primarily with the laptop. In the Pacific, we began to use Grib files. Weather forecasts in the Bahamas and the Caribbean are much more accurate than the Pacific. I am not sure if it is because the areas being covered are significantly larger and or there is less interest. The weatherfax stations themselves are considerably weaker in the Pacific. Its ironic when one needs to cover more distance suddenly the kilowat output of these stations drops in half.
Steering:
People may picture sailors at the helm braving all sorts of conditions, but really for cruising, one spends very little time steering. We have two forms of steering mechanisms. Our primary approach was to use the Windvane that we named - Inca. We also purchased a Windpilot, for the simple reason that another Pearson 365 circumnavigated with one. We figured, if it worked for them, it would surely work for us. Inca our trusty windvane worked in all but the lightest airs where the apparent wind was less than the SOG. The boat also came with an ST4000. This is a small above deck device. It does not have the strength to handle bigger seas, but works well in light air. We sometimes used this with the spinnaker, as it made the whole process much easier. I am not sure of the age of our ST4000, but it certainly demanded more attention than “Inca”.
We hand steer when raising or changing sail configurations and in squalls. On our initial Pacific crossing, we experienced a number of squalls, but only one necessitated hand steering and only for about 30 minutes.
Water:
150 gallons is a lot of water for the size of the boat, and easily can keep us in good standing for well over a month. We carry 4, 6 gallon jugs on deck in order to refill the tanks by hand. This means 6 trips in the dinghy back and forth. We were always pleased when the trip wasn't too long or too rough. It was a very rare occasion when we took ZAYA to a dock in order to obtain fuel or water.
This means being frugal with our showering and use of dishwashing water but never with our drinking water. We have three tanks one under each settee and one under the V-birth (sleeping area in the bow). Some people have storage underneath their settees...we have water! This makes access to food a bit more frustrating especially while underway, but in the event of having to access your water tank you might actually thank the designer for such a design. I would recommend enlarging the access to the tanks as it makes cleaning the tanks more efficient.
Side note: Our starboard tank developed a leak that necessitated refinishing the tank with some fiberglass and re-applying epoxy in Panama. Luckily, we had bought some water tank epoxy in Jamaica to use for priming our bottom. I am glad we never applied it on the bottom of the boat for the humidity in Panama (which often reached 90% in the boat) meant that it would take over two weeks to dry! If given the opportunity, I would try and pressure wash the tanks in order to remove any mineral build-up.
We always use the bow tank first as it makes sailing more comfortable. Especially when the bow is not plowing through the waves. With the 365, one never has to worry about the ground tackle being too heavy as there are 50 gallons of water weighing the bow down even before you add any chains or anchors. To further stretch our water supply, before we left Ecuador, we bought a hand held compression sprayer that is normally used for spraying pesticides in one’s backyard. With this, we saved water showering and cleaning dishes.
For showering, which was most often done in the cockpit, we would rinse ourselves in salt water taken with a bucket into the cockpit, soap up and rinse using the sprayer. This way, one can literally take a 1 liter shower comfortably (sans a hair wash). We would also would wash the dishes, first in salt water and then rinse in fresh water using the sprayer. Using this method, we didn't even use a full 100 gallons over our 29 day passage. Though I did fill up every possible container plus we purchased a number of jugs of bottled water before we left Ecuador. Thus bringing our water capacity at the time to just under 200 gallons.
For water security and health we bleach all our water and put our drinking water through a filter. The filter is a necessity as water develops a unique flavor in the tanks and the movement of being offshore reminds us how old our tanks are.
Food:
I wish I could tell you how many cans of food we had on the boat at our max, but I would always lose count, as I would do a major shopping and then as I saw space, I would add a few here and there. When we left the US, this meant filling both our cars with supplies plus numerous other trips to the grocery store. It had to be several hundred cans of fruits, vegetables, beans, meat, fish, soups, drinks, etc.
We made the decision to not use our fridge during the trip, as the it would take a considerable amount of energy to run it which would then necessitate needing solar panels and / or wind generation (we estimated it would cost us $2,000 to run the fridge or running the engine A Lot!).
Then the question is what did we eat? We had eggs, fresh produce as long it kept.
Generally when something goes bad it all goes bad at once, so suddenly one was eating lots of bananas, oranges or cabbage. We had some cheeses, UHT milk and canned cream. Breakfast was Espresso, yes we had a stovetop espresso maker. Bialetti makes a wonderful little stove-top model which makes 2 cups perfectly. The challenge was keeping ones espresso in the cup as the boat rocked. I gave up on our espresso cups offshore for larger glasses, but JP was always determined that a proper espresso necessitated a proper cup. We were very sad in the middle of our Pacific crossing when our supplies of Italian Lavazza espresso beans finally ran out and we were forced to use a much lower quality. I didn't think it would be so hard to find whole coffee beans in Central and South America, but almost everything we found was already ground. One can see espresso was a very important part of the day. Then there are eggs or occasionally pancakes for breakfast.
Lunch was generally rice or pasta with some combination of canned vegetables, beans, or meat. Dinner was often soup that came in powdered, canned and paste varieties. If we were feeling industrious, we occasionally made bread, but bread making meant using the oven for long periods of time. Unfortunately, this tended to made the boat quite hot. When I did bake a bit, I usually made cookies, small cakes, and various other desserts.
We also had all the usual cookies, crackers, olives, juice, soda, beer, alcohol, wine, candy, chocolate, etc. We are lucky to have a sizable oven and a three burner stove (although, we can't use all three burners at once) which made baking and cooking quite comfortable.
Fishing
We supplemented our provisions with fishing. We learned it is best to have two lines out in order to make the fish think it's really a school of fish they are chasing. We got pretty good and would catch fish until we had no interest in eating more fish and then we would take a break. The fish seemed to like to bite early in the morning when I was on watch so there I was, at sunrise gutting the fish or waking JP up for him to gut the fish, for it really makes a difference to eat the fish as soon as possible.
Our sushi skills have vastly improved! We ate so much we ran out of Nori in the middle of our Pacific crossing. JP now considers himself a Master Sushi Chef. We were mostly eating Dorado and Tuna. The average length of the fish that we caught was a meter long, so one never felt bad about being picky with the meat used for sushi. We would have rolls and sashimi (we would literally each get a bowl full of sashimi to dip in our wasabi and soy sauce...hhhmmmmm. Then we would make a fish curry, a fish fry, or a soup.
Friends of ours who also didn't use their fridge, had the same problem. We had trouble figuring what to do with all the fish before it went bad since neither of us had refrigeration. They gave us a recipe for drying and salting fish, which was excellent. Unfortunately, it necessitated hanging the fish out for days. Then the question remains where to put it when it rains or overnight as you don't want it to be exposed to moisture. Unfortunately, this means bringing the briny fish in the boat. We were always happy when we had numerous days without rain so the fish would dry faster in the sun rather than the boat.
Passages:
We each took on a watch while under passage so someone is always up and looking around. At night, we would do 3 hours shifts, which seemed to work for us. This way both people get 6 hours of sleep while it was dark. Then during the day we always took naps. It is never very fun to wake the other person up, as it seems someone is always in a half conscious state and always accusing the other of shortchanging their sleep.
During the days someone is in the cockpit on watch. We may be together for weeks at a time, but there is a considerable amount of time for oneself. I have found that time is generally consumed by reading, and depending on the state of the sea small boat projects.
On our Pacific crossing, JP spent the first few days working on his sextant skills, which are now quite refined. He developed a series of equations for sun sights, which do not necessitate numerous books or plotting. I used the cooler weather that we experienced while in the Humbolt current to do some knitting. I actually used up almost all my yarn, for I cannot imagine wanting to get near it in warmer temperatures. Mostly we both did a lot of reading.
We have several areas where we keep books. I didn't keep track of the number of books I read on the long passage, but it was a considerable amount. We still had more books to read upon our arrival. It was exciting to see other sailboats in order to trade books with them. I have to say my standards have gone down a bit, but I haven't been reduced to romance novels yet! We would occasionally watch DVDs on the computer as well. This meant one of us would have to look around every few minutes. Thus the movie takes bit longer, but still truly enjoyable.
Seeing ships really depending on where we were. For days after leaving Panama, we saw a continuous stream of ships passing us in both directions. After leaving Ecaudor, during the first few days at the start of our Pacific crossing, we saw many small fishing boats, but then it dwindled down to only a few large fishing vessels from relatively far away.
Friends of ours on Uhuru said they spoke to one of the vessels and learned where they go and for how long. Unfortunately, all my attempts at ship to ship contact where given the cold shoulder.
We have learned one thing for certain when making plans for a passage when we finally would feel confident in determining our ETA (estimated time of arrival) the wind would die and easily add another day onto any trip.
Projects:
1. ZAYA came well equipped, but I do know JP replaced a considerable amount of plumbing.
2. The wiring was not a complete disaster, but someone was obviously color blind when they installed much of it. The Pearson 365 came with a nice headliner, which is great aesthetically, but challenging when needing access to the wiring, so we weren't keen to strip it all out. Numerous owners over the years have left their own marks on the boat, as we have numerous devices that have been left, but are no longer in use making the wiring all the more interesting.
3. We added the wind vane a few months before we left.
4. Our hatches have given us continual challenges with on–going leaks. One hatch appeared to be warped and the other just old. In retrospect, I would have replaced them prior to our departure.
5. A few months before we left, JP and a friend took ZAYA out only to discover that the transmission was completely stripped. This took a considerable amount of time, a hydraulic press, and finding someone who could fabricate parts to fix the plates.
6. In Ecuador we realized we had some leaks from the bow pulpit. We thought it would be an easy job to reseal the stanchions only to learn we had some deck rot as well. So repairing that involved fabricating some fiberglass and gutting the balsa core of the deck. JP was a bit shocked with himself as he drilled holes in the deck in order to strengthen it.
We also learned that a previous owner had used wood wedges for the wedging the mast We discovered this as they fell out piece-by-piece, so we looked in Nigel Calder’s book and discovered that we needed rubber. We also re-did the mast boot, which had seen better days.
PACIFIC CROSSING
JP spotted land first thing this morning and we are still 50 miles off. Under normal winds this would take just a few hours, but with the light winds that we had been experiencing, it took all day, and we arrived at night. At least it was an easy entrance into the anchorage.
We are now ending our longest passage (ever I hope). We are at day 30 (technically 29.5) having covered almost 3700 miles from Manta, Ecuador to Hiva Oa, Marquesas.
This does not make for a great average cruising speed, but it has meant a fairly comfortable trip. The beginning and the end have been quite slow with daily averages of 100 miles a day (a snail’s pace). Our fastest day was 160 miles, with a lovely current to push us along. I can now say that under normal winds our cruising average seems to be around 135 miles a day. The trip included a few squalls, rain showers, and a large swell, that refused to dissipate until a number of days later.
30 days at sea and we still have books on board which we haven't read. Hopefully, we will meet some Anglophile and Francophile boats who have books to trade. Our days were spent reading, doing little jobs on the boat, that could be undertaken while under way (which there are a surprising number of ), watching a few DVD’s, listening and speaking with people on the SSB (single side band radio). There was a point where I was checking in every morning and evening with the same few boats. We would exchange position, weather, fishing (triumphs and losses). JP again thought this to be a bit excessive to broadcast your position every 40 miles or so, but it made the passage much more enjoyable.
It was also frustrating when boats would do better mileage than us. Sometimes we would have to reassure ourselves and say that their boat was 10 ft more or in some cases twice as long as ours. All in all, we made decent time in relation to other boats. One boat that is twice as long as ours, only made it here only 3 days faster. I am also going to blame our slow speed under the light conditions on what I can only assume to be a very dirty bottom of the boat, as we can see a fair amount of growth from this passage at the waterline already. Even the Wind vane has a nice layer of slime on it. We have these funny creatures that have attached themselves to our transome. When out of the water they are closed, but once submerged the open up and enjoy the ride. I will send a picture in hope that someone can help me identify them. Once we arrived we found a nice shark free zone to swim and clean the bottom.
Ahh swimming I can't wait! 30 days of water and no swimming.
There has been some wildlife on this trip. We had three separate dolphin sittings. The first was just west of the Galapagos Islands where we saw the most enormous dolphins and what looked like small whales - all swimming together. This should have been an amazing site, but throughout history there have been a number of boats that have been attacked and sunk in these waters. So we watched the animals with quite a bit of trepidation.
Our second encounter was with only dolphins and there were literally hundreds of them! They were jumping and playing with the boat. It was an amazing site as we watched the sun go down. Our final dolphin citing was today as we got within a few miles of land. Our arrival was trumpeted by a school of dolphins playing back and forth around the bow. It made the island all the more enticing. Not that seeing land after 30 days is ever painful, but Hiva Oa is truly impressive as it erupts out of the sea – reaching 3,000 ft high and it is only 10 miles in diameter.
Our other wildlife encounter was not as exciting. We always trade lures in the hopes of catching fish. For a few days there were birds who seemed quite interested in our lures, but never diving for them. One night while I was on watch, suddenly the line went out. I am thinking, maybe a tuna and am I going to have to gut it at 3 am? Then the next thing I know, the line goes straight up. Well I guess we had ourselves a flying fish? No unfortunately not, we caught ourselves a bird. I had to wake JP up for help to get it off the line. We let him stay on deck until he recovered and flew away on his own.
For a moment I thought we might get some fresh fowl, but that just seemed like a messy and cruel job. I hope the bird survived. We were quite a distance from land and I can't imagine a hook in the beak to be good for him. Eventually we did catch more fish after losing quite a number of lures and fish. Apparently Yellow fin tuna are quite wily. We had to devise a double and triple hook system so as not to lose them while on the line. It is always quite depressing when you’ve almost landed a gorgeous fish and you lose it at the last moment, and you know there is a good chance they won't live.
There was a 10-day period where I seemed to be on watch from 4 - 7 am and invariably we would get a fish around 5:30 AM. So here I am at just before sunrise, gutting a fish in the cockpit not wanting to wake JP up. It did make for some amazing sushi and sashimi. Our sushi skills have greatly improved on this trip, but we have already run out of Nori (hopefully we can find some in Tahiti). Friends of ours on a German boat caught a fish 165 centimeters long ( about 65 inches 5’ 5” ) The wife is only 155 centimeters long, so they spent the next few days drying, or attempting to dry the fish in the cockpit while contending with a large cross swell. The husband joked that the entire boat smelled like a fish market and it's a hard day when your main concern is that your fish isn't drying.
MARQUESAS ISLANDS
After one has traveled thousands of miles from the east, The Marquesas Islands are a group of colorful volcanic islands that appear to erupt out of nowhere.
I am writing this as we are motoring to our anchorage as there is still no wind. Hopefully within a few hours we will have dropped the hook, had a beer, and getting a full night’s sleep. Tomorrow... tomorrow we get to go to land, trade for some fresh fruit and vegetables (ours ran out a few days ago), and maybe a hike to a waterfall (if we can handle walking a distance greater than the length of the boat.
Our next stop was to Hiva Oa to make our official entry,. There we learned as an American, there is no way for me to get out of paying the obligatory bond of entry that is required for all non EU citizens. JP thought that he could vouch for me as a French citizen. This is in theory possible as there is someone who as a service in Tahiti does such a thing, but apparently the average French citizen off the street is not vested with such powers. This entailed numerous trips to the bank, as we had to put down over $1300 for a theoretical plane ticket to make sure I can leave the country if need be. Of course our banks weren't able to be contacted in order to raise our withdrawl levels and they only take Visa credit cards (which they didn't mention to tell us) the first three times we were in their offices. Eventually after four days we were officially in France.
The village of Atuna on Hiva Oa is the second largest village in the Marquesas. It boasts numerous shops, a few hotels and restaurants. Here we were able to obtain freshly made baguettes for the first time. They were delicious and one of the few inexpensive things on the island. We were shocked to find eggs costing $5 (US) a dozen, American generic brands were surprisingly more expensive than the name brand items. We were in Atuna for the Bastille Day celebrations. They were a lot of fun – consisting of traditional dancing, drumming, and of course the Miss Hiva Oa beauty contest. It was a bright and colorful time. It really was fun to see the little kids dancing and trying their best to remember all the routines.
We arrived in Fatu Hiva at midnight to find three boats in the sheltered harbor surrounded by rocky cliffs that are covered with palm trees and rocky spires seemingly all erupting out of the water. We anchored in the Bay of Virgins. This harbor was formally known as the Bay of Phallices (due to the rocky spires), but upon the arrival of the French Missionaries and due to the delicate sensibilities, the name was changed. It is not an official point of checking in, but we where given 3 days by the gendarmes to register.
We arrived at midnight under an almost full moon which provided us with sufficient light, but not enough of a perspective to know how far the rocky jagged wall of surf was from us. The Bay is a safe calm anchorage with good holding that can be easily entered at night so we were not too terribly worried about that. As a rule, we rarely make night entrances unless it is a very easy straight-forward process. The information we had was correct as we found a good holding, protection from the prevailing wind, and the land breeze not to be too fierce.
Upon dropping the hook we had a well-deserved beer and commiserated if we were too close to the breaking surge off to port or to our neighbors behind us. It was nice to be in a calm quiet anchorage the like’s of which we had not seen since May.
The noise of the surf and the unaccustomed proximity to land made me uneasy. Although I had the ability to get a full nights sleep for the first time in a month, I wasn't able to do so. I think my body had gotten used to the night watch shifts (for better or worse) and didn't know what to do with the idea of seven hours of un-interrupted sleep.
There is no airport of the island of Fatu Hiva, but they do receive regular shipments of food, mail, and supplies from an assortment of vessels that created a network that go between all of the islands in the chain. The island kids were home for summer break. I believe that all children over the age of 12 go to school in Papeete, as most of the islands are not large enough to support high schools.
Our first morning, we met the “Ohuru”, an Austrian boat that we had seen in Colon, Panama (on the Caribbean side). We had gotten to know them over the SSB while under way. They came over to our boat first thing to talk about our passages and tell us about the anchorage and the island itself. They were very interested in all we had encountered and excited to share information with us (as we soon learned this is their normal state). They told us of their 46k hike over the mountains to the other village in pursuit of a cold beer and a baguette. They also showed us their wounded feet as they had made the trek in flip flops. Apparently, they had lost their land legs and marveled at our stiff they were. They said in Austria their friends would laugh if they were to complain about such a short hike.
We happened to arrive when a small cruise ship arrived as well. This ship luckily is tiny by normal cruise ship standards, but it meant that supplies would arrive from Papeetee shortly. The local store would soon be full of goods. Upon our arrival JP was as always mistaken for a local. We would be asked if he was the mechanic from the ship. We laughed later when he joked that he should have said yes, he could have made some spare money by fixing things for people.
This cruise ship with its roughly fifty guests provided us with ongoing entertainment. We enjoyed watching all the people who were dressed as only tourists to tropical climates, with their pasty legs, dark socks in their brand new sandals, can appear. They were quite shocked to hear that the four boats in the harbor had arrived from the other side of the ocean, when they felt themselves quite adventurous for having journeyed on a vessel 100 meters long when the longest of our boats is only 14 meters (the ZAYA being 11 meters). Their visit generated a local scheduled dance performance. It was fun to watch both the girls and boys dance while men and older boys of various ages drummed on the side.
The islands are really lush. JP and I marveled at all the lime trees, grapefruits, chili bushes (which don't seem to get used), and the tallest palm trees ever. They are so high no one seems to climb them, so they wait until the coconuts drop in order to harvest them. They eat only the coconut meat that grows in the middle and not the perimeter which is what we are used to eating. When we told people that we eat the edge of the coconut they thought us quite strange. The village runs through the valley along one of the streams that eventually flows into the bay.
We saw some lovely large carvings, but they were all too large for the boat, just as the stone tikkis don't really have a place on a sailboat.
We traded some boxed wine for grapefruits, oranges, limes, and a chicken. I have to agree with the reports that the Marquesas Islands do have the best grapefruits in the world. Fruit grows in such abundance that often you find it rotting on the ground underneath the trees.
Our second day, we hiked up to a local waterfall with the crew of a Belgium boat and three local kids. It was interesting to get a glimpse of Marquesian Island culture through their eyes. So many things are shared it is assumed that once one is invited to something you are expected to enjoy it wholeheartedly rather than being squeamish about having only one of something. Of course, everything should be shared and finished completely. Nothing is left uneaten.
An example being, the kids having seen the biscuits that we had in the backpack promptly decided that we were obviously going to share the biscuits with them. We have since experienced that adults on the islands can be very generous as well, but again if a cake is put out, it seems almost insulting to the hostess not to finish the entire thing in one siting.
TAHITI
We arrived in Tahiti, and found the entrance into the lagoon to be quite easy. We weren't sure how the state of the seas would be, since for hours before reaching the island, it was surrounded by squalls and rain, rendering it completely invisible.
The lagoon itself looks lovely, but upon on our arrival, we found the island itself to be a bit overrated. The bungalows that we saw are right on the water, there is no beach to speak of except for a little man made one next to a very obviously man made waterfall. It was a rather entertaining idea of paradise.
Our first exposure to Pappettee has been wet, as it has raining since we arrived. It has been funny to be stunned by all the cars whizzing by. It has been nice to see all the little French cars which makes sense as gas prices are over $6 a gallon.
Tahiti itself does not seem to have the strength to be able to maintain its traditional culture that one finds in the Marqueses. This makes sense as cities have much more international exposure.
It is funny what has been created for the tourists, as the central market appears to be almost entirely dedicated to tourists. But I am sure it is only the locals who are buying all the gorgeous flower arrangements.
It was also very nice seeing some of the women walking around with flowers in their hair in traditional and modern versions of island dress.
We spent one day going around the island by bus and hitch hiking. The road that circumnavigates the island is roughly 120 kilometers (78 miles). In fact we got rides from some very nice teachers. One woman was so nice, that when she found out that we were going to miss a certain waterfall (as there are only 3 on the island), she drove us there herself.
Another person talked about the local interest in securing independence from France. The president of French Polynesia is not a big fan of Chirac or the French occupation. I believe that if French Polynesia got itself organized and with some assistance from France, it would really benefit from independence. It receives very little support from France that actually gets to the people. The French have created a very extensive infrastructure that they have to maintain. Which appears that they are having trouble doing so.
We have now eaten many baguette sandwiches, lots of cheese, and pate. It was really very nice to have easy access to a proper western grocery store.
Now we move onto the rest of the Society Islands.
