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1. Home - Back in Canada  

It's always odd getting home. It takes a while to readjust. At my first hostel in Vancouver I'm checked in by a very polite young man who speaks fluent English but with a heavy accent. When he asks where I'm from I reply, 'Canada.' This has been a sufficient answer for over four months. There is a pause after which I continue on, say I'm from Ontario, and add that I've been out of the country for a while. Then I ask, almost wistfully, if the tap water is safe to drink. 'Yes,' he answers, and there's another pause. 'You really have been away a while,' he notes, turning the tap on and off, 'Yes. In Canada the tap water's good to drink.' 

And I remember arriving in Toronto a couple years ago, at 2 am, jet lagged and overtired, managing to find the local bus stop down in the deserted cement bowels of the airport, where there actually was a bus, but then being almost completely overwhelmed with the thought of trying to figure out how to ask, with sign language, if that particular bus had a route that went anywhere near Young Street or if I'd have to wait for another bus or transfer or what. And as I stood, stalled in the bus door, mentally exausted, the bus driver leaned over and asked if he could help me to which I blurted out with obvious astonishment, 'You speak English!' Well of course he did. But you forget these things. Coming home takes some readjustment.


2. Whistler.

I have a couple of weeks free before I fly east and no plans to speak of so I try to book a cheap cruise up to Alaska but there are no cheap cruises at this time. I consider taking the ferry north, but it's expensive too, doesn't stop for long in anywhere, and avoids all glaciers like the plague. I think about renting a car and driving south down highway 1 but I hate driving. Maybe I could stay in Vancouver, see all of the city? In the end I decide to go to Whistler, I have a friend who goes to Tremblant each summer and seems to like it, so why not? 

It turns out to be a fantastic option. Whistler is amazing. Sort of like Disneyworld.  I could have stayed a month. I could have stayed forever. 

In Cappadocia, Turkey, someone thought of using the tuff landscape as an excuse for hot air ballooning and then managed to both implement and market this incredibly successfully pulling in thousands of tourists, hundreds of thousands of tourist dollars. Whistler has, similarly, brilliantly, taken the ski hill and tweaked it, repurposed it for six months of the year into the best place in the world to go down hill mountain biking. The chair lifts and gondolas originally designed for skiers and boarders in the winter now wisk bikers by the thousands uphill in summer. Dozens of downhill runs with hairpin turns, bumps, jumps, and grarly roots, rocks and other terrifying obstacles have been laid out and are interesting enough to draw twentysomethings from around the world and keep them riding month after month. There are classes for wee kids whose helmets seem larger than their bodies, for teens who are extending their aerial tricks, and even for old ladies. The sheer magnitude and success of the business is a marvel.

And, just to be clear, though it's the downhill mountain biking that's the backbone of the summer resort, there are countless other things to do at Whistler in July. Several lifts at the top of both mountains are still running for skiers and boarders, the peak to peak gondola designed and built for the 2010 olympics is an attraction in itself, high alpine trails have been ploughed through the snow for hikers, the next crop of Olympians swoop down steep plastic jumps in full ski gear, and life jackets, doing double back flips into swimming pools, or navigate the luge track on carts with wheels, there are high adrenaline attractions like zip-lining and whitewater rafting to tempt tourists, there's kayaking, canoeing, SUPing and sailing... gazillions of miles of paved and gravel bike paths and walking trails looking like spider webs on the maps of the valkey connect lakes and lookouts and lunch spots, there are golf courses, tennis courts, themed guided walks, farmers markets, craft fairs, literary and artistic retreats, and, every time you turn around, another music festival, huge business convention, or ironman type competition... 

From the peaks, bare rock and glaciers, down through alpine meadows lush with flowers, and then the silent wooded hills full of towering ancient hemlock and cedar, to the melt waters rushing and tumbling along in rocky streams and rivers at the bottom... it is all, did I mention this, amazing.

I could move there. Right now. Well if I won the lottery and could afford housing, that is. Young international workers, here to live the dream biking or skiing, and working serving tables to make ends meet, find the accomodation scene a nightmare. Ads in the local rag offer not only exorbedently expensive rooms in shared apartments but also shared bedrooms and even shared beds! What? Really? Shared beds? In North America? 

But at the resort all the other details right: hiking trails are well laid out, maps are everywhere, bins of free hiking poles sit at each trailhead; the downhill bike trails are carefully ordered in very specific progression of difficulty, each one set up with the hardest bit first so if you can't manage that you know the trail is still too tricky for you; and scores of retirees have been co-opted into working as all manner of volunteer guides who cheerfully accompany anyone on any activity... Yup, amazing.

So I ride the gondolas, hike the trails, even take a bike course for a few days ... and dream of stopping time.

Mountain trails...

... led past beautiful views ...

... some almost monochromatic ...

... up to the snowy peaks.

3. Friends

Before leaving Vancouver I get together with a couple of friends. I spend 5 days with Sheila, who was my bridesmaid, and, more importantly, has, for the past several lifetimes, helped me navigate my way around the thousands of molehills that have too often risen up mountainous in front of me. And I go out for supper with Astri, who was my best friend in grade 1, and who I've not seen for over 30 years though she is mentioned - though not by name - in my very first blog entry ever almost 5 years ago! And I am surprised how easy, happy, fun these interactions are, almost as if I'm (finally) starting to feel more comfortable in my own skin (despite the fact my life plan is further than ever from taking shape).

Sheila and I being tourists together.

4. Home  (by which I mean the Ottawa Valley)

And, then, as always, suddenly, surprizingly, too soon, I find myself on the way to the airport and on my last flight back home. 

I'm ready to see my kids, overdue to see them, I've chatted online with them often, of course, talked to them from time to time even, but it's not enough. I need to touch them, hug them, sit face to face (not facetime), hear of their triumphs and troubles. I need to know that they are continuing to move forward through their own lives, thriving not merely surviving, I need to see, in person, that they are happy and healthy, and to be reassured once again that they are successful adults and that they don't need me nearly as much as I need them. 

I'm ready to sit with Shelley on her deck, with Suzanne on her dock, to drop in and give Catherine a hug, go for a walk with Ellen and her dog, thank Nicole for doing last minute chores for me after I left in February... I'm ready to sit at my favourite table in Tim Hortons with Rick and Terry, to visit Steve, to wander the streets of both Deep River and Arnprior and bump into random aquaintences and feel like I belong. 

I'm ready to go home. 

For a week.

And then I'll be ready to go off again. 

Unfortunately, of course, I have another semester of work to complete before my next vacation, and more molehills in my private life that are looming larger by the minute...

But I've had an amazing 5 months, zero regrets, and I know that February 1st, 2018, I'll be off on a plane again going somewhere.


5. Suzanne's Cottage - Which feels like home

After a brief stop in Ottawa to see my oldest son and a few days in Deep to see the younger two I make my way to my friend Suzanne's cottage. Set on a hill amongst red pine and cedar overlooking a lake, it is a quintessentially Canadian slice of paradise. There are two decks, a dock and a raft, a sailboat, a paddleboat  and a canoe, a main cottage, a wee cabin and a gazebo with a hot tub, the kitchen and bathrooms are small but the great room is spacious with wall to wall windows overlooking the water. We sit and chat, read, do crossword puzzles, swim, walk the dog, and go out boating... Sometimes we wander into town to go to the farmers market or have an ice cream. Sometimes we visit with other cottagers. Suzanne and her husband go to play golf if the weather is right and the mood strikes. I stay behind, happy to curl up in one of the many comfortable chairs and read another chapter. The pace of life is simple. There's phone service here, and wifi even, but it's the sort of place where there might not be, and where they don't define your life or really intrude on it. We play cards after supper, hear loons calling, and the days slide easily into one another. Suzanne cooks fabulous meals, blueberry pancakes for breakfast and locally sourced BBQ sausages for supper, Dave keeps us updated on US political scandals, and their kids, who are adults now of course, are just happy and relaxed. According to the guest book this is my eighth annual visit. It seems unlikely. I used to come for only one night but soon I might choose to stay forever. They might have to take legal action to have me evicted. Or maybe I should find my own place on the water...

Hawaii Part 3

Hitchhiking in Hilo, Hawaii...

With lots of free time on my plate I stopped in Hawaii again for a week and went this time to The Big Island to see more of Volcano National Park. There's a great short, 3 or 4 day, hut to hut hike you can do to there to get to the summit of Mauna Loa. And the annual backcountry fee is only $10! But first, because it's an isolated high-elevation hike over very rough ground, you have to be interviewed by a ranger. My interview didn't start well. I began by asking where I could rent hiking boots - I'd rented boots last year in Iceland - and the ranger said, You don't have boots! And it all went downhill from there. He learnt that I didn't have hiking poles. Or a tent. It's a hut to hut hike but due to the elevation the weather can close in at any time and sometimes you have to hole up exactly where you are for several days in zero visability. So a tent is recommended. I said I couldn't carry a tent. I agreed instead to take 6 emergency blankets for such a situation. I lied about having a good sleeping bag. Next we discussed that there is no potable water on the trail. And then I horrified him twice in a row by admitting that my plan to get to the trailhead was to hitchhike and that my cell phone is without a sim card. 'You're planning to go alone?', he asked, 'Give me one reason why I should grant you a permit.' 'I'm old,' I said, 'I know my limits, I know when to stop, and I know when to turn around. I have nothing to prove and if the trail looks too challenging or the weather looks like it's worsening I'll just go back.''Hmmm.' He wasn't happy but he agreed to give me a permit. Next he opened his large ledger to see if, despite very short notice, there was still availability in the huts I wanted to book on the nights I'd requested. Yes. There was. In fact they were empty. Completely empty. Meaning not only that there'd be no one else in the huts at night but likely no one else, at all, on the trails. Really? Really! Isn't hiking Mauna Loa on the top of all tourists' agendas? How could it not be? We sat on opposite sides of his desk for a couple of minutes looking at the gaping hole in reservations. The cabins were well booked both the week before and the week following my time on Hawaii but completely empty for several nights right around the time I could go. I'd hoped to meet someone at the trailhead and stick with them for four days, or, if not that, at least meet people coming the other direction to chat about the trail ahead... 'I think,' I said, 'this is the time to turn around.' And I decided not to do the hike afterall. Which left me lots of time for other great stuff.

Being a random tourist in Hawaii - or anywhere else for that matter - I'm too cheap to go on guided day excursions and too unsure a driver to rent my own car so my preferred methods of getting about include a) finding other hostel guests who have rented cars and joining up with them b) taking local busses or c) hitchhiking. None of these methods are perfect. Sometimes the other hostel guests with cars are all very young and just want to hang out on a beach all day. Sometimes the bus, clearly marked on the schedule, is apparently operating on 'island time' and just doesn't show up at all. Sometimes you hike 5 miles uphill in the hot sun before getting picked up only to learn you're on the wrong road. So none of my preferred methods of transportation are perfect, and all 3 of them tend to be inefficient, but if like me you have lots of time, little money, and a willingness to accept a bit of pot luck, it's all good in the end. I went almost everywhere I wanted to go and met a lot of great people along the way.

I'd been going to split my time on The Big Island half in Hilo on the wet side and half in Kona on the dry side but I loved Hilo so much I just stayed right there. Hilo gets over 3 metres of rain a year. The Banyan trees are amazing. The Monkeypod trees are amazing. The roads through the rainforest are amazing; lush green walls of vegetation, inpenatrable undergrowth rising up, up and over creating green tunnels, long low grarled tree branches reaching right across the road and into the jungle on the other side, ferns big as trees, palms of all descriptions, banana plants, bamboo groves, multi-footed mangroves, trunks big and small green both with moss and vines, and a plethora of other unknown verdant plants many of which are in bloom adding a heady floral aroma to the rich earthy background. And the birdsong goes on all day. It looks as if there ought to be monkeys, at least, if not dinosaurs. It's fantastic, just fantastic. And then you drive across an imaginary line into an area where there's been a recent lava flow, black blocky aa or bronze ropy pahoehoe, and suddenly it's more barren than a desert - though presumably it still gets masses of rain - and the rock, primative, primordial even, stretches for miles, smelling of sulphur, begging poetry.

One hostel resident.

I walked up to Akaka Falls on purpose and discovered that I now look exactly like my father...

... and then hitchhiked to the botanical garden (with a military family with 4 small kids).

I took the local bus to Volcano National Park and then hitchhiked down the chain of craters road (with a young German couple) ...

... but was too chicken to stand on the arch at the bottom ...

... though I did take a walk to see the petroglyphs.

My most ambitious hitchhiking was to the summit of Mauna Kea (with a police officer and his teenaged daughter) ...

... which I did on a gloriously sunny day.

But my favourite hitchhike (with 4 off duty cruise ship workers) was to return to the lava fields...

... that I'd seen before. (See Hawaii Part 2)

Unlike several of my good friends who return to the same resort year after year I like to go to different places, see what's around the next corner, explore the unknown. I seldom want to return to somewhere I've been, I'd rather go somewhere new. But Hawaii's special. I'll be back!

Fiji part 2

AKA Little Malolo Island
AKA Big Brother is Watching
AKA Peaceful Days

I get to Fiji and the first time I have wifi a window pops up on my phone. It's my find-a-crew app telling me that according to my ip address I appear to be in Fiji and asking if I want to update this information onto my profile. '&£¥$#×@,' I think. Really? It feels like big brother is really leaning heavily over my shoulder.

But, having been prompted, I update my information anyway, and then, out of habit, I look to see what boats are in the area looking for crew. I'm not looking to crew. I've been crewing. I'm just on my way home doing an extended stop-over in Fiji since I have to fly through anyway. I'm only here for a few weeks and my only agenda is to catch a ferry out to the Yasawa Islands and find cheap accommodation there for a few days, maybe snorkel once or twice.

But one boat is looking for crew, just for a week or two, to do a trip out to the Yasawa Islands. Well. Who woulda guessed? I message the captain and 24 hours later I've taken a Cat out to Little Malolo Island and, as if by magic, I'm living once again on a boat. It's a large newish Beneteau, and, best of all it's docked so we can walk on and off at will (unlike Infinity which was always at anchor and therefore involved endless communication screwups wrt when a dingy would be going to or returning from shore).

It turns out that when I get there the wind is blowing in the wrong direction. The captain, Scott, asks sheepishly, apologetically almost, if I'd mind staying docked on Malolo Island for a few days till the wind spins back around to where its supposed to be. Of course not!

Little Malolo Island has a lot of crabs; huge green coconut crabs that live on land, big brown shore crabs that scuttle put of the way and hide, small white sand crabs, and tiny bright red rock crabs. It has beaches galore, three huge resorts that come with all the bells and whistles, about 12 private houses and twice as many boats anchored offshore, an airport, an organic farm that produces a wide variety of fresh fruit, veg, and herbs for the resorts and the island store, and amazing tides. The tides aren't particularly high but the bay is incredibly shallow so the sea retreats a kilometer or more each each day exposing almost endless sand flats and then inexorably, incredibly, almost unbelievably flows back in covering them up completely. It seems impossible yet at the same time effortless. Like my being here.

We get up in the mornings and go for long walks along the beach while it's cool out then swim in one of the marina resort's pools. In the afternoons we go diving, or head over to watch the world surfing competition at Cloudbreak, or dingy out to Cloud 9 to snorkel there, or even spend a couple hours reading in the cockpit, a gentle breeze washing over us, before meandering over to the bar for a drink where Scott, who's been here a while, knows everyone. Eventually we decide what to make for supper and, after watching the sunset, cook and eat, and another day in paradise has slipped by as stress-free as sipping sangria in the shade and I can't imagine, at all, what I might possibly have done in a previous life to be so lucky as to have the privilege of being here.

I'm not sure if we're going to make it out to the Yasawas or not and I don't care either way. Little Malolo is fine.

Cloud 9 is a floating bar, anchored far offshore in shallow water near good snorkelling, that makes great cheap pizza in a wood fired oven. What's not to like?

Fiji part 1

AKA  Fiji on the Cheap

(I like Fiji even before I get there. Fiji Air is fantastic. They give you a bottle of cold water and a damp face cloth as you board the plane then ply you with endless food and drinks while in the air. My favourite kind of service.)


Fiji is expensive, everyone tells me, you won't like it.

But that depends on how you approach it.

There are resorts that cost $600/day, heck there are resorts, only accessible by private helicopter, that cost $6000/day. My hostel, on the other hand, is $12.97 CAD/night. Seriously. Tropic of Capricorn Resort, it's right there online, you can check it out. It's beachfront, has AC, two pools, great matresses, crisp clean sheets, free wifi, lots of comfy chairs and hammocks in the lobby, by the pools, and on the beach, it has two backpacker friendly restaurants and it even offers complimentary airport pick up! Who could ask for more? (Of course, for $12.97 a night you have to share a bathroom, but I've been sharing a bathroom with 11 other people for 3 months now - Infinity had exactly one working toilet, and a 4 year old who couldn't wipe her own bum yet - so not having a private bathroom seems fine to me.)

Hostel!

The first day is Sunday and everything is closed so I walk into Nadi to check out the Hindu temple and, stopping at a small roadside grocery for a cold drink, see that there's a cafe tucked inside. I get a huge plate of excellent lamb curry with rice and Indian salad for 5 fiji dollars ($3.24 CAD). Yum.

Temple.

The next day, I do chores; get my glasses fixed, my hair cut, try in vain to mail the heavy things I never use home (my wetsuit, broken camera, collected rocks, souvenir coins), and search fruitlessly for a copy of a Lonely Planet or similar guidebook. I end up down at the chic Port Denarau, where, instead of eating at one of the expensive tourist restaurants, I spy a lady at the corner of the parking lot selling meals to locals. For 2 fiji dollars I get a roti (a crepe filled with delicious curried peas and potato). I also - not with the same lady - sign up for a time share presentation. It costs $5. I will have to listen to a 50 minute presentation at a brand new 5 star resort the next morning following which I will get an all-inclusive pass for the rest of the day and, then, the following day, get a free $200-value island-hopping day-cruise. Both days come with open bar and all meals and watersports included. Even a submarine ride at one island as part of the cruise. Wow! I'm OK to spend a day at a 5 star resort, OK to do a free island-hopping day-cruise. Of course I know the cruise will be a bit cheesy and I know I'd win the 'cheapest tourist ever' award if there was one, but I'm OK with that too!

Fiji, expensive? Really? No way. Not if you're me.

Infinity cont...

Tongan Tidbits Two.

A couple of views from Niuatoputapu...

.... and an islet near Vava'u.

Me with boys in school uniform...

... one of the many many Christian churches ...

.... and the King's palace (looking like a cottage from the 70's to my Canadian eyes!)

And, oh yes, I almost forgot, one of our pre-teen self-appointed guides getting us a snack for the trail up to the lookout!

Infinity cont...

Tongan Tidbits


1. Food on Board

We are living on a boat that is a) in the South Pacific b) operating on a vegan + fish diet and c) on a very tight budget (despite paying crew). Everyday we each have one four hour shift (two hours on the wheel followed by two hours as navigation support person) and one job (which could be cleaning or cooking). Our meals depend on what ingredients we have or haven't aquired at the most recent island, if we've caught fish recently, and who's cooking (if you're cooking to can make whatever you like!). In the end our meals resemble the following:

Example daily menu #1.
Breakfast:
fresh bread with various toppings
smoothies made from frozen bananas
Lunch:
split pea and onion soup
mango-coconut-pineapple salad
Supper:
sushimi
fish curry with rice

Example daily menu #2.
Breakfast:
crepes
fresh papaya slices
Lunch:
pasta with tomato or pesto sauce
Supper:
chilli
roast potato slices
hot flat bread and humus

2. Niuatoputapu

We weren't going to stop at Niuatoputapu but the wind was blowing in the wrong direction so we did. It was like a bonus box of chocolates you discover by accident. All the islands we'd been at so far weren't in fact islands but merely atolls, very low lying rings of coral marking the place that islands once stood many million years ago, but Niuatoputapu was an actual island made of volcanic rock. While there we climbed to the lookout accompanied by 4 adorable pre-teen boys, swam in the fresh water spring, visited the king's palace, stopped at a beautiful beach, admired the view of the next island over, and, of course, did a great dive. Two days full of fun activities and then we were off again.

3. Cave diving.

Vava'u, different again geologically anywhere else we've been, is uplifted limestone, a high(ish) flat table plateau eroded into butte like islands and riddled with caves. (It's a hundred and some meters high which is very low of course compared to mountainous terrain anywhere but high compared to the atolls we've been visiting where the maximum elevation - sometimes of a whole country! - is about 3 meters.) After a day in the town; obligatory hike to the top of the hill, restaurant meal, internet time, drop in at church fundraiser with traditional dancing going on, etc, etc... we were back on the boat and heading out to small uninhabited islands and gorgeous deserted beaches.

The highlight of this region was the caves. We did cave dive after cave dive. I regretted once again not having a gopro to record the experience. Inside the underwater caverns, looking up at stalagmites, down at huge schools of fish, and out to the impossibly turquoise entrances, was more special than I can describe. Some of the caves had multiple tunnels leading into them so you could swim in and out different ways, some had air above the water so you could surface and breathe, and others had branches leading off into the pitch black interior in all directions. It was simply amazing! We snorkeled into some caves, kayaked into others, and, of course, SCUBA dived as well. Heaven on earth for sure.

4. Night Sky

When we're sailing we don't see much of the night sky as there's a huge red awning over the cockpit that protects us from the sun during the day but blocks the sky at night too, and, also, it always seems to be cloudy if not raining at night at sea. But when we're at anchor and I get up to do a 3 am pee I always take 15 and go to lie on the hammock on the bow from which there is a fantastic view of the night sky. At this latitude the milky way is splendid. It spans the sky from horizon to horizon going directly overhead cutting the bowl of the sky into two equal halves. The southern cross, high in the sky in the early evening, is setting by the middle if the night, and if you wait long enough, of course, you can always see a shooting star.

In the water tiny dots of bright fluorescence blink on and off as if trying to mirror the sky above and it is so beautiful that words, again, fail me.

5. Uniforms

All over Tonga, well to the bits of it I've been to, the kids wear uniforms to school. Girls, of all ages, wear shirts with pinafore dresses. Boys wear shirts, sulus, and traditional wide woven belts. It seems so odd to me to see all the boys walking home from school, hanging out at the ice cream shop, chilling with their friends, in what look - to my western eyes - as long skirts. Also men in many professions with uniforms, like postal or telecom workers, are often seen going about their business in company coloured shirts and sulus.


P.S.  Leaving Early

I'd originally planned to stay with Infinity till the end of August, to continue living with the family and teaching the kids until I had to go back to work myself, but all the other crew were leaving early June, it wasn't clear if the kids were going to be there all summer or not (long story), I sort of felt I'd had the Infinity experience (very long story) and in the end it turned out to be much harder than I had expected to be the member of the community that I'd hoped to become (very very long story) so when we got to Tonga I booked the cheapest ticket onwards that I could find... Fiji here I come!

I fear my posts have been a bit dry of late, and traveling without a camera (just my phone) doesn't help. Hopefully a change of pace will liven things up. 

Infinity cont...

Six days at Sea.

We sailed from Tuvalu to Tonga. It took six days, or maybe more, days tend to slide into one another at sea. The weather forecast had said almost no wind to start with building to almost too much by the end. Well. Yes. So much for that theory. (Everyone was grumpy that we were leaving Tuvalu early and that we were not even going to attempt to stop at Wallis and Fortuna along the way, except the captain, of course, who'd made the plans, because he was stressed about something else, and he was, well, stressed. The mood overall was not particularly positive. And I forgot to take my preventative sea sickness meds and was dreadfully sick for the first few days.) Back to the weather... We'd assumed we'd be motoring for a few days to start with but as we pulled out of Funafuti into the ocean the wind and waves were high and rising so we raised the sails at once and killed the engine, which was great, for about 30 minutes, until, BBLLIZZZSRT, the main sail - with one reef in already due to a huge rip - ripped again, a huge tear, from side to side. Yikes. We scurried to put another reef in it (so the new rip was rolled up along the boom at the bottom out of sight) but it wasn't a procedure we'd practised and it involved a lot of yelling of instructions amidst noisy flapping sailcloth and dangerous flailing ropes. Not much fun in other words. And it sort of set the tone for the trip. Each night there were vicious squalls coming through, sudden strong winds accompanied by beating rain. The captain, worried about more damage, was being cautious  - with respect to the sails, not our beauty sleep - and so each night some of us would be up once, or twice, or even more than that, lowering the jib as a squall rushed in, and then, an hour or so later, raising it again. It takes at least 3 people to put the jib up or take it down, and 4 is better, plus one on the helm, and at night it was dark because the moon wasn't up and it was often raining and always there was salt spray dousing us as we worked on the foredeck. Yeah. Joyful. And it was all for nought anyway as the jib developed a huge rip despite all this and had to be swapped out for the much smaller storm jib and then there was yet another massive rip in the main sail leading to three permanent reefs in that which left us with so little cloth up that most of the rest of the way we motorsailed. (I think its time for new sails.) We had more squalls, we had weather so calm the sails were flogging, we had days of almost unbearable sunshine and days of endless beating rain... but overall it was OK, and, as most of us napped a lot during the days, it seemed a very quiet and uneventful - though endless - leg.

Oh, and we did see whales once, always good!

Infinity cont...

Missed Opportunities

1. Tuvalu

Tuvalu, 4th smallest country in the world, was our first missed opportunity. We didn't stay long enough to get a really good feel for it, we didn't visit any islands or atolls other than Funafuti, where the capital is located, and we didn't even visit that properly. (Clem, who had scheduled arrival in Tonga for June 6 is suddenly in a rush to make it there by May 26 (for reasons unrelated to our trip) and this has him stressed and the rest of us discouraged.)

Tuvalu is at first glance similar to other pacific nations we've seen though it's joined the modern world very successfully making 10s of millions by selling it's .tv web addresses, it's extra phone numbers, and even Tuvalu passports. It has put at least part of this money into infastructure.

In the capital, Fongafale, the airstrip, built by the US during WW2 and covering almost all of the fertile land on the island, is a social hub. People go there in the evenings to play soccer, hang out, and eat huge platefulls of rice, curried chicken, and cerviche and whole families arrive at dusk and spread their sleeping mats right on the runway to spend the night taking advantage of the breeze.

In town, houses look (to me) like houses, by which I mean they have brick or plywood walls and standard roofs, but the interiors are still very traditional, by which I mean that the only furnature many contain are woven mats and pillows. Front yards are small, often dominated by large ornate burial plots, and there is no sign of garbage whatsoever. The pigs all live in a veritable city of stys on the far side of the airstrip.

Tuvalu, like Pitcarian Island, is known for its stamps. The post office has every stamp ever made laid out under glass topped tables, all still available for sale at face value.

A large section of Funafuti is a protected conservation area; uninhabited, restricted access, and no fishing. Guidebooks claim it is spectacular even for this part of the world so we pay $5/each to have a guide accompany us there on a day trip. We do a couple dives and visit one of the islets but, really, compared to what we've seen other places it's nothing to write home about. 'It was a must but also a bust', sums up our collective opinion. Though we did see manta rays up close. We've seen sting rays and eagle rays before but not mantas, and, according to Clem, the difference between a sting ray and a manta is like the difference between a donkey and a unicorn. So that was special.

The most interesting thing I did in Tuvalu was read Where the Hell is Tuvalu by Philip Ells, and then start up an e-mail correspondence with the author, now head of a law school in England, who wrote back prompt and comprehensive answers to my questions and added a list of suggested activities, which, unfortunately, we didn't have time for. So, yes, very much a missed opportunity.


2. Wallis and Fortuna

We were supposed to stop at Wallis and Fortuna. But we didn't.  Another missed opportunity for sure. Did I mention that the captain is stressed and the rest of us discouraged.

3. Niua Fo'ou

We sail right past, as in just beside, Niua Fo'ou without stopping. Its hills, the first we've seen in months, and interior crater lake, beckon but I am powerless to do anything. We sail by. (Sob.)


Hopefully Vava'u, Tonga, which we will now have 2 weeks to visit, will NOT also be a missed opportunity.

Infinity VIII

Kiribati Tidbits


1. First night dive.

I did my first night dive ever at Onotoa. There were just four of us, two of whom had never done a night dive before. I snagged the fantastic Sebastian as my buddy, perfect because he knows me, knows I'm a hesitant diver (but a great swimmer), knows I'm a velcro buddy (depends on him but also will be right there if he needs me), puts up with me cheerfully, and both sees and points out everything to me. It was a perfectly calm night and we just dove under the boat which was only 16 metres deep but even so it was really spooky to start. We went down down down the anchor chain to the bottom, which seemed far further and far darker than I'd expected and it was spooky, very spooky. Scary even. Dark, and silent, and alien, and so very very far from anywhere. When Sebastian flashed "OK?" I responded "Iffy..." which I was, so he motioned "Breathe, relax, chill...". He shone his light directly on both my dive computer and my air gage to demonstrate that they glowed in the dark and then just waited patiently for a minute. "OK!" I told him and we set off along the chain lying on the ocean floor towards the anchor spotting a couple of lion fish and a super weird crab along the way. By then I was good and managed to put most of my energies for the rest of the dive into looking for more cool stuff - though I still checked my computer and my air gage as regularly as if I were OCD. The 45 minutes flew by and, as always, I was disappointed when it was time to go back up. When we surfaced again Nico said something that got us all laughing and Sebastian was thrilled to have found a fish hook he'd lost earlier that day and we were all just happy to have gone.

I stressed about choosing this boat for this spring. There were several free options and this one is 20€/day. But, my goodness, some days I really feel I'm getting my money's worth!


2. Old lady.

Most atolls we visit we are first invited into a house - a raised platform with a thatched roof but no walls - sat upon incrately woven mats and given a young coconut each to drink, a process that takes at least half an hour, before any discussion starts. One day while these initial proceedings were going on there was an old lady hovering, and, as soon as it was polite to do so, she motioned for me to follow her. (I guess she saw in me a fellow old woman.) She took me next door to show me her house. It was a work of art; wooden frame held together by twine made from coconut husks, floor, about two feet off the ground, of slats from the middles of palm fronds secured with the same twine, and a precisely thatched roof the interior of which had all their belongings, from extra clothes to toothbrushes, tucked into it. (As always, no walls, which someone else on another island pointed out was great security as no one else could ever sneak unseen into your house and take anything!)  I cannot over-emphasize how the house was built totally from coconut palm pieces, its solidity, the beauty and regularity of the twine-work holding it all together and the skill and time this represented. The furnature consisted of a set of woven mats for sitting or sleeping on, a few pillows, and a low end-table with a kettle on it. We had no language in common the old lady and I but I pointed and murmured appreciatively and took out my phone and asked if I could take a photo of her beside the house to which the response was, 'Yes!! And, also, please come across the road and take a picture of me beside this grave too.' Back at her house her English-speaking daughter showed up and translated a bit of conversation for us. (It's a lovely house! - Yes. Do you live here too? - Yes. How many people live here? - Yes. Do your children live here? - Yes. Or do your children have their own houses? - Yes. How long does it take to build a house like this?' I asked. Finally a question they could understand. They calculated a bit and the answer came back: 1968. Nor precisely what I'd asked perhaps but a fascinating fact nonetheless.) I went back to murmuring appreciation and was shown the fire pit and the beach too. I'm not sure if in the end the old lady was more honoured to have shown me her property or if I was more honoured to have been shown it and I only wish I'd been able to have had a deeper more meaningful interaction with her.

3. My German Men

There are two 40-something German men amoung the current crew, a lawyer and a film-maker, both well educated, well travelled and interesting. Dirk pointed out octapi while buddying with me at Onatoa and Marc did the same at Tanama. While discussing who was going to dive with who at Arorae, and Dirk and I teamed up again, I told him that my expectation was that when I dove with either of my German men they'd find me an octapus. Underwater it was a lovely aquarium, fish and more fish, interesting canyons, and great visibility. Halfway through the dive I tapped Dirk, who'd been peering in to every single crevace, on the shoulder and flung my arms wide to try and indicate my joy. Unfortunately I didn't know the official SCUBA hand sign for 'this is an amazing dive and I'm so happy to be here and I was only joking about you finding me an octapus'. Nonetheless he kept on looking. He pointed out a huge lobster with antennae as long as my arms, an anemone guarded by two brilliantly striped parents and filled with tiny baby anemone fish, a puffer fish, a piper fish, and, chilling under one overhang, the largest pair of parrot fish I'd ever seen in my life. And then, just about as our time was almost up and we were starting to think about swimming out into the blue, doing our safety stop and surfacing, what did he shine his flashlight on but an octapus, a lovely lively large leopard-coloured octapus looking at us as if to say, 'You found me. Really? I thought I'd win this game of hide and seek!'. It made my day, and Dirk's too. We surfaced and burst out laughing, grinning at each other, and talking non-stop of all the underwater wonders we'd seen. It was another good day.


4. Eddy

Eddy, another crew member, and I are SO different from each other it's hard to imagine.

He's from the Solomon Islands in Melanisia. I'd known, theoretically, that Melanisia is so named because the people there are dark skinned (as in melanin, dark pigment of the skin) but I've never been there and I certainly didn't understand. (I'm so ignorant I thought all people with actually black skin tones were of African origin - of course I realize we're ALL of African origin - but, like, within the last millennium. Apparently not.) Eddy's 40, has been sailing for 18 years, is married to a Spanish woman, and has a 13 year old daughter.

He also has a skill set that barely intersects mine at all. He knows where to find fish, can tie a hook to a line one handed in the dark, can gut and clean and fillet in the blink of an eye, and makes AMAZING fish head soups and lobster stews. He can lash anything down with a scrappy bit of rope so it's secure in the worst storm. He can fix an outboard motor with a stick.

On the other hand when he and I were looking at the GPS chart and Clem, who was lying down across the room, asked Eddy when we'd get to the next anchorage at our current speed (it was midnight, we were going 6.9 knots, and had 78 left to go) I eventually replied, 'just after 11 in the morning', because I thought Clem wanted the information and that maybe Eddy'd not heard the question, only to have him, Clem, tell me, quite sharply, that he'd wanted Eddy to try and figure it out. Eddy asked how I knew and I started by saying that I knew 7 times 11 was 77 but then it quickly got all confused not only because of the rounding but also because the fact that 11 hours travel time would get us there at 11 am only worked since it was exactly 12 o'clock which is effectively 0 o'clock... and then I started over and tried to explain how to figure it out again only this time assuming one doesn't know 7 times 11 is 77 (or even that 7 times 10 is 70) which is harder to do than you might think.

I doubt Eddy could tell to me how to fix a pump such that I'd be able to do it - but I'm sure he could show me and I'd know forever.

I wondered if, when he sails, he just gets there when he does.

On shore he usually goes off on massive benders and isn't seen for days (not me). I read a lot (not him). He's very sociable and understands people (not me). I pay taxes (not him). He's good at languages (not me).

But we have a lot in common too. We love to see the world, to be on boats, to take life a day at a time. Both of us get stressed when Clem starts yelling (too often) and neither of us suffer fools gladly. We're both OK without daily internet connectivity. We're each happy to just be.

And, also, most importantly, we both like - and have huge respect - for the other.

I'd thought we were black and white but see that actually we're black and red!

5. Shopping

Coconuts can be used for money. A girl goes to the shop to buy something and returns with her purchases. There isn't room in the shop so the collected "money" sits outside in piles. There is no crime so none is ever taken.

A small but typical house.

Infinity VII

Tarawa and beyond!



Tarawa, Kiribati

Anyone who is really interested can research Kiribati on Wikipedia. I, personally, had never even heard of the country even though it's the biggest country in the world (if you include ocean area in your calculations).

The capital city reminded me of Cuba - the 3rd world country I'm most familiar with - full of poverty, pigs, and palm trees. Small ramskackle dwellings of brick, sometimes, but also chipboard, or corrugated metal, oil cans flattened out, tarps, chicken wire, or even palm thatch, with dirt yards, garbage everywhere, kids in tatty shorts playing happily with old tires or sticks, clean laundry hanging out to dry, chickens running about...

On the other hand there were significant differences from Cuba too; for one, as it's on an atoll not an island almost no produce grows, for another, there are none of the beautiful old buildings, remnants of a once affluent culture, and, also, there are NO tourists. We were the only sailboat in the harbour (amongst many WW2 wrecks and a very eclectic assortment of old or even completely rusted out fishing boats, ferries, and barges) and the only white people on shore (teenagers ask to take selfies with us we're such an oddity). But everyone is super friendly, small kids and old folk wave enthusiastically as we pass by and anyone with an excuse, such as a cashier, strikes up a conversation.

The stores, which look like they come from a 50's movie set, sell the oddest assortment of goods from around the world, though nothing, unfortunately, that's on our list. Carrots are 16.75/kg. There will be no fresh fruit or veg for the next leg.

One day we take the bus to the end of the road (1 1/2 hours, $1.60) and then a wee outrigger ferry across to the next motu (500 m, 50 cents) and then walk a path for another hour and a half. We are, literally and metaphorically, on the other side of Tarawa. Here there are no vehicles, no shops, no overcrowding... houses, made completely of natural materials, are sprinkled sparsely along the jungle path and one gets the impression that their diet is almost exclusively fish and coconut. It was a long hot walk, and we never did find the snorkeling spot we had been told about, but it was oh so interesting that we could only be glad we'd gone.

South of Tarawa

1. Equator crossing

There was NO wind so we motored from Maiana atoll all the way to Nonouti, a short leg which included crossing the equator. It is a tradition to have one's head shaved prior to the crossing but only 2 of the 12 of us choose to do so. However we all joined in the main saloon for communal humming and throat singing before supper and then had a special feast (lots of fresh caught sushimi, rice, fried fish, hot canned veg salad, peach crumble and ice cream) which we shared, sitting on the floor together, in total silence, the only exception being toasts that anyone could make at anytime and which everyone repeated. There was an artistic interlude between the main course and dessert, in this case a fantastic bit of improv theater, and after dinner everyone gave a speach (anything other than a lecture or an anecdote). Following these festivities we shared whatever alcohol we happened to have left and sat and chatted until 10 pm when we turned the engine off, threw a rope out behind, and jumped naked into the dark water, hooting and hollering, to be pulled by the drifting boat across from the northern hemisphere into the southern one. So much fun.

2. Nonouti Atoll

There are 4 new people who joined Infinity in Tarawa; 2 men and 2 women, each in a different decade of their lives, and each from a different continent (an Argentinian, an Australian, an American, and an Austrian) but they all have in common that they are keen divers. So the first thing we did at Nonouti was go for a dive.

The next morning we went to land. We were received very warmly by the locals we met and invited to stay for a feast and dancing demonstration that evening only to have the police show up and declare our paperwork (which Clem had spent 3 whole long hot tedious days procuring in Tarawa) insufficient. So we left, disappointed at missing out on what would have been a super cultural event, and went and did another awesome dive instead.

Reefs are dying off in many parts of the world, huge swaths of the Great Barrier Reef have recently become bleached, but not here at Nonouti. Here the reef is healthy. In a 45 minute dive in crystal clear water we saw uncountable kinds and colours of coral, tens of thousands of fish (including a pair of clown triggerfish), giant clams, and so much more... I had Sebastian, my pseudo-son, as my diving buddy. I love him. He's 22 and has a very healthy inner child that notices, points out, and actively enjoys everything. At one point we 'flew' arms spread wide through an endless school of tiny iridescent blue fish and when a 20 foot shark was circling curious and I clung to him he flashed me the "OK?" symbol and then laughed when I responded "OK!" but didn't immediately let go.

I stressed and worried about joining this boat. But I love it. Also, I hadn't realized how much SCUBA diving was part of its agenda. I likely would have said, three months ago, that I wasn't fussed by diving, that I would always be just as happy to snorkel. But ever since Clem practically threw me in the water at Bikar six weeks ago I've become hooked. Part of it all, both being on the boat and diving, is the whole community thing, being in a team, working and playing together, dependant on and responsible for one another. Yup, I love it.

And then, since the police had denied us permission to land again, the local villagers came to us instead. They showed up in small motorboats laden with large bowls and plates of local delacasies (fresh papaya, deep-fried breadfruit, taro, stuffed crabs, sweet coconut bread, grilled worms...), huge bags full of coconuts, and fresh flower leis for all the women. They brought endless smiles, endless questions, and, after eating altogether, everyone danced into the wee hours of the morning. Unbelievable.

Onotoa

As we wend our way south the days and weeks start to slide into one another. Each day is a plethora of activities. The first day at Onotoa I kayak and snorkel in the morning and go ashore in the afternoon to be part of the official team meeting the local authorities asking for permission to anchor (which includes a 20 minute motorcycle ride from the village we were close to to the main town).

It is all good. As well as the family there are 8 of us on board, always someone to do something with, yet the boat is big enough that we can each also find a quiet spot when we like - we each have our own cabin and the deck is big enough to have lots of nooks and crannies as well as the hammocks.

The second day a group of 40 dolphins came to see the tender as we head out to dive so we jump in the water and snorkel with them (Wow!) and then we go on to do a drift dive along a wall with countless millions of little fish and octapi, eels, and lion fish hiding in all the little cracks (again Wow!).

EACH atoll is amazing.

Infinity VI

South from Majuro Part 1: At Peace

edited out for now...    :(



South from Majuro Part 2: At Peace

It's always nice to have one stormy night at sea, as long, of course, as you, personally, have no responsibility. Sailing south from Mili Atoll, our last stop in the Marshalls, we had one. We had a tiny jib up and both the main and mizzen had one reef in as usual and so the captain said that we'd be fine, come what may. Well. Famous last words those.

The storm started just as dusk fell to darkness and it fooled us all because it began with a few familiar fast and furious squalls that sped through under low dark clouds bringing strong winds and beating rain and then disappearing again as suddenly as they'd come. For each of these we held our course if we could, or, alternatively, bore away till the stronger winds had passed, but we didn't consider reducing sail. And so, when one of these squalls turned out, instead, to be an actual storm, no one, not the person on the helm nor the captain himself recognized it as such right off. By the time it became obvious that the weather wasn't going to just pass us by it was WAY beyond when we should have started reefing and so reducing sail was done in nasty conditions; deep darkness, heavy rain, very strong gusty winds, huge swells and hence heavy rolling, the boat racing along at her hull speed of 14 knots juddering as she tried to go even faster, and many great splashes of salt water regularily dousing everyone and everything... The captain was yelling orders but no one could hear a word he said over the sound of the wind and water to say nothing of the loose flapping sails or whipping ropes... and the hand signals we are all supposed to know and use, frankly, work better during the day when it's not dark and stormy and everyone is either holding on for dear life or desperately trying to contain huge amounts of heavy wet slippery flapping sails with escape-artist ropes. Sage was on the wheel alternatively trying to keep course and trying to keep the boat faced into the wind as sails were lowered as Clem and the rest of us put a second reef in the mizzen, and then in the main, and then took the mizzen down completely, and, finally, put yet another reef in the main. Reefing on a boat like this requires a lot of work far foreward on the deck, losening halyards (easyish in daylight in calm waters), setting the reefing lines (easyish in daylight in calm waters), collecting up and tying down the extra bottom bit of sail (fiendishly difficult even in daylight and calm waters), and then retightening everything. The whole process took about three hours, which seemed an eternity, especially since the drowned out communication lead to more than one fuckup along the way. And, by the end, both the mizzen and foresail had huge new rips in their cloth which distressed the captain more than anything else. Everyone was exhausted at that point and we'd lost track of who ought to have been on shift so I offered to take the wheel for a couple of hours. It was marvellous. I wish I could better explain. The sky was black and the water blacker yet. With only two very little sails left up the boat was still flying at 10 knots, riding up and over incredibly tall waves that appeared out of nowhere and then racing down their backsides only to charge upwards again as the next wave swept by. With the whole world sound asleep the boat and I were alone in the universe and the music played by the wind and waves was a song that Mother Nature was singing just for us and I was utterly at peace, with myself, with everything.

And then (how does this happen?) 24 hours later the wind had dropped and we'd let out all the sails again, swapped the tiny jib for a huge genoa, and then pulled them all down yet again and turned on the engine to motor across calm flat waters. Unbelievable.

And 24 hours after that the wind was a light delightful 15 steady knots and we were once again sailing beautifully.

Everyday is an adventure.

Infinity V

A week in Majuro.

We are in Majuro for a week, anchored, while some crew fly out and others fly in and the captain works on his new website, does minor repairs on the boat, and reprovisions consumables like food and engine oil.

Majuro is an atoll of 64 motus (islands) with a total area of less than 4 sq miles, a maximum elevation of 3 m, and a single road running round it connecting the more than 20 000 who live and work here. There are a shocking number of cars on the road at all times of day and night and half of them are taxis. (A taxi ride, in a shared cab, is 75 cents.) The population includes many teenagers from the outer islands who board here throughout high school. In the bay about 20 yatchs are anchored and twice that number of huge industrial fishing vessels. Global warming may swamp the entire country soon but likely not before the oceans have been fished out. The town has a super little free museum that takes 30 minutes to visit and one lovely handicrafts store where amazing woven products are being made on site (and sold for almost nothing) and then there are only 6 days and 23 hours of time left to fill. Majuro's only other attraction is that it is considered part of the US so shipping, of boat bits for example, is much cheaper than other parts of the Pacific. The city is hot and run down, it's dismal, dirty, and depressing. Even the 'luxury' resort is sad; no beach, pool closed, and peeling paint. It is NOT on my list of possible retirement destinations.

On board I cook, clean, continue to teach the kids an hour a day each, read, and relax, and then I go into town to internet (yes, it is a verb now) until the slowness of the connection drives me bonkers and so I wander the island checking out the many small stores that all sell a very limited (and identical) set of items. I am, as always, more and more thrilled to have a Canadian passport in my back pocket. Next I sit in the bar by the dingy dock and nurse a beer with the other crew who have gathered while we wait, sometimes hours, for stragglers to arrive. Back on the boat I help with maintenance chores that need an extra set of hands, or, more than once, babysit for hours on end so that Sage, Clem's very young girlfriend, can go shopping or have time to internet herself without her two kids tagging along. (One new crew has shown up and paid in advance (like I did) (which seemed normal to me) so there is $1000 for food. Sage spends it all - who knows when there may be money again - but not before taking the list round to each and every grocery store looking for specials. She even finds canned tomatoes cheaper at one place after having already bought them elsewhere and so returns the first lot (a huge effort, it seems to me, to save a few dollars, and I feel rich and spoiled and privileged as I can't imagine doing the same myself)).

We will check out of the country before Easter and sail south. I will be happy to be back at sea.

My girls, who spend 95% of their time naked, dress up for a trip to town.

Sebastian puts 3 coats of wood oil on each of the shrouds while I have the much less glamorous (and less sticky) job of winching him up and down and up and down and...

Infinity IV

Sea Gypsies
AKA A simple life part 2

The first leg of this voyage has had some fantastic experiences but also huge frustrations. I've often said that sailors come at both ends of the financial spectrum, a bimodal distribution if you will, those who have made their fortune - and so are sailing - and those may never do so - and so are sailing.

The last two men I crewed for were 70 year old self-made millionaires who always docked their state of the art boats at the best marinas in town. I actively decided not to go with another such man this year, despite a fantastic offer to do so, and, for reasons that weren't even clear to me, chose to join Infinity instead, a rag tag boat of misfits that one has to pay to crew on. I didn't realize how far across the pendulum path I would be swinging.

Infinity's best sails are as patched as secondary roads in Ontario and both the mizzen and the main are always flown with one reef in due to huge rips at the bottom too large to be fixed even with the onboard sail sewing machine. Many standard systems are non-existant (auto helm, AIS, sat phone, ...) or permanently broken (radar, washing machine, ...) or exist in the free version only (charts) and weather updates are gained as they were 100 years ago by detouring to visit other boats and asking if they know what's ahead. Needless to say, we anchor out.

The captain's bank account is literally empty. He relies on departing crew's per diem payments to buy food for the next leg, which, as he's both terribly unorganized and a super nice guy, often don't actually materialize. I think to myself that maybe he ought to get people to pay in advance, but, being broke himself, and of a hippy ilk, if anyone claims not to have money he believes them and doesn't charge them anything anyways, which everyone knows, and makes others less likely to actually pony up what they owe. And so it goes. Food for the next leg will be basic; rice and beans, pasta, and bread without even peanut butter because there's no money for that. (I can't help thinking of Drew's boat last summer with the freezer full of salmon and lamb, the nets hanging low loaded with fruit, the fridge stuffed with organic tomatoes and lettuce, and the floor lockers overflowing with Costco's best nuts.) Here ramen noodles are a luxury food, scurvy a real possibility. (My only peeve with the food is that the family eats better than the crew. I was asked to bring certain supplies from Hawaii, which I did, but they were not, it turned out, for general consumption.)

There are jobs to be done and everyone does them, more or less, to the best of their ability. There's a sort of, but very loosey goosey, honour system set up where by you can work off part (but not all) of what you'd otherwise owe by doing extra work over and above cooking and cleaning and ongoing maintenence and standing watch (this extra work includes mainly major repairs and upgrades done when in port, but also, fortunately for me, being teacher in residence for the 4 and 5 year old). So, somewhat ironically, but also totally logically, the paying crew tend to put many more hours into the extra work projects than the crew who are getting a free ride. Clem wants to provide the opportunity to sail with him to everyone, regardless of their financial status, but, due to his good nature and poor bookkeeping skills, he regularily ends up getting taken advantage of. I guess crew have a bimodal financial distribution too.

That said, the future is looking bright for him. A 10 episode Norwegian children's TV Series, Message in a Bottle Season 2, and a short film, Sea Gypsies, were filmed on board last year. Both are being well received and the sequel to Sea Gypsies will be filmed in 2018. These bring in not only money but also notoriety, which, in the long run, might prove more valuable.

My heroes have always been those brave enough to choose to commit to an alternate lifestyle, to take a leap of faith and step onto a path from which there may be no turning back - I would have liked to have lived my own life in such a way but lacked the courage to do so - and Clem is definately one of those people.

So... I did one month on board, could have chosen to leave, but chose to stay.

We will see. I think it's going to be amazing.

Infinity IIIb

A few pics from Taroa...

Rhian came to shore hoping to find a friend to play with but the kids were all in school so she joined the KG class for the day.

Remnants from Japanese occupation during WW2.

These wahoo seemed big - until Eddy got a couple of 60 kg tuna at the next spot. He was fishing to pass the time while sitting in the dingy as divers were below and had only a hand line, not even a reel, but landed the tuna single handed none the less.

Clem kiteboards against a beautiful background.

Infinity III

Marshall Islands - The outer atolls

(A somewhat long and rambling post in which I repeatedly say I did this and I saw that and it was wonderful.)

(Unfortunately bandwidth here makes uploading photos impossibly slow.)

At 6 pm, we lifted the anchor, raised 1, 2, 3 pieces of cloth, and sailed away across the lagoon leaving behind the city of Majuro, the other yatchs, the fishing boats, and the military vessel that had been our companions for the past few days. The water in the atoll's lagoon was relatively calm but the wind was brisk so as the sun set and the full moon rose we flew towards the pass and then out between the red and green boys, out past the last coconut covered motu, out into the Pacific Ocean proper... and the wind picked up and the boat heeled over and we were charging north. So, with the deck tilted steeply and lifting and falling with each wave, we, the newest crew, sat outside holding tightly onto something, anything, and concentrated on not being sick as the captain gave us his safety talk, and Rhian, age 5, who was born, literally, on the boat and who has lived here her entire life, came out spread her arms wide, raised her chin, and threw herself repeatedly into the air, jumping, full of exuberance, landing laughing sure footed on the lilting jilting deck only to fling herself, yet again, up into the wind, a child of the sea.


1. Bikar Atoll - Diving the wall

Bikar Atoll is uninhabited. It's a ring of coral reef which is above water at low tide and has waves crashing over it at high tide. It has a few patches of land, motus with pristine white sand beaches and coconut palms, and a narrow pass into a very shallow and unbelievably turquoise lagoon in the center.

We sailed north, two glorious days, to get there (shifts of 4 hours on 14 hours off - oh the luxury of being on a bigger boat) with perfect wind and weather, and, and finding the pass impassable, let Infinity drift just offshore while we dove the outer wall of the reef - which falls 1000's of feet straight down - amongst uncountable colourful tropical reef fish, huge groupers, brilliant blue clams, eagle rays, schools and schools of sea fish, enormous turtles, and dozens of black tipped sharks. I'd never seen anything like it at all. Ever. Wow! It was amazing. Just amazing.


2. Utirik Atoll - A tour around town

Utirik Atoll is similar to Bikar except that it has a population of about 400 and a passable pass. We sailed into the lagoon and anchored near the village then dropped the dingy and went to ask permission to stay a while. There are four supply ships that come to this atoll each year and about as many yatchs that visit so our arrival was an event. A crowd of 40 children gathered to greet us on the beach as we landed and tagged along all the way to the town hall. The mayor said we could stay as long as we liked and assigned one of the English-speaking school-teachers to act as guide. Dallas gave three of us a walking tour of the town answering all of our questions and giving us samples of local fruit as we went (many people stopped to ask to trade, one offered a dozen lobster in return for 18 feet of 3/8 inch line to be used as a sheet for a sailing outrigger canoe) and then took us back to his house where we sat and talked some more while drinking fermented coconut sap. Many cruisers must have had similar experiences on hundreds of different islands but for me, for me it was another first, another indescribably amazing day.

We stayed at Utirik several days, each doing as we pleased; reading and relaxing, visiting the town, taking long beach walks, swimming, snorkeling, SCUBA diving, fishing, kayaking, kite boarding... and then gathering to eat lunch together and regroup for the second half of the day. Heaven on Earth.


3. Taka Atoll

Another uninhibited bit of paradise; more amazing diving and other such adventures. 

Asides: 
1. My camera is broken (hence the lack of photos).
2. I plan to buy - and learn to use - a gopro next fall so that my next blog series will be in the form of video clips.
3. The kids on this boat are hellions who each have multiple screaming fits daily.
4. Unlike their parents I refuse to respond to their tantrums so they behave perfectly for me.
5. They are learning to read and count at a prodigous rate.
6. The stove here is a big old diesel pig, incredibly slow to heat up, so it takes hours, literally, to prepare meals.
7. Fortunately with 9 adults on board we each only have to make one meal every three days (and a few of the crew love cooking and do more than their fair share).
8. A vegan diet (plus lots of fresh fish) is growing on me. 
9. You'd think I'd be losing weight, but no.
10. The boat has two hammocks and there is enough free time during the day to read for an hour or two which is wonderful.

Our last day on Taka we did a beach clean up collecting several huge (4 cubic metre) bags of garbage - mostly glass and plastic bottles and plastic shoes - which we lashed to the foredeck to take to Majuro for disposal. It was only a token, of course, as we did only part of one motu, and each motu has garbage lining the shore, and many atolls have many dozens of motus, and there are tens of thousands of atolls... but it felt good nonetheless.


4. Maloelap Atoll

We anchored in several different spots here.

At the first spot you could walk at low tide on the flat (dead) reef rock 500 metres out right to the edge and stand there in awe. 100 metres further out it was 1000 metres deep and within that 100 metres the waves, finding themselves suddenly restricted, rose abruptly to great heights and then crashed spectacularly. Maybe with a gopro and a drone I could have captured the essence of it all; the deep blue and translucent turquoise and foamy white of the water, the thunderous roar of the frustrated waves, the rythmn of their progression, the warm salt spray, the sheer power of the ocean and the realization of how incomprehensibly tiny we each are relative to it. Or maybe not. Regardless, I stood there, captivated, mesmerized, and enthralled until the tide started to come in and the water rose to ankle deep and schools of almost iridescent parrot fish, exactly the same turquoise as the curve of the breaking waves, swam out of the ocean deep and played about on top of the flats. It was, at risk of sounding repetitive, amazing.

The next spot we stopped at was the village of Taroa, a Japanese base during WW2. The bay was littered with shipwrecks and the remnants of what had once been a huge pier and in amongst the current modest huts a massive overgrown crumbling three-story cement and rebar ruin rose like a twisted Angor Wat parody. Enormous bunkers and fuel tanks, currently used to store coconuts, were strewn about and there was a airplane graveyard where dozens of fighter jets had been left behind. (Yup, another amazing day!)

At the third spot Eddie caught two 60 lb tunas while waiting in the dingy for divers and we had fantastic sushimi for supper that night and fried or baked fish for days afterwards. 

Aside:
We currently have 11 people on board: the captain, his girlfriend, their two kids, me, an older Australian couple who are here just for the month for the diving, and 4 male crew, all of different nationalities, two of whom have been here for months but are about to leave and two of whom will stay on several months longer...

Aside:
... which bodes the question: Why am I here? Why is this what I am choosing to do with my time? If solid relationships are the most important thing in life - which everyone who watches Ted talks has to agree with - then what the heck am I doing here, in the Marshall Islands, sailing about with a bunch of people I'll never see again?

Aside:
It is wonderful being part of a small community; sailing, working, eating and playing together. It is wonderful always having someone to talk to and always having the option of being alone. It is wonderful swimming, snorkeling, kayaking, walking, and diving the atolls, experiencing daily things that few people will ever be fortunate enough to do even once in their life.

Aside: 
But ...


5. Aur Atoll

Yup. More amazing diving and other such adventures.

And then we were heading back to Majuro. Already? Was that possible?