Passage to Niue: Day 3 and 4

Author: Pete

Location: 17°14.150S’ 158°11.691W’

Date: July 22, 2015

Days 3 and 4 at sea.

Another birthday?!?! That seems excessive. I just had one last year about this time. I suppose I don’t mind yet though. Miranda had squirreled away some bacon in the recesses of the freezer unbeknownst to me and made me a great bacon and egg breakfast with fresh papaya on the side. She also made TWO cakes from scratch on the high seas, a chocolate and a pineapple upside down cake. We had a little of both with coffee and it was a nice morning indeed.

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The weather was gorgeous, blue skies, following seas, and enough wind to keep the spinnaker flying and happy. I did some fishing, not catching, but fishing, worked on one of the engines that’s being fussy, and did a lot of reading on the trampoline under the shade of the sails. Pretty pleasant birthday.

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The wind filled in overnight and now we’re making 7 knots in 15 knots of breeze. It’s 905 miles to Tonga, but who’s counting, eh? If every day is like this, I’ll be a happy camper, a 300 pound happy camper; I polished off at least half of the two cakes today.

 

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There’s bio luminescence in the water again, and we’re leaving trails of green fire though the sea as we go at night. The towing generator is kicking out energy and all is well aboard.

Passage to Niue: Day 1 and 2

Author: Pete
Location: 16°40.165S’ 153°42.387W’
Date: July 19, 2015
Day 1 and 2 at sea.

 

Yesterday we had a final lunch with some friends in Bora Bora at a famous place called Bloody Mary’s before hauling up the hook and motoring out of the pass and into the open ocean. We splurged for burgers and bloody marys because tomorrow on my birthday we’ll likely be eating tunafish on baguettes and gatorade.

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Out of the pass we caught some wind and pulled out all our canvas. We sailed west on a reach making 6 knots in 8 knots of wind on calm seas. We passed Maupiti just at sunset as great colors lit up the sky behind the high island.

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Good wind held through most of the night, but on my graveyard watch the wind swung astern and dropped to 4 knots. I put up the spinnaker single hand and stretched out on the trampoline to watch the stars and keep an eye out for boats.

We are getting our sea legs back after a good deal of time at anchor. We are trying out scopolamine patches to take the edge off the first few days at sea. After that your body get accustomed to the motion and all is well. So far so good. No signs of side effects which apparently include blurred vision and “acute toxic psychosis”. Sounds like a real dozy of a combination on the graveyard watch!

Today conditions were pretty flat and calm. It was a great day to lay out in the trampoline and read, but not so great for sailing. Fixed a plugged diesel hose, made yogurt, and made 12 gallons of water. All in a day’s work. Got a strike on one of my fishing lines, but not a hook up. I’ve heard fish don’t like flat, sunny conditions. I’m also a terrible fisherman. Good thing we stocked the boat full of Pringles and Gummy Bears.

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We should pass north of the island of Maupelia in a few hours. The wind is filling in and we’re back under sail. All good aboard tonight.

Tahitian Pearls

Author:  Pete
Location:  Bora Bora

In my limited French, this is what I have come to understand about Tahitian pearls. Apparently, there is a pearl-governing body in French Polynesia that buys all of the pearls from the little farms around the Tahitian islands regardless of quality and only permits the perfect ones to be sold for export.  As far as I can tell they crush any with imperfections and dump them back into the sea!  It makes me cringe!  Sounds like this is designed to maintain high quality and a sparkling reputation for exported pearls.  The little farms don’t care; they’re still being paid for all their pearls, but it’s the jewelers that are making the profit from the deal.  We did, however, ferret out some exceptions.

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Few are interested in trying to sell flawed pearls.  It took us four months to track down a source!  And then it was all hush-hush, doing deals in back rooms, shifty eyes and whispers.  I think the imperfect pearls are the most interesting.  Some look like inverted Saturn, others like snowglobes, or tear drops.  All different colors, lusters, and pretty good size too.  We felt like true pirates, smuggling out handfuls of contraband treasure stowed away below decks.  Flew them back to the states disguised in an M&M bag.  Tricksters.

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