When we did the big bottom job on Rocket Science in the winter and early spring of 2023 there was a cool aluminum boat delivered to CSR while we were there. Soon, we met the owners as they were also there all hours getting work done. Steve, Kristen, James, and Paul, and their boating cat Pelle became fast friends and we really enjoyed spending time with them. We often talked about a crazy idea somehow we both had to take a year adventuring around the Pacific. DREAMS COME TRUE! They left Seattle a few months after we did, adventured down the coast, and poked around Baja before crossing, but here we are together! They have a blog that they’re better than we are about keeping up to date, check it out at www.svFlyer.com.
They met a fantastic couple on their trip down the coast, Kevin and Melissa on s/v Dark Star. Hence our WhatsApp chat called Dark Science Flyers along with this blog post. They finished their crossing and joined us in Taiohae a few days later. Now all 3 boats are a part of the crew for adventures, meals, swims, and the general mayhem we all enjoy. Flyer had experienced issues with their transmission which hadn’t stopped despite Kevin and Steve switching transmissions in and out like it’s their favorite hobby. Flyer arranged for their second new transmission to arrive in Nuku Hiva as soon as possible and fussed enough with the current (and original) tranny’s adjustments to be able to bay hop around until it arrived.
Kristen snapping a photo in the epic Hatiheu Bay on the north side of Nuku Hiva.
We headed off around the corner to Controllers bay and spent a few days there, just the three of us! The murky water didn’t produce any luminescent mantas or sharks, bummer.
My favorite place we visited in this time period was a small bay on the west side called Anse Uea. We headed there from While we motored around the point and towards calmer seas OUR transmission made a small funny noise, then a larger and longer noise, and then another. Greg decreased the throttle and shifted into neutral each time and it stopped. GAH. Worried that it may do it again we went slow and steady into the calmer water and Flyer slowed down to wait for us and make sure we were going to make it. Once anchored we enjoyed the bay to ourselves for swimming with dolphins, mantas, rainbows, sunsets, and delicious shared meals. In between all the lovely things, I read up on any issues we could possibly address with our tranny and didn’t find anything that was concrete. We changed fluid and it looked good. We decided we’d see how it behaved on the way back to Taiohae to get more data and re-evaluate. Nothing else happened, we felt slightly more confident but did a diesel flush just to make sure. We bought a new transmission that was in stock in Everett. Turns out there’s another boat in the bay whose transmission is also bad and they’ve also been talking to our hero Mike at the same transmission place in Everett. Weird small world.
Continuing on with the transmission theme, Flyer’s new was arriving so we headed back to Taiohae, some boats even sailed part of the way! We wanted to see if our transmission would behave so we motored along with our fingers crossed. Anchored back in our spot, Steve, Kevin, and Greg had an epic day of replacing Flyers transmission while the rest of us tried to stay out of the way and let them get through it.
Kristen had a family wedding to go to in San Francisco so she flew off to that and Steve single handed around the corner to Daniels Bay where we holed up for a few days of less sunny weather. It rained harder and longer than we’ve experienced since we arrived in French Polynesia. That prohibited us from doing the hike up the valley but we still enjoyed lunch at Kua and Tieki’s place where the meal was as good the third time as it was the first. There were cute kittens there that Melissa the veterinarian said we really okay to pet, our boat cats would be safe. When we got there the bay was so full of boats! Crowded but lots of cool boats to check out and some fun people to chat with and learn about their adventures. One couple on another aluminum boat who were coming out of their post-passage fatigue came over to say hi one afternoon. We invited them on board to chat, good thing because it was his birthday! We had a lovely happy hour with Adriano and Marissa from Voyager and hung out with them again later in Taiohae.
The boys spent a ton of time in the water, understandably so in the heat and with buddies to be goofy with. Paul and Griffin worked on their perpetually crazy water entry methods from every surface available to jump off of. James swims around like a fish along with Kevin who is one of the boys in respect to water play. Soon enough, we headed back to Taiohae to welcome Kristen home and get ready for the 3 plus day crossing to the Tuamotus. No further issues with our tranny so maybe that was just an odd occurrence? Our year long visas end on May 15th and it’s already mid April, we need to get going.
