Why are we doing this? A grand adventure? A sense of accomplishment? Experience? Exploration? Discovery? All those things but what stands out right now is connecting with people. We’ve met fantastic new friends, shared stories with friends back home, and laughed with everyone. Our friend Julie took it up a level and flew all the way here to invade our little world and spend a week with us, it was amazing. Having a visitor on board involves intimacy which not everyone would want to share… it happens anyway. Fellow boaters understand this and make easy guests.
Check out the last post to be introduced to Julie, she’s a part of my lifelong sailing family. We got to pick her up at the dinghy dock in Rotoava, it was so good to see someone I’ve known forever here in paradise! She was even able to get all of our boat parts in 2 huge bags on the small plane from Tahiti to Fakarava, a miracle that probably hinged on her polite Canadian style. When she leaves we’ll have a bunch of projects to do.
We dinghied her out to the boat, threw the luggage in the cockpit and jumped in the water. She had flown out of Seattle and visited Carrie and my mom who photoed her being thrown to us so Greg took the sequential photo of receiving her.
The next morning we got going early and headed out the pass onto the great Pacific Ocean. Julie has crossed this great ocean once before back in 1988 on the Vic-Maui return trip when our dads did the race on her family boat, Kydaka. She shared some of the things she remembers from that- it had definitely made an impression like probably every long ocean passage does. This little crossing to Toau atoll was a short trip and it’s been so calm recently that we had just a long swell with a few little wind waves. There was a few knots of breeze but it was right on the nose and the jib luffed so we just motored across, we needed to charge the batteries and make water anyway. Entering the pass was exciting as ever but we skirted the rougher water by sticking even closer to shore than our previous route, how brave. The depth goes from thousands of feet to tens of feet in just a few moments. Once inside it deepens up again but then we have to watch for bommies, it’s always something! We motored around the corner to the south, just inside the atoll to anchor while waving to friends on Tino Pai who were anchored nearby. Julie watched and took photos as we set up the anchor floats and dropped it on the windward edge of a sandy patch.
We wasted no time and got in the water to check the anchor. Happily, it was nicely embedded and clear of bommies with the help of the floats. I wonder how it will be to anchor when we can’t see the bottom so well anymore? Weird. The check the anchor snorkel turned into a follow the fish and check out the shoreline adventure with Julie and Griffin too. An hour later we were back on the boat, eating lunch, finishing schoolwork, and getting ready for our next adventure out to the huge bommie next to the pass. On our way over there we invited Shannon and Andy from Tino Pai over for happy hour afterwards.
Snorkeling the “coral garden” bommie is amazing. The water from the pass flows right by and there are large alive coral heads everywhere. Nutrients in the water from the wild ocean are far greater than inside the atoll so near the passes is where life thrives. Between and within all the corals there are calcareous tube worms with a rainbow of feeders out, tridacna clams with their colorful mantles soaking up the sunlight, and vibrant fish of all sizes everywhere. We saw sharks, rays, a big box fish, schools of pelagic fish, and thousands of other small reef fish. After a while, the sun became hidden by clouds and when we looked up we saw more dark clouds headed our way so we climbed back in the dinghy to zoom back to the boat. Happy hour with Tino Pai was so fun, how great to get along so well with the only other boat in the anchorage. Of course Julie fit right in and had a blast chatting with them too.
We moved down to the south end to be more in the lee of the atoll and Tino Pai came too. At the beach the Tino Pai crew met us with a pitcher of rum punch to share, awesome! We went for a walk through to the ocean side of the atoll where the water was not as docile as when we had crossed. Julie and Griffin saw a shark in a huge rising wave before it curled and crashed into the outer reef edge. Inside the reef in the shallows we saw lots of neat animals including cushion stars and a few types of urchins.
Later that afternoon we met up on the point and had another bonfire and paella, this time the fire was less bon and more petit so it took longer and we missed the crunchy bottom but everyone said it was still delicious, so fine. Can’t be too picky when cooking on a beach in the middle of the ocean!
One of Julie’s tasks while she was here was helping us with a training plan for on the boat. It was awesome to have her experiece help figure out things us tall people can do on board! She led multiple workouts and left us with a bunch of great new ideas of what to do either on the bow with all its angles and the cockpit with its small spaces. She had the three of us all working out at the same time at different stations from the cockpit aft! What a miracle. We were very amused with her talking to herself while figuring out what we were going to do. And only a little distracted with weather and turtles swimming nearby!
Julie got Griffin playing Backgammon, Baba (aka dad, Bob) would be so proud! A nice tournament evolved from there, pretty sure I won. Or maybe it was Julie?
We headed back to Rotoava, Fakarava before we needed to because the wind was supposed to pick up from the wrong direction (again). But the bonus was we could have some more adventures with Julie there too. We picked up the anchor super early and headed out the Toau pass again and headed south to Fakarava’s northern pass. The sunrise light was gorgeous.
Once anchored back there met up with Morning Stars and Flying Tiger again and spent a lovely afternoon at the pearl farm where they have a little restaurant and tables in the water. After a long afternoon we enjoyed an epic pizza evening on Flying Tiger. The next day we rented bikes and went all over but it was SO hot we went to eat lunch all sweaty at the Rotoava Grill in the shade. Burgers and poisson crux were eaten and enjoyed but it was still so hot we returned the bikes and went and snorkeled the big bommie in the anchorage. Of course then the clouds rolled in and it got windy and we got cold (I know) so we went back to the boat for evening shenanigans.
Julie’s last morning with us we went to the pearl farm again for their presentation where they talk and demonstrate how the pearls are grown. This time we had the guide who spoke English well which was nice, I learned a lot more. Greg and Julie got “lottery tickets” this time and the oyster Greg chose actually didn’t have an adequate pearl so Griffin chose another one and was successful. Julie’s first try had a beautiful pearl and while we waited for them to be drilled and put onto their necklaces we enjoyed another lunch at the grill there, this time splitting up into a woman’s table and a men’s table where there was wine and beer respectively. Good times were had by all! It was sad to break up the party but Julie had a ride to the airport and a plane to catch, sob.
What a gift to have such a great first visitor on our adventure! If you have a bestie from childhood you haven spoken to in a while here’s a reminder to give them a call. The Rocket Science crew was so melancholy that evening missing our friend. Julie brought such fun and helped us appreciate what we’re doing here even more than we were already.
Later that day we had a call scheduled with Greg’s cousin Nicole and her family- they want to come visit for Christmas! We’re all looking into details and so excited to have other guests scheduled to think about, it helps not miss Julie so much.
The day after Julie left we got up early to head down to the S end of the atoll again, about a 5 hour trip, to hide from a week of forecasted high winds. When we come back up to Rotoava again we’ll pick up our new batteries that are here waiting for us. Lots of little projects to do with all the parts that Julie brought, mostly delivered from the amazing Ned… thanks Ned! I want to give a big shoutout to my sister Carrie who received and helped pack up everything too, thanks Hons. Let the projects commence!
