Author: Scott
We recently heard a story about some veteran cruisers who were at anchor in Tonga. They had been contacted by a prominent sailing magazine and invited to take part in a photographic feature. The cruisers agreed with zeal and made plans for a Saturday afternoon photo shoot. When the photo journalists arrived, covered in the latest gear, the cruisers were asked to do whatever they would normally do on a relaxing Saturday afternoon. However, we don’t want any shots of laundry hanging on the lifelines, no photos of boat maintenance. How about grilling some scrumptious fish fillets?” The yachties were planning on eating spaghetti because they had no refrigerator at the time. “Well maybe you could just go for a sail today.” The couple looked around at everything strewn around the boat that has a place but wasn’t in it, and they knew sailing today was would be a challenge. There was also the fact the engine was partially disassembled due to the latest engine project, so sailing was for sure out of the question.
“Well let me get this straight”, said the journalist. You don’t have anything to do other than laundry and work on your boat. You can’t take a day off for a sail because you have a broken engine, and you are stuck on your boat with only spaghetti to eat. We can’t possibly shoot any of this; we need to get photos of the sailing life.
The couple looked at each other and smiled. “Well we were happy to provide you with material to share about real life abroad a sailboat, we’re sorry we can’t help you out.
This story is very apropos for our weekend in Papeete. When we email or talk to friends and family at home, we are often chided with sweetly sarcastic comments about our luxurious life on the white sand beaches, with nothing more to consider than whether we should have a maitai or a pina colada next. Now, I don’t mean to whine because we are having an adventure of a lifetime, but so often this escapade finds us with a hand down the head, or our bodies hanging over the engine. The cruising life is certainly a rugged life where a day can be completely filled with laundry by hand. Grocery shopping can be a trip to three different locations, hoping to find a single ingredient at each stop. And then there is the language barrier, we have become epic charades players.
This weekend was spent as modern day Gilligan’s Island refugees still stranded without an engine. We had lots of work to do including most of our laundry; at least we had abundant fresh water. Our one new food experiment for this journal entry was a chow mein sandwich which we had for lunch at the market on Friday. It tasted like you might image, greasy chow mein competing for taste bud attention from the not so fresh baguette bread. There were baguettes with all sorts of things on them like fish and chips or chicken and French fries with catsup.. Now French fries on a sandwich roll is certainly a cultural shift for us. I think you can find just about anything served on a baguette in the French Polynesia.
We also decided to investigate the option of fixing the engine with an external high quality water pump, and found exactly the right thing at a shop in the industrial area. However, we also spoke to Terry our mechanic friend in the states and he felt it was an unnecessary use of money and that we should be able to get the engine repaired correctly since we have the parts on the way. Just when you have a plan, you get conflicting information that makes you rethink it. So, we are back to finding a way for Terry to fly out to fix the engine, and the engine saga continues…
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