Journal Entry June 22 - 24, 2005 - Tahiti At Last!

Author: Scott

The evening of the 22nd turned out to be a small celebration of our eminent arrival in Papeete. First we were treated to a lovely bug shower before dinner. It always feels so nice to get the salt off your skin and to enjoy that squeaky clean feeling that comes from precious fresh water. Even though we had just made pasta with clams, we decided to repeat one of our favorite meals. The pasta was delicious and we even opened our last bottle of red wine that was tucked away under the nav seat. Dinner was eaten out of our big white non-skid bowls in the cockpit, with us each polishing off at least a pound of pasta covered in parmesan. The warm evening had a strangely calm feeling in the wind and as we finished up our celebratory meal the wind lulled to a whisper and the sails started to slat. Surely this was just a momentary lapse while the giant wind forces sighed and rested for a minute. We washed up and prepared for our watches and yet the wind never returned at any substantial force.

The winds grew to be so light and unpredictable we had to use the electric auto pilot to navigate while I slept. Normally we don’t have to fret about using the auto pilot, as it uses a very economic level of power, but now every amp counts. During my watch I hand steered Tournesol as we plodded along under full main and 80% jib. Our watches continued like this all night, with us making less than three knots an hour towards Tahiti.

The morning brought with it the beautiful island of Tahiti clearly in sight, but also came doubt of reaching Papeete before nightfall, we held our hopes high nonetheless. We spent the entire day taking turns hand steering and reading Pat Henry aloud. It began to feel exactly the same as it had when we were approaching Nuku Hiva. We were going to get close, but it soon became clear we would not arrive in Papeete today, so much for our dinner celebration the night before, but the pasta was yummy. As the sun started to set we mused about getting another dolphin visitation to consol us for languishing at sea just off of our destination. The dolphins never came but we were rewarded with the most spectacular sunset since the sky turned red off of Los Muertos. The sky turned a beautiful golden hue with dark clouds strung across the skyline and then the sky burst with reds and purples. We must have taken forty pictures of the beautiful sunset. When we finally complete this journey we are going to have millions of sunset photos.

We enjoyed the sunset but decided to skip dinner since nothing was going to come close to satisfying us as our pasta had the night before. As night approached we had only 21 miles to Papeete, normally a distance easily reached in a single night’s sail, but we had no expectations that could be jinxed, we were resigned to whatever the wind would offer up

Again we hand steered not wanting to sacrifice any progress with the wind vane and not using the power hungry auto pilot at all. Because we were hand steering our watches were two hours on and two off. When I came on for my second watch at midnight the wind suddenly kicked in with gusto. The moon with huge in the sky and the stars were out, I put on my headphones and the boat shot ahead. Unfortunately the wind was off our bow and we were going to have to tack our way into Papeete, but at least we were sailing again. The sails were illuminated from the moon and the wind was building to a steady twenty knots with water ripping along the hull and I was dancing in the cockpit listening to Billy Joel’s greatest hits blaring in my headphones while I enjoyed some of the best sailing of the entire voyage. When Pam’s watch came up I reluctantly gave her the wheel, a far cry from many other watches where desperate longing for sleep was the only thought on my mind. Pam continued the fun and hand steered to the headphones. We would tack at an angle taking us away from the island and out to sea, just to tack back with the island directly ahead with lights glistening on the black hills. It is unnerving to feel the water screaming by with land directly ahead staring down at you. Even with the GPS telling you that you have miles to spare it is a very spooky feeling. On Pam’s final watch she had me come up and assist her in changing course so she would not have to face the looming black hillside approach. As we sailed through the night we had a new sensation to contend with, huge jetliners were flying overhead and landing and departing Tahiti’s Faaa airport. On Pam’s watch a plane flew lower and closer to her than ever before. We were experiencing a little sensory overload as we had hardly heard a plane in the last month and a half and now we had them sounding as though they were about to land on top of Tournesol.

As the sun rose Tahiti was spread before us with sheer mountain peaks of brown and purple, steep and craggy. The mountains towered high and then plunged straight into the blue water. The island was absolutely beautiful. As we came even closer the landscape revealed lush green on hillsides and in the valleys. To our starboard was a flat section of the island and the Papeete harbor. Also to starboard was the wind and so we had to continually tack our way closer to the harbor entrance, gaining very gradual progress. It is funny how we can survive the monotony of a 31 day crossing but the last hours of a passage can drive us up the wall with anticipation. We read more Pat Henry while each minute crawled by. Finally we were a few miles from the harbor entrance ad we started to get the boat ready for our arrival. The entrance would bring us through a passage in the barrier reef and then into a busy foreign harbor. It amazes me every time we arrive to a destination that we will be looking for a spot on the earth we have never seen, with only a GPS and charts to assure us of the location of the bay or harbor. We were now less than two miles out and we could still see no sign of the entrance. This is normal for us but the tension always mounts. At one mile out we would start Tournesol’s sickly engine and dowse our sails, then bring the boat through the reef and hopefully to the quay. Once at the quay we would have to try our hand for the first time outside of sailing class at docking stern to or Med mooring the boat. Med mooring is a different strategy for docking boats where the boat is tied to a wharf from the stern and uses a bow anchor to stabilize the front of the boat. This tricky maneuver requires the crew to drop the hook and then back the boat up to the wharf. Tournesol does not like to back up, and she would be like a blind hippopotamus trying to back up and sit on a thimble, yikes! We reached the one mile point and I went below to start the engine. Now, we have existed for 43 days without any battery charging system to supply power other than our solar panels. When I turned the key the starter gave a great whine and shuttered but was just a hair to weak to turn over the engine. Each attempt to start the boat only weakened the batteries more and it became chillingly clear we were not going to have an engine to bring us at last into the harbor. We had the harbor entrance a mile away with only our sails to bring us through a reef in an unknown harbor. We considered our options and decided a tow was the only safe choice. I got on the radio and called the harbor master on VHF and quickly got a reply with a strong French accent. We explained we were visually impaired, on a boat with a disabled engine and would require a tow. You might think this would ruffle the feathers of most people, but the voice on the radio didn’t miss a beat and told us to come closer to the entrance and then standby for a tug. Neither Pam nor I wanted to get closer to a boat crunching coral reef but we followed instructions and carefully sailed closer, ready to tack away at any time. Sure enough as we approached the entrance we could finally see, a small tug came roaring up to us. There is nothing more disconcerting than having any boat bigger than yours come rushing up to you, but the crew of the Tahitian tug were real pros. They knew we could not see well and it became clear that language was going to be a barrier, but we managed to exchange lines, and get securely tied using very exaggerated hand signals. They then pulled us humbly into the Papeete harbor. When we reached the quay they side tied us to them without inflicting a single scratch on Tournesol and brought us near the quay. They instructed us to drop our anchor and they then backed us to the dock so we could tie off our stern lines. We reached Tahiti at 1330 local time. Our first Med mooring was not quite authentic, but we were tied off and could finally rest, get our engine sorted out, and experience all that the bustling city of Papeete had to offer. We were going to have to put on our brakes for a spell however, because the harbor master instructed us to stay on our boat and an official would be by to check us in, so we waited and then waited some more. While we cooled our jets we got the boat shipshape in the tropical heat and watched people meander by, with some pointing at our American flag or speaking in French with the occasional “San Francisco’ slipping out. It was a little like being at the zoo, but this time we were the lions in the cage. A German boat approached the quay to our port and though I was officially supposed to stay on the boat, I jumped on the quay to assist them with parking their 50 plus something beautiful blue hulled boat. At first their approach looked good, but they hesitated with their lines and success dwindled as they started to drift with a cross wind into innocent and tired little Tournesol. The husband was screaming in German at his wife, Pam was on the boat fending off the blue behemoth, and me and a growing group of sailors were trying to pull the brute off of Tournesol. Eventually they gave up and pulled away for a second attempt. In the end it took three attempts but our neighbor was finally tied to the quay, and Pam and I considered ourselves a little lucky for cheating on our arrival. We finally radioed the harbor master and they had apparently forgotten about us and it was now 1600. We were told we could check in later and we were finally given permission to leave the boat.

As we crawled onto the quay over our wind vane we were greeted by a couple from the boat Novia. Novia had been out in the Pacific with us during our crossing and we heard them almost daily on the Amego Net. We learned they were Ann and James and they told us we had come up and passed them on the crossing and they were shocked to learn we were also a 32’ boat and that they had envisioned us as a sleek 40’ something boat, and their egos were a little bruised. We confessed that we thought they were a big boat and that we were glad there were other little guys out crossing the Pacific with us. We agreed we should hook up later and Pam and I headed off to explore. Our first cultural shock occurred when we approached a crosswalk to cross the major highway running along the coastline and cars voluntarily and obediently stopped for us. If we were New Yorkers we would have instantly dropped dead from amazed shock. Apparently pedestrians have the right of way in Tahiti and it is effortless to cross busy intersections with no stop lights, a blind person’s paradise. I wanted to walk back across the street just to make the cars stop again, he-he. We wondered along the waterfront and explored, coming across a taxi stand. We decided that we would try to find Dragon Dor a Chinese food restraint that had been recommended to us in Nuku Hiva by our friend Antoni. The cab driver admitted the restaurant was walking distance and pointed us in the general direction. After a few more sets of directions we were seated in a dim and most importantly air-conditioned restaurant with yummy smells wafting from the kitchen. We ordered a ton of food with gusto. Then culture shock number two hit with all of the food arriving to the table at the same time in less than five minutes. Egg rolls, soup, and entries sat there smelling delicious competing for our attention. We ate until not a single grain of rice remained.

We waddled back towards the boat and then we ran into Novia again. This time we stood on the quay and gabbed for at least a half hour. They told us of the local geography and important things like where to check in, where the store was, and most importantly that there was a Mc Donald’s only a block away! Somehow the conversation turned to the crossing and food and they boldly admitted their love for canned corned beef, gross. After I recovered from my repulsion we offered to bequeath some of our corned beef to them and they actually offered to repay us with other food, hallelujah, McDonalds and no more corned beef. We also leaned they had had engine trouble and they were towed in by the same tug, we wee starting a regular 32’ engine failure club. We eventually said goodnight and climbed aboard Tournesol for a well deserved sleep. When sleep came it was the deep sleep of nothingness for this tired dog.