Author: Scott
Our arrivals and departure seem to always contain an element of random. When we departed from Nuevo Vallarta we were coerced by our friends Kenneth and Sylvia to stay in Puerto Vallarta one more night for a delicious dinner and great company. Well it seems like we time our arrivals with the same degree of precision. We woke on the morning of June third with the excitement of landfall. After thirty days at sea we were going to walk on terra firma again, eat something that does not come from a can, and sleep a full night without a watch schedule! Our entire day was filled with chores preparing for our arrival. We cleaned the boat, created a crew list document for checking in, and we pulled out our paddles and accessories for the dinghy. I even had to climb the mast to the spreaders to untangle our flag halyard, so we could fly the French courtesy flag. But as the day progressed we became more fixated on the GPS and number of miles until we reach land.
You see at 0700 we had only 36 miles to go, plenty of time with the pace we had been keeping. At 1130 (when we post our daily position) we only had 17 miles left to go, no problemo! This must have been about the time that Neptune, Poseidon, and Nemo got together and decided to squelch the excitement of these landsick sailors. They had spent the past thirty days sharing all the beauty and tranquility the sea had to offer, and now we just wanted to get to land and eat cheeseburgers, well not so fast buster you need a little longer in the big blue to top off your ocean adventure! As we sat in the cockpit, eyes glued to the instruments we watched our speed and wind, continually drop, and with each decrease our arrival time grew later and later. Its funny how you hold on to the possibility of reaching land until the bitter end then you look at each other when the reality dawns on you that there is just no way you are going to get that cheeseburger today. For us that time came around 1300 and we still had 15 miles to go with a boat speed wallowing around one knot and the sun setting at a very early 1700. No walk on land, no uninterrupted night of sleep, and one more night of scrumptious boat food lay ahead of us! We were momentarily crushed with our elation deflated, and we both got a good case of the grouchies. Now we are only talking about arriving twelve hours later, but for us it felt like it would take weeks. We were so geared up with our first sighting of land, and now we were going to get to bob around and look at that land all the rest of the day and night.
It was about this time when despair was running rampant on Tournesol when we sighted our first boat in weeks coming up behind us at fierce pace. She was a beautiful 53’ racing cruiser. Pam got on the radio and hailed the boat off our starboard beam. It turns out their boat name was Medusa II and they were also headed to Nuku Hiva. They were motoring along and asked if we needed anything. We told them our engine situation. They were full of sympathies but did not offer us a tow. Not that we could have taken a tow since we were independently crossing an ocean as visually impaired people. How would that look, we sail 2,800 miles to be towed the last 10. They wished us luck and told us to have a good night. We watched in disgust as they rounded the corner of the island, somebody was going to get a cheeseburger today just not us! About this time, there was some serious whining heard aboard Tournesol.
Resigned to our situation we crept along unaware that we were about to experience the most incredible aspect of the entire journey. I was at the wheel since the wind vane was floundering in the light air and because we did not want to spare the power that our auto pilot would consume, when I heard the breathing noise that announces the presence of dolphins or whales. First there was one, and then two and then we were completely surrounded by dolphins. They were magnificent! The slapped their tails on the water, darted under the boat and played in our wake. They would race along in groups of two or three and roll over then dive down. We tried to count how many there were and lost count. There could easily have been 50 maybe even 100. They posed for pictures and squeaked back at us as we called to them. It was absolutely incredible, like having our own private marine amusement park to ourselves. Shamoo eat your heart out! There we were fretting about a few more hours on the water when we were enveloped in dolphins with Nuku Hiva silhouetted by the setting sun. I guess Neptue and friends really did want us to take a few more minutes to experience just how spectacular the ocean can be. If we had been able to move along faster and make our landfall we would have missed this awesome moment that I would not trade for a hundred cheeseburgers.
The dolphin show over, we did have to come up with a plan for the evening. Since we do not anchor after dark, we would have to spend the night off the coast of Nuku Hiva. We decided to sail to a position two miles outside of Taiohae Baie where we would heave to, and assess where the current would take us. This plan worked fine, once hove to we had a .5 knot drift angling away from the land. We reluctantly heated up and ate a couple of cans of soup and settled in for a long night of watches.
Around 0345 the following morning we were both down below transitioning the watch when Pam thought she heard voices outside. We rushed up on deck and there was a light off the stern. What could anyone want with us I thought to myself? Again they called over to us in French. Now what was I going to do, my French skills are nonexistent and my first attempt at communicating is in the middle of the night with a mysterious boat calling to us. I did my best saying hello, and that I don’t speech French, at least that’s what I think I said, I could have said that his mother looked like a 400 pound poodle for all I knew. I then pointed to the harbor and said “tomorrow morning” in English. I said “hello” again, since this was about the only word I was sure was correct in French, and he called back in English that it was okay. They did not motor off but just floated in the darkness, and we believe they began to fish. What an odd experience to have happen in the middle of a dark night, and even stranger to have it happen in a distant land in a foreign tongue.
We decided that with our drift and the sun coming up at 0500, we could start sailing back towards the anchorage and pull in just as the sun was climbing high in the sky. We battled flukey winds for the next four hours and had to tack a number of times to reach the correct angle to enter the bay, but around 10:00 we sailed into Taiohae Baie. The anchorage was breathtaking with steep cliffs covered in lush green. There is a town climbing up the step face of the hillsides. We saw two fires burning from the settlement and at least thirty sailboats lolling about in the crystal clear jade green water. We were here! We did it! We sailed 2,870 miles across the Pacific Ocean, and it felt great! We had successfully completed our first major accomplishment of the voyage with the longest ocean passage to date completed by legally blind people unassisted!
We dropped the hook at 1020 local time. For the first time in just over 31 days our sails were dowsed and we were no longer moving. There was lots to do in preparation of our dinghy ride to shore. We stowed, tidied and organized in the blazing sun. At first our outboard protested but then eventually started up, can you imagine if it had not started, I think we would have just abandoned ship and swam to shore. We sent our final position report for the crossing proclaiming our arrival, although most people probably thought we arrived the prior night. Finally, we tried to clean up our sweaty selves and make ourselves presentable for other human beings who have not been at sea for weeks.
When we reached the quay it turned out to be a cement dock with the distance to the water determined by the tide. We tied up and slithered over the cement ledge like a couple of salamanders. We were on land! My first impression was how abruptly everything stopped moving, and it was disorienting to say the least. There was a group of children playing and laughing and all speaking French. Now what? We had no real plan and we didn’t know if we knew any of the other cruisers, though we had heard a few friendly voices over the VHF. So, we set off to walk around the bay towards a hotel that was mentioned in the cruising guide. The entire waterfront is covered in grass with lush trees and tall palms. Many of the locals were spending their Saturday at the waterfront swimming and enjoying each others company. We came across what appeared to be a store and ventured in with white canes in hand. All I could think of is what the locals must be thinking when they saw us ragtag blind cruisers walk into the store. The store was darkly lit and had the same feel of many of the stores we encountered in Mexico. It felt more like we were shopping in someone’s garage. After looking around, pleased by many familiar items, I asked the cashier if we could use American currency and I managed to learn that she would take my dollars with an exchange rate of 85 Pacific Francs to one dollar. We bought two cold Oranginas and two icy Cokes. Heaven!!! We sat out front on the stoop drinking our nectars from the gods and watched the comings and goings of the locals. I tried to pet a stray dog and it jumped up and growled at me, so much for the local friendly pets. After our break we continued around the bay and while I was looking at the water Pam had boldly introduced herself to a very nice woman named Kiki. Kiki was here on a boat with her husband and they had sailed all the way from Connecticut aboard Endelig. We asked a million questions and learned a little about the area and what was available. She suggested we continue on to the hotel, and have a drink, and get acclimated. We climbed a hill and found ourselves at the beautiful Keikahanui Inn overlooking the bay. They have an outside patio bar and we were quickly brought ice cold drinks, and in a few mere seconds we were transformed from ratty and tired cruisers, to world travelers enjoying the sweet life. We sat on the lovely patio under a small canvas pagoda and sipped our drinks as we watched a squall empty its load progressively as it crossed the bay. With a monocular we could even see the rain as it advanced across the water. This was a sight that you dream of when you consider sailing a boat to a tropical paradise. As we watched we could see Tournesol get a much needed bath from the rainfall. We just kept saying to each other, can you believe we are actually here!
We were just talking about how we would have to figure out a way to find and meet the other cruisers when five English speaking people walked up to the patio for drinks. They asked us if we were Americans and we said we were. We asked if they were here on a boat and they said that indeed they were and their boat was named Medusa II. “We know you” I said, “we spoke on the radio yesterday when we were trying to get into Nuku Hiva”. It turns out they were the boat we watched motor around the island while we sluggled along with sails drooping and feeling sorry for ourselves. They joined us at our table and we quickly learned their group was made up of Ken the owner of the yacht and Sally and Don who had delivered the boat with Tom who is a good friend of Ken’s. There was also Dan who is from the Bay of Islands in New Zealand and will be traveling with Tom and Ken to New Zealand. We fell into a friendly chat and soon you would have thought we were good friend who hadn’t seen each other in a while, as so often happens when cruisers meet up. Drinks lasted until dinner was served at 1900, so we all decided to stay for a bite. I had the grilled Wahoo with buttery rice and fresh vegetables, and I was in bliss. Pam had the filet mignon which was also very tasty. We both chickened out on the local goat stew, but got to taste Sally’s and we will probably order it next time. We shared many a yarn and we learned that Tom and Ken would be sailing a similar route as us to New Zealand, and that Sally and Don had delivered boats for many years, and that Don has over 200,000 miles of sailing under his belt. Before we knew it was after 2100 and we had a long walk ahead of all of us back to the quay. As we walked home we were treated to a tropical shower (island speak for we got soaked). When we reached the quay the tide had dropped and our dinghy lay out of reach far below us. Dan helped us maneuver our dinghy to the boat ramp so we could board and after we all said our goodbyes Pam and I headed off in the darkness to find Tournesol. Once back on the boat I fell off into immediate sleep, content with the satisfaction of achieving our goal. What will tomorrow bring?
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