On the ‘Road’ Again, Thursday, 09.27.2007

The Schooner Maggie B is finally on the move again. We left Bora Bora on Tuesday, September 25th and had a lovely sail across to Taha’a, as the wind had come a little South. We moored at the Taravana Yacht Club at 16° 40.9S, 151° 29.1W. All positions in this part of French Polynesia are approximate as the charts and GPS disagree by about 2/10ths of a mile. I’m sure that the French think that it is just another proof that the Americans are being mean to them. In any case, no prudent Captain would trust his GPS to take him closer than 2/10ths of a mile in French Polynesia (or perhaps anywhere else) until setting local error rates.

Tuesday night at the Taravana Yacht Club is buffet and dance night. The YC is ably run by Maui Postma, the son of our friend Richard. The buffet was delicious and included many of my favorites: chicken fafa, poisson cru with coconut milk and plates of sashimi. All much improved by a rum punch that had had the afternoon to “steep.” The dance was very good for a little, quiet island, with a great firedancer to finish it off. As always, one fascinating element was how many locals showed to watch from the shadows. While the show was officially for the tourists at the Yacht Club (we were perhaps 30), the real audience was the aunties and uncles and kids and boyfriends and girlfriends, who way outnumbered us.

We then motored on Wednesday, September 26th to Uturoa, the second biggest town in French Polynesia. Three story buildings! We fueled up and shopped the stores for provisions for the long leg to Chile. The town was quite different from Vaitape in Bora Bora. Vaitape is almost all about tourists and selling them pearls, or at least a t-shirt. Uturoa is the regional market town. Stores sell crates of things, not individual items. The ferry’s are loaded with food and packages almost more than people. There are even a few chic cafes, where overseas French pass a few hours over lunch, with cigarettes hanging from their lower lips.

Filling up on diesel was a revelation. The last time we did was in Papeete at Marina Taina. In Papeete, our port tank was empty and the starboard down perhaps 10 gallons. The starboard filled fine. The port was a problem. Full is about 120 gallons or 450 liters. At Marina Taina the guy running the pumps was a bit of a jerk, harassing us and fiddling with the pump. We put in 225 in the port tank before it burped and overflowed. Consternation. I dismantled the vent, blew everything out, double checked top to bottom. It wouldn’t take another ounce. Getting ready for this refueling, I roughly estimated that we had used 350 liters from the left tank. Hmmmm. How could we use 350 liters when we only put in 225 into an empty tank? In Uturoa, we filled it with 330 liters without any problem. The answer to our puzzle is that the jerk in Marina Taina must have inadvertently given us an extra 200 liters or so when he was fiddling with the pump. No problem!

At the dock in Uturao, one of those marvelous random events happened. Theresa had thrown overboard a bottle with a message when we were returning from Moorea to Papeete, a month or so ago. She mentioned the Maggie B, and that she was leaving us for another boat. The bottle was picked on the beach at the South end of Raietea a few days ago. Some of the information was a bit unclear and interest was ignited. There was a brief bit about it on local TV. A reporter for “La Depeche” got interested and found our website and saw that we were nearby and wandered down to the dock. I was relaxing in the cockpit having a medicinal (sore throat) afternoon Hinano beer, waiting for Hannah and Kath to return from t-shirt shopping. And so there should soon be another article about the Maggie B and our mysterious bottle in La Depeche, the voice of French Polynesia.

Wednesday night we spent at , just near the Pass Teavamoa. It was lovely with the hills and valleys West of us and the rollers pounding the coral reef just to the East. But a tough anchorage. The bottom went from about 130 feet to four feet in about 50 yards. We nosed in and dropped the anchor on the edge of the “hill” and hoped that the wind wouldn’t change. Fortunately it didn’t.

The Marae Taputapuatea

Today, Thursday, we went to one of the most fabulous spots in French Polynesia, the Marae Taputapuatea. This is the Vatican, the Jerusalem, of Polynesian culture. All other maraes had to have a stone from Taputapuatea to be consecrated. Voyages of exploration and conquer departed from here and went out the pass Teavamoa, the holy pass. New Zealand is 2216 NM, Hawaii is 2381, and the canoes came from here. The site is well restored, very impressive and used regularly. The delegations that came to Maupiti to invest the new king — from Hawaii, Tonga, the Cooks, Easter Island and New Zealand, came here afterwards for other ceremonies, including fire walking.

We are reminded of the international cultural connections tonight, as I write this, because 200 meters away is a dinner between a visiting Maori group and their Raietean hosts. The music, dancing and drums, over the last three hours, makes the Maggie B shake. We were met by a new friend, Charlie Gomph, who sailed out here 35 years ago from Hawaii with our friend Richard Postma. He has a lovely Raietean wife and lives in the hills above Taputapuatea, growing vanilla, Nonis, coconuts, bananas, breadfruit, avocados, papaya, taro, and much, much more. He recently got electricity and a telephone, which he considers a bit decadent. He is passionate about his island and helping it to a clean, green, non-tourist over-run future. We had a lovely, fascinating day with him covering history, ecology, gardening, politics and the future. He loaded us down with so much fruit and vegetables that we had to beg him to stop. We are baffled what to get him to thank him as he has everything, though not very much by most standards. He asked for some tubes of Neosporin, which isn’t available here. Charlie uses it regularly as he is also the “bush doctor” for his valley. Our new crew member, Robert Farrar will hopefully be able to bring some out to Rangiroa, which we can mail back to Charlie.

So tomorrow we plan to go back by Uturoa to get a few more things that we forgot. Then on back to Taravana Yacht Club for the night. We are hoping that the next system with a nice SE’erly comes through Saturday. Rangiroa is about 260 NM to the NE from here, so anything south of east would be a blessing.

In Rangiroa, at Hotel Kia Ora (see the web site, or read the great book “Fragile Edge”), on October 3rd, we should rendezvous with Robert Farrar, who will be our fourth crew member. Robert is a very experienced sailor from Atlanta, which we will try not to hold against him as he can more or less speak standard American (if there is such a thing). He will join me, Hannah Jordrey and Kath Moore. Kath is 24 and from Australia. We met her when she was the Mate on the Windward Bound, a 88 foot brigantine, based in Hobart. Kath joined in Bora Bora. Full resumes will follow soon for the crew page.

All is well.