Milestones II

On Oct 13th, 2014 Published By B.J.

Two Years and 10,000 Miles

We’ve recently passed a couple of major milestones in our trip, which of course we largely forget to commemorate ourselves so we didn’t make a big social media production out to them either.

Two Years

It was July 22, 2012 at 4:30 in the afternoon that we cast off our lines from Brewer’s Marina in Warwick, RI and left our home waters permanently.  Sure, we only sailed about eight miles down the bay that night but that was it, we were on the move, on the hook and on our way.  While we’ve been back to Rhode Island twice since that date – once while sailing back from Maine to the Chesapeake and once by airplane from Panama last holiday season, that date was significant because it meant we were done with all our preparation and were ready to begin the adventure.

The last two years have gone by quickly, in some ways it seems like just yesterday we were throwing off the lines.  But then, returning to the U.S. a few months ago our old home didn’t feel like “Home” either.  Coming home was returning to Evenstar, no matter where she was.

10,000 Miles

I’ve talked before about how cruisers measure and count miles.  What REALLY counts for experience when it comes to miles sailed?  Does sailing back and forth from East Greenwich to Block Island (about 70 miles) for or five times a year for 6+ years really equal the experience of one 1,500 mile trip that takes you eight and a half days?  Tough to say; we never saw more than 30 knots of breeze sailing to the Caribbean; the most wind I’ve been in still to date was a 60+ knot squall that caught us in whiteout conditions on the way to Block Island.

So yeah, I can add up thousands of miles of travel before we Left On The Big Trip.  Enough sea time to qualify for a USCG Masters license, yada, yada, yada.  So what, that was then…this is now.  THIS trip, with THIS family and THIS boat we passed the odometer through 10,000 miles of travel right before we arrived in the Tuamotu Archipelago in French Polynesia.  A lot of that is “long miles” – multi day passages with overnights, which is something a lot of people don’t do if you don’t live on board and take these sorts of trips.  A lot of it is also short hops – a handful of miles from one anchorage to another, a thirty or forty mile day sail between islands, or even backtracking to return to someplace cool another time.

We reset the odometer to Zero on July 22, 2012.  As the crow flows we’ve come almost 5,400 miles from our house in Warwick.  With 10,000 miles of sailing, it’s not exactly been a straight and direct path.  There’s been a lot of diversions, a lot of exploring.  But that is kind of the point.

So What’s Next?

So where to from here?  How long do we keep on going?

The answers are still the same – we’ll go as long and as far as we can.  Sadly we’ve only got Will with us another year before we have to give him up to go to college.  It seemed so far away when we left.

In the meantime we’ve got a Visa to be in French Polynesia through November.  November is also when you want to clear out of here for the cyclone season; we plan to be in New Zealand before that rolls around.  That is another 2,000 to 3,000 miles of sailing depending on what route we take.  It will take us to the Society Islands and Tahiti, from there the questions is how to make the trip to New Zealand…directly, or through stops at more exotic locales like Niue, Tonga or others.  this is still all To Be Determined.

In August we left the Tuamotus and sailed for Tahiti, where we had a big box of boat parts heading for us.  We spent some time making repairs and getting re-organized and re-stocked and ready for some friends to visit.  We had a lovely visit with them that took us down to Bora Bora and the other end of the Society Islands.  When they left we took the next weather window back to Tahiti so Will could take the SAT.

After that we start working our way to New Zealand.  With the SAT behind us, we are starting to get ready for more heading West.  In the next two weeks we will be prepping the boat and looking for our weather window, then setting sail for New Zealand for the cyclone season.

Apologies Are In Order

I would like to take a moment to apologies to all my readers for my absolutely abysmal blogging track record since July.  We’ve seen and done awesome stuff since we arrived in French Polynesia and I’ve been sharing next to none of it except for some pictures and cryptic comments on Facebook.  There have been some excuses, such as the power supply in my computer dying on me.  That means I’ve needed to get the backup laptop setup and running with all my tools on it, and there are still some pictures from places like Nuka Hiva and Makemo trapped on the hard drive until I get it working.  That’s a big factor in it.

A lot of our time here is totally “Off the Grid” too, with no Internet access.  That is much less of an excuse, as we DO go places with internet.  Even though it is expensive we have it up for the kids to do school enough time for me to get my act together.  It’s easy to get out of the blogging habit – even this post has been “in the can” for almost three months…I just forgot to finish it!

And I promise I will catch up, but I’m going to have to either skip some places and come back to them or post them without pictures.  I’d rather wait for the pictures, but that could be my inner lazy talking.

Posted in French Polynesia, Housekeeping, Milestones | 1 Comment

An Intro to the Tuamotus

On Jul 30th, 2014 Published By B.J.

For the last month we’ve been on one of those places that most people haven’t heard of, never mind find on a map.

The Tuamotus…the Dangerous Archipelago as they were known for years.

On one hand they are everyone’s dream Pacific Island Fantasy – remote atolls with crystal clear water, palm trees, blue lagoons, fresh breezes and few people.  On the other hand they can be every navigator’s nightmare – low lying hard to see islands, sunken shallow coral heads, treacherous currents and charts dating back to Captain Cooke.

Fortunately for us, a lot of new technology has made the place more accessible.  While cruisers have been sailing here for many years, developments over the last few decades have made it considerably easier and safer.  GPS technology has increased the certainty in navigation.  It hasn’t made the charts any better, but you can know your position on them without needing to see the sun or sky for a celestial navigation fix.  New digital and high definition radars are a LOT better at picking out low-lying islands.  More readily available tidal information and better weather forecasting give a better chance of avoiding dangerous conditions and catching better tides and currents.

If you can find them on a map, you will see that the Tuamotus are a 900 mile long archipelago consisting of about 80 coral atolls.  An atoll is a ring shaped island with a lagoon.  In the Tuamotus the largest of these is over thirty miles long; that is a pretty big lagoon.  The upwind sides of the coral ring tend to be larger islands with trees, the downwind sides tend to be more bare, exposed and in some case are little more than barely awash coral reefs.

So is it safe?  Yes.  Is it without danger?  No, you have to change the way you sail, navigate and make choices.

Since we’ve been here for a month a few of my upcoming posts are going to be about this area, so I thought I’d offer some background and context before I start gushing about the fish, sharks and palm trees.

The Risks

There are several specific risks in the Tuamotus and the prudent skipper will take steps to mitigate all of them.  Specifically they are:

  • Low lying islands.  The Tuamotus are coral reef atolls on top of extinct underwater volcanoes.  They do not project very high above the water, palm trees are the only things you can see and visibility on the horizon is maybe eight or nine miles, often times less.  This is a pretty short horizon for making landfall.
  • Poor chart data.  Much of this part of the world has not been surveyed in detail.  Much of it has not been surveyed at all with modern hydrographic techniques.  What does this mean?  For us there are parts of the chart which basically say “no data”.  You have to be careful and keep a close watch.  It also means a patch of “open” water still may have things under the surface to watch out for.
  • Coral heads.  Inside the atoll lagoons the water is generally pretty deep, but a surprising number of coral heads (or small coral almost-islands) come rising up from 60-100 feet of water to just below the surface.  You do not want to hit these with the boat so you need to be able to see them.  Fortunately the water is crystal clear.
  • Currents, Part I.  The big current concern is the entrances to the atolls.  Imagine a swimming pool 30 miles long, ten miles wide and 80 feet deep.  Then drain it two or three feet in six hours.  Through a large hose.  Many of the atolls have only one or two larger open passages to the sea, and depending on tides and winds the currents can tear through these openings.  Sometimes currents can be as high as eight or nine knots with standing waves; Evenstar can not move that fast under power and only faster than that in certain wind conditions and you do not want to sail through these.  You also do not want to go through one of these cuts at the wrong time.
  • Currents, Part II.  The ocean currents between the atolls can fool you.  If you aren’t carefully they can sweep you along past your target or into an area that you don’t want to go to.  This is less of a concern with GPS navigation, but it does mean you need to keep a sharper eye on it.
  • Visibility – channel cuts, reefs and coral heads mostly.  The entrance channels aren’t extremely wide and can be deceptive.  In general, moving around close to or in an atoll with poor visibility can get you in trouble.
  • Anchoring can be tricky, as there are many coral heads and the sand on the bottom is sometimes not much more than a thin layer.

Mitigation

What does this all mean?  That you skip the Tuamotus for safer waters?  Sure, it does for some.  But what it means for us is that we just have to take a lot more care.  There are a few rules to live by when navigating here, and those that stick with them don’t have too many problems.

  • Don’t try to enter or leave an atoll entrance in the dark.
  • Don’t move inside an atoll in times of reduced visibility.  Preferably do your lagoon passages between 10:00 and 2:00 when the sun is high, on clear days.  You can vary this by an hour on either end, depending on your direction travel and cloud cover.
  • Mind the currents and tides, do your best to guesstimate when you can move through the channels easily.
  • Pay extra close attention to your position.
  • Give any suspected atoll a wide berth in the dark, there is plenty of deep water between them.
  • Do not approach atolls in the dark, if you have to sail over night slow down and make sure you arrive at the island in the morning.

The whole way of sailing between islands changes radically as compared to island hopping someplace simple such as the Caribbean. Caribbean sailing is quite easy in comparison…you get up in the morning, pull your anchor and go; your only real concern is making sure you time it so you don’t pull in a strange after dark.  That is common sense no matter where you are sailing.

Here, we try to plan our trips to leave and arrive in daylight, if possible sailing during the day.  If night trips are unavoidable (sometimes the distances demand this) then make sure you sail slow enough to make your arrival with plenty of light if you need to. Catching the favorable current in the pass AND hitting it in daylight is really the challenge – keep in mind you have to get out of the atoll you are leaving on the right tide too!

When we move in an atoll we put a watcher on the bow with a radio to keep an eye out for coral heads.  So far we’ve sailed through them easily enough, but our first attempt to sail across Makemo we aborted because it clouded up and started raining.  We just turned around and traced our route back, it wasn’t worth the risk.

It works, and a fair number of cruisers are here and doing it safely.  But not so many as to spoil it!

The Rewards

The rewards are simple – access to some of the best cruising grounds in the world.

It is stunningly beautiful here.  The skies are clear, the land is covered with palm trees.  The water is crystalline – you can see the anchor drop in fifty feet of water and we’ve been in water with hundred foot visibilty.  The aquatic life is without compare, the “poor” snorkeling areas are better than the best that some other places have to offer.  There is one dive operator on Fakarava that offers a free dive if you do not see a shark; I think their risk is about zero (these aren’t big, dangerous sharks).

The people here are friendly and welcoming.  On Makemo everyone gives you a cheery “bonjour”, even people driving by you in one of the infrequent cars.   We happened to be in the area during the Heiva I Tahiti, a month-long festival of dance and Polynesian cultural celebration.  That was something special, but don’t worry, I’ve got pictures!  That is for a later post.

We could easily spend our entire six month visa exploring these islands if we had more things in the freezer and under the floorboards.  The only downside we see here is very limited access to fresh fruits and vegetables, and because everything is shipped here everything else is pretty expensive.  The larger towns (and on an island 30 miles long with 800 people on it “town” is a relative term) there is generally a boulangerie (French baker) with good, cheap baguettes and a couple of small stores where you can get basics.

Unfortunately some of my photos are being held captive on my PC by a bad power supply.  But in the interim I’ll leave you with some of the beauty we’ve seen under the water here.

Posted in Fakarava, French Polynesia, Makemo, Tuamotus | Comments Off on An Intro to the Tuamotus

Milestones III

On Jul 27th, 2014 Published By B.J.

Two Years and 10,000 Miles

We’ve recently passed a couple of major milestones in our trip, which of course we largely forget to commemorate ourselves so we didn’t make a big social media production out to them either.

Two Years

It was July 22, 2012 at 4:30 in the afternoon that we cast off our lines from Brewer’s Marina in Warwick, RI and left our home waters permanently.  Sure, we only sailed about eight miles down the bay that night but that was it, we were on the move, on the hook and on our way.  While we’ve been back to Rhode Island twice since that date – once while sailing back from Maine to the Chesapeake and once by airplane from Panama last holiday season, that date was significant because it meant we were done with all our preparation and were ready to begin the adventure.

The last two years have gone by quickly, in some ways it seems like just yesterday we were throwing off the lines.  But then, returning to the U.S. a few months ago our old home didn’t feel like “Home” either.  Coming home was returning to Evenstar, no matter where she was.

10,000 Miles

I’ve talked before about how cruisers measure and count miles.  What REALLY counts for experience when it comes to miles sailed?  Does sailing back and forth from East Greenwich to Block Island (about 70 miles) for or five times a year for 6+ years really equal the experience of one 1,500 mile trip that takes you eight and a half days?  Tough to say; we never saw more than 30 knots of breeze sailing to the Caribbean; the most wind I’ve been in still to date was a 60+ knot squall that caught us in whiteout conditions on the way to Block Island.

So yeah, I can add up thousands of miles of travel before we Left On The Big Trip.  Enough sea time to qualify for a USCG Masters license, yada, yada, yada.  So what, that was then…this is now.  THIS trip, with THIS family and THIS boat we passed the odometer through 10,000 miles of travel right before we arrived here in the Tuamotu Archipelago in French Polynesia.  A lot of that is “long miles” – multi day passages with overnight sailing which is something a lot of people don’t do if you don’t live on board and travel far from home.  A lot of it is also short hops – a handful of miles from one anchorage to another, a thirty or forty mile day sail between islands, or even backtracking to return to someplace cool another time.

We reset the odometer to Zero on July 22, 2012.  As the crow flows we’ve come almost 5,400 miles from our house in Warwick.  With 10,000 miles of sailing, it’s not exactly been a straight and direct path.  There’s been a lot of diversions, a lot of exploring.  But that is kind of the point.

So What’s Next?

So where to from here?  How long do we keep on going?

The answers are still the same – we’ll go as long and as far as we can.  Sadly we’ve only got Will with us another year before we have to give him up to go to college.  It seemed so far away when we left.

In the meantime we’ve got a Visa to be in French Polynesia through November.  November is also when you want to clear out of here for the cyclone season; we plan to be in New Zealand before that rolls around.  That is another 2,000 to 3,000 miles of sailing depending on what route we take.  It will take us to the Society Islands and Tahiti, from there the questions is how to make the trip to New Zealand…directly, or through stops at more exotic locales like Niue, Tonga or others.  this is still all To Be Determined.

In the short term we’ll spend a couple more weeks in the Tuamotu Atoll.  We’ll probably be driven out of here by the need for provisions and supplies before we tire of the place.  It is absolutely delightful – clear water, friendly people, bewitching scenery and snorkeling to die for.  It is expensive though, and fresh fruits and vegetables are tough to come by and dear when the ship does come in.

We expect to make Tahiti by mid August, when a large box with our autopilot parts and other needed things from the U.S. will arrive.  We have a lot of “boat love” to catch up on before our friends Maggie and Charlie (remember them from the Canal?) come to join us in September.  We’ll cruise around the Societies and be back in Tahiti for Will to take the SAT on October 8th.  After that we start working our way to New Zealand…

Apologies Are In Order

I would like to take a moment to apologies to all my readers for my absolutely abysmal blogging track record in July.  We’ve seen and done awesome stuff since we arrived in French Polynesia and I’ve shared next to none of it except for some pictures and cryptic comments on Facebook.  There have been some excuses, such as the power supply in my computer dying on me.  That means I’ve needed to get the backup laptop setup and running with all my tools on it, and there are still some pictures from places like Nuka Hiva and Makemo trapped on the hard drive until I get it working.  That’s a big factor in it.  A lot of our time here is totally “Off the Grid” too, with no Internet access.  That is much less of an excuse, as we DO go places with internet.  Even though it is expensive we have it up for the kids to do school enough time for me to get my act together.

And I promise I will, but I’m going to have to either skip some places and come back to them or post them without pictures.  I’d rather wait for the pictures, but that could be my inner lazy talking.

Posted in French Polynesia, Milestones | Comments Off on Milestones III

Nuka Hiva R & R. And a fair amount of S.

On Jul 1st, 2014 Published By B.J.

At the end, we spent a few weeks on Nuka Hiva.  In truth, we didn’t DO a lot but it was a lovely stay.  There will be one more Nuka Hiva post – but I warn you up front this is about the mundane bits of our first few weeks of life in French Polynesia.  Be happy this covers only one post; I gotta fill three weeks here!

“S” is for School

One of the complications we’ve had since going cruising is school, in particular school for Will.  In order to take some needed courses we had to sign up for “on line” versions of them.  We were assured that even with our sporadic internet access there were ways to manage these courses, and in fact there was another cruising teen taking these sorts of courses.  The practical reality we found though was that this was not the case, without a decent internet connection one simply can not do these courses.

Of course in most places you can get internet if you go into a café or pub, but these are not conducive places to do things like study AP Physics or Trigonometry.  Especially when parental involvement is needed – we need the quiet of the boat away from the bustle if at all possible which means someplace with a decent and reliable WiFi signal.  Work can sometimes be done on shore in desperation but it is far from optimal.

We loved the Galápagos, but boat WiFi was virtually nonexistent in any of the harbors.  And we spent six days getting there and almost a month in the islands.  And sixteen days sailing off shore from the Galápagos to Nuka Hiva.  By the time we reached the Marquesas it had been nearly two months since Will had a solid internet connection to work with for more than a day or two at a stretch.  So with a reasonably comfortable anchorage with a good Wifi source on land we needed to hunker down and make some serious inroads on some of these courses.   Catching up on school became the driving force in our “where to go next” decision making process.

I Can Speak Again!

One highlight of French Polynesia…everyone speaks French!  After months of sputtering, stuttering and playing charades in Panama and the Galápagos I can finally communicate with the locals again.

Of course now I have to forget all of the Spanish/Spanglish I picked up over the last five months – especially things like the “short words”, e.g. small numbers, please, thank you etc.  I still find myself swallowing the occasional “gracias” in favor of a “merci”, but all in all it is a pleasure to be able to speak in mostly full sentences, articulate complex thoughts with more eloquence than Tarzan, and understand more nuanced instructions.

Please note that this does NOT apply to Polynesian, Tahitian,  Marquesan, Tuamotoan or of the other languages from this part of the world.  Which are in use around here as well as French.  There are altogether too many vowels, and there seems to be a tendency to give really similar names to places that are near each other on the same island.  For example Taiohae Bay is all of five miles away from Taioa Bay.  This same island has a Hatiheu Bay right near Haatuatua and a Hakea Bay.  You see where this is going…we have a pronunciation guide, I should record myself trying to SAY some of these things if you really want a howl.

Taiohae Bay

IMG_6936

Taiohae Bay from above. Evenstar is that little speck on the outside of the anchorage in the top left…

The town in Taiohae Bay is the administrative center for both Nuka Hiva and the Marquesas.  Nuka Hiva is one of the most populous islands in the Marquesas with about 2,500 people on it.

Town isn’t huge, but it boasts a post office, a bank, several restaurants, a boulangerie (French Bakery),  at least three markets, a pharmacy, a dingy dock where you don’t have to take your life in your  hands to get off your boat, and a public market area.   Freshly baked baguettes are available every morning but Sunday, though you have to get up early to make sure you get them.  It is a nice place to stay at all even if it is a little small.

There are certain quirks and oddities one must get used to now that we are seriously on island time.  For example pretty much everything closes for lunch time.  The stores and markets close and lock their front doors and turn off the lights from around noon until about 1:30 p.m. – you pretty much can’t get anything done at lunch time.  The bank closes, and sometimes they shut the ATM’s down during lunch too.

Money Matters

We learned this about the banks and ATMs our first day in town when we needed 75 French Polynesian Francs (the XPF about 80 cents in USD) in order to mail our clearance papers to Tahiti.  We just arrived over the weekend and were clearing on Monday morning – all the government offices are closed on the weekend.  After clearing in our agent gave us a slip of paper we had to mail.  We ran into friends while clearing in and ended up talking while standing around the gendarmerie until after 11:30 when whoops, the Post Office closes for lunch.  I walked down to the one bank and tried the ATM…it wasn’t working.  I asked directions to another bank and got sent back to the Post Office, where that ATM wasn’t working.  OK, no problem – I went back to the boat and collected Kathy and the kids to come in and check out the town.

The U.S. dollar isn’t much accepted in this part of the world, you really need the local currency.  Maybe you can get away with Euros but no one much wanted our greenbacks.  So our first quest, before we could even find someplace for lunch, was to find some place we could get some Polynesian Francs.

The XPF, by the way, is still the biggest mental adjustment to currency yet.  Our banks give us about 87 XPF’s to the dollar.  Which means that things like a local grapefruit are priced at 100 Francs, and it is not uncommon to get a restaurant tab of 7-8,000 XPFs.  It’s also…odd to be telling the ATM to give to 50,000 of anything!

Our first day in town though, we were hungry and needed to mail our clearance.   When I first struck out at the ATM’s I figured it would be like the U.S., where they close them for 10-15 minutes while they reload the cash.  Silly me.  We checked several times for the ATM’s to come back after walking all over town, they were still closed and we were no closer to lunch.  Finally we decided to wait for the bank to open and I could cash in the couple of hundred USD I had in my wallet for local money – we’d found a likely restaurant next to the bank and we decided to just wait on the front step of the bank for them to re-open at 1:30.   The bank reopened at 1:30…island time…which was more like ten minutes to two.  At the same time the ATM’s started working.  I’m guessing they were filling up the money from 1:30 – 1:45 then they opened the banks and the ATM.  Oh well…we got our money and we got our lunch!

That doesn’t mean that any and all future attempts to get additional cash didn’t feel a bit like pulling the roulette lever…sometimes the bank card that worked yesterday didn’t today!

Quest for Baked Goods

French Polynesian bakers are all insane.  Or at least we thought so when we first arrived here in French Polynesia.  We were told that if we wanted to get baguettes we had to get to the store by 7:00 a.m.  Hmm.  We can do that.  It is a bit early but we can get up, ride the dinghy in, and walk to the store that sells them by 7:00.  Apparently there is some sort of government subsidy for baguettes, throughout the islands they are readily available, cheap, pretty much the same price (67 XPF or about 80 cents) and really good.  IF you can get up early enough there are hundreds of baguettes in a huge pile.  But everyone in town descends like a plague of locusts in the wee hours and cleans the place out.

When I first arrived in Nuka Hiva I asked in a store if there was a Boulangerie (French bakery…pretty much ubiquitous in France) in town somewhere, as I’d read about one but did not see it.  I wanted to find the boulanger because not only are we fond of baguettes but they also produce many other fine baked things like pain au chocolat (chocolate croissants), chaussons pommes (kind of like an apple turnover but with a much lighter and flakier crust), torsades au chocolat (a flaky crusted twisted thing with chocolate in it) and many other delights.  I was told the baker was closed, when I expressed my surprise that there was no baker in town any more it just got a head shake.

The reality was a little more variable.  The magazin (store) that sells the baguettes always has them early – but they don’t always sell out right away.  They cost a little more than the boulanger but they are there. And some days the bread goes early, other days you can walk in at 2:00 in the afternoon and there are still a few baguettes to be had.  Mondays are the worst since there isn’t bread on Sunday and everyone makes a mad rush Monday morning.   And the store did have a very small assortment of chaussons pommes, pain au chocolate and torsades.  Sometimes.

It turned out there WAS a boulangerie in town, but he was generally closed by 7:00 a.m. (as in in the morning).  We came in there one morning at around 7:00 looking for pastries and they were completely sold out of everything but bread.  But they did very nicely tell us we could place an order for the next day which we did.  And it was all there the next day, except the chaussons pommes which they just didn’t make that day.

We’ve since figured out a few things, not the least of which is that it gets light every early here and it gets dark really early too.  As in 5:30 a.m. and 5:30 p.m.  So apparently the boulangers like to do all their work in the dark when it is cool, sell their goods early and be done for the day.  This is quite a contrast from the way most bakeries we’ve been used to, but we finally figured out the Early Bird gets the chaussons pommes.  Sometimes.

We Do Some Fun Things

Lest you think that our visit to Nuka Hiva was all shopping and school work, I will let you in on a secret – we did some fun stuff too.  That’s a separate post…but I will leave you with a teaser that includes:

  • Car rentals, island tours, and the scariest road straight out of Motor Storm: Pacific Rift we’ve ever been on.
  • Native dancing
  • Kid & Friend Boats
  • A trip to a nearby harbor
Posted in French Polynesia, Nuka Hiva | Tagged | Comments Off on Nuka Hiva R & R. And a fair amount of S.

Goodbye to Isla Isabela

On Jun 29th, 2014 Published By B.J.

As I said in the first post about Isla Isabela, it is one of our favorite places we’ve visited so far.  The abundant wildlife, the beautiful scenery and the sleepy little town all make it someplace special.  But tempis is always busy fugiting and our six month extended visas were awaiting us in French Polynesia.

Biking in Paradise

One of our long debated topics pre-departure was the question of bikes.  Some cruisers have them, others report that folding bikes are one of the first things to get sold off after the first year from lack of use.  We decided with four of us and the space on board for no more than two bikes that we’d do without, as we could rent from time to time when we wanted to.  Which is what we decided to do one day; the island has lots of smooth packed sand and dirt roads and mountain bikes are readily available.  After our ride of a couple of hours I can highly recommend it as a means to take in some of the island!  We were able to cover a lot of ground at our own pace and we saw some very interesting animals and scenery.

Nature Biking

Leaving the town by bike, the road passes along the beach with gorgeous scenery along the sandy road.  To the right are a series of lagoons and pools with an assortment of aquatic birds, the left the beach.  And watch out for iguanas in the road!  Along the path are several turnouts for viewing some of these interesting beaches, pools and views.  Also along the path is a hill with a tower at the top that provides a panoramic view of the surrounding land.

The Wall of Tears

One of the “unnatural” attractions on Isabela is the El Muro de las Lágrimas or the Wall of Tears.  Several of the many ill-fated attempts to colonize the Galápagos involved prisoners, establishing penal colonies on this remote and desolate landscape.  Right after World War Two Ecuador established a new penal colony on Isabela that operated for thirteen dark years.  In that time prisoners were put to work building this wall, cutting and carrying the rock by hand to assemble the wall.

DSCN0769-001The prison conditions were brutal, with insufficient food and medicine for men put to work in the scorching sun and forced to do pointless, back-breaking labor.  The death toll was high before the prison was finally closed in 1959.

The wall remains as a brutal reminder of the penal colony era.

Wild Tortoises

DSCN0751After several visits to breeding centers on the islands we became somewhat discouraged about the prospects of seeing a tortoise in the wild.  We’d learned that many of the wild populations were pretty much gone or in such remote areas that they weren’t easily accessible.  Few or the tortoises can breed successfully in the wild any more and are not often seen.

It’s not that one hopes for a fleeting glimpse of a wild tortoise – it’s not like they are particularly fast, elusive or stealthy.  Though you can easily mistake one for a boulder through the under brush.  But there is something fundamentally different and cooler about seeing a wild animal in its natural environment versus in a pen in a breeding center even if it is a nice replication of the natural environment.

Which is why we were thrilled to see TWO wild tortoises on our bike ride on Isabela.DSCN0758  The first one was cleverly concealed on the side of the road and we almost went zipping past him.  Fortunately a group of French bicyclists has stopped and were taking pictures which helped us spot him in the deep camouflage.  He was quite patient with all the fuss and very accommodating to photos.

DSCN0778-001The second tortoise we didn’t have to share with anyone.   When we reached the Wall of Tears we parked the bikes to walk to the wall and take the short loop trail around the wall and some of the old quarries.  Right off the edge of one of the trails we spotted the second tortoise, resting in the shade by the edge of what looked like a shallow concrete pond.  No mad dash for cover by this one either, in fact he started to stretch and preen for me as I closed in with the camera!

More Lava TubesDSCN0780

These things are just everywhere.  This one was one of the pull off stops off the bike path.  This one runs down into the water and is flooded, but does provide a neat perspective on how they really are tubes before they collapse or get buried by topsoil and surface material.

The Booby Trap

We can’t leave Isabela Island without telling you of one of our favorite stops there – the Booby Trap Cafe.  The Booby Trap sits on the edge of town, the last stop on your right.  Run by American Jim Hinkle and his wife Ecuadorian wife Marlene, they’ve created a lovely and comfortable spot with great food and a welcoming atmosphere.

It’s just Jim and Marlene running the place – they have baked goods, drinks, lunches and with reservations you can come for dinner.  It is well worth the trouble to make the reservation, just give him some warning so they have a chance shop for you!  We had our last dinner in Isabela there and it was delightful.

We were frequent visitors there in our stay; Jim keeps the beer cold and makes a good milkshake for the kids. More than once we made there for an end of the day cool down; his internet connection is decent too which is always a plus for bandwidth starved cruisers!  The location on the edge of town across from the beach distinguishes them from the in-town restaurants on one crucial point – the Booby Trap gets a nice cooling breeze off the water.  This is big.

Jim is also a helpful source of information about the island.  With our poor Spanish it was really nice to hold a conversation in English with someone with good local knowledge (Jim was a guide in the area for years) that is eager to talk about his home.  When I asked about a farm to provision with fresh fruit and vegetables, Jim even called the farm for me and made arrangements for our visit the next day.

Its a new place and I hope they make it work.  Being outside of town and not on the “al meurzo” dirt cheap lunch program like the downtown restaurants may be a small disadvantage, but they’ve got a lot more to offer as well.  It already sounds like it is rapidly becoming a word of mouth favorite for visiting cruisers and I’d love to go there again some day!

A Sad Departure

It was indeed with heavy hearts that we finally pulled up our anchor in Isabela.  We took a final dinghy tour of the harbor to say goodbye to the sea lions, blue footed boobies, penguins and iguanas.  We’d love to come back again some day; as of this writing this is definitely The Coolest Place That We’ve Been So Far.

Although I think where we are now in the Tuamotus will give Isabela a run for it’s money…but that’s a post for another day!

Posted in Uncategorized | Comments Off on Goodbye to Isla Isabela

More Isabela – Sierra Negra Volcano

On Jun 12th, 2014 Published By B.J.

We’ve seen a few volcanoes since we’ve been traveling.  From hiking up one in St. Eustatia, playing in the mud in the Cold Soufriere in Dominica, sailing over the Kick’em Jenny underwater volcano between Grenada and Carriacou (OK, we didn’t see that one), the Grand Etang in Grenada, sailing by Montserrat, and of course visiting the volcano lake on San Cristobal.  We had a discussion after this tour and couldn’t exactly agree how many we’d seen and walked around.  The volcanoes are a prominent feature of the Galápagos and we couldn’t pass on seeing the Sierra Negra Volcano.

While checking in to the available tours on Isabela we spoke with some agents about the Sierra Negra mountain tour.  We’d hoped for the “horse version” we’d read about, where part of the hike in is done on horseback followed by a walk in for the last, more rugged parts of the journey.  Also we’d read that depending on the weather and season it might be rainy, muddy, and have not much visibility.  The agency we first spoke with told us that horse tours were not running as it was too muddy.  The tour consisted of a bus ride to the head of the trail then an eight kilometer (not quite five mile) hike in to the caldera and to the Volcan Chico.

No horses were harmed in the production of this blog post, though a lot of socks got dirty.

No horses were harmed in the production of this blog post, though a lot of socks got dirty.

There was some trepidation about this.  It seemed like the risk for a muddy, long sloppy hot hike was huge – which would only be worse if we got there and couldn’t actually see anything.  But groups were going so we signed up and were committed.

The day of hike dawned with light rain and cloud cover.  Not good for walking.  Maybe they’ll cancel?  We were concerned because it had been raining a lot and the town had a foot of water in some of the streets.  No dice, the bus was waiting for us at the dock…off we go, picking our way through the streets awash with rain water.

The drive up in the bus was an education.  In other posts I’ve talked about how stratified the Galápagos islands are in their ecosystems as you move from the coast to the highlands.  Nothing like a bus trip starting in the lava strewn lowlands and taking you through lush highlands, past farms and jungles to drive the point home.  As we got higher it got colder…actually cold sitting in an open bus.  This actually isn’t a bad thing as I’d expected to sweat out about a gallon on this 16 KM trek.

The Walk Up

We’ve done this before, right?  We’re prepared…we’ve got hiking boots or sturdy shoes, bug spray, water.  The day was overcast and a light rain was falling.  This made the trip a little wet.

The initial path was grassy but quickly switched to dirt, rocks and mud with some standing and running water from the rain.  But it was well packed below the trail and the mud wasn’t deep.  But it was slippery, I know wearing my “waffle stompers” saved me a couple of face plants.  A few people walking behind us were not so lucky, one pair of young women reached the top looking like they’d just gotten out of a mud wrestling pit.

DSCN0653With the light misting rain it was cool and comfortable walking, and most of the vertical ascent was made in the bus.  Our only real concern was the fog; as we climbed we were in the clouds and could barely see 50 yards past the edge of the path.  Fortunately by the time we reached the rim of the caldera this all changed, with a surprising rapidity the go lifted unveiling the stunning views of the surrounding lowlands.

Size Matters

The guides and the tour agents describe the Sierra Negra volcano as the “second largest” in the world.  I’m not sure by what measure – the caldera size, the cone size?  Either way it is hard to validate what they were talking about…but it’s not important.DSCN0733

This is one big volcano.

The Caldera is 10 km across (six miles) at its widest point and the far rim vanished into fog and clouds on this day.  The bottom of the caldera looks like a smoking black ruin.  I was poetically reminded of Frodo and Sam in the Lord of the Rings crossing the plains for Gorgoroth in Mordor…an uninviting black, fume filled waste of razor sharp rocks and rubble.  Without all the armies of orcs  of course.  I was happy to be up on the rim with sunlight, clean air and green plants.DSCN0678

Sierra Negra last erupted in 2005, so when I say “smoking” and “fume filled” I am not referring to the clouds we were walking in.  This is smoke coming from the volcano itself which is DSCN0684quite alive and active.  The eruption left a large area on one side of the volcano almost sterilized.  Lava flowed down one side of the volcano and left the far edge pretty much alone; it remains covered in lush vegetation.

Volcan Chico

The 2005 eruption spilled down one side of the volcano and out some fissures on the North side of the volcano.  The Volcan Chico fissure formed a small cone on the side of the caldera amidst the ruin from the other lava flows.

DSCN0702The landscape here is surreal, after the lush foliage of the walk up the ground changes rapidly to mostly uncovered stone with sparse and scrawny growth.  There were several flows of different ages in this area and they can be easily differentiated by the color of the rock.  The older – as in thousands of years older – flows are dark and the newer flows from 2005 are red.  Different colors abound though and there is a stark beauty in this vast blasted landscape.  From the top you can see how the lava flowed down miles all the way to the sea.

Volcano panorama

You really want to click this one to make it big since it is a large panorama of the volcano down to the sea.

Volcan Chico is a fissure that has formed up into what looks like a small volcanic cone.  I’m no geologist, I don’t know if it is a separate volcano or just part of the big one, but it is sort of a scary looking hole that looks like it takes you someplace you down want to crawl into!

DSCN0731

The Volcan Chico “crater”

The Volcan Chico are is a beautiful view of the surrounding country side.  It is a mix of verdant greens and laval blacks.  Given time the plan life will take over again the way it did on the South side but this is an active volcano still.  It may not have the patience for that.

The walk back went a lot faster than the walk up, but everyone was more tired and there seemed to be a lot more slipping and sliding going on.  But we all made it the whole 16 km and our group of four held our own well.

My words can’t do as well as the pictures so I’ll leave you with another gallery.  I’ll let you decide if we climbed one volcano or two!

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Posted in Galapagos, Volcano | 4 Comments

Isla Isabela – Boobies and Penguins and Sharks…Oh My!

On Jun 10th, 2014 Published By B.J.

When we visited Santa Cruz we looked into taking some tours to surrounding islands.  A few inquiries there and we decided they were just too expensive for what we’d be getting and we’d save our tour dollars for Isabela.  It was a good call.

The Tunnels Tour

Back on Santa Cruz we visited a large lava tube and it was a stunning and impressive underground walk.  The Lava Tunnels tour on Isabela was quite a bit different.

First, this tour is on a boat and involves snorkeling.  Early in the morning we the tour boat picked up at Evenstar – though not nearly as early as the hotel folks had to be ready since we got a pickup on our front step!  We were headed to “the tunnels” with a swing by Union Rock (or “Roca Union”) to see some Nazca Boobies and maybe, if we were lucky have a closeup look at some giant Manta Rays.

Union Rock and Mantas

Union Rock - I am NOT taking Evenstar near this thing.

Roca Union – I am NOT taking Evenstar near this thing.

Quite literally until the writing of this blog entry I was confused by Nazca boobies.  The trouble is that the Nazca Booby (Sula granti) was thought for years to be a subspecies of the Masked Booby (Sula dactylatra).  To someone with a bit of hearing loss and moisture baked hearing aids like me “Masked Booby” and “Nazca Booby” sound pretty similar, and the guide explained that “the name was changed” from Masked to Nazca.  The way the change was described made it sound like there was a local change to the Common Name being changed, sort of like how the French pass laws to try and get people to say “Pomme Frites” instead of “French Fries”.  It was not clear to me ( with a degree in biology) that there was an actual species reclassification – this I would have gotten immediately!  Now I am clear n the right way to refer to these birds.

Nazca Boobies. Not masked. With the ubiquitous seal lion.

Nazca Boobies. Not Masked Boobies. With the ubiquitous seal lion.

Neither the Nazca boobies nor the Manta Rays disappointed.  The small rocky island is covered with Nazca Boobies, preening, sitting, and flying around.  Nearby the island Manta Rays were spotted in the water.

These things are huge.  Wingtip to wingtip they looked to be fifteen feet across, perhaps more.  The kids were lucky enough to see some jumping off in the distance.

If there was anything in the water to provide a sense of scale you could see how huge this Manta was.

If there was anything at all in the water to provide a sense of scale you could see how huge this Manta was.

When the mantas were spotted the guide asked us “who wants to dive with them” which translated to “scramble for your gear and get in the water if you want a look!”  A few of us quickly grabbed our snorkel gear and hit the water.  In truth the view from the boat was better.  The Mantas are kind of shy and for some reason do not relish rubber-clad human beings cannon-balling on their heads.  Once the Mantas figure out the people are there they go deep.  I did get a good glance at one of them before it sounded but was looking the wrong way and wasn’t quick enough to get a picture.

Entering the Tunnels

DSCN0488Unlike the lava tubes we visited on Santa Cruz the lava tubes and tunnels we visited on the South coast of Isabela are mostly collapsed.  This lead to broad coastal area full of narrow channels, stone bridges, rocky out crops, canals and barrow channels.  The captain…picked his way through this in our roughly 26 foot cruise boat with incredible skill.DSCN0513

The water in the tunnels is very clear and sea turtles, brightly colored fish, and other sea life is readily visible.  Danielle even spotted an octopus from the surface.  With the tight quarters in the tunnels the boat came quite close to the rocks.  And the birds on them simply seemed not to care, I could have reached out and poked a blue footed booby in the tummy if I was so inclined.

Hey look at that - are feet really ARE really blue!

Hey look at that – our feet really ARE blue!

The captain and crew secured the boat among the rocks and we took a stroll around.  It is a stunning and fascinating area, a mix of scrub growth and cacti growing on top of rocks in a maze of saltwater passages, growing on solid land and bridges of rock alike.  Visitors can step around the maze like wreckage of the lava tunnels among the birds, lizards and crabs.

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We could have spent a lot more time among the rocks and tunnels, but some snorkeling beckoned!

Snorkeling in the Tunnels

The snorkeling in the tunnels was really the focus of this trip.  The rest was really the appetizer, but before we even got to the snorkeling areas we were pretty wowed by what we’d scene.

Two separate spots were planned for the snorkeling.  The first spot was loaded with sea turtles, the second featured some caves in where White Tipped Reef Sharks (Triaenodon obesus) could be seen.

EDSCN0576ven without turtles and sharks the tunnels were a fascinating place to snorkel.  The land bridges in evidence in the boat tour also extended under water.  Fascinating underwater shapes to swim around and under abound, while watching the colorful fish and looking out for turtles and other sea life.DSCN0560  The arches and bridges provide their own challenges to swim under or around.  To reach one of the shark viewing angles required going under an arch – or way around it.  This was followed by a swim/wriggle across a shallow top of some structure that left you knowing what it felt like to be the fish flopping on a dock.

DSCN0644

Those turtles in Finding Nemo? Like…totally uptight.

As we found on the other Galápagos islands the sea turtles there are really, really laid back.  They really do not seem to care one bit if there are people around ooohing and ahhing (or maybe it’s gurgling and choking in snorkel gear) as they just sort of do their thing.  In fact they are so unconcerned they are quite likely to bump into you or clip you with a flipper on the way by as they go about their business.

The shark cave was in a slightly different are than the turtle hangout.  Unfortunately, well the sharks were in a cave and there was a group of snorkelers milling around.  The result is of course a picture quality that would make any cryptozooligist blush since there have been way better bigfoot shots than I managed of these perfectly normal Whitetip sharks.

This is actually the best one, since it looks shark like and only slightly out of focus.

This is actually the best one, since it looks shark like and only slightly out of focus.

DSCN0613

Here’s another crappy, out of focus murky picture of the sharks. You can see the white-tipped tails, though the mermaid documentation will never pass muster.

Seeing the sharks was pretty easy – this was no “Cave Dive” that PADI wants you to take a course for.  The sharks were in an area under a hollow tube where some holes had collapsed in the end.  You swim up to the edge, where you can see nothing, and grab the rocks over your head and shove your head into the dark cave.  Like magic the sharks appear out of the gloom in the back lighting from the other cave entrances.  Some are resting on the bottom and some swim through the cave.  Like almost all of the creatures around this part of the world they seem to just ignore the people in the water.

The “Tunnels Tour” is regarded by many as one of the best tours in the Galápagos.  This is understandable – it was a phenomenal day.

There are more installments coming from Isabela – visiting the second largest volcano crater in the world, seeing wild tortoises and more…

Posted in Galapagos, wildlife | 1 Comment

Isla Isabela, Part One

On Jun 9th, 2014 Published By B.J.

There simply can not be enough gushing about Isla Isabela in the Galápagos.  It is our favorite island of those we visited in the archipelago, and perhaps one of our favorite locations that we’ve visited cruising to date.  It is THAT cool.

Of the three islands we visited Isabela is the least built up.  There are fewer stores, the town is smaller, the roads are all sand.  It is also the largest island in the Galápagos with some of the most biodiversity.

Arriving in Port Vilamil you are greeted by loads of blue footed boobies on the

Penguins around the dinghy dock.

Penguins around the dinghy dock.

small rocky islands that dot the harbor.  And penguins!  The Galápagos has it’s own species of endemic penguin and you can find them swimming right around the boat!  Sea lions roam the harbor, though not in the numbers that we saw in San Cristobal they are still a common sight among the boats.

The Town and Harbor

For the first time since arriving in the Galápagos we had to rig up our dinghy and use it.  Neither of the other islands had decent dinghy docks and cruisers relied heavily on water taxis.  Water taxis were occasionally seen here but it wasn’t clear how to even hire one since many of them did not carry radios.

Simply getting to town was a mini wildlife adventure every time.  The dinghy dock attaches to a nice shaded platform with park benches under it where one could sit and wait and look over the harbor.  If, of course, the park benches were not entirely covered with sea lions which was almost always the case!

How very kind of the humans to make a shady sleeping spot for us!

How very kind of the humans to make a shady sleeping spot for us!

The sea lions liked the dinghy dock as well, and it was not unheard of to have to step around or over one or to need to gently persuade one to allow you to pass to get off of it.  Many of the sea lions slept in boats around the harbor, fortunately few of them slept in dinghies at the dock though one could get the occasional unwelcome sleepy surprise if your boat was there long enough.  We were lucky…

The area around the dinghy dock was also a popular visiting spot for the penguins which were often spotted paddling at the surface or zipping around under water.  They weren’t particularly shy about coming near boats.

Once past the sea-lion gazebo there was one more bit of wildlife that frequently needed care to step around or over – the marine iguanas.  The wooden walkway to shore is an excellent spot to sun, apparently, as there was often an iguana or two laying on the walkway.

All this close contact with wildlife was really neat, you wouldn’t imagine being able to step over a wild sea-lion as something that would become routine.  Of course there was one downside…with all these large mammals and lizards about you had to watch your step.  They weren’t exactly housebroken and weren’t terribly discrete about entering the water to meet the call of nature.  Stepping in sea-lion poop in the dark while wearing sandals was not a highlight.

The dinghy dock is about a kilometer from the center of town and a pleasant and easy walk.  The center of town has your basics – the port captain to check in, a handful of restaurants, a post office (actually two post office “agents”), a few stores for food and home goods, tour agencies, internet shops, and a large church with stained glass boobies, tortoises and sea lions for the windows.

DSCN0407At the edge of town there is also a large pond.  This pond became a daily stop for us because it is often populated by wild Flamingos, ducks, lava gulls and other local birds.

We liked the town, with its sand streets and outdoor restaurants though you don’t come to a place like the Galápagos for the sidewalk cafes.  But it certainly is nice to have a base of operations with reasonable good restaurants, a good bakery, and basic supplies.

First Nature Walks

Much of the Galápagos is protected from random visits from blundering tourists.  In order to access them one needs an official, registered park guide – the general way to do this is through a tour booked through an agency.

DSCN0789On each island there are also many areas that are open to the public without a guide and Isabela has quite a few of these.  At the end of town is a dirt road with an “Iguana Crossing” sign, past this lie some of the open areas of the park.

Entering the park you can take a long, wooden walkway through a wild marsh leads to the tortoise breeding center on Isabela.  The marshlands are full of ducks, marine iguanas, fiddler crabs, and an assortment of other marsh and water fowl.   The walkway is clear, open and easy – as is the case with most of the walks in the public accessible areas of the park.

While most islands have (or had) their own endemic species of giant tortoise, Isabela is fortunate enough to have four different species on this large island.  Every populated island also seems to have its own tortoise breeding center (or centers) as well.  The reason is simple – very few Galápagos tortoises can successfully breed in the wild any more.

They reasons why not are a combination of introduced pests and encroachment on territory.  Rats, dogs, cats, and pigs will all eat or kill young tortoises.  Pigs and rates are adept at finding the buried nests and eating the eggs, and young vulnerable tortoises are easy play for inquisitive or feral dogs and cats.  Other animals such as cattle or goats may inadvertently step on tortoise nests and crush eggs – not actively hunting and destroying but still destructive when their grazing range intrudes on the tortoise habitats.

There is even one small population of tortoises that were rescued from harm’s way of an active volcano, their population is making a good recovery through the breeding center’s efforts.

We found the center’s frankness about their goals to be rather amusing.  The logo for the center, inscribed life sized on the building, is a line drawing of two tortoises in flagrante delicto and several of the informative plaques make tongue in cheek reference to the randiness of the rescued tortoise population that is making a striking comeback.

Some of the randy tortoises in the breeding center.

Some of the randy tortoises in the breeding center.

These centers are all doing good work, taking detailed pains to duplicate the natural birthing environment of the tortoises and raising them to a size where they can survive on their own in the wild again.  Today it seems like the only hope for these quiet, slow moving giants since wiping out the threats to their young is a virtual impossibility.

This is the first Isla Isabela installment.  Coming up are more trip reports ands pictures from tours taken to the Sierra Negro Volcano, a boat trip snorkeling to some lava tubes, and more walks, biking and exploration.

Posted in Galapagos, Penguins, Sea Lions | 1 Comment

Rest, Recovery and Catching Up

On Jun 4th, 2014 Published By B.J.

We’re getting settled into the Marquesas now and are starting to get back into some semblance of a routine and more normal life.

A view of the anchorage on Nuka Hiva

A view of the anchorage on Nuka Hiva.  Yes, it is that blue here.

The kids haven’t been able to do a lot of school for some time, in Will’s case some of his courses he hasn’t been able to spend more than a couple of days on since we left Panama as they require internet access which has been in short supply.  We bought the bullet here and ponied up for some boat Wifi that is available through much of French Polynesia so the kids should be able to keep up with school.  You can imagine their excitement.

Gratuitous Boobies

Gratuitous Boobies

I owe all of you a few blog posts from the Galápagos still.  Isla Isabela was our favorite of the three islands we visited there, but there was bupkes for internet unless you went into a little shop on land and rented a booth or ate at a restaurant. Several unique species of animals are there as well as fascinating landscapes, volcanoes and other things.  In the spirit of modern media, I’ve posted some gratuitous boobies to whet your appetite and keep you interested until I get around to write the several blog posts it will take to cover this stunning location.

The last couple of days have been really low-key.  Officialdom in French Polynesia apparently does not do weekends, as we were unable to clear in to the country when we arrived on Saturday.  On Monday morning I went to shore and visited our agent and we walked up to visit the Gendarmes with him and our friends from Anthem who arrived the same day we did.  Clearing in was surprisingly easy given all the hoops we had to jump though to get a long stay visa.   I should have remember though, we are technically clearing into France.  This is the same country we cleared into in the back of a gift shop in Guadeloupe.

Speaking of French

It is kind of nice to be back in “France” again.  As a confirmed Francophil I am happy to be back.  So far though, this IS French Polynesia, and you can feel hybrid cultures.  You can get your steak frites avec sauce roquefort at a local restaurant, but of course one of the choices of sides is breadfruit croquettes.

The combination of French Culture with Island Time in the Pacific takes some getting used to.  Most things close for lunch – the post office, the banks, some stores.  Inexplicably all the ATM’s stopped working at lunch time too which seems like the only time they really should be working since the banks are closed.  And the bank views “Ouvert 1:30 – 3:30” as more of a suggestion than a rule, when we were waiting for cash they managed to get the bank reopened before 1:50 which wasn’t too bad apparently.  That is “bank”, singular – there is one.  Though the Post Office has an ATM it seems to close for lunch too.

And it is actually nice to be not quite so disoriented as I was in Panama with my complete lack of Spanish skills.  By the time we left Panama I was able to get around pretty well though – give instructions to taxis drivers, ask for help in a store, even have a light conversation about where we were from and what we were doing.  I didn’t feel nearly as hampered by the time we got to the Galápagos, I felt almost functional.

DSCN0796

The occluded by clouds sun is about to dip behind the mountains for the night.

But French I actually studied in middle school, high school and college.  And I worked for a French bank and took more lessons there.  I’m not up for reading Voltaire in the original French or anything but I can ask questions of a local like “Are there any other banks in town?” or “Where can one buy baguettes then?” after a discussion about how the last boulangerie in town had closed.  All without stuttering, sputtering, reaching for words, mixing in English and playing charades.

Now all I have to do is forget all the Spanish I learned, because THAT is mixing me up and I am now mangling Spanish into my French.  Which is not pretty.

Posted in Customs & Immigration, French Polynesia, Galapagos, Home Schooling | 4 Comments

Marquesas Arrival!

On May 31st, 2014 Published By B.J.

We are here in the Marquesas after 16 days, 4 hours and 35 minutes, traveling 3,008 miles in total!

Arrival time 2335 UTC on 5/31/14!

PLEASE, PLEASELike and Share on the Evenstar Facebook page, not everyone checks the blog every day and we can’t get to Facebook yet. Thanks!

More details to follow

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Posted in French Polynesia, Marquesas, passages | 5 Comments