November 17, 1998

Long time no good propagation! I've tried to check in several of the past few mornings, but no joy. Afternoons, I've been rushing around like a chicken (or, more appropriate for Tonga, PIG) with my head cut off trying to get ready for the passage to NZ. We plan to head out of town today, anchor off a motu to clean the hull and do last-minute stowing and checking, and will likely set sail for NZ on Thursday. I will get onto the roll call of the Seafarer's Net...so if we can't make contact directly, you will at least be able to get my position reports!

I hope that we can get back into contact...if not, I'll email you again as soon as I can after I make landfall!

Peace and love and 88s -- please keep us in your good thoughts for the next few weeks! The Totally Pumped Female

MESSAGE FOR THE HOME FRONT:

Malo e leilei, homies! (That's "hello" here in Tonga just rolls off the tongue and stumbles and reels and gathers itself back in with a giggle.)

So, originally planned to fill y'all in like I did in Tahiti, lots of page-filling mouthwatering details, but I'm too full of nervous anticipation and grumpiness and anxiety and giddy bigness to do the past few months justice, I reckon. We'll just see what comes out, OK?

My latest crew, Sandy Doyle (23-year-old hyper Canadian surfboy whose wheels you can see spinning in his bright blue eyes), and I are going through final preparations for the big scary Tonga-New Zealand passage, lethargically and loopily and with brief bursts of ambition. It's humid and cloudy and the sky spits at our attempts to dry out sails and lines and all the other bits and bobs we want to stow away for the passage.

By tomorrow (Wednesday the 18th), "Hio" should be more prepared for this trip than I'll ever be.

Only my fellow cruisers can understand how I can sail all this way across the South Pacific and still feel like I don't know enough. I'm fairly confident that if I continue sailing for the next 29 years, I will still head out to sea wondering if I know enough. Of course, by then, I will have completed this intimidating leg, and will be able to look back on it to draw from what I've learned.

Hio and Jack (the dinghy) at the Temanaha Pearl Farm, Takaroa.

What's the big deal about this passage? It's a new step into unknown waters and hard-to-predict weather. New Zealand in the springtime. NZ is known for changeable weather and extremes. So we can expect to have a variety of conditions, from flat calm (like we experienced crossing from Fiji to NZ on "Beowulf") to gale. A couple days of this, a couple days of that. And lots of hours spent staring at the sky, the barometer, and the seas trying to figure out when we'll get what.

Though I have learned a great deal about weather (from experience, mentors, and my advance copy of the forthcoming Dashew weather book), I'm happy to report that I will not be counting exclusively on my own knowledge of cirrus and cumulus and highs and lows during our passage. I've fallen into a great "family" of boats who will bring a wise collection of weather gurus to help guide our passages. ("Shakti", "Bossanova" "Bucephalis", the "friendly" Deerfoot, "Sara", and "Glory Days.") We'll be getting reports from: Bob Rice, US weatherguy to the sailing stars; Bob McDavitt, Kiwi weatherguy to the South Pacific crew; Des of Russell Radio (cool old salt who will get our positions, compare them to his findings, and give us tactical suggestions over the SSB radio); plus Inmarsat (satellite-sent) reports out of Fiji and NZ and "Shakti" Thane's interpretations of them.

Of course, once we stick our noses out of Nuku-alofa harbor (here in the southern island group of Tonga), all the weather reports in the world won't protect us from having to take what we get! We will, with all that information, be able to make tactical decisions that will affect how passing weather systems will affect us-to stop or not to stop in Minerva Reef to wait out weather affecting NZ, to head way west or follow the rhumbline-decisions that may not mean much to the rest of you, but will hopefully reassure you that we will be doing everything we can to have a comfortable, safe, conservative passage to what the Maoris call the "land of the long white cloud".

I am so looking forward to hanging my hat in NZ for a while. I already have job prospects, mostly in Auckland, mostly on and around boats. And my body is aching for that tingle of familiar climate on my skin, for the energy that comes with being where I "belong", in air like the air I grew up in. I love the tropics, but was not born to them-and just as there's nothing like a mother's embrace, and there's no place like home-there are some things that a body just knows and loves. My body will love NZ.

As Linda Dashew wrote in a letter sent a month ago, getting to NZ will be a completion to the first part of my cruising. I watch this "chapter" draw to a close with disbelief. I left Mexico in April, and have spent lifetimes between then and now in the Marquesas, Tuamotus, Societies, Palmerston (Cook Islands), Niue (independent island country), Vavau, Haapai, and Tongatapu (all Tonga). This is my third "exploration" of the South Pacific, and I want to circle back and do it again. I'm ready to leave it behind only because it's getting hotter and wetter and my boat needs a new galley and I need to watch a few good new movies in a plush, buttery-smelling theater.

I'm curious to see if I'll be drawn back into city life, into "western civilization." I know how I want this next chapter to begin with a fun income-generating job and a circle of friends and road-trips and surf lessons and big scoops of Tip Top Hokey Pokey ice cream melting down my wrist. And I know that I want to go back to Takaroa next April-May to begin my oyster-seeding lessons. But I'm open to the possibilities. I want to improve my French and pursue a Yachtmaster certification and hire on as delivery crew and see where my instincts guide me.

And make time to write.

I have been horrible and should not be forgiven, really, for my incredibly spotty communication. I was certain that my month alone with "Hio" in Vavau would be my time to be incredibly prolific, to write long personal letters and concise, compelling articles and my memoirs. But, turns out, I have never been less alone than I was when I was singlehanding around the comfortable waters of Vavau. Everybody was so concerned that I'd be lonely-my friends would call me for every activity, every dinner party-how could I resist? (Especially the night of the lobster potluck!) Perhaps in NZ I'll get more serious about my personal and professional writing ambitions. Or perhaps life is just too full to write about!

Ah-typing out this letter has been good therapy. It's taking me out of my "now", which is full of chores and preparations and second-guessing (where will that low over Fiji go? How long will the mangoes last? Do I have the right items in the first-aid kit? Do we have enough popcorn?). Writing y'all, I get to look forward and back and relish my life.

I just skimmed over the E-mail I sent from Tahiti. I won't be able to get that detailed tonight - I'm not trapped on my boat just waiting for the weather to change this time, like I was in Rangiroa. Rangiroa. So long ago. Back in the days of the "Chick Boat".

(Here I go, back to the journal)

Moorea ("next door" to Tahiti - mid-August)

"I love our backyard," Nicki sighed this morning, as I passed a steaming bowl of muesli-gravel-oatmeal through the companionway. I love our backyard, too. We're anchored close enough to the beach in Cook's Bay to get warnings after dark over the VHF from concerned neighbors - a catamaran parked here before us went aground in the soft, muddy shelf that is a shallow surprise in this dark green bay. Our closeness to land gives me the feeling that the mountain hovering above us is leaning in to tell us a secret. Our backyard embraces us with the tenderness of green and fragrance and the strength of stone and shadows.

But what I especially love is how it's "our" backyard. Nicki's and mine. We've become family. We went our separate ways today, both bought "Yop" yogurt drinks to quench our thirst and thought of each other.

I can feel my time in French Polynesia going, going, gone. We're spending most of our days collecting views and comparing landfalls with other cruisers, isolated from the locals by our own "touristness". What was unique and exceptional in the Marquesas and Tuamotus - our foreignness - is commonplace in the Societies. I look into the eyes of local men and women and see the image of myself, faceless, circling through a revolving door. If the locals don't really see me, I must not be in the French Polynesia I love anymore - because it's them that make Polynesia, Polynesia. So I feel like we've already left, but didn't get to say goodbye.

Huahine

(A summary:) This feeling that I'd already said "nana" to French Polynesia hung over the rest of my time there, and left me unwilling and unable to appreciate our last landfall of the Societies. Fortunately, Nicki surfed her brains out here in Huahine, and her glow more than made up for my impatient lack of enthusiasm - her glow would have washed out the pallor of a nation of depressed Americans! Fortunately, she didn't have any run-ins with the speargun-toting surfer local Sandy had told us about, who succeeded in his attempts to intimidate tourist surfers off the waves. She did, however, have a discouraging encounter with Mr. Speargun's girlfriend, who, one afternoon, was happy to trade tips and surfboards with the Canadian surfchick, but the next day snarled and got territorial and sent Nicki fuming away from the break. I guess it's gotta be tough for both local and tourist on a world-class surf break.

(back to the journal) Today, I'm tired of being a boat owner.

Today, I'm tired of being captain.

I'm still at the damn low end of the learning curve!

It took me hours to hand-sew and repair a useless sail cover on my little jib, and as carefully as I wove my way through the existing holes, I still stitched the sail into a crinkly lump. So I was already down on my mediocre and exhausting work when Cass from "Sara" came over and ran professional appraising eyes over my sails and canvas covers and gave me a "you-can-do-better-than-that" look.

I feel like I'm always being made aware of what I'm not doing for "Hio". Or not doing well enough.

Today.

Underway -- Huahine to Palmerston

Tonight is perfection.The sea is undulating gently with a quiet rush. The nearly-full "traveling" moon has silenced the stars into a dark hush.

We're ghosting along wing-and-wing, turning less than 10 knots of breeze into more than 5 knots of boatspeed. "Ghosting" because our wake is a whisper. "Ghosting" because the masthead light is out. "Ghosting" because Raf (my windvane) is like an invisible tireless skipper, gripping the helm with a master's gentle authority.

The breeze dances like a fickle, beautiful lover - pushing "Hio" onto the dance floor and flirting with me over her shoulder.

This is the joy of the passage. So many days into the voyage that we've forgotten exactly how many we've spent at sea. So attuned to our watch schedules that we are alert and at ease with our duties. And all the rushing, whispering, infinite silence.

Silence? There's the wind in my ears like the sea in a seashell. There's the creak of the jibsheet gripping its winch, the flog of the jib as it catches the underside of a wind created by the boat's rhythmic lurch, the quiet thunk of the steering wheel changing direction. Sometimes, there's the gulping call of the seabirds. And occasional waves breaking for no reason, as if they're stumbling over untied shoelaces.

All those sounds make silence. It's in their rhythm. The unusual, unexpected sounds are "noises". Noises to be investigated and silenced, by la capitaine.

I just want to soak up this night.

[NEXT NIGHT] if it weren't for the sunburn and muscle aches, I'd think today never happened, because tonight is a mirror of last night: glorious, full moon, mercury in the sea and my red headlamp making me feel like I'm in a darkroom, like I'm the black and white photo being bathed into image.

But I am burnt and I am sore and I don't really want to talk about it. Suffice it to say: I'm still a sailing idiot (Gilligan) who just gets lucky sometimes.

[Nicki and I tried three times over an hour and a half to get the spinnaker up without tangling any lines around any stays and failed three times. We finally gave up because the wind had picked up. Perhaps the spinnaker knew something we didn't? Her name is Josephine-she was taking care of us, perhaps?]

--------------

Uh-oh-it's after 10 pm and Sandy and his friend, Sep, have just returned from dinner - I sent them away so that I could write. Now that they're back, I'm distracted by the "now" that they represent. They remind me that I'm in Nuku-alofa, preparing to sail to New Zealand - expecting to set sail on Thursday, unless the weather gurus encourage us to hang out a few more days.

So I guess I'll have to save Palmerston, Niue, and Tonga for the next big update - Palmerston and Niue, particularly, deserve to be done justice. Man, just thinking about trying to encapsulate my experiences since Polynesia is exhausting.

But what a pleasure it has been reviewing my adventures, picking out moments to share with y'all. I needed that. Thanks.

I hope that you all will keep us in your good thoughts as we make our way to NZ. I say the trip will take 2 weeks, most likely less, possibly more, so that we can be pleasantly surprised if we make landfall in 11 days. My contacts with Ralph/N6ADJ have been frustrating lately - poor connections and missed connections have kept us from relaying any messages back and forth. So, we may or may not be able to pass along daily updates. Don't worry. I'll let y'all know when I arrive in Opua, Bay of Islands, New Zealand.

Just know that I love this challenge and I love this life and I love YOU!

La Capitaine