Trade Wind Sailing

Ua Pou Church

Well, we are under way again from the Marquesas to the Tuamotus and we are sailing full speed - 9 knots in 16-18 knots of breeze on a beam reach.  Pippa arrived on Friday with many spare parts and we have fixed lots of problems - most important a gooseneck pin so we have full use of the mainsail, but also a new control box for the mainsheet winch, a key terminal for the domestic alternator which we had fried, a lock mechanism for the forward heads, a new joystick for the bowthruster! So some important and others nice to have. So our remaining problem is the gearbox which at low revs judders horribly and makes you think you might shake the engine off its mounts. So we have on delivery to Tahiti from the UK a new gearbox, new drive plates, and a new engine-to-propshaft-coupling which we almost certainly don't need.

Oh yes, and an engineer from NZ to do the work as Tahiti doesn't seem confident to do it!

Pippa and William arrived Friday and were put straight onto Marquesan horses and went for a ride in the Alpine pastures of Nuku Hiva. Then on Saturday it was Fete des Meres and we went to the party - 70% local - to judge the most beautiful mothers in three age categories, eat poisson cru and goat,
and then watch Marquesan dancing again. Great fun. Dinner aboard with more sashimi. The

Approaching Makemo

exchange rate is 2 coca colas equals 1kg of freshly caught yellowfin tuna equals 4 carrots. So the freezer has 3kg of yellowfin tuna in JUST IN CASE we don't catch any. Buying tuna this way is cheaper than buying the lures to catch it. Sunday morning was Fete des Meres service where we listened to the beautiful singing without hymn books outside the packed church.

Then to the island of Ua Pou and dinner ashore chez Jerome. A walk round town and a visit to the beautiful cathedral with a wonderful carved pew. A sail round the corner and then a walk up towards the amazing basalt volcanic plug spires and a swim in a gorgeous waterfall. Only downside is that you

Two chart plotters and forward looking sonar

had to keep your shoulders underwater to avoid the mozzies. We left at 5pm and now at 8am the following morning we are 130NM on out of the 485NM to Makemo where we will visit our first atoll. It has been windy so the atolls are full of water that has been blown into the middle and we are approaching springs, so it will be interesting navigating to find slack water. We are going too fast and will arrive in the dark on Thursday morning but it is such fun to have proper wind, good sails, Calliope in her element.