French Polynesia Adventure

Adventure Sailing South Pacific

Modern Sailing Academy Adventure Sailing French Polynesia

“Welcome to Tahiti” said the lovely Polynesian voice over the plane’s announcement system as we lightly touched down in Papeete.  I could not believe that I was here.  As a somewhat jaded business traveler I am accustomed to flying from SFO to distant destinations in Asia and Europe, but this time was different.  This time instead of a few days of meetings and business dinners I was off for two weeks of sailing from the Marquesas to the Tuomotus. 

 

Probably like many San Francisco sailors who own a blue water capable boat, I had sailed the Bay many times and looked longingly at the Golden Gate and dreamed of sailing out beneath that great bridge and heading for the South Pacific.  Like many SF Bay sailors, a weekend trip to Drake’s Bay, or a short trip to Half Moon Bay was really the only option for a sailing adventure.  Even squeezing in a Baha Haha was not really practical right now. 

 

However I did dream of retiring, hopefully soon, and taking that trip down the coast to Panama and then the Puddle Jump.  Every month I read Latitude 38, Cruising World, and Blue Water Cruising and dreamed of the day.  However there was always in the back of my mind the same questions:  “Do I really want to retire earlier than I have to, rearrange my life, and take off to sail somewhere I have never really experienced?  What skills do I really need to do this?  Can my boat and I handle the South Pacific?  What equipment is important?  Will I be bored?  Do I really need to spend all that money for a watermaker?” 

 

Last Spring I had been at Modern Sailing Academy taking a private sailing lesson with Suzette Smith on our Cheoy Lee 41 ketch, Astraea, when I had run into John Conley.  John told me that he was putting together one of his Adventure Sailing trips for the South Pacific in March of 08 and that I should come along.  I was sold!  That had been almost a year ago, and now the day had finally arrived and I was landing in Papeete! 

 

Now, a little background.  I had learned to sail as a midshipman at the US Naval Academy back in the 1970’s, and I had spent twenty years as a Surface Warfare Officer in the US Navy sailing virtually around the world.  I had “steamed” through the South Pacific, but I had dreamed of sailing there all my life.  When I had relocated to San Francisco several years ago I had found a real estate agent and a sailboat broker, not necessarily in that order.  Soon we were settled in our South Beach condo and we had bought both the boat of my dreams and a berth in Emery Cove. 

 

Now I had the boat.  Sure, it had been a while since I had sailed, like maybe 25 years, but it’s like riding a bicycle, right?   Wrong.  The first time we took Astraea out of her berth I was so excited, and nervous, that I ran her aground right inside the breakwater.  (Those little white buoys are for what?).  Well, during my years in the Navy that would have been a career ending move.  But everyone runs aground in San Francisco, right?  The second time I took her out I had not yet learned when to reef in San Francisco.  I know now the answer is, “About one o’clock”.  Anyway, after a near disaster with the Berkeley pier and an accidental jibe that destroyed Astraea’s main sheet traveler, I decided that it was time for this old Navy sailor to seek professional help.  As I bemoaned my destroyed traveler over a beer at the South Beach Yacht Club (during the old double wide trailer days), someone had recommended Modern Sailing Academy.  I checked them out and decided to swallow my pride and sign up for Basic Keelboat.  My instructor turned out to be Suzette Smith, a superb sailor and even more important, a great teacher.  Within the next couple of years I had my little ASA book signed off for every course in the curriculum except the last two, Celestial Navigation and Off Shore Passagemaking.  Now I was off on my MSA adventure to get those last two certifications checked off the list and, more importantly, to see if cruising in the South Pacific was really something worth making a major lifestyle change to do.

 

 

 

The MSA offering had three choices.   Leg one was within the Marquesas, the second leg was from the Marquesas to the Tuomotus, and the third leg was from the Tuomotus to the Society Islands.  I chose leg two as this was 13 days, the longest course by a couple of days.  It also had the longest open ocean crossing, some 550 miles, and it offered the opportunity for the ASA Offshore Passagemaking certification.

 

MSA made the whole thing really easy.  One check to MSA and one to their extremely efficient travel agent (yes, Internet users, there is still such a thing as a live travel agent) and every detail was taken care of.  Except the packing.  Air Tahiti was the only way to get from Papette to Nuku Hiva in the Marquesas, and as they fly small two prop planes they only allow 44 pounds of luggage per person.  I normally carry more stuff than that for a long weekend sail to Half Moon Bay.  After all, I had a sextant and other navigation equipment, my PFD, and a long list of “must have” sailing items like sailing knife, flashlight, reading light, a copy of Typee for passing the time and getting into the spirit of French Polynesia, and my dog eared copy of The Voyagers Handbook, Second Edition by Beth Leonard.  That book alone weighed five pounds. 

 

Of, yeah, and an Iridium satellite phone.  Hey, I am a San Francisco business exec.  I must have a phone (or so I thought).   Actually I found that the office got along quite well without me for three weeks.  However I did learn that Iridium does work beautifully throughout the South Pacific and you only have to turn it on when you want to call someone.  A handheld GPS and an Iridium would be two of the first things in my ditch bag.

 

For weeks before the trip I would pile up all the necessities on the bathroom scales and, finally, the night before leaving, I started taking out the extra twenty pounds of things I would have to live without and would reluctantly leave behind to get to the 44 pound limit.  Also, there were going to be John and six students living aboard a Beneteau Oceanus 473, and I knew enough about boats to know that there would not be a lot of room for extra “stuff”.  My seabag had to shrink.  I finally decided that I only needed a few pairs of shorts and tee-shirts, so finally I was able to get close to the weight limit.  Plus my sextant.  (By the way, the CO2 cartridge in the PFD in checked luggage is not a problem, but sometime try explaining to TSA at LAX what a sextant is and why you are hand carrying it). 

 

The arrival in Papeete was right on time, and the connection to Air Tahiti made, and I arrived in Nuku Hiva on March 16.  Now for someone who is accustomed to SFO, LAX, HK, and LHR, the Nuku Hiva airport was an introduction into a whole new world of beautiful air travel simplicity.  Thanks to my efficient travel agent back in California I was met at the airport by a driver in a four wheel drive Toyota SUV. 

 

Now Nuku Hiva is basically a volcano with a little land around the sides of it.  This necessitated two hours to travel the 12 miles from the airport to the hotel, which was on the other side of the island, which meant basically climbing high up on the side of the volcano, and back down the other side.  Some of the views were stunning, and the views were totally unobstructed by guard rails.  Also there was no paving. 

1NukuHiva.jpg First Sight of Nuku Hiva picture by SFCheoyLee41

First Sight of Nuku Hiva from Air Tahiti Flight from Tahiti

 

As we came to a place on the road high over Nuku Hiva the driver pulled over to let me get my first look at the bay.  The view of the bay and mountains leading down to it was breathtaking.  Perfection.  Just what I had expected and dreamed of.  Even from this high perch I could see a number of sailboats dotting the Bay.  Once again it crossed my mind, “Would I someday be anchored out in that Bay aboard my Astraea?” 

 

1OverlooktoTaiohaeBay.jpg View of Taiohae Bay, Nuku Hiva, Tuomotus picture by SFCheoyLee41

Taiohi Bay 

 

Immediately after arriving at my hotel and dumping my seabag and after a change into shorts and a tee-shirt I took off for a walk around the bay to explore my new environment and to see what kind of sailboats were in the harbor.  As luck would have it, I actually ran into John standing at the dinghy landing.  The Leg One crew were just leaving and it was still two days until we were to join the boat, but John invited me out to visit.  Oh, and by the way, unfortunately the boat was low on water, so could I help out a little by making a few dingy trips between the landing and the boat to ferry out water in the four jerry jugs.  I would learn to loath those jerry jugs during the next two weeks. 

 

I soon learned that the boat had four 220 liter water tanks, and each jerry can carried 22 liters.  Simple math is that it takes 40 jerry cans to fill the water tanks.  Fortunately, after a few trips that day John decided that we would wait to top off the tanks until we arrived in Ua-Pou where he knew we could go pierside and get water without having to carry it out in the dinghy.  Unfortunately, we did have to get diesel here in Nuku Hiva and off I went with the dingy and four large fuel cans.  Within two hours I was back with plenty of fuel in the cans, not to mention in the bilges of the dingy and covering me from head to toe.  I could taste diesel fuel for two days.  MSA Adventure Sailing was already providing an introduction into the reality of cruising. 

 

Continue.  Click here for French Polynesia Part 2