On Our Way.
We pulled up our anchor this morning and set off for the
island of Fatu Hiva in the Marquesas Islands of French
Polynesia. We left at 10:40 am local time (same as Mountain
Daylight Time) and have been motoring through gentle swells for
the past seven hours. We had a bit of wind for a while and got
some extra speed from our sails, but there has been no wind for
at least the past 3 hours. As we left the anchorage of Puerto
Villamil, we were greeted by a large sea turtle who seemed to
crane his neck to have a look at us and wave goodbye with his
flippers as he dove. As we sailed past the southwestern beaches
of Isla Isabela we saw that the ocean was full of sea turtles.
Every 100 yards there was a turtle or a small group of turtles.
Perhaps they are going to that beach to lay theirs eggs. What
a nice send-off from the Galapagos.
Yesterday we did our final provisioning. First we went to a
small supermarket and bought 5 dozen fresh and unrefrigerated
eggs, a few canned goods, and some bottled water. We left these
purchases at the market walked over to the Mercado a block away
to buy fruits and vegetables. We bought a large stalk of green
bananas weighing 20 pounds ($2.50), 10 avocadoes, 8 pounds of
tomatoes, three pineapples, and a watermelon. We wanted to buy
oranges and grapefruits but they were all soft and many were
moldy. We then hailed a pick-up truck taxi and loaded our fruits
into the back. In her best Spanish, Laura asked the driver if
there were another place to buy oranges. He took us to a store
that we had not seen before. There we bought 45 hard green
oranges, a half-dozen grapefruit, and another watermelon. We
shlepped it to back to the boat and had it washed and stowed
aboard before 10:30 am. We had to hang the banana stalk in the
ocean for a half-hour in order to drown the numerous insects
living there — some seemed immune to a 10 minute dunk. We
spent the afternoon going through our checklist of departure
preparations.
At 5 pm we took the water taxi into the Embarcadero to have
one last walk on solid gound, have a quick meal at Henry’s Club
Nautico, and pick up our order of prepared food. Earlier
yesterday morning, we asked Henry’s wife to cook up grilled
chicken and rice with vegetables and chicken for 9 people, and
left tupperware to contain it. When we got to Club Nautico, it
had all just been cooked and was sitting in the sealed
tupperware. We had a quick dinner of fish (they were now out of
chicken) and took a water taxi over to “Intiaq” . Karen and
Jean-Francois had invited us to talk about winds, waves, and
routing to the Marquesas over drinks on their beautiful
catamaran. They had two Italian couples from a nearby boat
over, and the men were bent over a computer screen with weather
forecasts. The discussion was all in French but I could follow
much of it, and Laura helped out with translations as well. One
of the Italian men had been a weather forecaster before
retiring. The question is whether to go directly south in the
hopes of picking up the tradewinds, or take a more northerly
course as routing guru Jimmy Cornell suggests. Jean-Francois
had made contact on his SSB radio with two boats that left the
Galapagos for the Marquesas three days ago. One went far south
and was experiencing very rough seas and no wind. The other
went less south and was experiencing calmer seas and 17 knots of
winds. This is extremely useful information and I have adjusted
our route in light of it. Over drinks and appetizers, Laura
engaged everyone in her brilliant French while I just sat there
smiling. We could not stay long as we had an invitation for
“sundowners” at “Vera”, the boat of our friends Michael and
Britta of Germany. It was certainly our big social night.
Laura is now listening in on Jean-Francois and his friends
at sea discuss condition (in French) on the SSB. Intiaq left
just 4 hours ago. A few other boats left today as well
primarily because the nasty swell from the south that we have
had for the past few days has ended. We are currently heading
208 degrees magnetic at 7.2 knots at location 1 degrees 39
minutes South, 91 degrees 29 minutes West. We had some dolphins
jumping near the boat just a few minutes ago. Soon it will be
rice and chicken for supper, and a night full of stars.
M.