Big City Culture Shock, Recycling, the Market

April 29,2015, S 15 d 48' 03"

We left Tauo, a quiet atoll in the Tuamotos,

where the population consisted of one family.  

May 1, 2015, S 17 d, 32' 24"; W 149 d, 34' 12"

Tahiti greeted us at night fall

With another lovely sunset.

We got permission from the port captain to enter, a requirement for all sailboats as the airplanes cross over the entrance to the harbor on their way to land at about 30 feet over the water.  Our mast is 55 feet tall and we don't relish the idea of being dismasted.  The city of Papeete, Tahiti is home to 3/4 of the population of French Polynesia. We pulled into the marina on Friday night of a holiday weekend literally across the street from a disco blaring American rock and roll. Even after having been up almost all night, as is common on short passages through the islands, we dispaired of being able to sleep through the noise, but as soon as our heads hit the pillow, we were out.  All of the Polynesian islands are volcanic.  The young ones, like the Marquesas, have tall mountains with very steep shore lines and no coral around them. The older ones, like Tahiti, have smaller mountains and are surrounded by coral reefs. The oldest, like Fakarava or Tauo, have flat, coral atolls and the mountains have eroded into the sea, leaving a lagoon behind, surrounded by coral.

May 2, 2015

On our way to market the next day, women lined the sidewalks selling flower tiaras and coronas.

We thought the market was somewhat small and went to the Carrfour, a major grocery store, similar to what  we  would find in the states, except the prices were amazing.  We found orange juice for about $7.50 U.S.

and some California strawberries for about $9.50 U.S.

You can buy a whole veal there, or some m&m's.

May 3, 2015

We learned the main market is on Sunday mornings from 4:30 am to 8 am.  We showed up around 6 am and found every kind of local fish,

coconut meat

as fresh as it gets!

Jerry enjoyed it.

They sell the fresh coconut milk in re-used water bottles.

We also found lycee, both fresh and jam.

Note, they make use of any jar they can.  It probably wouldnt pass any health department in the states, but it was delicious!

You can also buy fresh sugar cane juice mixed with lemon or lime.

The market consists of a two story building covering a whole city block, and all the streets around it. 

Jimmy Cornell, the organizer of the Blue Planet Odyssey rally came to visit the fleet in Papeete and spent several hours with us, going over our choices.  We have major news on this subject, tune into the next blog post!

In case you're wondering, Jerry has lost 42 pounds, and I've lost 15, although a daily habit of French baguettes may be putting a dent in that.  It is interesting to try to weigh yourself on a boat.  You look at the scale and say, "Oh, I weigh 172 lbs, no that's 186, no 165, no 178, and so it goes until you finally use a dock, and it only wavers 2 or 3 pounds. . . not much for accuracy ;)

May 6, 2015

We had a great trip to Tahiti's recycling center where we learnd that almost everything is sorted 

and sent to New Zealand for recycling,

except the glass which is a raw product for road beds. Any small town can do it by adding the glass to a small cement mixer with a few bocce balls.  The resulting crushed glass makes a good interlocking draining layer for the road bed.

               

One sorter was collecting figurines and our knome, Lief, decided to make new friends.

    

May 8, 2015                  

A drive into the mountains gave us the requisite swim in a waterfall. REFRESHING!!!  We are having a cold spell as we enter into winter here.  It dropped down to 79 degrees this morning!  It usually varies between 83 and 86, 24/7.

The following Saturday brought a cruise ship into the harbor with 1,900 tourists and 700 crew.

The streets and shops were full of white people, normally a rarity.

May 10, 2015, S 17 d 29' 48", W 149 d 29' 29"

We visited Point Venus, where Captain Cook tried to measure the transit of Venus as a part of a worldwide scientific effort to measure the distance to Venus, but lack of consistent time pieces prevented it from being successful. A beautiful sunset from Point Venus over the island of Moorea capped our day.

Tradition of transgenders! Ecology report, leaving for remote islands, landing in Tahiti

Nuka Hiva, Marquesas Islands, French Polynesia S 8d 55' 01", W 140d 05' 43"

One thing we've noticed here is how many women have Adam's apples!  It turns out that the early Marquesan cannibals only ate men, so most families, would raise one of their sons to be a woman so that at least one son would be sure to survive any raids by other cannibals.  That son was free to marry or not, but maintained life as a woman.  Perhaps as a result of that, gay and transgender men who become women are considered a normal part of the culture.  Many of them work in the hospitality industry and restaurant owners say how nice it is since they don't have the social restrictions that women do, they can work late without worrying about going home alone at night for example.  We had a lovely woman, about 6'2" with a high falsetto voice and an Adam's Apple  wait on us for dinner last night.  She was a delight.

On our way over the mountain, we also learned that they recycle only glass here and all the rest of the garbage is burned, including plastic.  The local dump is quite small and folks report that the tourists have much more trash than the locals who make good use of everything they can. We were careful to take our little bit of plastic trash with us.

We saw some incredibly beautiful flowers. This one is called the spider lily.

Tomorrow, we go to our local Internet cafe, Chez Joseph, which is basically a series of car port tarps on the cement dock.

They will have the weekly farmers market, and we will have a chance to stock up on fresh fish, fruits and veggies.  We will set sail in the afternoon for the Tuamotos and expect to arrive there in about five days, depending on wind.  We checked our mileage from San Diego to here and we covered about 3540 miles and used 31 galloms of fuel, including going through the doldrums!

April 22, 2015'. S 16d 3' 38", W 145d 37' 16"

Rotoava, Fakarava, Tuamotos, French Polynesia

It took five days to sail here, but we could easily have made it in four, except that the only safe way to enter this lagoon, is at slack tide, in daylight with the sun at an angle allowing the boater to see coral heads and reefs.  We got within the Tuamotos archipelago early in the evening of the fourth day after a steady strong wind of 25 kts. or more. We were heavily heeled over in heavy winds, making daily activities like cooking or sleeping very difficult.  Arriving to the mouth of the entrance pass, we did a maneuver called hove to, where the sails are set in opposition to each other, causing the boat to sit almost still in the water, and waited for the dawn.  

Rotoava is the largest village on the atoll of Fakarava.  The atoll is rectangular, about 25 miles long and ten miles wide.  It consists of thin strips of palm trees and sandy shore, surrounding the large blue lagoon.  I measured the width of the strip of land at about 400 Ginny paces (the only form of measurement available at the time).  The inner shore is sandy, and quiet, windy, but waveless.  The outer shore is wind swept and pounded by waves.  Chunks of coral and bits of plastic cover the outer beach, the inner beach is smooth sand, raked and kept clean.

Only one black pearl farm is still working after what once was a thriving business.  The pearls are seeded, then take several years to make it to maturity.  They must be kept protected from predators and periodically cleaned from parasites, then are harvested.

And the pearls removed.

Some think the global loss of a strong middle class is the reason for the downfall of the pearl market.  There are fewer people to buy them.

We took a walk into town this morning and bought some ice cream at the store.  We find that ice cream is appropriate at any time of day in this heat. As the only store in the village, it carries whatever it can. Below is a pic of one of the six aisles of the store, this one is the liquor store, hardware store, plumbing supplies, children's toys, jewelry, housewares and produce department consisting of two empty bins and one filled with some beautiful garlic.

The main street in town is paved and includes the elementary school, post office, medical clinic and general store.  Many modest houses line the street and while some have windows, others have only strong wooden shutters for storm protection.  The top elevation seems to be about 42 inches and storms can easily cause a wash over everything.  Climate change is likely to make their home and underwater reef in a matter of decades and an entire archipelago will likely disappear.  Today I saw no gardens and we were told in the Marquesas that folks would appreciate any fruit we could bring as coconut is the only fruit available here.  It is a stark contrast with the Marquesas where the soil was rich and a broad variety of fruits seemed to grow wild everywhere. We didn't appreciate how rare it was to have all the bananas, guava, papaya, limes, grapefruit, star fruit, avocado, watermelon and more.  

We sailed on to Tuao, the next atoll in the chain.  

Only one extended family lives here.  The husband had recently lost his dark glasses and the wife was hoping we had something for her chronic headaches.  We were able to leave behind both items and a bag of limes as well.

Soon we leave for the big city, Papeete on Tahiti. It is the largest city of French Polynesia, the center of all these divergent cultures, and, being mountainous, likely the first place for the climate refugees to turn.

Hospitable cannibals?

 

April 11, '15.  S 8d 59' 56", W 140d 94' 08",

The island of Oa Pua, like all the Marquesan islands, was home to cannibals up until the late 1800's.  A resurgence of the Marquesan culture has re-elevated the status of cannabalism.  The islanders joke about it, tell some of us that we are just the right size to be juicy, and others that they need to be fattened up.  We were invited to a two day festival, honoring sailors. They greeted us with leis 

And kisses on each cheek.

They had an amazing spread of fresh fruit from their gardens

Served on a banana leaf for a plate with a stick for a fork.

They did a demonstration of how to prepare breadfruit which is a large tree fruit.  Her hands fly as she peels it with a cowrie shell.

It tastes much like a potato and is good fried, baked, or mashed.  It's yummy fried in oil with salt, much like French fries. Marquesans are concerned as the breadfruit trees no longer produce twice a year. Extended drought has meant only one crop of breadfruit every nine months. This primary staple has been threatened by climate change.

In the afternoon, we traveled across the crest of the island to another valley.  Traditionally, each valley would have their own chief.  They often raided each other and took slaves and prisoners to eat!  The cannabalism was quite common throughout the islands and none of the villages were on the shores, but rather, up into the highlands where they were more protected from invaders.  The French sent many missionaries here and the locals tell us that it took many years before the missionaries did anything more than become dinner.

Of course, the missionaries tried to "teach" them not to eat people. One of the deciding factors was the spread of Western diseases which decimated the locals, but which was far less a problem for the missionaries.  This appeared to be evidence of the power of this new religion and many tribes became Catholic, some stopping their practice of cannabalism, and some pretending to stop.  Records suggest that the cannabalism was mostly gone by the early 1800's, but the population had dropped from around 100,000 to just over 2,000.  Today, there are almost 10,000 Marquesans.

The second day of the Sailor's fest included a trip over the mountain crest to still another valley where the children and dancers announced our coming and welcomed us.

The men formed a phallanx for us to pass through, then did a welcoming dance.

Later in the evening, they did a fire dance and a dance celebrating eating white people.   It was a strange combination of being welcomed, and not sure you should be there.  The chief agreed to hold our granddaughter's knome. 

And the end of the day was beautiful.

Polliwogs, Shellbacks, the Southern Cross and LAND HO!

On Sunday, March 29th at 6:15pm, we morphed from Pollywogs into Shellbacks! In other words, we crossed the equator into the South Pacific!  We celebrated with a toast of gratitude to Neptune.  Not  surprisingly, it doesn't look any different out there, but we have a powerful sense of the accomplishment for crossing this imaginary line!  Tonight we saw the  Southern Cross  for the first time, the smallest of the 88 named constellations. It points to the south celestial pole and feels like a different world. But the next day, it was back to squalls coming on the horizon.

 We  have traveled 4223 nautical miles since we left Bellingham, all on the largest body of water in the world.  The Pacific Ocean (North and South) cover more area than all of Earth's continents put together.  It is surrounded by the Ring of Fire, hundreds, if not thousands of both active and dormant volcanoes.  There are over 20,000 islands in the Pacific Ocean, most of which are concentrated in the south or west where we are headed.  Some of the islands are associated with their neighboring continent, like Japan, in the east, the Aleutians in the north, or Vancouver Island and the Gulf and San Juan Islands in our own backyard.  Another type is the high volcanic island such as the Hawaiian Islands or the Marquesas.  Finally, there are the sandy coral  atolls like the majority of the islands of the South Pacific.  It is this type most in danger by the rising seas of climate change. 

It  is astounding to us, as we cross this vast ocean, to realize  that we have raised the temperature of such a gargantuan mass and changed its acidity level with our high carbon uses!  I try to think of dozens  of things I can do, from skipping that airplane trip (a major carbon expenditure!), to changing to LED bulbs.  Students at the Highline School District (hi, all you amazing students!) brain stormed a list of things everyone could do and then looked for specific ways they could alter their behavior to help the Earth.  Among the items they came up with: buy local products, buy produce in season, ride your bike to work/school, buy organic (much less carbon used in this farming method, plus, your grocery dollar isn't being spent on dangerous pesticides!), play outside instead of playing electronic games, and much more.  We must each change our habits, and it feels good when we do.

4/2/15, S 8d, 23' 24"', W 136d 37' 04":  we are almost there, just about 160 miles to go! We have been busy making sure both water tanks are full as the water maker doesn't process dirty harbor water very well (every harbor has relatively dirty water.) We're also repairing and installing our screens to ward off the local mosquitos that may carry dengue fever, a very nasty bug.  We are hoping for a good rain before we arrive to give everything a nice fresh water rinse.  The entire outside of the boat is encrusted with salt.  J Boats are known as a "wet boat" meaning they are low to the waterline and we often get water coming on deck or splashing into the cockpit. When the surface has dried, you can see the residual salt crystals covering everything. 

4/4/2015 Hiva Oa! We arrived Saturday morning around 5 am after slowing down through the night so as to arrive in daylight.  As we approached the island, the full moon was setting behind it and the sun ready to rise.  It is an exquisite place, known as the most beautiful island in Polynesia.

We have been busy connecting with the other participants of the Blue Planet Odyssey (cornellsailing.com).Each day has included opportunities to see more the islands and its people. On Saturday night, we went to mass at the local church.  Many of the women wore flower headdresses, much like a westerner might wear a new hat to Easter service at church, although these were made especially for the occasion.  The 8 foot tall crucifixion statue was decorated with a 20' garland that must have taken many hours to complete.  All the flowers come from the gardens of families from the church.  There is no nursery or place where flowers are imported from. The regional bishop performed the mass, first in Marquesan, then in French. Of the 2 1/2 hour service, singing in many part harmony by the congregation was ethereal!  Additionally, About 15 families brought their infants forward to be baptized by the bishop, it seemed to be a tradition, likely, they represented all the children born on the island since Christmas. 

Today we had the opportunity to travel into the interior and see some of the Tiki statues that were part of the early religion here, before the French brought Catholicism and forbade the worship of their old gods.  

The views of the island from its crest were amazing!

In town, the little store has onions, potatoes, and a couple of things I've never seen before.  There is no need to have much more as everyone gardens.  Many things just grow in the forest and on its edge, including avocados, breadfruit, mango, guava, limes, and much more. Coconuts are everywhere and many homes have drying racks in the yard to prepare the meat for sale.  The people here import very little and get by with what can be made locally. 

We have been excited and VERY appreciative to have a shower on shore, it's a cement bunker which comes up to my chin.  The inside is covered in nearly an inch of green slime ( you shower with your sandals on) and the pipe that comes across the top has no hot water, but whatever temp comes down the hillside.  There is a tree next to it to hang your clothes.  It was a luxury as far as we were concerned, and the water temp was perfect for this HOT clime. Tomorrow night we will leave for another island. Much to do and learn.