Our first night’s passage out of the Gambier Islands on the way to Tahanea provided a real treat – a blood moon eclipse! And a very fine spectacle it was too as the night was cloudless & we were able to watch the whole eclipse right through to the finale, when the lunar surface became …
We had read about Hervé and Valerie in our cruising compendium and as I mentioned before, they are well known to the cruising community. They live with their son on the eastern side of Taravai, in a lovely cottage on the edge of the beach, which has been in Hervé’s family for generations. (Interestingly, this …
We were happy to finally arrive at the Gambier Islands. Not exactly by Christmas as originally intended, but nevertheless we achieved our goal of sailing to this remote archipelago! Better late than never! The Gambier islands lie about 1700km SE of Tahiti and consist of a single lagoon of 30km2 within which there are 5 …
I don’t think there are enough superlatives to describe the small atoll of Amanu, which so aptly fits the description of a South Pacific paradise. This is an absolute gem and we feel lucky to have been ‘stranded’ here whilst awaiting favourable winds to get us to the Gambier Islands. We have been here for …
Slow boat to Amanu As I write this we are dawdling along in very little wind, with mainsail & jib wing on wing, (ie on opposite sides) doing about 3 knots. Such a contrast to the strong winds we experienced in Makemo, where we tucked in as much as we could off the village to …
It was clear that after our haul out, with 2 nice clean hulls devoid of aquatic flora, that our speed through the water had significantly increased. Even just motoring around the lagoon we noted at least a 1 knot increase in speed for the same revs. So now that this factor has been eliminated, we’ll …
After Edward & Alicia departed we felt a little flat – I guess it just highlighted our isolation from all our family at the moment & we miss them all. Certainly a different experience with just Bill & I than the partially controlled mayhem that accompanied our circumnavigation with 3 kids 18 years or so …
It was fabulous to have our oldest son, Edward & his fiancée, Alicia visit and stay with us for just over 2 weeks. We hadn’t seen them since we left in April, so it was so good to catch up & share all our respective news. Not the least of which included details of ‘the …
It has been just over a month since I returned from Italy. I went there to celebrate the marriage of my niece, Rachel to Ben. It was a joyous occasion full of much love, support & affection for a wonderful couple, who are both thoroughly gorgeous human beings. They deserve each other. It was also …
Compared to Papeete, Uturoa the capital of Raiatea, seemed very small, but it appeared to have all that we required. We were greeted by a patisserie full of sumptuous pastries & a choice of 3 supermarkets & an undercover produce market from which to purchase supplies. There are also some quite decent artisan outlets offering …