I have been reading an excellent book - "Guns, Germs, and Steel" by Jared Diamond. The general aim of this book is to explain why it is that, throughout history, some groups of people came to dominate others. Diamond looks at underlying factors in natural history that have had a huge influence on how cultures develop, including geography, climate, availability of plants and large animals suitable for domestication, and even orientation of the continents. The author's deep familiarity with the various peoples of New Guinea provides a number of fascinating examples in addition to the more familiar contrast of European/Asian versus American cultures. If you have ever been puzzled by questions such as why it was that the aborigines of Australia were still living in the stone age into the 19th century or why a handful of Spaniards were able to destroy the Aztec empire of Central America, then I highly recommend this book.
We visited a pearl farm near the town of Rotoava on Fakarava atoll. They culture black pearls here, which range in colour from a creamy gray, through various metallic shades of gray, to green, purplish, and a dark gray/black. The process we saw is quite interesting - more akin to a dental or fertility clinic than a farm. 'Dream Pearls' buys three year old oysters from another outfit. These are maybe 4 inches across. They then select and cut open an oyster to supply the raw ingredients for pearl formation. This is excised from the body of shells whose 'mother of pearl' exhibits the desired colour for a pearl. Slivers of meat are removed with a scalpel and then divided by scalpel again into dozens of tiny fragments.
Another oyster is then selected and carefully pried open and held that way using what looks like a medical instrument that achieves the reverse function of a pair of pliers. Into this oyster is inserted a small plastic bead (maybe 5mm diameter?) that is first soaked in antiseptic. A sliver of oyster meat from the other oyster is next inserted adjacent to the plastic bead, which will then grow over the bead and (hopefully) form a nice round pearl the same colour as the donor's shell.
The host oyster has a hole drilled in it and it is then strung up between two layers of coarse plastic mesh and hung from a line off a pier at the end of the pearl farm building. It will remain there until a boat takes each mesh out into deeper water and suspends them from a float. The oysters spend 18 months hanging in the lagoon before being retrieved and re-opened. The pearl is extracted and graded and another larger (about 9mm) bead is inserted in its place to grow another larger pearl. No new material is added for this 2nd pearl. The process will take one more year after which the 2nd pearl is removed and the oyster harvested.
The operation employs about 10 people, as far as we could see. They process 3000 oysters a day. Nice pearls sell for anywhere from 30 to 100+ dollars depending on size and quality (e.g., how perfectly shaped they are, how luminous, etc.)
We are currently en route to Tahiti and expect to arrive at Point Venus early tomorrow morning. Position is 17 02 S 148 37 W. We have had a good breeze on this crossing and made nearly 150 miles in the first 24 hours in rolly conditions.
Friday, June 15, 2012
Wednesday, June 13, 2012
Busy, Busy
When I think of palm fringed atolls and green coral strewn waters, I think relaxation - an escape from the stress of the work world. Strangely, we find our days here to be just as filled as we did back home, although we certainly have more say as to how we spend these hours. Take today for example - we did our weekly bucket laundry - wash, scrub, rinse, wring, rinse again, wring, rinse again, wring. We used water we had gathered last night during a rain squall by scooping water off our decks into buckets and containers. We then pegged the pillow cases, shirts, and smalls to our lifelines and ratlines - colourful pennants fluttering in the brisk southeasterly breeze. Today, doing the laundry was a pleasure. The amount was manageable, we split the work between us, and we were using lovely freshly gathered water - a gift from the sky. The sunny, windy, weather made short work of finishing things off - no fabric softener needed...
After laundry, our friends Mike and Karen on 'Chapter 2' gave us a ride to the nearby passes, where we drift-snorkeled twice through one pass and once through a smaller pass to the north. The current was snorting through the passes and we flew over trenches and hills of coral with an array of colourful fish drifting along below us. At one point two larger grey sharks swam vigorously toward us from the deeps, giving me a bit of a fright. They swam around our dinghy, probably trying to figure out what this strange multi-limbed creature was (we were hanging onto ropes tethered to the dinghy). We also saw a 6 foot lemon shark - identifiable by its colour and by having two dorsal fins.
On our way back to Ladybug we anchored off a coral reef that is the best I have seen so far. Yellows, beiges, purples, pinks, and browns in all manor of fantastic shapes. In places the formations looked like the cities imagined by science fiction writers and the fish were like shuttles drifting between towers on another world. In others the effect was like a carefully laid out botanical garden, with lovingly tended shrubs and bushes in a harmonious array of hues.
After our snorkel we had a bucket shower in the cockpit and cleaned the salt off our gear. Keeping salt out of the boat is a continuous concern, especially here where the high humidity would otherwise cause mildew inside. Next was lunch, after which I disassembled and cleaned our autopilot while Rani made hand-drawn postcards to send to our families. We rowed ashore in the late afternoon to explore the motu and walked a couple of miles, finding two neatly-maintained copra plantations and several workers' cottages. Some of these were made entirely of palm thatching over a pole frame and others were more substantial, with steel roofs. I climbed a coconut palm and brought down a few drinking nuts, which we cut up with a machete borrowed from one of the cottages. We hiked to the outer reef where we looked for shells on the coral sand beach and waded on the reef to check out some parrot fish that had been trapped in tide pools.
Back at the boat, we hoisted the dinghy on board in preparation for tomorrow's passage. Tonight we will probably read our books and maybe watch a movie on the computer. Once I post this blog, I will also download a weather file to help plan for the passage. So you see that our days are full. There seems to be little time to just lay back and relax - although neither of us is complaining.
We are currently anchored just south of the east pass of the Toau atoll. 15 56 S 145 53 W Tomorrow we sail for Anse Amyot - a small bay about 20 miles away at the northwest corner of this atoll.
After laundry, our friends Mike and Karen on 'Chapter 2' gave us a ride to the nearby passes, where we drift-snorkeled twice through one pass and once through a smaller pass to the north. The current was snorting through the passes and we flew over trenches and hills of coral with an array of colourful fish drifting along below us. At one point two larger grey sharks swam vigorously toward us from the deeps, giving me a bit of a fright. They swam around our dinghy, probably trying to figure out what this strange multi-limbed creature was (we were hanging onto ropes tethered to the dinghy). We also saw a 6 foot lemon shark - identifiable by its colour and by having two dorsal fins.
On our way back to Ladybug we anchored off a coral reef that is the best I have seen so far. Yellows, beiges, purples, pinks, and browns in all manor of fantastic shapes. In places the formations looked like the cities imagined by science fiction writers and the fish were like shuttles drifting between towers on another world. In others the effect was like a carefully laid out botanical garden, with lovingly tended shrubs and bushes in a harmonious array of hues.
After our snorkel we had a bucket shower in the cockpit and cleaned the salt off our gear. Keeping salt out of the boat is a continuous concern, especially here where the high humidity would otherwise cause mildew inside. Next was lunch, after which I disassembled and cleaned our autopilot while Rani made hand-drawn postcards to send to our families. We rowed ashore in the late afternoon to explore the motu and walked a couple of miles, finding two neatly-maintained copra plantations and several workers' cottages. Some of these were made entirely of palm thatching over a pole frame and others were more substantial, with steel roofs. I climbed a coconut palm and brought down a few drinking nuts, which we cut up with a machete borrowed from one of the cottages. We hiked to the outer reef where we looked for shells on the coral sand beach and waded on the reef to check out some parrot fish that had been trapped in tide pools.
Back at the boat, we hoisted the dinghy on board in preparation for tomorrow's passage. Tonight we will probably read our books and maybe watch a movie on the computer. Once I post this blog, I will also download a weather file to help plan for the passage. So you see that our days are full. There seems to be little time to just lay back and relax - although neither of us is complaining.
We are currently anchored just south of the east pass of the Toau atoll. 15 56 S 145 53 W Tomorrow we sail for Anse Amyot - a small bay about 20 miles away at the northwest corner of this atoll.
Friday, June 8, 2012
Chilly temperatures, snails, and Japanese sailors
It's funny how quickly we adapt to a new climate. Wintering in Baja, Mexico, we rarely saw temperatures above 80 degrees and found the evenings quite comfortable when they dipped into the low 60's. We suffered as we sailed south to the equator and the daily temperatures rose into the 90's, dropping to the mid 80's at night, with higher humidity than we had ever seen in Baja - up to 80 percent. We are now so used to this that when it dropped last night below 80 degrees, I actually put on a night shirt and went searching for a bed sheet!
Yesterday we decided to stay put, rather than sailing north inside the atoll. The forecast showed moderate to strong southerlies and the northern end of the atoll would be at the end of 30 miles of fetch. This could produce waves of 3 or 4 feet - not at all a good place to anchor. So instead we went ashore for a walk and found our way to the most neatly kept Tuamotan home we have yet seen, with manicured shrubs set amongst the field of coral that made up its front yard. Behind the house, which was not occupied, we discovered a path through the palms and shrubs that brought us out onto the outer reef where the wind was much stronger than in our sheltered lagoon. The sea dashed itself on the reef sending small waves across the coral shelf. We waded in the coral pools collecting washed up cowry shells and marvelling at the dozens of shapes that corals form even in the confines of this shallow shelf.
We met a French couple off a cruising catamaran who showed us a bag of sea snails that they had collected from the reef. They told us that they were tasty, though chewy, and explained that they boiled them and then ate them with seasoning. On our way back to the boat, we met Jean, a local who grew up in Tahiti and had worked in the French military as a parachutist in Corsica. He is the brother of the Maheata, the woman whom Rani met a few days ago. He lives a few hundred yards away along the beach in a concrete block house raised off the sand on pilings. Jean demonstrated how to open the snail by smashing the heavy shell with another snail shell. He then cleaned the snail and offered it to me to try 'cru' or uncooked. It was chewy and not particularly flavourful. He told us that you needed good teeth to enjoy a meal of these and I began to regret having collected them! Back at the boat, I elected to steam the rest and, smothered in enough garlic butter, they were edible though very chewy.
We went for a quick swim before supper, finding the visibility here to be lousy compared to that at the pass, probably due to all the sand that has been stirred up by strong winds. Later, we had a Japanese couple from a nearby boat over for drinks and munchies. Despite the language barrier we had a good chat. They told us that although Japan is an island nation, there are few Japanese recreational sailors. They estimate that only 10 Japanese boats are currently out cruising the world. Yoshi and Mayumi told us of their trip to North America - 50 days to Prince Rupert arriving at Dixon entrance in a storm, running under bare poles at 7-8 knots! When they left Japan they had never done any sort of ocean crossing!
From Prince Rupert they sailed down the inside passage to Victoria and wintered over there in front of the Empress hotel. The next year they sailed back up around Vancouver Island and departed for San Fransisco from Ucluelet, as we had done a few years earlier. They cruised down the California coast to Mexico and then crossed to the Marquesas about the same time we did. Quite an adventurous couple, I would say!
Yesterday we decided to stay put, rather than sailing north inside the atoll. The forecast showed moderate to strong southerlies and the northern end of the atoll would be at the end of 30 miles of fetch. This could produce waves of 3 or 4 feet - not at all a good place to anchor. So instead we went ashore for a walk and found our way to the most neatly kept Tuamotan home we have yet seen, with manicured shrubs set amongst the field of coral that made up its front yard. Behind the house, which was not occupied, we discovered a path through the palms and shrubs that brought us out onto the outer reef where the wind was much stronger than in our sheltered lagoon. The sea dashed itself on the reef sending small waves across the coral shelf. We waded in the coral pools collecting washed up cowry shells and marvelling at the dozens of shapes that corals form even in the confines of this shallow shelf.
We met a French couple off a cruising catamaran who showed us a bag of sea snails that they had collected from the reef. They told us that they were tasty, though chewy, and explained that they boiled them and then ate them with seasoning. On our way back to the boat, we met Jean, a local who grew up in Tahiti and had worked in the French military as a parachutist in Corsica. He is the brother of the Maheata, the woman whom Rani met a few days ago. He lives a few hundred yards away along the beach in a concrete block house raised off the sand on pilings. Jean demonstrated how to open the snail by smashing the heavy shell with another snail shell. He then cleaned the snail and offered it to me to try 'cru' or uncooked. It was chewy and not particularly flavourful. He told us that you needed good teeth to enjoy a meal of these and I began to regret having collected them! Back at the boat, I elected to steam the rest and, smothered in enough garlic butter, they were edible though very chewy.
We went for a quick swim before supper, finding the visibility here to be lousy compared to that at the pass, probably due to all the sand that has been stirred up by strong winds. Later, we had a Japanese couple from a nearby boat over for drinks and munchies. Despite the language barrier we had a good chat. They told us that although Japan is an island nation, there are few Japanese recreational sailors. They estimate that only 10 Japanese boats are currently out cruising the world. Yoshi and Mayumi told us of their trip to North America - 50 days to Prince Rupert arriving at Dixon entrance in a storm, running under bare poles at 7-8 knots! When they left Japan they had never done any sort of ocean crossing!
From Prince Rupert they sailed down the inside passage to Victoria and wintered over there in front of the Empress hotel. The next year they sailed back up around Vancouver Island and departed for San Fransisco from Ucluelet, as we had done a few years earlier. They cruised down the California coast to Mexico and then crossed to the Marquesas about the same time we did. Quite an adventurous couple, I would say!
Tuesday, June 5, 2012
Rain, Venus's transit, and more sharks
We had serious rain last night and plugged up the scuppers to catch some for laundry. Today we also made drinking water using our reverse osmosis system (based on pushing sea water at 800 psi through a special membrane that allows only H20 through). This takes a lot of power (14+ amps), so we did this while motoring to a new anchorage inside the atoll and we recharged our batteries at the same time. The old Balmar alternator that we had rebuilt in Mexico is working well and was putting out a nice solid 55 amps. We needed this because our batteries were quite low after a couple of gray days. Normally (on reasonably sunny days) our solar panels keep things topped up.
The new anchorage is much quieter than the one near the pass - well sheltered from the north east winds that have been blowing all day. Three related families live near the beach off which we are anchored, on a small island set in the coral rim of the atoll. We met one woman who spends most of her time on this motu, but also visits the main village about 25 miles away each week for blood tests and to buy supplies and visit her relatives. She gave us a bag of eggplants from her garden this afternoon, which we shared with the other cruisers here and we will visit her with a gift of dried bananas tomorrow.
By the way, the banana drying worked really well and we have a few pounds of them wrapped up in individual cellophane packets. The only issue is that each banana piece bears a striking resemblance to a mummified human finger because I split each banana and then cut the split section in half.
We watched the transit of Venus today from a vantage point quite near to where Captain Cook made his observations in 1769. The first voyage of Cook was funded by the Royal Society for the purpose of witnessing this transit from a suitable mid-Pacific location. This was done to enable an accurate calculation of the distance from the earth to the Sun, a baseline number upon which many astronomical calculations could then be based. We saw Venus enter the sun on the lower right side around noon and arc across the lower half until clouds obscured things near sunset. Through the sextant, Venus appeared as a black dot on the sun.
Yesterday we were swimming in a small sandy lagoon off the south pass at Fakarava when a dive boat came in with some fish, which they cleaned to make cerviche (raw fish marinated in lime juice). The bits they threw in the water attracted more than 2 dozen sharks and the feeding frenzy was quite amazing to see from our vantage point at the same level as the sharks and maybe 30 feet away. There were so many sharks in the almost enclosed pool that there were several at any time cruising a few feet from us. They were mostly smaller black tipped reef sharks but even so, there is something cold and fierce about them that strikes a primal chord. I have never been closer to so many large predators than at this time and I must give Rani cudos, for she had arrived a half hour earlier and been the only swimmer in the water here for a while, despite her fear of sharks.
We are gradually making our way north through the lagoon and had planned to stop at a couple more anchorages. However stronger south east winds may push us out the north pass and over to the atoll of Toau earlier than we had intended.
Corrections: to my last blog post - the open water PADI course here is 3 days and includes 6 dives, not 2 days/3 dives as I had stated. the shorter course is a 'Scuba Diver' course. Also - in an earlier post I mentioned that Rani dropped a flashlight overboard in 40 feet. From reading the PADI manual, I have learned that this would have put it at more than two atmospheres of pressure rather than the one atmosphere I stated...
The new anchorage is much quieter than the one near the pass - well sheltered from the north east winds that have been blowing all day. Three related families live near the beach off which we are anchored, on a small island set in the coral rim of the atoll. We met one woman who spends most of her time on this motu, but also visits the main village about 25 miles away each week for blood tests and to buy supplies and visit her relatives. She gave us a bag of eggplants from her garden this afternoon, which we shared with the other cruisers here and we will visit her with a gift of dried bananas tomorrow.
By the way, the banana drying worked really well and we have a few pounds of them wrapped up in individual cellophane packets. The only issue is that each banana piece bears a striking resemblance to a mummified human finger because I split each banana and then cut the split section in half.
We watched the transit of Venus today from a vantage point quite near to where Captain Cook made his observations in 1769. The first voyage of Cook was funded by the Royal Society for the purpose of witnessing this transit from a suitable mid-Pacific location. This was done to enable an accurate calculation of the distance from the earth to the Sun, a baseline number upon which many astronomical calculations could then be based. We saw Venus enter the sun on the lower right side around noon and arc across the lower half until clouds obscured things near sunset. Through the sextant, Venus appeared as a black dot on the sun.
Yesterday we were swimming in a small sandy lagoon off the south pass at Fakarava when a dive boat came in with some fish, which they cleaned to make cerviche (raw fish marinated in lime juice). The bits they threw in the water attracted more than 2 dozen sharks and the feeding frenzy was quite amazing to see from our vantage point at the same level as the sharks and maybe 30 feet away. There were so many sharks in the almost enclosed pool that there were several at any time cruising a few feet from us. They were mostly smaller black tipped reef sharks but even so, there is something cold and fierce about them that strikes a primal chord. I have never been closer to so many large predators than at this time and I must give Rani cudos, for she had arrived a half hour earlier and been the only swimmer in the water here for a while, despite her fear of sharks.
We are gradually making our way north through the lagoon and had planned to stop at a couple more anchorages. However stronger south east winds may push us out the north pass and over to the atoll of Toau earlier than we had intended.
Corrections: to my last blog post - the open water PADI course here is 3 days and includes 6 dives, not 2 days/3 dives as I had stated. the shorter course is a 'Scuba Diver' course. Also - in an earlier post I mentioned that Rani dropped a flashlight overboard in 40 feet. From reading the PADI manual, I have learned that this would have put it at more than two atmospheres of pressure rather than the one atmosphere I stated...
Monday, June 4, 2012
A trial dive and trip ashore
We are still at the south pass on Fakarava. Each day we snorkel the pass and see new species of fish and corals. The clarity is fantastic and we are getting used to having 1 to 2 meter sharks swimming as close as a couple of meters from us. Rani will look into doing a dive today so she can experience the deeper waters and see the great numbers of sharks that gather at the mouth of the pass about 30 meters down.
I had my first diving experience a couple of days ago when Mike from 'Chapter Two' took me over into the shallows and lent me Karen's BCD and tank to see what diving is about. He explained how to use the BCD so as to achieve neutral buoyancy and then had me practice using my breathing to ascend and descend (how much you fill your lungs will raise and lower you). We then swam around some coral heads and descended to 26 feet. I was surprised at how different it felt from snorkeling - you are no longer a creature of the surface but now move in a new world. I looked into PADI certification here but the cost is steep at over $700 for a 2 day/3 dive course. So maybe I will do this in Tonga or the Cook islands...
We finally visited the main motu here, on which the primary village of the Tuamotus once stood. All that remains to indicate this are wide coral roads, two graveyards, a few old coral block structures, and a lovely church with a mother of pearl alter and chandeliers made of thousands of tiny shells strung together. There is a resort here with cottages on stilts over the water and a restaurant that is built on stilts right in the pass. There is a small beach/lagoon area ideal for children to play in as it is full of corals and fish yet is out of the currents in the pass. The only downside for nervous Mums is the presence of three of four (harmless) sharks at most times of the day!
We plan one more snorkel/dive today and will then sail north through the lagoon to the main village.
I had my first diving experience a couple of days ago when Mike from 'Chapter Two' took me over into the shallows and lent me Karen's BCD and tank to see what diving is about. He explained how to use the BCD so as to achieve neutral buoyancy and then had me practice using my breathing to ascend and descend (how much you fill your lungs will raise and lower you). We then swam around some coral heads and descended to 26 feet. I was surprised at how different it felt from snorkeling - you are no longer a creature of the surface but now move in a new world. I looked into PADI certification here but the cost is steep at over $700 for a 2 day/3 dive course. So maybe I will do this in Tonga or the Cook islands...
We finally visited the main motu here, on which the primary village of the Tuamotus once stood. All that remains to indicate this are wide coral roads, two graveyards, a few old coral block structures, and a lovely church with a mother of pearl alter and chandeliers made of thousands of tiny shells strung together. There is a resort here with cottages on stilts over the water and a restaurant that is built on stilts right in the pass. There is a small beach/lagoon area ideal for children to play in as it is full of corals and fish yet is out of the currents in the pass. The only downside for nervous Mums is the presence of three of four (harmless) sharks at most times of the day!
We plan one more snorkel/dive today and will then sail north through the lagoon to the main village.
Friday, June 1, 2012
Sharks, sharks, and more sharks
Fakarava is well known for great diving and snorkeling. We have been here a couple of days now, anchored inside the south pass, off a dive resort. The anchorage is quite full of coral heads and most boats have caught their chain in coral despite buoying the chain to keep most of it off the bottom.
We snorkeled the pass twice today while our friends Mike and Karen dived it below us once and then snorkeled it after their air ran out. There were hundreds of black tipped, grey, and white tipped reef sharks in the pass, which the divers were able to view close up. On the surface, we had to content ourselves with 20 to 30 at a time and I was able to view some larger groups by free diving to 40 feet, watching the sharks swimming gracefully in the current 10 feet deeper.
At one point, we drifted in the flooding current past a restaurant that was built on pilings out into the pass. In the shallow waters adjacent to this, over a coral ledge, were dozens of small sharks and a huge bump head Wrasse that was as big as Rani, with an eyeball the size of a baseball - AMAZING! The corals here are very lovely, too, with lots of colours and shapes and we saw dozens of varieties of colourful reef fish, which Rani is currently trying to identify. Our friends on Southern Cross are here and have taken pictures underwater while on their dives. We hope to post some of these when we reach Internet access in a couple of weeks.
We plan to stay here a few more days and then sail north through the 35 mile lagoon to the north pass where there is a large village. From there we will visit one more atoll before we leave for Tahiti where there is a rendezvous on June 22 of various cruisers who sailed here from Mexico.
Our current location is roughly 16 30 S 145 28 W
We snorkeled the pass twice today while our friends Mike and Karen dived it below us once and then snorkeled it after their air ran out. There were hundreds of black tipped, grey, and white tipped reef sharks in the pass, which the divers were able to view close up. On the surface, we had to content ourselves with 20 to 30 at a time and I was able to view some larger groups by free diving to 40 feet, watching the sharks swimming gracefully in the current 10 feet deeper.
At one point, we drifted in the flooding current past a restaurant that was built on pilings out into the pass. In the shallow waters adjacent to this, over a coral ledge, were dozens of small sharks and a huge bump head Wrasse that was as big as Rani, with an eyeball the size of a baseball - AMAZING! The corals here are very lovely, too, with lots of colours and shapes and we saw dozens of varieties of colourful reef fish, which Rani is currently trying to identify. Our friends on Southern Cross are here and have taken pictures underwater while on their dives. We hope to post some of these when we reach Internet access in a couple of weeks.
We plan to stay here a few more days and then sail north through the 35 mile lagoon to the north pass where there is a large village. From there we will visit one more atoll before we leave for Tahiti where there is a rendezvous on June 22 of various cruisers who sailed here from Mexico.
Our current location is roughly 16 30 S 145 28 W
Tuesday, May 29, 2012
Pickles and Preserves
Pickling vegetables, fruits and chilies was part of the cooking routine for my mother and older sister while I was growing up in England. My father does not like spicy curries but loves hot pickle and chutney on the side so we always had a large jar of limes, chilies and ginger sunning on the kitchen window ledge. I think mum placed it there to accelerate the softening of the limes and to keep the mold in check.
Sadly I was too wrapped up in reading and watching television to take any real notice of these activities. However, last year on my visit to the U.K., I quizzed my sister about pickles and watched mum blending her scrumptious mint chutney. Knowing I would have lots of time on my hands on this voyage, I bought some spices in Vancouver and limes and chilies in Mexico. In Los Frailes, I canned a couple of jars of lime and chili pickle before our passage to the Marquesas. We opened the first jar a couple of days ago while entertaining friends and I received very positive feedback. In the Marquesas where fruits were abundant, I cooked and canned some mango and sour apple (pomme citrine) chutney and have been experimenting with coconut chutney. I am truly enjoying the experience and Chris is the perfect guinea pig as he has no authentic Indian reference to judge the results.
It would have been fun making marmalade as citrus fruits were plentiful in the Marquesas but we could not afford to use up so much propane.
Here is my recipe for coconut/mint chutney:
Grated or minced fresh coconut meat from one small coconut
1 heaped teaspoon of crushed dry mint or one tablespoon of fresh chopped mint
1/4 teaspoon of salt (or less if you have high blood pressure)
1 hot green or red chili (crushed)
juice from half a lime
1/2 teaspoon cumin powder
1 teaspoon sugar
Blend all by hand and allow to sit for half an hour before serving. Keep the remainder in the fridge or the coolest place on the boat.
Sadly I was too wrapped up in reading and watching television to take any real notice of these activities. However, last year on my visit to the U.K., I quizzed my sister about pickles and watched mum blending her scrumptious mint chutney. Knowing I would have lots of time on my hands on this voyage, I bought some spices in Vancouver and limes and chilies in Mexico. In Los Frailes, I canned a couple of jars of lime and chili pickle before our passage to the Marquesas. We opened the first jar a couple of days ago while entertaining friends and I received very positive feedback. In the Marquesas where fruits were abundant, I cooked and canned some mango and sour apple (pomme citrine) chutney and have been experimenting with coconut chutney. I am truly enjoying the experience and Chris is the perfect guinea pig as he has no authentic Indian reference to judge the results.
It would have been fun making marmalade as citrus fruits were plentiful in the Marquesas but we could not afford to use up so much propane.
Here is my recipe for coconut/mint chutney:
Grated or minced fresh coconut meat from one small coconut
1 heaped teaspoon of crushed dry mint or one tablespoon of fresh chopped mint
1/4 teaspoon of salt (or less if you have high blood pressure)
1 hot green or red chili (crushed)
juice from half a lime
1/2 teaspoon cumin powder
1 teaspoon sugar
Blend all by hand and allow to sit for half an hour before serving. Keep the remainder in the fridge or the coolest place on the boat.
Snorkeling at Kauehi
We are still anchored in Kauehi, though on the way out, so to speak. Anchored by the pass just off the palm lined beach, which is unfortunately a lee shore most of the time. The thing is, we are near the pass where the best snorkeling can be found (on the south east side of the atoll). With the current north easterlies, this is at the end of an 8 mile fetch and we had a pretty bouncy night last night.
You need a whole set of new skills in these atolls, due to the coral heads and deep water, particularly when anchoring. Sailing in the atoll should be very pleasant because of the shelter from swell and the steady winds. However, someone must always be either perched on a ratline halfway up the mast or at least standing on the cabin top, to keep an eye out for uncharted coral heads. These can come up out of great depths (at least 100 feet).
When we anchor now, we use floats to lift the chain off the bottom about half way along from the anchor to the boat. The theory is that this helps prevent wraps around a coral head. The floats are salvaged oyster farm buoys we found on the beach and we have 4 now - 2 large and 2 small. They are hard plastic spheres - 12 inches in diameter for the smaller ones and 20 inches for the larger. The only feasible anchorage on this side of the pass is on a spur of shallower water that pokes out a few hundred feet from the beach, where we are anchored in about 50 feet. We are still quite close to the shore, but just a few hundred feet away from our spur, the bottom drops immediately off to 80 or 100 feet.
There are still have plenty of veggies and fruit on board from the Marquesas, which is a good thing as we would otherwise be on a steady coconut diet. Apparently some vegetables are grown on Fakarava - a large atoll to the south east where we intend to sail next. We will leave here this afternoon about an hour before dusk and sail overnight so as to arrive mid-morning. The passage is only 35 miles, so you would think we could sail it in daylight. However, if we left in the early morning at slack water, we would arrive a bit late in the day to safely navigate the coral lined pass into the lagoon.
While we wait, we will snorkel off the boat and toward the pass. There is a coral forest that runs along the shore here, with yellow, dun, and black corals in grotesque forms. Packs of brilliant parrot fish swim along the reef and great ugly groupers peer out at us from most of the coral heads. Rani now swims with a short pole ready to prod any curious shark. We have seen many black tipped reef sharks in the shallows here, though none have come closer than about 15 feet. The visibility here is quite good - 40 to 50 feet anyway, but varies with the tide, clarity improving an hour or two after the tide begins to flood into the lagoon.
You need a whole set of new skills in these atolls, due to the coral heads and deep water, particularly when anchoring. Sailing in the atoll should be very pleasant because of the shelter from swell and the steady winds. However, someone must always be either perched on a ratline halfway up the mast or at least standing on the cabin top, to keep an eye out for uncharted coral heads. These can come up out of great depths (at least 100 feet).
When we anchor now, we use floats to lift the chain off the bottom about half way along from the anchor to the boat. The theory is that this helps prevent wraps around a coral head. The floats are salvaged oyster farm buoys we found on the beach and we have 4 now - 2 large and 2 small. They are hard plastic spheres - 12 inches in diameter for the smaller ones and 20 inches for the larger. The only feasible anchorage on this side of the pass is on a spur of shallower water that pokes out a few hundred feet from the beach, where we are anchored in about 50 feet. We are still quite close to the shore, but just a few hundred feet away from our spur, the bottom drops immediately off to 80 or 100 feet.
There are still have plenty of veggies and fruit on board from the Marquesas, which is a good thing as we would otherwise be on a steady coconut diet. Apparently some vegetables are grown on Fakarava - a large atoll to the south east where we intend to sail next. We will leave here this afternoon about an hour before dusk and sail overnight so as to arrive mid-morning. The passage is only 35 miles, so you would think we could sail it in daylight. However, if we left in the early morning at slack water, we would arrive a bit late in the day to safely navigate the coral lined pass into the lagoon.
While we wait, we will snorkel off the boat and toward the pass. There is a coral forest that runs along the shore here, with yellow, dun, and black corals in grotesque forms. Packs of brilliant parrot fish swim along the reef and great ugly groupers peer out at us from most of the coral heads. Rani now swims with a short pole ready to prod any curious shark. We have seen many black tipped reef sharks in the shallows here, though none have come closer than about 15 feet. The visibility here is quite good - 40 to 50 feet anyway, but varies with the tide, clarity improving an hour or two after the tide begins to flood into the lagoon.
Saturday, May 26, 2012
Night Diving
Rani woke me at 1 am with a shout, "Where is the dinghy! It's gone!"
False alarm - Because we had had guests on board, I had moved our dinghy to the stern from its usual position and I told Rani so. Going aft, Rani noticed that the dinghy had its painter wrapped around our wind vane. While trying to free the line, she dropped my precious waterproof flashlight over the side. A few choice words were spoken as we leaned over the transom watching the light disappear into 40 feet of water. The visibility was quite good here and I could see it as it reached the bottom, batteries first, and stuck in the coral sand facing up at us.
While 40 feet is deeper than the 30 I normally dive to, I was not sure how long the flashlight would continue to keep the water out at one atmosphere. It would also be easier to locate it now from its beam as it shone out in the dark. So against Rani's advice, I put on flippers and mask, and jumped into the inky water. Taking several deep breathes, I kicked for the light, clearing my ears as I descended. About half way down, I had a strong urge to turn back for the surface, uncertain I could hold my breathe long enough. But I kept swimming and was surprised at how quickly the light came up at me. I grabbed it and swam for the surface taking care to swim away from Ladybug to avoid an unpleasant bump on the head. I surfaced with plenty of breathe to spare.
No harm done and as a bonus, we now know that the flashlight is really waterproof.
False alarm - Because we had had guests on board, I had moved our dinghy to the stern from its usual position and I told Rani so. Going aft, Rani noticed that the dinghy had its painter wrapped around our wind vane. While trying to free the line, she dropped my precious waterproof flashlight over the side. A few choice words were spoken as we leaned over the transom watching the light disappear into 40 feet of water. The visibility was quite good here and I could see it as it reached the bottom, batteries first, and stuck in the coral sand facing up at us.
While 40 feet is deeper than the 30 I normally dive to, I was not sure how long the flashlight would continue to keep the water out at one atmosphere. It would also be easier to locate it now from its beam as it shone out in the dark. So against Rani's advice, I put on flippers and mask, and jumped into the inky water. Taking several deep breathes, I kicked for the light, clearing my ears as I descended. About half way down, I had a strong urge to turn back for the surface, uncertain I could hold my breathe long enough. But I kept swimming and was surprised at how quickly the light came up at me. I grabbed it and swam for the surface taking care to swim away from Ladybug to avoid an unpleasant bump on the head. I surfaced with plenty of breathe to spare.
No harm done and as a bonus, we now know that the flashlight is really waterproof.
Friday, May 25, 2012
Cheshire Clams
Our life here is a placid blend of boat maintenance, peeling, drying, cooking, and eating bananas, and the occasional trip about the lagoon or on the reef. I tried to find the leak we noticed on the last crossing, but at rest in flat waters, nothing was obvious beyond a little seepage in a cockpit drain through hull and obvious water ingress around the rudder stuffing box. I tightened the rudder stuffing box and the engine shaft stuffing box, but we will have to check for leaks while under way in a heavier sea.
Ashore we walked across the atoll to the reef. A palm-tree lined road runs along the inside of the lagoon with occasional side roads that branch to the reef. The roads are made of coral plowed flat and suitable for trucks or 4WD vehicles. The coral soil produces vegetation that is neither as as lush nor as varied as that in the Marquesas. Even the coconut palms seem less productive, the nuts smaller and fewer than those we saw in the volcanic islands. The reef reminded us of the tide pool shelf at Botanical Beach, back on Vancouver Island. A two meter easterly swell pounded the outer edge, which dropped off quickly into deep water. We saw a dozen turquoise coloured foot-long parrot fish and a one meter white tipped reef shark cruising in water barely enough to cover its tough hide.
Our English friends on 'Chapter Two' had us over yesterday for tea. Karen had baked a banana cake that was superb, so we used her recipe today to make our own version, which ended up tasting quite different. Not sure how this happened, but maybe their Panamanian flour is different from the Mexican flour we used - or perhaps it was that they used baking soda and baking powder, where we just used poweder? Whatever the cause, I have lost my title of 'Master Baker'.
The dinghy continues to fall apart, with a new crack in the hull by the mast partner. I 'welded' this with the soldering iron and riveted an aluminum patch to reinforce this highly stressed location. Today I sailed a couple of miles along the lagoon beaches to test the repair. The lagoon is like a large lake - 8 miles across ad 12 long. The land on the opposite shore is so low that you cannot see anything on the horizon except the top of an occasional palm tree. You have to be a bit careful to avoid coral heads, which are sometimes hard to see when lounging in bottom of the dinghy.
I stopped along the way to retrieve a pearl farm float that had washed up on the shore. As I waded ashore, a white tipped reef shark swam hurriedly away - no threat to humans I would guess. I was startled to see what looked like brightly coloured pouting mouths apparently embedded in the coral heads. On closer inspection, these belonged to clams about 15 to 20 cms wide. Each mouth was green or turquoise or blue (this is apparently caused by algae growing on the mouth lining). The effect was comical because the lips look like they were covered in a brilliant lipstick. Because the shells were completely encased in coral, the 'smile' was disembodied, like the Cheshire Cat's smile in "Alice in Wonderland", and appeared to come right out of rock.
Salvaged pearl farm floats are useful for lifting the boat's chain to keep it clear of coral heads. I have collected 3 so far and will try to buoy the chain the next time we anchor. The wind is supposed to build to 20 knots tomorrow, so we will stay here at least one more day.
Ashore we walked across the atoll to the reef. A palm-tree lined road runs along the inside of the lagoon with occasional side roads that branch to the reef. The roads are made of coral plowed flat and suitable for trucks or 4WD vehicles. The coral soil produces vegetation that is neither as as lush nor as varied as that in the Marquesas. Even the coconut palms seem less productive, the nuts smaller and fewer than those we saw in the volcanic islands. The reef reminded us of the tide pool shelf at Botanical Beach, back on Vancouver Island. A two meter easterly swell pounded the outer edge, which dropped off quickly into deep water. We saw a dozen turquoise coloured foot-long parrot fish and a one meter white tipped reef shark cruising in water barely enough to cover its tough hide.
Our English friends on 'Chapter Two' had us over yesterday for tea. Karen had baked a banana cake that was superb, so we used her recipe today to make our own version, which ended up tasting quite different. Not sure how this happened, but maybe their Panamanian flour is different from the Mexican flour we used - or perhaps it was that they used baking soda and baking powder, where we just used poweder? Whatever the cause, I have lost my title of 'Master Baker'.
The dinghy continues to fall apart, with a new crack in the hull by the mast partner. I 'welded' this with the soldering iron and riveted an aluminum patch to reinforce this highly stressed location. Today I sailed a couple of miles along the lagoon beaches to test the repair. The lagoon is like a large lake - 8 miles across ad 12 long. The land on the opposite shore is so low that you cannot see anything on the horizon except the top of an occasional palm tree. You have to be a bit careful to avoid coral heads, which are sometimes hard to see when lounging in bottom of the dinghy.
I stopped along the way to retrieve a pearl farm float that had washed up on the shore. As I waded ashore, a white tipped reef shark swam hurriedly away - no threat to humans I would guess. I was startled to see what looked like brightly coloured pouting mouths apparently embedded in the coral heads. On closer inspection, these belonged to clams about 15 to 20 cms wide. Each mouth was green or turquoise or blue (this is apparently caused by algae growing on the mouth lining). The effect was comical because the lips look like they were covered in a brilliant lipstick. Because the shells were completely encased in coral, the 'smile' was disembodied, like the Cheshire Cat's smile in "Alice in Wonderland", and appeared to come right out of rock.
Salvaged pearl farm floats are useful for lifting the boat's chain to keep it clear of coral heads. I have collected 3 so far and will try to buoy the chain the next time we anchor. The wind is supposed to build to 20 knots tomorrow, so we will stay here at least one more day.
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