The end draws near of my time in paradise. We pull up anchor off one of the remote "motus" of Rangiroa and set sail back to the Kia Ora in preparation for my departure the next day.
I try to do some work on the novel, but rather than writing in a new chapter, do a chronological breakdown of what has happened, when, and to whom. I find that I need to move a few chapters around to make sense to the reader and will probably need to break up the chapters a bit more in the next draft. I also map out what needs to happen and the chapters I expect them to happen in. Chapter-wise, I am halfway through the book, although I think that the chapters will be getting shorter as the action begins to speed up. I'm currently at 40,000 words, so it will probably end up being around 70,000 when all is said and done. If I can get the battery on the laptop fully charged before I leave for the airport, I can hopefully do another chapter on the plane before my power runs out.
Not long after we anchor, we discover that part of the de-salination equipment has broken. It's a plastic, threaded bottle that has had it's bottom blown out from the pressure. Bill tries to repair it with epoxy and a strange stretchy kind of duct tape, but after letting it dry and harden, we find that it's no go. Creola is no longer making fresh water.
Gene and Jennifer from the Emelia swing by to invite us to a gathering that night on their boat. Gene finds out that he'll be playing the guitar while they float off our stern and accepts his fate with good humor. They take the broken part back with them to see if they have a replacement part Creola can borrow until a permanent solution can be acquired.
Linda continues to astonish me with the game hens she presents for dinner, although with a stunning puree. I have to ask if she's pulling out the stops for the guest, or if they always eat this well. Bill confirms that she spoils him terribly, and it's not because of me. Given the scarcity of supplies, and how long they've been at sea, I'm at a loss to understand how they are able to keep their provisions as well as they do.
Not long after the sky has exploded with stars, we take the dinghy over to Emelia, where we are shortly joined by the folks who gave me ride to Creola from the dock a few days earlier. There's a good deal of boat talk, but conversation frequently moves into other areas, including Gene's music. I knew that he had some success as a country songwriter, but I learn that he's been penning hits since the late 80's, if not before. I'm not familiar with his work, as I've never really followed country, but the names of the artists who have used his stuff are familiar. He plays a little James Taylor for us, but mostly we insist on hearing his own stuff. We hear some of his more popular tunes, as well as a song he just finished writing which is truly beautiful and a self-depreciating comedy song that he feels no country artist will ever buy, because they don't like to make fun of themselves. As the evening comes to a close, he invites me down to see what a "cheap boat" looks like, but a quick inspection reveals that this is another example of his quiet and dry humor as the boat is nicer than a lot of apartments I've been in.
He and Jennifer give me their card, as I express an interest in looking up more of his work online, and he jokes that I can write off my entire vacation as a business expense since I talked about Sweetie Tanya with him.
We motor back to Creola, the hour very late by sailing standards and my mind full of music and my stomach full of rum punch. The next day will be my departure from this land of sea and sky, and it will also be my thirty-seventh birthday.
Before I go below deck, I say a silent good-bye to the sky. I don't know when I will see the stars next.
Saturday, July 28, 2007
Friday, July 27, 2007
Day Nine: Downtime
I largely checked out on this day. Bill and Linda have been marvelous companions, but I am craving a little solitude and time with my book, so I stay on the boat while they do a little snorkeling and atoll exploring. The thought of exploring the land with Bill and his machete is intriguing, but I really do need a day to just be alone. That being said, there is not much to journal about. Instead, I will share a few things about Creola.
As I have mentioned before, she's 49 feet long. I'm not sure of the width. Of the boats I've seen over the last week, she is the move beautiful one of her size. Her extensive wood work, however, makes her high maintenance. The Phoenix, for example, is largely plastics and foam construction, which makes her a very fast ship and somewhat easier to maintain than the Creola, but not as ... well... lush.
The Creola has a desalination unit on board, so she can make her own fresh water. I've met boats who are not so equipped and have to carry all their fresh water with them as supplies. She also has a generator on board, to keep the batteries well charged, which has allowed me to keep up this journal.
She has a full galley, and I've seen apartments in San Francisco with only slightly larger kitchens than this. Granted, this isn't saying much. As pretty as it is below, everyone spends most of their time on deck for the simple reason of the breeze.
I am not, as a rule, a big "outdoors" person. I burn very easily (and yet have remarkably avoided that fate this trip), have allergies, and generally have an ongoing experience of Mother Nature being a rather abusive parent. (the insect bites on my feet and ankles, that look like something out of a medical journal attest to this). Thus, I have never been one to love the heat. I might have been very miserable here if it were not for the constant breeze. On nights when I have had to close my hatch for rain, I have been deeply grateful for the twin fans that are mounted over my bunk, as I would have smothered without them.
Back to the Creola, she has top notch navigational equipment which allows for limited auto-pilot ability and weather tracking. It's a very impressive setup although it by no means results in a care-free travel experience. Bill and Linda have found that the cruising live is far harder than they would have expected. Their mood was surely impacted by the 22 day open sea voyage they had just completed when I arrived. They have seemed in much better spirits over the last few days.
Indeed, while I have fretted from time to time over my inability to repay their astonishing generosity on this trip (for indeed, most of my attempts to contribute in one way or another are joyfully shooed off), I have begun to realize that my biggest contribution for them as been a change of pace. I am someone to hear all the stories of their adventures, to talk about old memories with, to catch up on news of friends and colleagues, and to be an audience.
Cruisers are like actors in that they are constantly meeting people in different ports, finding folks that they really like, but then do not see again for months or years. They have a constantly changing lifestyle that is nevertheless quite consistent in its challenges.
I do not know that I could do what they are doing. I find that the taste of salt water is becoming a disincentive, and I miss my friends, my home, my chosen solitude, and even my job. A week is about perfect for a vacation for me, and I am ready to be home.
I have experienced amazing sights here, met delightful people, consumed incredible meals, had intriguing conversations, and had a fantastic time. My heart is not in the sea, however. It's back in Oakland on Alice street, and I shall return there in two days.
As I have mentioned before, she's 49 feet long. I'm not sure of the width. Of the boats I've seen over the last week, she is the move beautiful one of her size. Her extensive wood work, however, makes her high maintenance. The Phoenix, for example, is largely plastics and foam construction, which makes her a very fast ship and somewhat easier to maintain than the Creola, but not as ... well... lush.
The Creola has a desalination unit on board, so she can make her own fresh water. I've met boats who are not so equipped and have to carry all their fresh water with them as supplies. She also has a generator on board, to keep the batteries well charged, which has allowed me to keep up this journal.
She has a full galley, and I've seen apartments in San Francisco with only slightly larger kitchens than this. Granted, this isn't saying much. As pretty as it is below, everyone spends most of their time on deck for the simple reason of the breeze.
I am not, as a rule, a big "outdoors" person. I burn very easily (and yet have remarkably avoided that fate this trip), have allergies, and generally have an ongoing experience of Mother Nature being a rather abusive parent. (the insect bites on my feet and ankles, that look like something out of a medical journal attest to this). Thus, I have never been one to love the heat. I might have been very miserable here if it were not for the constant breeze. On nights when I have had to close my hatch for rain, I have been deeply grateful for the twin fans that are mounted over my bunk, as I would have smothered without them.
Back to the Creola, she has top notch navigational equipment which allows for limited auto-pilot ability and weather tracking. It's a very impressive setup although it by no means results in a care-free travel experience. Bill and Linda have found that the cruising live is far harder than they would have expected. Their mood was surely impacted by the 22 day open sea voyage they had just completed when I arrived. They have seemed in much better spirits over the last few days.
Indeed, while I have fretted from time to time over my inability to repay their astonishing generosity on this trip (for indeed, most of my attempts to contribute in one way or another are joyfully shooed off), I have begun to realize that my biggest contribution for them as been a change of pace. I am someone to hear all the stories of their adventures, to talk about old memories with, to catch up on news of friends and colleagues, and to be an audience.
Cruisers are like actors in that they are constantly meeting people in different ports, finding folks that they really like, but then do not see again for months or years. They have a constantly changing lifestyle that is nevertheless quite consistent in its challenges.
I do not know that I could do what they are doing. I find that the taste of salt water is becoming a disincentive, and I miss my friends, my home, my chosen solitude, and even my job. A week is about perfect for a vacation for me, and I am ready to be home.
I have experienced amazing sights here, met delightful people, consumed incredible meals, had intriguing conversations, and had a fantastic time. My heart is not in the sea, however. It's back in Oakland on Alice street, and I shall return there in two days.
Wednesday, July 25, 2007
Day Eight: Solo and Across the Lagoon
Up to this point, our specific plans outside of our current anchor haven't been established. As my departure draws near, we decide that I will fly back to Tahiti from Rangiroa. The problem, of course, is that I need to get to the travel agent's office to do this. This means another trip into town, which is not appealing by dinghy. I decide that I'll try to use the resort phone, which does not work as the agent's english results in her telling me to call back in an hour. Instead I rent a "fun car" from the resort and head into town. It's about a 20 minute drive in the little go-cart like vehicle, which maxes out at 40mph. There are many speed bumps on the road, so I am rarely at maximum speed.
Knowing now that everything closes at 11, we were careful to start this expedition around 9am. I arrive at the agency, quite aware that I had forgotten my shoes on Creola, and gingerly pick my way across the hot gravelly rocks to the front door. There is a polynesian couple ahead of me, but I am grateful for the unusually air-conditioned office. Once at her desk, we're able to quickly get my tickets to fly back to Tahiti on Sunday around 3:30. That will give me seven hours in the airport, but I am hoping that I can check my bags in and then walk around the town, since I didn't do that when I arrived. I pay for my plane ticket in cash, taking care of the previous day's overwithdrawal problem.
I get back to the fun car and push it back on the road (the fun cars don't have a functional reverse) and peel down the road. I know that Creola is short a pair of diving fins, but haven't seen a pair at any of the places I've been over the last week, including the resort. There was a diving club that Bill and I stopped at earlier, when we were looking for the gas station, so I pull into there and hop over the sharp coral rocks into the club. The gentleman who helped us before is not there, but the lady is who is speaks english well and extremely helpful. My suspicions are confirmed when she says that I'd need to look all over the place for a pair of fins. I don't think that the locals use them for swimming, and guests have access to the resort ones. Everyone else arrives with their own. There is one place, she reflects, that has a variety of odds and ends and that I might try. It is right next to the Gendarme (police). "You have seen the police station? It is very large, and very white, and incredibly clean. It is like they are not in Polynesia." The place she sends me is right next door. "A little building, with three large garage doors next to it, usually open. He gets all kinds of stuff and sells it from there. That would be your best bet." She tries to call him, but has never had need to before and can't find the number. Aware of the need to set sail soon, I thank her, push my Fun Car back onto the road and speed off.
I almost miss the spot, which is immediately before the Gendarme. They have two sets of fins available, and they cost about $40 each. The fins are about twice as long as the fins I've seen on Creola, but I don't really have a lot of options here, since these may be the only fins on the entire atoll I can purchase. I toss the fins in the back of the Fun Car and speed back to the resort. The full trip is about an hour, leaving me an hour of time before the car is back. Successful in all I attempted, I try not to think that it cost me $50 for a 1 hour go cart ride.
While I'm waiting for Bill or Linda to notice me on the dock, the dinghy of another yacht arrives and offers to give me a ride back to Creola. Apparently, the news that a tall, very shaggy looking redhead is traveling with the Creola has been passed around the entire cruiser community. I gratefully accept.
On board once again, we raise anchor and set sail for the opposite side of the lagoon. Much of the process is automated, which allows Bill and Linda to make such long voyages alone, and also means that there is little that I have to do. I go below to get a book from my cabin and discover exactly why they didn't want to make an overnight trip with me. Below deck, the violence of the pitch and roll of the Creola gives me my first taste of sea sickness. I grab the book quickly and stumble back above, vowing not to return below until we anchor again. While I did not actually get sick, I would have had I stayed below for more than a minute or two. Creola is a 49 foot long boat, and above deck the motion of the ocean is striking but bearable. As long as I have the fresh air, peripheral view of the sea, and frequently get my bearings, I'm at my ease. I spend most of my time in my book, however, as the view is beautiful but unchanging. I cannot even see the other side of the atoll until we are halfway across, and even then it looks identical from a distance to where we just left.
Up close, the primary difference is quite apparent. This part of the atoll is listed as inhabited, but if it remains so it is inhabited only in the barest sense. We see a few sticks joined together in a kind of arch that might be used for drying fish or laundry, but other than that there is no indication of human habitation.
We get into the dinghy and head towards the shore and a mini-lagoon that lies between the sections of atoll. The beach is almost entirely shards of shell and coral. With the new fins on, I float through the very shallow water (at points only two feet deep, if not less) and see nothing but this sharp and unfriendly "sand" and dozens... no, hundreds of sea cucumbers. Black and slug like, with little wavering tentacles, the cucumbers are everywhere. I begin to think that this particular snorkeling endeavor is a wash when I come across some coral. It's not the healthiest looking coral, but I begin to see a variety of fish. The further in I go, the more coral I find, and wider and wider varieties of life. In shadowed waters, I feel the heat of thermal currents, and in sun drenched waters I feel the chills of alternate currents.
I explore the coral, and at one point find a path through it that is just large enough for me to move through without damaging it or myself. Everywhere fish, clams, and anemones are around me. We explore for around an hour, as near as I can figure, ending up resting on a less shard laden beach. Linda has found several beautiful shells, and I have located a whole clam shell that I am considering giving to Betsy, who so adamantly requested that I bring her something back. Bill, who has gone back for the dinghy, offers me a complete clam shell that he found, which is much more beautiful than the one I had located and I return my find to the sea.
That night, I stay up late reading. Much later than usual, ensuring me a solid night's sleep on the much calmer waters in this remote location.
Knowing now that everything closes at 11, we were careful to start this expedition around 9am. I arrive at the agency, quite aware that I had forgotten my shoes on Creola, and gingerly pick my way across the hot gravelly rocks to the front door. There is a polynesian couple ahead of me, but I am grateful for the unusually air-conditioned office. Once at her desk, we're able to quickly get my tickets to fly back to Tahiti on Sunday around 3:30. That will give me seven hours in the airport, but I am hoping that I can check my bags in and then walk around the town, since I didn't do that when I arrived. I pay for my plane ticket in cash, taking care of the previous day's overwithdrawal problem.
I get back to the fun car and push it back on the road (the fun cars don't have a functional reverse) and peel down the road. I know that Creola is short a pair of diving fins, but haven't seen a pair at any of the places I've been over the last week, including the resort. There was a diving club that Bill and I stopped at earlier, when we were looking for the gas station, so I pull into there and hop over the sharp coral rocks into the club. The gentleman who helped us before is not there, but the lady is who is speaks english well and extremely helpful. My suspicions are confirmed when she says that I'd need to look all over the place for a pair of fins. I don't think that the locals use them for swimming, and guests have access to the resort ones. Everyone else arrives with their own. There is one place, she reflects, that has a variety of odds and ends and that I might try. It is right next to the Gendarme (police). "You have seen the police station? It is very large, and very white, and incredibly clean. It is like they are not in Polynesia." The place she sends me is right next door. "A little building, with three large garage doors next to it, usually open. He gets all kinds of stuff and sells it from there. That would be your best bet." She tries to call him, but has never had need to before and can't find the number. Aware of the need to set sail soon, I thank her, push my Fun Car back onto the road and speed off.
I almost miss the spot, which is immediately before the Gendarme. They have two sets of fins available, and they cost about $40 each. The fins are about twice as long as the fins I've seen on Creola, but I don't really have a lot of options here, since these may be the only fins on the entire atoll I can purchase. I toss the fins in the back of the Fun Car and speed back to the resort. The full trip is about an hour, leaving me an hour of time before the car is back. Successful in all I attempted, I try not to think that it cost me $50 for a 1 hour go cart ride.
While I'm waiting for Bill or Linda to notice me on the dock, the dinghy of another yacht arrives and offers to give me a ride back to Creola. Apparently, the news that a tall, very shaggy looking redhead is traveling with the Creola has been passed around the entire cruiser community. I gratefully accept.
On board once again, we raise anchor and set sail for the opposite side of the lagoon. Much of the process is automated, which allows Bill and Linda to make such long voyages alone, and also means that there is little that I have to do. I go below to get a book from my cabin and discover exactly why they didn't want to make an overnight trip with me. Below deck, the violence of the pitch and roll of the Creola gives me my first taste of sea sickness. I grab the book quickly and stumble back above, vowing not to return below until we anchor again. While I did not actually get sick, I would have had I stayed below for more than a minute or two. Creola is a 49 foot long boat, and above deck the motion of the ocean is striking but bearable. As long as I have the fresh air, peripheral view of the sea, and frequently get my bearings, I'm at my ease. I spend most of my time in my book, however, as the view is beautiful but unchanging. I cannot even see the other side of the atoll until we are halfway across, and even then it looks identical from a distance to where we just left.
Up close, the primary difference is quite apparent. This part of the atoll is listed as inhabited, but if it remains so it is inhabited only in the barest sense. We see a few sticks joined together in a kind of arch that might be used for drying fish or laundry, but other than that there is no indication of human habitation.
We get into the dinghy and head towards the shore and a mini-lagoon that lies between the sections of atoll. The beach is almost entirely shards of shell and coral. With the new fins on, I float through the very shallow water (at points only two feet deep, if not less) and see nothing but this sharp and unfriendly "sand" and dozens... no, hundreds of sea cucumbers. Black and slug like, with little wavering tentacles, the cucumbers are everywhere. I begin to think that this particular snorkeling endeavor is a wash when I come across some coral. It's not the healthiest looking coral, but I begin to see a variety of fish. The further in I go, the more coral I find, and wider and wider varieties of life. In shadowed waters, I feel the heat of thermal currents, and in sun drenched waters I feel the chills of alternate currents.
I explore the coral, and at one point find a path through it that is just large enough for me to move through without damaging it or myself. Everywhere fish, clams, and anemones are around me. We explore for around an hour, as near as I can figure, ending up resting on a less shard laden beach. Linda has found several beautiful shells, and I have located a whole clam shell that I am considering giving to Betsy, who so adamantly requested that I bring her something back. Bill, who has gone back for the dinghy, offers me a complete clam shell that he found, which is much more beautiful than the one I had located and I return my find to the sea.
That night, I stay up late reading. Much later than usual, ensuring me a solid night's sleep on the much calmer waters in this remote location.
Monday, July 23, 2007
Day Seven: Landlocked
Today was a day of business. It wasn't meant to be, it just sort of worked out that way.
There were certain objectives: go back to pearl farm for free oysters, fill up the tank for the dinghy, go to bank, go to grocery store, go to fruit stand.
It doesn't sound like five hours worth of work, does it? Still...
We picked up Jennifer from the Amelia, in "Spicy" the dinghy. I had sat between her and her husband, Gene, on our pizza night and she and her son had been involved in the Spinnaker Flying. They were loaning us enough fuel for the dinghy to get to town and needed to hit the grocery store as well.
We started off going to the oyster farm, which was about halfway to town. It was a surprisingly long trip, since there were four of us and we were moving against the current. Have I mentioned that that the atoll is 48 mies long and 18 miles wide? The farm is probably about five miles away from the Kia Ora resort, where we are anchored. We were returning there because the proprietor, Stefan, had told us that if we wanted to bring us a bucket, they would fill it with oysters who were not being returned to the sea for more pearls. They keep the oyster shells, of course, but there are only so many oysters that the staff can eat on a given day. We had to clean them, of course.
While dropping off the bucket, the others do a little more shopping now that they've had time to think about it. I wander a bit, but there is only so long that looking at pearls is interesting for me. I find a book on pearl making and flip through it, reinforcing the information I had learned the previous day.
Objective one accomplished, we head back into Spicy and push off, wondering again how much the staff makes each year to do such a specialized, but highly repetitive job. Oyster technicians spend two years training before being allowed to do the surgery that inserts the nucleus that becomes a pearl, so it isn't exactly the kind of job you pick up because you have no other options.
We take the dinghy another five miles or so and anchor in town. This is the farthest down the atoll that I've been to date, and it actually feels something like a town for once. The ladies go off to find the bank while Bill and I go to find the gas station. We're offered the grocery/luggage/cart to carry the gas tanks on, but we wave it away. It won't be that far to the station, after all.
The station turns out to be almost a mile away. Not a problem walking to it, but rather grueling on the way back with full gas tanks. I am forcefully reminded of the trip down the hill from the airport motel with all my luggage. About halfway back we succeed in flagging down a van that takes us the rest of the way into town. We dump the tanks into the dinghy and immediately head to a small snack shop and get a couple of the local beers. It's fairly good stuff, but not something that will go on my short list.
As we meet up with the ladies, Bill and I sit on a stoop and pet some very old dogs who are suffering from what looks like mange. Across the road, we see the sea developing white caps. It is decided that Bill will take the dinghy back to Creola, keeping it as light as possible, and I'll walk back with the ladies, stopping at the grocery store and fruit stand along the way. Bill's adventure, as I would learn later, would involve navigating waves that were an easy four feet from crest to trough.
I find out where the bank is, and that the travel agent is right next to it, but that the bank and everything else closed a few minutes earlier. Everything pretty much closes from 11am-2:30pm in Rangiroa. Despite hearing that the ATM machine is highly finicky, only giving Linda money after a third attempt and never giving Jennifer anything, I decide to check it out before we head to find food. My own magical tech powers work once again, just like at the office, and I get my cash without the slightest hiccup (much to the slightly indignant surprise of my companions). My error was in once again misplacing the conversion rate so that I picked up around $300 instead of $30.
We make the long walk down to the grocery store and find it closed. The pizza place is open, however, so we head over there to grab some lunch and find out how long until the store opens. This is where we find out that things reopen at 2:30. We order salads and pizza and bide our time. A very pregnant cat begs for table scraps and I discover that she's quite keen on mushrooms. By the time we finish, it's not much closer to store opening time, so we wander down the road to the fruit stand, which doesn't close. I start to worry about my sunscreen.
Pickings are sparse, although there is a deal on cherries, all the way from California. I spend most of my time hovering in shady areas. I've gone seven days without serious sunburn, and I don't want to break that streak.
We end up sitting in front of the grocery store until it opens and we're able to fill up the cart. We start walking down the road back towards the resort. As you may have guessed, there is really only one road in Rangiroa, and then little side paths to individual locations. If anyone is going your way, you'll find them. We keep our thumbs out, but as we are three with luggage, we're not an attractive option. A pickup truck pulls over finally and we jump in the back. They are not going as far as we are, but any little bit helps. They get us a mile or so down the road and drop us off at the power station. We resume our walk, with me veering to the far side of the road in order to walk in the shade as often as possible. We make it past the airport before a blue economy car speeds by, slows down a quarter mile ahead of us, turns and comes back. A woman and her two kids offers a ride, but there's no way we can all fit in the car. Immediately, there is a struggle for who will be more noble. Finally Linda and I get Jennifer in the car with all the groceries and send them off to the hotel. The odds are in our favor to get another ride, since there are now only two of us, or so we think.
We end up walking all the way back to the resort from there. We meet up with Jennifer who has been feeding the kids from the car our chips. The little girl with her is probably about seven years old and is wearing nothing but underwear and flip-flops. Here, in a midst of a resort where patrons are spending $575 a night to sleep on the beach, the poverty of the average resident is stark and sobering. The language barrier only enhances the effect, as we're barely able to say more than "hello" to her and her own bewilderment at our gibberish is quite apparent.
Bill eventually sees us on the dock and brings the dinghy over to get us back to our respective boats in order to unload groceries. Gene is on Creola with Bill, cleaning the oysters from the farm and we end up spending the early evening together, eating them. At least, they eat them. I am still too stuffed from the pizza at lunch to consider eating anything. Gene, I learn, is a songwriter who has several country-western hits under his belt. A shame that I already have all the songs for Sweetie Tanya accounted for, as I'd love to hit him up for a tune. We talk about the project, however, and he's intrigued at the multi-artist route we're taking, which in his mind may be the best way to move out of the stylistic rut that makes musicals so unappealing to him. I hope he's right.
The Amelia returns to their boat and the Creola plays a few more rounds of the dice game "Farkle" before turning in.
There were certain objectives: go back to pearl farm for free oysters, fill up the tank for the dinghy, go to bank, go to grocery store, go to fruit stand.
It doesn't sound like five hours worth of work, does it? Still...
We picked up Jennifer from the Amelia, in "Spicy" the dinghy. I had sat between her and her husband, Gene, on our pizza night and she and her son had been involved in the Spinnaker Flying. They were loaning us enough fuel for the dinghy to get to town and needed to hit the grocery store as well.
We started off going to the oyster farm, which was about halfway to town. It was a surprisingly long trip, since there were four of us and we were moving against the current. Have I mentioned that that the atoll is 48 mies long and 18 miles wide? The farm is probably about five miles away from the Kia Ora resort, where we are anchored. We were returning there because the proprietor, Stefan, had told us that if we wanted to bring us a bucket, they would fill it with oysters who were not being returned to the sea for more pearls. They keep the oyster shells, of course, but there are only so many oysters that the staff can eat on a given day. We had to clean them, of course.
While dropping off the bucket, the others do a little more shopping now that they've had time to think about it. I wander a bit, but there is only so long that looking at pearls is interesting for me. I find a book on pearl making and flip through it, reinforcing the information I had learned the previous day.
Objective one accomplished, we head back into Spicy and push off, wondering again how much the staff makes each year to do such a specialized, but highly repetitive job. Oyster technicians spend two years training before being allowed to do the surgery that inserts the nucleus that becomes a pearl, so it isn't exactly the kind of job you pick up because you have no other options.
We take the dinghy another five miles or so and anchor in town. This is the farthest down the atoll that I've been to date, and it actually feels something like a town for once. The ladies go off to find the bank while Bill and I go to find the gas station. We're offered the grocery/luggage/cart to carry the gas tanks on, but we wave it away. It won't be that far to the station, after all.
The station turns out to be almost a mile away. Not a problem walking to it, but rather grueling on the way back with full gas tanks. I am forcefully reminded of the trip down the hill from the airport motel with all my luggage. About halfway back we succeed in flagging down a van that takes us the rest of the way into town. We dump the tanks into the dinghy and immediately head to a small snack shop and get a couple of the local beers. It's fairly good stuff, but not something that will go on my short list.
As we meet up with the ladies, Bill and I sit on a stoop and pet some very old dogs who are suffering from what looks like mange. Across the road, we see the sea developing white caps. It is decided that Bill will take the dinghy back to Creola, keeping it as light as possible, and I'll walk back with the ladies, stopping at the grocery store and fruit stand along the way. Bill's adventure, as I would learn later, would involve navigating waves that were an easy four feet from crest to trough.
I find out where the bank is, and that the travel agent is right next to it, but that the bank and everything else closed a few minutes earlier. Everything pretty much closes from 11am-2:30pm in Rangiroa. Despite hearing that the ATM machine is highly finicky, only giving Linda money after a third attempt and never giving Jennifer anything, I decide to check it out before we head to find food. My own magical tech powers work once again, just like at the office, and I get my cash without the slightest hiccup (much to the slightly indignant surprise of my companions). My error was in once again misplacing the conversion rate so that I picked up around $300 instead of $30.
We make the long walk down to the grocery store and find it closed. The pizza place is open, however, so we head over there to grab some lunch and find out how long until the store opens. This is where we find out that things reopen at 2:30. We order salads and pizza and bide our time. A very pregnant cat begs for table scraps and I discover that she's quite keen on mushrooms. By the time we finish, it's not much closer to store opening time, so we wander down the road to the fruit stand, which doesn't close. I start to worry about my sunscreen.
Pickings are sparse, although there is a deal on cherries, all the way from California. I spend most of my time hovering in shady areas. I've gone seven days without serious sunburn, and I don't want to break that streak.
We end up sitting in front of the grocery store until it opens and we're able to fill up the cart. We start walking down the road back towards the resort. As you may have guessed, there is really only one road in Rangiroa, and then little side paths to individual locations. If anyone is going your way, you'll find them. We keep our thumbs out, but as we are three with luggage, we're not an attractive option. A pickup truck pulls over finally and we jump in the back. They are not going as far as we are, but any little bit helps. They get us a mile or so down the road and drop us off at the power station. We resume our walk, with me veering to the far side of the road in order to walk in the shade as often as possible. We make it past the airport before a blue economy car speeds by, slows down a quarter mile ahead of us, turns and comes back. A woman and her two kids offers a ride, but there's no way we can all fit in the car. Immediately, there is a struggle for who will be more noble. Finally Linda and I get Jennifer in the car with all the groceries and send them off to the hotel. The odds are in our favor to get another ride, since there are now only two of us, or so we think.
We end up walking all the way back to the resort from there. We meet up with Jennifer who has been feeding the kids from the car our chips. The little girl with her is probably about seven years old and is wearing nothing but underwear and flip-flops. Here, in a midst of a resort where patrons are spending $575 a night to sleep on the beach, the poverty of the average resident is stark and sobering. The language barrier only enhances the effect, as we're barely able to say more than "hello" to her and her own bewilderment at our gibberish is quite apparent.
Bill eventually sees us on the dock and brings the dinghy over to get us back to our respective boats in order to unload groceries. Gene is on Creola with Bill, cleaning the oysters from the farm and we end up spending the early evening together, eating them. At least, they eat them. I am still too stuffed from the pizza at lunch to consider eating anything. Gene, I learn, is a songwriter who has several country-western hits under his belt. A shame that I already have all the songs for Sweetie Tanya accounted for, as I'd love to hit him up for a tune. We talk about the project, however, and he's intrigued at the multi-artist route we're taking, which in his mind may be the best way to move out of the stylistic rut that makes musicals so unappealing to him. I hope he's right.
The Amelia returns to their boat and the Creola plays a few more rounds of the dice game "Farkle" before turning in.
Sunday, July 22, 2007
Day Six: The Black Pearl
I slept even worse last night than the night before. More tossing and turning and more rain in the middle of the night left me weary as I stumbled up to the deck. I was the first one up, so I tried to read a bit in "In the Company of Crows and Ravens", but soon found an on-deck nap to be a better option.
It was not long before I was joined by my hosts, bearing fruit, baguette, butter, jam, peanut butter and nutella. After breakfast I was finally given a task! Their Windows laptop has an erratic and odd driver error, and their Mac is generally jacked up with a default system date and inaccessible control panels. I worked on the PC for a bit and got a good understanding of what the problem is, but not certain how to fix it with no network connectivity. The Mac was a considerable challenge (it's a good six years old), but I eventually got it back up to snuff.
My labors were interrupted, however, my two adventures. The Phoenix, populated by the Coasties and the fledgling musical actor, was leaving that day, but was going to do a little "Spinner flying" first. They had been talking about this the night before, but I didn't know what is was and didn't realize that I was expected to participate.
Basically, this involves a racing sail that can be opened and closed from the deck via a lengthy tube sheath attached to a rope. This sail has three other lines attached to it. The boat is turned around and double anchored so that the wind is blowing away from the stern. One line, which is connected to the two corners of the sail, dangles down in the water. You sit (or stand, if you're insane) on the line, but not directly in the center for reasons that I barely understand on the theoretical level. They then begin to open the sail up, and up you go. I let Bill go first, but watching him dance all over the sky was not a reassuring vision.
See, there's no real way to control what happens once you're up in the air. By up in the air, I'm talking twenty feet or more. You can hang there like a glider, or you can find yourself spinning like a top, dipping and weaving madly. Note, there is no seat. You're just balancing yourself on a medium sized (but very strong) line. And yes, it hurts your butt.
Up I went, and the sea was VERY far beneath me. I was three stories in the air, with nothing holding me up but wind, sail, and cord. I was lucky in that I didn't go spinning out of control, but as they tried to close the sail and bring me down, I veered to the left so hard I was afraid I was going to lose my vice like grip on the line. "Don't look down" they yelled, but looking down wasn't the problem. I tried to look up, and felt my big heavy head tilt me backwards dangerously, the center of my weight shifting from the place I wanted it. Forget that, I'll look down. The wind had picked up and was much stronger than when they had begun, and getting me down was becoming much more difficult as the sheath was having a hard time closing the sail. Suddenly I dropped about ten feet, then was lifted up several feet as another gust caught me. Another savage tilt to the left that must have looked much less terrifying than it felt, and finally I came down to the sea in a somewhat controlled way.
Linda went up next, and they had a hard time getting her down as well. Finally, the captain of the Phoenix made one last go, and the wind was so violent by that point that a false landing and rising caught him so off guard that he was thrown off the cord, and caught it again with his knees. He hung there for a few minutes as his wife and daughter tried to close the sail and bring him down. They got his head about six feet or so from the sea and he released his knees and did a half gainer into the water.
We bid the Phoenix adieu. I opted to swim back to the Creola rather than take the dinghy back, as the current was with me and I had never attempted a ship to ship swim before. If I was going to do it, this was the time, since the salt water makes it very difficult to sink. I am not a strong swimmer by any means and have been able to stay in the water for 20 minutes without any real fatigue.
I went back to work on the machines until 1pm, when we started getting ready for the next excursion. One of the other boats had come by earlier to invite us along for a trip to a black pearl farm. Tahiti is the only place in the world to get black pearls, because the oysters here are the only ones that produce them. The pearls themselves are not completely black, but the name was coined by early sailors to differentiate them from standard pearls.
We all piled into the van and headed further down the atoll than I had been thus far. After disembarking, we got a tour of how pearls are produced now. Nowhere in the world are there naturally produced pearls anymore, as the ratio of pearls to oysters is utterly absurd. As it is, the treatment of the oysters is tightly regulated to prevent damage to the population. Once an oyster egg has hit the bottom of the sea, it cannot be touched by oyster farmers. Instead they place ropes into the sea that are highly frilled to catch as many fertilized oyster eggs as possible. These oysters are then taken to the farm to be raised for three years. Once that time has passed, they are checked to see if they are ready for surgery. If they are, they are left for another six months and then brought back up out of the water. They are only allowed out of the water for two hours. During this time, they are opened a few millimeters to relax the oyster, twenty minutes later, they are opened a few centimeters more and a small nucleus is placed inside the appendix of the oyster along with a piece of oyster with appropriate coloring. This piece of oyster's DNA gets absorbed by the host oyster, and combined with the nucleus, a perl begins to form. More months pass and the oyster is checked to see if it has died from the surgery, been eaten by predators, or rejected the nucleus. If none of these is true, the oyster is left alone for another eighteen months while the pearl is formed. If the oyster survived, but rejected the nucleus, it is left for six months to recover and they try again. Once the pearl is extracted, and if the pearl is perfectly round, a new nucleus, the size of the original pearl, is placed back into the appendix and the process starts over with a much larger pearl being the result eighteen months later. Some oysters produce a third generation pearl even larger, and very rare oysters will actually produce a fourth generation of enormous pearls that are worth several thousand dollars.
When an oyster can no longer be used, the shells are sent to a company in India that uses them to make buttons for nice shirts and the oyster itself is eaten by the employees.
I'm back at the boat now and have succeeded in fixing the Mac, although the PC will require a complete wipe and reinstall. The sky is growing dark and I suspect we'll have more rain tonight. Bill and Linda are making chicken curry and margaritas and I suspect we'll finally play this Farkle game he's been going on about all week.
I can only wonder what tomorrow will bring.
It was not long before I was joined by my hosts, bearing fruit, baguette, butter, jam, peanut butter and nutella. After breakfast I was finally given a task! Their Windows laptop has an erratic and odd driver error, and their Mac is generally jacked up with a default system date and inaccessible control panels. I worked on the PC for a bit and got a good understanding of what the problem is, but not certain how to fix it with no network connectivity. The Mac was a considerable challenge (it's a good six years old), but I eventually got it back up to snuff.
My labors were interrupted, however, my two adventures. The Phoenix, populated by the Coasties and the fledgling musical actor, was leaving that day, but was going to do a little "Spinner flying" first. They had been talking about this the night before, but I didn't know what is was and didn't realize that I was expected to participate.
Basically, this involves a racing sail that can be opened and closed from the deck via a lengthy tube sheath attached to a rope. This sail has three other lines attached to it. The boat is turned around and double anchored so that the wind is blowing away from the stern. One line, which is connected to the two corners of the sail, dangles down in the water. You sit (or stand, if you're insane) on the line, but not directly in the center for reasons that I barely understand on the theoretical level. They then begin to open the sail up, and up you go. I let Bill go first, but watching him dance all over the sky was not a reassuring vision.
See, there's no real way to control what happens once you're up in the air. By up in the air, I'm talking twenty feet or more. You can hang there like a glider, or you can find yourself spinning like a top, dipping and weaving madly. Note, there is no seat. You're just balancing yourself on a medium sized (but very strong) line. And yes, it hurts your butt.
Up I went, and the sea was VERY far beneath me. I was three stories in the air, with nothing holding me up but wind, sail, and cord. I was lucky in that I didn't go spinning out of control, but as they tried to close the sail and bring me down, I veered to the left so hard I was afraid I was going to lose my vice like grip on the line. "Don't look down" they yelled, but looking down wasn't the problem. I tried to look up, and felt my big heavy head tilt me backwards dangerously, the center of my weight shifting from the place I wanted it. Forget that, I'll look down. The wind had picked up and was much stronger than when they had begun, and getting me down was becoming much more difficult as the sheath was having a hard time closing the sail. Suddenly I dropped about ten feet, then was lifted up several feet as another gust caught me. Another savage tilt to the left that must have looked much less terrifying than it felt, and finally I came down to the sea in a somewhat controlled way.
Linda went up next, and they had a hard time getting her down as well. Finally, the captain of the Phoenix made one last go, and the wind was so violent by that point that a false landing and rising caught him so off guard that he was thrown off the cord, and caught it again with his knees. He hung there for a few minutes as his wife and daughter tried to close the sail and bring him down. They got his head about six feet or so from the sea and he released his knees and did a half gainer into the water.
We bid the Phoenix adieu. I opted to swim back to the Creola rather than take the dinghy back, as the current was with me and I had never attempted a ship to ship swim before. If I was going to do it, this was the time, since the salt water makes it very difficult to sink. I am not a strong swimmer by any means and have been able to stay in the water for 20 minutes without any real fatigue.
I went back to work on the machines until 1pm, when we started getting ready for the next excursion. One of the other boats had come by earlier to invite us along for a trip to a black pearl farm. Tahiti is the only place in the world to get black pearls, because the oysters here are the only ones that produce them. The pearls themselves are not completely black, but the name was coined by early sailors to differentiate them from standard pearls.
We all piled into the van and headed further down the atoll than I had been thus far. After disembarking, we got a tour of how pearls are produced now. Nowhere in the world are there naturally produced pearls anymore, as the ratio of pearls to oysters is utterly absurd. As it is, the treatment of the oysters is tightly regulated to prevent damage to the population. Once an oyster egg has hit the bottom of the sea, it cannot be touched by oyster farmers. Instead they place ropes into the sea that are highly frilled to catch as many fertilized oyster eggs as possible. These oysters are then taken to the farm to be raised for three years. Once that time has passed, they are checked to see if they are ready for surgery. If they are, they are left for another six months and then brought back up out of the water. They are only allowed out of the water for two hours. During this time, they are opened a few millimeters to relax the oyster, twenty minutes later, they are opened a few centimeters more and a small nucleus is placed inside the appendix of the oyster along with a piece of oyster with appropriate coloring. This piece of oyster's DNA gets absorbed by the host oyster, and combined with the nucleus, a perl begins to form. More months pass and the oyster is checked to see if it has died from the surgery, been eaten by predators, or rejected the nucleus. If none of these is true, the oyster is left alone for another eighteen months while the pearl is formed. If the oyster survived, but rejected the nucleus, it is left for six months to recover and they try again. Once the pearl is extracted, and if the pearl is perfectly round, a new nucleus, the size of the original pearl, is placed back into the appendix and the process starts over with a much larger pearl being the result eighteen months later. Some oysters produce a third generation pearl even larger, and very rare oysters will actually produce a fourth generation of enormous pearls that are worth several thousand dollars.
When an oyster can no longer be used, the shells are sent to a company in India that uses them to make buttons for nice shirts and the oyster itself is eaten by the employees.
I'm back at the boat now and have succeeded in fixing the Mac, although the PC will require a complete wipe and reinstall. The sky is growing dark and I suspect we'll have more rain tonight. Bill and Linda are making chicken curry and margaritas and I suspect we'll finally play this Farkle game he's been going on about all week.
I can only wonder what tomorrow will bring.
Friday, July 20, 2007
Day Five: On Foot and Online
By my standards, it was a rough night. The boat pitched and rolled and I was awoken by the beginnings of a light rain through the hatch. I scrambled up and closed my hatch, and the side hatches in the head and the spare cabin before crawling back into my bunk. Amazingly, I haven't been seasick at all, but I can understand the reaction. If I ever got caught in a true storm, I'm sure that I would understand it even better.
When dawn came, I decided that I wasn't particularly up for another scuba run. My left hand was decidedly pink, and my nose and forehead had a dangerous hue as well. A day on the boat, writing, seemed the ticket. So after breakfast, Bill and Linda headed out and I sat down and tackled another chapter of the novel. Things are happening much faster now, it seems, although it would be more accurate to say that I need to shift locations between characters more quickly to maintain the thread of events. Thus, my 10 page chapters are turning into 4 and 5 page ones.
Halfway through the chapter the rain began again, sending me below to close all the hatches. Again, it was only a light rain and not a proper squall, and the topside was sufficiently covered to allow me to continue to work while I watched the water grow choppy and the wind blow the countless palm trees on the shore.
Once it had passed, I opened everything up and wiped down everything that had gotten wet before finishing the chapter. I had just completed the final words when Bill and Linda returned. They had seen dolphins, but only from a great distance, and also a small shark. I would have been truly sad if I had missed a dolphin encounter, but there are still six more days for that.
We took the dinghy into shore for a produce and internet run. There were rumors of a place that would let you use your own machine and I hoped to upload this week's Radiostar episode and check email. The sole taxi was not running that day, however. Another yachtsman had rented a small vehicle for the day, but it would only carry two. We agreed that I would take the usual transportation route and he would take Linda where she needed to go. I would meet her at the internet cafe.
I began walking down the road. To my right was the small general store and dock we had visited earlier. To my left was the rest of the atoll. As I walked, the sky remained thick with clouds, but was beginning to lighten. I pulled out the spare can of spray-on sunscreen and was dismayed to find that it didn't work. I could trust rain clouds to protect me from sunburn, but not cloudy haze.
To my right I could see the lagoon, stretching as far as the eye could see. To my left, I could see the ocean. The atoll is very long, but extremely narrow. It is next to impossible to not have an "ocean" view here.
As I walked, I stuck out my thumb for vehicles passing my way. Yep, the usual way to get around is to hitchhike, according to the hotel. A few cars passed by, but then a old local stopped and picked me up. He spoke no english and didn't understand that I wanted to go to town, or to the cafe, or internet. Eventually, we kind of agreed on village, but in truth it was a matter of him waiting for me to tell him to stop. So we drove in silence, past the airport until I saw the sign for internet/restaurant. I tried to give him some money in thanks for the ride, and he looked at me as if I was a very strange person and waved me off.
The rumor had been that this was a place where you could bring your own computer and get online. That place was across the street, apparently, and had closed up shop for three weeks. The place we did have available had a windows box that we could use for rather exorbitant fees. Once Linda was through with it, I located the url for my personal webmail and began my online adventure.
The connection speed was, at best, 14.4. My webmail seems to be java based, so simply getting a list of emails took me almost fifteen minutes. Each email I read took an eternity, and replying to it even longer. This arduous process was not aided by the French keyboard, which has a considerably different layout. How different? Well, you need to use the shift key to type numbers. After 45 minutes, I was able to respond to four emails and it cost me around $9.
I will be posting these journals when I arrive home.
As frustrating as this experience was, I was glad to send a very few words home to Radiostar, Mayuko, and my Mom.
The yachtie who got Linda there took her back and them came and picked me up as well. It was back to the boat for a little relaxing.
There was a pizza gathering not far down the road from the internet restaurant that evening. Three boats were represented, although the Creola was the first to arrive. We were about a half hour before the place opened, so we checked out the large grocery store across the street. Linda bought some lettuce, which turned out to be from Salinas, CA. It was a very small place, but compared to what else I had seen on the atoll, it felt like shopping at Costco. A large freighter had docked earlier, so the folks that run the store were madly stocking the shelves.
The pizza was quite good, on a kind of thin cornmeal crust. Individual pizzas were more than I could handle, but we had a couple of teenage boys at the table who were more than happy to take up my extras. Table talk was a little less technical than it had been earlier in the week and I heard some interesting tales from the folks on the Phoenix, who are both "Coasties" (Coast Guard) and talked with another gentleman about life in South Carolina and about Nashville. There was a bit of polite curiosity about my relationship to the McKeevers, no doubt wondering how this scruffy nerfherder got to come down to paradise for the week. I seem to have passed the test, however, as queries were made about Radiostar and I promised to give the Phoenix a few shows to listen to as they make the next leg of their journey.
Yep, I'm half way around the world and shilling my podcast. I'm a good producer.
When dawn came, I decided that I wasn't particularly up for another scuba run. My left hand was decidedly pink, and my nose and forehead had a dangerous hue as well. A day on the boat, writing, seemed the ticket. So after breakfast, Bill and Linda headed out and I sat down and tackled another chapter of the novel. Things are happening much faster now, it seems, although it would be more accurate to say that I need to shift locations between characters more quickly to maintain the thread of events. Thus, my 10 page chapters are turning into 4 and 5 page ones.
Halfway through the chapter the rain began again, sending me below to close all the hatches. Again, it was only a light rain and not a proper squall, and the topside was sufficiently covered to allow me to continue to work while I watched the water grow choppy and the wind blow the countless palm trees on the shore.
Once it had passed, I opened everything up and wiped down everything that had gotten wet before finishing the chapter. I had just completed the final words when Bill and Linda returned. They had seen dolphins, but only from a great distance, and also a small shark. I would have been truly sad if I had missed a dolphin encounter, but there are still six more days for that.
We took the dinghy into shore for a produce and internet run. There were rumors of a place that would let you use your own machine and I hoped to upload this week's Radiostar episode and check email. The sole taxi was not running that day, however. Another yachtsman had rented a small vehicle for the day, but it would only carry two. We agreed that I would take the usual transportation route and he would take Linda where she needed to go. I would meet her at the internet cafe.
I began walking down the road. To my right was the small general store and dock we had visited earlier. To my left was the rest of the atoll. As I walked, the sky remained thick with clouds, but was beginning to lighten. I pulled out the spare can of spray-on sunscreen and was dismayed to find that it didn't work. I could trust rain clouds to protect me from sunburn, but not cloudy haze.
To my right I could see the lagoon, stretching as far as the eye could see. To my left, I could see the ocean. The atoll is very long, but extremely narrow. It is next to impossible to not have an "ocean" view here.
As I walked, I stuck out my thumb for vehicles passing my way. Yep, the usual way to get around is to hitchhike, according to the hotel. A few cars passed by, but then a old local stopped and picked me up. He spoke no english and didn't understand that I wanted to go to town, or to the cafe, or internet. Eventually, we kind of agreed on village, but in truth it was a matter of him waiting for me to tell him to stop. So we drove in silence, past the airport until I saw the sign for internet/restaurant. I tried to give him some money in thanks for the ride, and he looked at me as if I was a very strange person and waved me off.
The rumor had been that this was a place where you could bring your own computer and get online. That place was across the street, apparently, and had closed up shop for three weeks. The place we did have available had a windows box that we could use for rather exorbitant fees. Once Linda was through with it, I located the url for my personal webmail and began my online adventure.
The connection speed was, at best, 14.4. My webmail seems to be java based, so simply getting a list of emails took me almost fifteen minutes. Each email I read took an eternity, and replying to it even longer. This arduous process was not aided by the French keyboard, which has a considerably different layout. How different? Well, you need to use the shift key to type numbers. After 45 minutes, I was able to respond to four emails and it cost me around $9.
I will be posting these journals when I arrive home.
As frustrating as this experience was, I was glad to send a very few words home to Radiostar, Mayuko, and my Mom.
The yachtie who got Linda there took her back and them came and picked me up as well. It was back to the boat for a little relaxing.
There was a pizza gathering not far down the road from the internet restaurant that evening. Three boats were represented, although the Creola was the first to arrive. We were about a half hour before the place opened, so we checked out the large grocery store across the street. Linda bought some lettuce, which turned out to be from Salinas, CA. It was a very small place, but compared to what else I had seen on the atoll, it felt like shopping at Costco. A large freighter had docked earlier, so the folks that run the store were madly stocking the shelves.
The pizza was quite good, on a kind of thin cornmeal crust. Individual pizzas were more than I could handle, but we had a couple of teenage boys at the table who were more than happy to take up my extras. Table talk was a little less technical than it had been earlier in the week and I heard some interesting tales from the folks on the Phoenix, who are both "Coasties" (Coast Guard) and talked with another gentleman about life in South Carolina and about Nashville. There was a bit of polite curiosity about my relationship to the McKeevers, no doubt wondering how this scruffy nerfherder got to come down to paradise for the week. I seem to have passed the test, however, as queries were made about Radiostar and I promised to give the Phoenix a few shows to listen to as they make the next leg of their journey.
Yep, I'm half way around the world and shilling my podcast. I'm a good producer.
Thursday, July 19, 2007
Day Four: Day of the Manta
I don't sleep through the nights on the boat, but I still feel refreshed each morning anyway. Maybe it's the sea air, or just the novelty of my experiences here, but my normal patterns of need don't seem to apply.
I don't have a morning swim, as it's quickly apparent that we'll be heading out early for more scuba diving. The family who stayed for dinner the previous ending swings by to confirm that they'll be meeting us at the channel as soon as we're ready to go. Shortly after they leave, a boat that has just anchored hails us. They understand that the Creola has a third passenger named "Dan" on board, and "would he like to borrow any of our scuba gear?" This would allow all three of us to dive at once so we happily agree to that, board Spicy and head over to begin our day.
Unfortunately, in the rush and bustle of the morning, we find that we only have two pairs of fins, having left one of ours back in Creola. So, only two of us dive at a time anyway. Further confusion results in my having weights in half of my dive vest, although I don't discover this until later.
We meet our friends at the mouth of the atoll. Rangiroa is not an island at all, but an atoll that is so large that the lagoon looks like a sea. I cannot see the arc of the atoll from the mouth, and the air is perfectly clear. The curve of the earth blocks my view. Here though, the atoll's ends pincer together, creating a channel with a strong current that pulls you into the lagoon. We bring the dinghy out to the edge of the ocean and dive in. I deflate my vest, again having some slight difficulty with the nozzle, and submerge.
It's like flying over the moon. It's like a dream. I spread my arms and legs out and the current carries me over a landscape far below of coral and fish and eels and more. I deflate the vest further, allowing myself to drop about 15 feet, knowing that this is far too deep for me to explore further and coast over the alien terrain. The magic of the experience is only marred by my tank repeatedly sliding over to my left side, threatening to flip me over. As the current weakens and I am able to control my direction and velocity, I find myself struggling constantly against the shifting tank. I am almost ready to call it a day and get back in the boat when I see Linda gesturing. I turn and see them.
Manta rays. Enormous, gentle, gliding manta rays. I've seen pictures, and I've seen small ones in aquariums, but these are huge. The larger of the two seems about eight feet wide, the smaller one about six. My mobility is limited by my shifting weight, but I hover in the water and watch them glide by. I know they are completely harmless, but I am daunted by the size of them. One turns and glides directly towards me. It's mouth is a great toothless cavern, sluicing plankton. I am not sure if I should reach out and touch it, but at the last moment it turns past me.
The tank finally becomes too much for me to deal with, so I return to the boat. I am utterly exhausted from what has only been fifteen minutes of diving, so I tell Bill to take the equipment and that I'll watch the boat while he and Linda make another pass. This way neither of them had to restrict themselves to 30 feet to keep an eye on me. Bill ties an empty gas can to a tether so I can keep track of them and keep the boat nearby. Linda exhorts me, "stay close to the marker". This works well, once I get the hang of the boat, until I put it in neutral and look around at the amazing scenery. I look back down and see that Bill is pulling the marker directly towards me. Before I am able to move the boat, the marker is caught around the propeller. I begin to panic, but then double check that the motor is in neutral and that the propeller is not spinning. Then, leaning precariously out of the boat while the waves slosh me about, I struggle to unhook the floating gas can from the propeller. Visions of accidentally hitting the "forward" button and either slicing myself or breaking the motor constantly flashing across my mind. Finally, however, I free the buoy and set it free, breathing a deep sigh of relief.
I keep a wider berth from that point forward, and move the boat in a wide circle around the marker. Then, I see them again. The giant manta rays. They swim very close to the surface, and I see their fins break the surface as they turn. After a minute or two of watching them, they start to come directly towards the boat. I could almost reach out and touch them as the repeatedly come to me and dive away at the very last moment. It's like they're playing "chicken" with the boat, although Bill later muses that the motor must stir up the plankton for them, so they've learned to associate dinghy's with a good food source. Our friends from the other boat are snorkeling nearby, so I point out the mantas to them so they can get a closer look.
I start to wonder if my sunscreen is holding up, as the sun is blazing down upon me.
Bill and Linda come back in the boat, exhilarated from the dive and the mantas, and Bill teases me about the big fish I had caught earlier and how funny I looked from 30 feet down, trying to dislodge the line.
We head back to Creola, happy and weary. On board, we have lunch and I write a journal entry before deciding to revisit the novel for the first time in months. I am very pleased that I had left myself notes on where I was planning to go next with the story. It's a mini-chapter with Latimer and the Brass Legion, and it quickly turns into my favorite chapter so far, even if it is the shortest. I realize that as events in the book begin to speed up, that the chapters will also begin to shorten. I also realize that the chapter I have just written will need to go earlier in the book in order to maintain the proper global sequence of events. Many things happen to characters who are far from each other at the same time, which makes for some interesting narrative issues.
I spend the rest of my writing time making a list of all the characters introduced thus far, and where they are geographically, and all the important objects as well. I think that I may be a little under halfway through the story now, which will make the novel around 80,000 words.
As night falls, we head over to the hotel grounds. The taxi driver and the mait're d that he was transporting on my first day on Rangiroa had mentioned a bar-be-que and show would be happening Sunday night, so we got ourselves a table, despite being originally told by the bar waiter that we would not be allowed in without a reservation. Once inside, it became clear why the manager had changed his tune, since several tables were vacant.
The food was good, especially for a buffet, although the local wine was a bit heavy on the tannen for my tastes. The performance was local dance, with a largely fine troupe. There was one young man who clearly was new to the group and constantly looking to the others to remember what the next move was. The children in the troupe were quite impressive though.
Through dinner and the show, however, I couldn't help but notice that the entertainers and the wait staff were all Polynesian, while the management was French. Perhaps this is only true of the restaurant, but I would not be overly surprised to find that this was the case in general. Locals in low paying subservient roles and whites in management, high paying positions.
Once the show was over, I was completely food, wine, and sun stuffed. We boarded Creola once more and as I made my way to my cabin, the ship rocked more heavily than it had thus far. For really the first time, it felt like what it was... a boat on the water. I fell asleep not to a gentle cradle-like motion, but something more profound.
I don't have a morning swim, as it's quickly apparent that we'll be heading out early for more scuba diving. The family who stayed for dinner the previous ending swings by to confirm that they'll be meeting us at the channel as soon as we're ready to go. Shortly after they leave, a boat that has just anchored hails us. They understand that the Creola has a third passenger named "Dan" on board, and "would he like to borrow any of our scuba gear?" This would allow all three of us to dive at once so we happily agree to that, board Spicy and head over to begin our day.
Unfortunately, in the rush and bustle of the morning, we find that we only have two pairs of fins, having left one of ours back in Creola. So, only two of us dive at a time anyway. Further confusion results in my having weights in half of my dive vest, although I don't discover this until later.
We meet our friends at the mouth of the atoll. Rangiroa is not an island at all, but an atoll that is so large that the lagoon looks like a sea. I cannot see the arc of the atoll from the mouth, and the air is perfectly clear. The curve of the earth blocks my view. Here though, the atoll's ends pincer together, creating a channel with a strong current that pulls you into the lagoon. We bring the dinghy out to the edge of the ocean and dive in. I deflate my vest, again having some slight difficulty with the nozzle, and submerge.
It's like flying over the moon. It's like a dream. I spread my arms and legs out and the current carries me over a landscape far below of coral and fish and eels and more. I deflate the vest further, allowing myself to drop about 15 feet, knowing that this is far too deep for me to explore further and coast over the alien terrain. The magic of the experience is only marred by my tank repeatedly sliding over to my left side, threatening to flip me over. As the current weakens and I am able to control my direction and velocity, I find myself struggling constantly against the shifting tank. I am almost ready to call it a day and get back in the boat when I see Linda gesturing. I turn and see them.
Manta rays. Enormous, gentle, gliding manta rays. I've seen pictures, and I've seen small ones in aquariums, but these are huge. The larger of the two seems about eight feet wide, the smaller one about six. My mobility is limited by my shifting weight, but I hover in the water and watch them glide by. I know they are completely harmless, but I am daunted by the size of them. One turns and glides directly towards me. It's mouth is a great toothless cavern, sluicing plankton. I am not sure if I should reach out and touch it, but at the last moment it turns past me.
The tank finally becomes too much for me to deal with, so I return to the boat. I am utterly exhausted from what has only been fifteen minutes of diving, so I tell Bill to take the equipment and that I'll watch the boat while he and Linda make another pass. This way neither of them had to restrict themselves to 30 feet to keep an eye on me. Bill ties an empty gas can to a tether so I can keep track of them and keep the boat nearby. Linda exhorts me, "stay close to the marker". This works well, once I get the hang of the boat, until I put it in neutral and look around at the amazing scenery. I look back down and see that Bill is pulling the marker directly towards me. Before I am able to move the boat, the marker is caught around the propeller. I begin to panic, but then double check that the motor is in neutral and that the propeller is not spinning. Then, leaning precariously out of the boat while the waves slosh me about, I struggle to unhook the floating gas can from the propeller. Visions of accidentally hitting the "forward" button and either slicing myself or breaking the motor constantly flashing across my mind. Finally, however, I free the buoy and set it free, breathing a deep sigh of relief.
I keep a wider berth from that point forward, and move the boat in a wide circle around the marker. Then, I see them again. The giant manta rays. They swim very close to the surface, and I see their fins break the surface as they turn. After a minute or two of watching them, they start to come directly towards the boat. I could almost reach out and touch them as the repeatedly come to me and dive away at the very last moment. It's like they're playing "chicken" with the boat, although Bill later muses that the motor must stir up the plankton for them, so they've learned to associate dinghy's with a good food source. Our friends from the other boat are snorkeling nearby, so I point out the mantas to them so they can get a closer look.
I start to wonder if my sunscreen is holding up, as the sun is blazing down upon me.
Bill and Linda come back in the boat, exhilarated from the dive and the mantas, and Bill teases me about the big fish I had caught earlier and how funny I looked from 30 feet down, trying to dislodge the line.
We head back to Creola, happy and weary. On board, we have lunch and I write a journal entry before deciding to revisit the novel for the first time in months. I am very pleased that I had left myself notes on where I was planning to go next with the story. It's a mini-chapter with Latimer and the Brass Legion, and it quickly turns into my favorite chapter so far, even if it is the shortest. I realize that as events in the book begin to speed up, that the chapters will also begin to shorten. I also realize that the chapter I have just written will need to go earlier in the book in order to maintain the proper global sequence of events. Many things happen to characters who are far from each other at the same time, which makes for some interesting narrative issues.
I spend the rest of my writing time making a list of all the characters introduced thus far, and where they are geographically, and all the important objects as well. I think that I may be a little under halfway through the story now, which will make the novel around 80,000 words.
As night falls, we head over to the hotel grounds. The taxi driver and the mait're d that he was transporting on my first day on Rangiroa had mentioned a bar-be-que and show would be happening Sunday night, so we got ourselves a table, despite being originally told by the bar waiter that we would not be allowed in without a reservation. Once inside, it became clear why the manager had changed his tune, since several tables were vacant.
The food was good, especially for a buffet, although the local wine was a bit heavy on the tannen for my tastes. The performance was local dance, with a largely fine troupe. There was one young man who clearly was new to the group and constantly looking to the others to remember what the next move was. The children in the troupe were quite impressive though.
Through dinner and the show, however, I couldn't help but notice that the entertainers and the wait staff were all Polynesian, while the management was French. Perhaps this is only true of the restaurant, but I would not be overly surprised to find that this was the case in general. Locals in low paying subservient roles and whites in management, high paying positions.
Once the show was over, I was completely food, wine, and sun stuffed. We boarded Creola once more and as I made my way to my cabin, the ship rocked more heavily than it had thus far. For really the first time, it felt like what it was... a boat on the water. I fell asleep not to a gentle cradle-like motion, but something more profound.
Wednesday, July 18, 2007
Day Three: Sink and Swim
I wake up about an hour after dawn. We are very close to the equator, so the sun rises at six every day, and sets at six at night, year round. To my body, however, it is more like nine. Everything is blue, quiet, and beautiful. I'm in Tahiti, on a boat, in the morning, so I do the only logical thing and jump into the water for a morning swim. Belatedly I consider now nice it would be to have a mask, but I don't know where they are kept so I content myself with doing lazy laps around the boat. My swimming style is incomprehensible, as I'm not really a swimmer and without the chance to look below me, I am not too interested in getting a lot of salt water in my moustache.
Bill and Linda wake shortly after I do and breakfast is banana pancackes, with various jams, butter and maple syrup. Clearly, they are treating me horribly.
I spend some time writing out yesterday's journal and finishing off next week's episode of Radiostar ("Bye Bye, Billy").
The main activity for the day is scuba diving. We load up the gear (enough for two to scuba and one to snorkel) into Spicy and head out to visit all the neighboring boats to invite them along and to come over to the Creola for drinks. We hit about five boats before actually heading out to "the aquarium" for diving. This is a shallow reef area, about 15 feet deep, that will allow me to scuba dive without a certificate. This makes my second time diving, ever.
I start out snorkeling, though. The reef is beautiful and has recovered from a storm that made it murky a few days earlier. A massive variety of fish and other sea life are evident and other than the occasional salt spray that condenses in my air tube, I am content to float and observe from above.
Then the tanks go on and I am given one last orientation on the equipment. After a false start because I hadn't fully deflated my tank vest, I am able to drop down the five to ten feet to get a closer look at the reef and its inhabitants. Clams with vivid blue and black striped lips, wildly colored fish, a sea cucumber (pale and knobby) at least three feet long and well camouflaged against the sea floor. I use up half my tank, but decide to rise early as my long limbs seem to be in constant danger of scraping against the coral and I find myself reaching a point of almost nauseous exhaustion from the effort of maintaining my depth among the rising and falling coral. I pass off the tank to Bill for a while and rest in the boat, basking in the sun (trusting in my sun screen and the "skin" that covers my most delicate parts) before jumping back in to snorkel for a bit.
We get the tanks back to the boat before heading into town to get a new supplies. As with most resort areas, the hotel grounds are lavish, but the town is deeply impoverished. Skinny dogs wander the street, their ribs and spines clearly visible. One bitch, clearly having just pupped, walks by with her teats hanging well below her frame. The wild chickens and roosters look considerably more healthy. We find a general store and get some eggs and other minor supplies. I had already heard how much of the economy of the atolls and islands is trade based. Apparently one person exchanged a bottle of rum for five black pearls. $20 rum for at least $200 worth of pearls in American markets, but it's all about supply and demand here. I see a cheap plastic toy robot in the store, marked for 80,000 FPC, or $80. It would cost about $8 in the U.S., but here it's a rare item.
As we return to the dinghy, a woman with her four children has camped out next to it, with leather sandals with the word "Tahiti" embossed on them. None of us needs or wants the shoes, but I come close to giving her the change in my pocket. I am uncertain, however, as locals have not even allowed me to tip them. I don't know what the rules of charity are here. If I see them again, I will offer and find out for certain.
Back on the boat, guests begin arriving, with cruisers from Canada, Australia and the U.S. coming to talk an awful lot of shop. I think, not for the first time, of what Mayuko must feel like listening to me talk theatre and improv with my friends. There is a camaraderie here, born of people who know the joys, hardships, and endless technical detail of each others lives without having met before. There is little talk of the world beyond the boats, except with the topic turns to global warming and one party turns out to be a prime example of those who look at scientific results and see only the self-serving attempts of scientists to validate their work. People begin to drift off at around this point, but one family remains, as we had discussed going into town to find a rumored pizza place.
The hour has grown too late, so Linda whips up the pasta and sauce that I brought from the states. The other family's daughter has done several musicals, so we deviate from yacht talk to her obvious relief.
Late in the night, or so it seems to me, I head back to my bunk and let the gentle rocking of the ship and the cool breeze coming through the hatch lull me into a much desired slumber.
Bill and Linda wake shortly after I do and breakfast is banana pancackes, with various jams, butter and maple syrup. Clearly, they are treating me horribly.
I spend some time writing out yesterday's journal and finishing off next week's episode of Radiostar ("Bye Bye, Billy").
The main activity for the day is scuba diving. We load up the gear (enough for two to scuba and one to snorkel) into Spicy and head out to visit all the neighboring boats to invite them along and to come over to the Creola for drinks. We hit about five boats before actually heading out to "the aquarium" for diving. This is a shallow reef area, about 15 feet deep, that will allow me to scuba dive without a certificate. This makes my second time diving, ever.
I start out snorkeling, though. The reef is beautiful and has recovered from a storm that made it murky a few days earlier. A massive variety of fish and other sea life are evident and other than the occasional salt spray that condenses in my air tube, I am content to float and observe from above.
Then the tanks go on and I am given one last orientation on the equipment. After a false start because I hadn't fully deflated my tank vest, I am able to drop down the five to ten feet to get a closer look at the reef and its inhabitants. Clams with vivid blue and black striped lips, wildly colored fish, a sea cucumber (pale and knobby) at least three feet long and well camouflaged against the sea floor. I use up half my tank, but decide to rise early as my long limbs seem to be in constant danger of scraping against the coral and I find myself reaching a point of almost nauseous exhaustion from the effort of maintaining my depth among the rising and falling coral. I pass off the tank to Bill for a while and rest in the boat, basking in the sun (trusting in my sun screen and the "skin" that covers my most delicate parts) before jumping back in to snorkel for a bit.
We get the tanks back to the boat before heading into town to get a new supplies. As with most resort areas, the hotel grounds are lavish, but the town is deeply impoverished. Skinny dogs wander the street, their ribs and spines clearly visible. One bitch, clearly having just pupped, walks by with her teats hanging well below her frame. The wild chickens and roosters look considerably more healthy. We find a general store and get some eggs and other minor supplies. I had already heard how much of the economy of the atolls and islands is trade based. Apparently one person exchanged a bottle of rum for five black pearls. $20 rum for at least $200 worth of pearls in American markets, but it's all about supply and demand here. I see a cheap plastic toy robot in the store, marked for 80,000 FPC, or $80. It would cost about $8 in the U.S., but here it's a rare item.
As we return to the dinghy, a woman with her four children has camped out next to it, with leather sandals with the word "Tahiti" embossed on them. None of us needs or wants the shoes, but I come close to giving her the change in my pocket. I am uncertain, however, as locals have not even allowed me to tip them. I don't know what the rules of charity are here. If I see them again, I will offer and find out for certain.
Back on the boat, guests begin arriving, with cruisers from Canada, Australia and the U.S. coming to talk an awful lot of shop. I think, not for the first time, of what Mayuko must feel like listening to me talk theatre and improv with my friends. There is a camaraderie here, born of people who know the joys, hardships, and endless technical detail of each others lives without having met before. There is little talk of the world beyond the boats, except with the topic turns to global warming and one party turns out to be a prime example of those who look at scientific results and see only the self-serving attempts of scientists to validate their work. People begin to drift off at around this point, but one family remains, as we had discussed going into town to find a rumored pizza place.
The hour has grown too late, so Linda whips up the pasta and sauce that I brought from the states. The other family's daughter has done several musicals, so we deviate from yacht talk to her obvious relief.
Late in the night, or so it seems to me, I head back to my bunk and let the gentle rocking of the ship and the cool breeze coming through the hatch lull me into a much desired slumber.
Tuesday, July 17, 2007
Day Two: From Tahiti to Rangiroa
After several awakenings with the sky still dark, I finally arose to a typically beautiful Tahitian morning. I walked around me room, careful to not step too heavily so that any remaining glass shards I might step upon would stick to my foot, but not cut it. Satisfied that I had left no unhappy surprises for the next person to occupy the room, I checked to see if I had any clothes left that needed rinsing. Two shirts still smelled strongly of rum, so I showered with them (I could tell that I'd be in the water a lot this trip, as the heat and humidity made frequent rinsing very attractive). It was still quite early, so I retired to the front landing and hung my shirts on a chair while I did some reading. The view was of the airport down the hill, and I could see small squalls out on the sea, although on the island it was bright and sunny.
Once the shirts had dried as much as they were likely to, I packed all my surviving goods back up and checked out. In the absence of a taxi, I decided I would walk my cement lined bags down the hill to the airport. It was not a long trip, but in order to complete it I had to make several, surely illegal, cross road waddles. Traffic was light, as I imagine it always is in this remote part of the world, and I arrived at the airport with my arms and shoulders aching and beads of sweat dripping off my nose.
I happily checked in my bags and got a light brunch at the concessions stand. I had a few hours, so I wrote the previous day's journal while watching the locals and tourists mill about the airport until my laptop reached dangerously low power levels. I considered getting a magazine but they were all in French, except for a few copies of People and Vogue. I had packed my book in my luggage, so I moved through security resigned to reading the tourist pamphlets that were available in the kiosks. My flight was at 12:15, but as it reached noon I noticed that my flight number was now reading 1:30pm. They had probably announced this earlier, but seeing as how they did so in French, I had somehow missed it. I left the security area to return to the gift shop and bought the only thing that would help me pass the time. Suduko book in hand, I returned to the secure area and took my first steps into an addiction that has already become dated.
Eventually, the flight arrived and I joined the throng marching across the tarmac to the plane. I was reassured that it seemed large enough that I should have no problem catching a flight back to Tahiti from whichever island we happen to be at, at the end of my trip.
At last, we landed on the atoll of Rangiroa and I was greeted by bright and shining Bill and Linda. As we waited for my luggage I related my travails and we all had a good laugh. There were no taxis at the airport, so we waited by the road for someone to give us a lift. The only taxi on the atoll eventually came by and picked us up. This is the way of travel, it seems. Stick out your thumb and people will help out if they can. There had been a local who had offered me a beer at the airport, but his truck was full of the folks he was already picking up.
The ride cost 250 FPC, which is about $2.50. This confirmed that I had been ripped off for my 3 block cab ride the previous night, which had charged me 1500 FPC, or $15. I suspected as much at the time, but I had not yet figured out the exchange rate and was unwilling to get into a debate with the cab driver at that time.
I tried to tip this cab driver, but he absolutely refused it, clearly not sure what I was trying to do. It seems that tipping is pretty much unknown outside the main tourist areas of Tahiti.
As we walked down the dock to where Spicy, the dinghy, was tied up, my jaw dropped at the water. It was easily the clearest water I had ever seen. The water here is like green glass. I can see things ten feet below the surface as clearly as if they were right in front of me. I see manta rays, and fish of all descriptions, and rock outcroppings. The water is clearer and more pure than most pools I have seen, and as I would soon discover when I entered it, offers little refraction. Place your arm in the water, and there is no foreshortening. No space displacement.
As soon as we're on Creola, it's into this water which is cool but not cold, and I rapidly learn that I float in the salt water without effort. I cease my strong strokes, and find that I have little desire to return to the dry air. I know that I will be spending a lot of time in the sea while I am here.
After our swim, we dig into some of the food provisions I brought with me and catch up on what life has been like for the McKeevers since I last saw them in the docks of San Diego two years earlier. Life on the water is not easy, by any stretch, but tales of wonder and beauty are as common as tales of hardship and struggle. The hardship seems especially close, as they have just completed a 22 day voyage across the open sea with virtually no wind by which to sail.
As the sun sets, we hear a "knock, knock" and find a neighboring captain in his dinghy off the side of the boat. We talk for about an hour, and I find myself continually distracted by the stars. I don't see stars in Oakland. Maybe one or two of the brightest stars, but the urban sky is a jealous one that dislikes any light in the sky but its own.
Here, in the lagoon, only a few lights on the shore, the stars spread out like shards of broken glass, shining steadily through the thin clouds. Or are they thin clouds, or are they star clouds? The sky looks like a NASA photograph of nebulas, drifting through the heavens.
How do we live without the wonder of the stars above?
After our visitor departs we take Spicy to shore and try out the hotel restaurant, which is fabulous. I have duck in a honey sauce, with little potatoes and some other dish that seems to be a kind of fruit goulash. The only fruit I recognize is raisins, which would be odd had I not read earlier that day about an early settler who was obsessed with cultivating a vineyard on the islands.
By the time we arrive back, I am full, slightly tipsy, and deeply tired. I retire to my cabin, open the hatch above me, and drift off to sleep. Above me, I see the mast stretching high, the moon, and the stars. Creola rocks me softly to sleep.
Once the shirts had dried as much as they were likely to, I packed all my surviving goods back up and checked out. In the absence of a taxi, I decided I would walk my cement lined bags down the hill to the airport. It was not a long trip, but in order to complete it I had to make several, surely illegal, cross road waddles. Traffic was light, as I imagine it always is in this remote part of the world, and I arrived at the airport with my arms and shoulders aching and beads of sweat dripping off my nose.
I happily checked in my bags and got a light brunch at the concessions stand. I had a few hours, so I wrote the previous day's journal while watching the locals and tourists mill about the airport until my laptop reached dangerously low power levels. I considered getting a magazine but they were all in French, except for a few copies of People and Vogue. I had packed my book in my luggage, so I moved through security resigned to reading the tourist pamphlets that were available in the kiosks. My flight was at 12:15, but as it reached noon I noticed that my flight number was now reading 1:30pm. They had probably announced this earlier, but seeing as how they did so in French, I had somehow missed it. I left the security area to return to the gift shop and bought the only thing that would help me pass the time. Suduko book in hand, I returned to the secure area and took my first steps into an addiction that has already become dated.
Eventually, the flight arrived and I joined the throng marching across the tarmac to the plane. I was reassured that it seemed large enough that I should have no problem catching a flight back to Tahiti from whichever island we happen to be at, at the end of my trip.
At last, we landed on the atoll of Rangiroa and I was greeted by bright and shining Bill and Linda. As we waited for my luggage I related my travails and we all had a good laugh. There were no taxis at the airport, so we waited by the road for someone to give us a lift. The only taxi on the atoll eventually came by and picked us up. This is the way of travel, it seems. Stick out your thumb and people will help out if they can. There had been a local who had offered me a beer at the airport, but his truck was full of the folks he was already picking up.
The ride cost 250 FPC, which is about $2.50. This confirmed that I had been ripped off for my 3 block cab ride the previous night, which had charged me 1500 FPC, or $15. I suspected as much at the time, but I had not yet figured out the exchange rate and was unwilling to get into a debate with the cab driver at that time.
I tried to tip this cab driver, but he absolutely refused it, clearly not sure what I was trying to do. It seems that tipping is pretty much unknown outside the main tourist areas of Tahiti.
As we walked down the dock to where Spicy, the dinghy, was tied up, my jaw dropped at the water. It was easily the clearest water I had ever seen. The water here is like green glass. I can see things ten feet below the surface as clearly as if they were right in front of me. I see manta rays, and fish of all descriptions, and rock outcroppings. The water is clearer and more pure than most pools I have seen, and as I would soon discover when I entered it, offers little refraction. Place your arm in the water, and there is no foreshortening. No space displacement.
As soon as we're on Creola, it's into this water which is cool but not cold, and I rapidly learn that I float in the salt water without effort. I cease my strong strokes, and find that I have little desire to return to the dry air. I know that I will be spending a lot of time in the sea while I am here.
After our swim, we dig into some of the food provisions I brought with me and catch up on what life has been like for the McKeevers since I last saw them in the docks of San Diego two years earlier. Life on the water is not easy, by any stretch, but tales of wonder and beauty are as common as tales of hardship and struggle. The hardship seems especially close, as they have just completed a 22 day voyage across the open sea with virtually no wind by which to sail.
As the sun sets, we hear a "knock, knock" and find a neighboring captain in his dinghy off the side of the boat. We talk for about an hour, and I find myself continually distracted by the stars. I don't see stars in Oakland. Maybe one or two of the brightest stars, but the urban sky is a jealous one that dislikes any light in the sky but its own.
Here, in the lagoon, only a few lights on the shore, the stars spread out like shards of broken glass, shining steadily through the thin clouds. Or are they thin clouds, or are they star clouds? The sky looks like a NASA photograph of nebulas, drifting through the heavens.
How do we live without the wonder of the stars above?
After our visitor departs we take Spicy to shore and try out the hotel restaurant, which is fabulous. I have duck in a honey sauce, with little potatoes and some other dish that seems to be a kind of fruit goulash. The only fruit I recognize is raisins, which would be odd had I not read earlier that day about an early settler who was obsessed with cultivating a vineyard on the islands.
By the time we arrive back, I am full, slightly tipsy, and deeply tired. I retire to my cabin, open the hatch above me, and drift off to sleep. Above me, I see the mast stretching high, the moon, and the stars. Creola rocks me softly to sleep.
Monday, July 16, 2007
Day One: Getting there
I don't suppose that it's any surprise that things went the way they did. Not that it's all bad, but I'd been struggling with a premonition for weeks that getting to Tahiti was going to be fraught with challenges.
After months of fretting, a week ago it was finally apparent beyond argument that Ms. Morita would not be able to join me in this excursion. Perhaps it was for the best, we reasoned, as her home has been attacked by virulent black mold since an upstairs neighbor left the faucet on, flooding the woodwork. Every day brings a new issue as the water flood has turned into a flood of destructors and constructors who are gutting her floorboards and replacing them with something a little less toxic. Her presence is needed at home, and she has already begun to make other plans to fill her time with fun, even if it's not on an island.
Still, my mind had been on the passport issue greatly, which makes what happened even more ironic. The day before my flight was the 4th of July, which I hadn't made many plans for. A last minute game night with the guys on the 3rd prompted me to move my "Invisible Forest" meeting to the 4th however, which put me right in the neighborhood for Oliver Crow's 4th of July gathering which I had also just heard about.
I saw a lot of faces that are too often absent from my view lately: Elizabeth, Alexis, Oliver and Elyse, Andy and Lorelei, Eric, both Edens, Joseph and more. I hung out longer than planned, and would have hung out longer but I was concerned about not being rested and ready for my early flight the next day.
I got home, and did several sweeps of the apartment, looking for anything that might need to go in my overstuffed bags. I normally travel VERY light, but the high expense of food in Tahiti had been impressed upon me, so everything that looked like it would keep started going in my bags. Eventually, I fell asleep around midnight.
I woke to my alarms at 4:45 in the morning and took care of final preparations. I put my bed back in the wall and revolved it so that the cabinet faced out to the room again. I grabbed my, now extremely heavy, bags and waddled the two blocks to the BART station. Almost an hour later I was at San Francisco International Airport, riding the AirTrain to the terminal, thinking about Mayuko and her passport issue when it hit me.
My passport.
In the drawer in the cabinet. In the one place I didn't check because my bed was down and I couldn't get to it. Out of sight, and very much out of mind.
It was 6:15am and there was no way in hell I was going to get to Oakland and back in time. I went to the Delta terminal and found out that the next flight to LA wasn't until 12pm. My flight out of LAX to Tahiti was at 1. That wouldn't work.
I drug my back breakingly heavy bags back to BART and got a drowsy call form Mayuko. My brain was spinning. I could try to get a flight to LA out of Oakland. Then it hit me. I had a three hour layover in LAX. I needed to get to LA, but I didn't have to get there on Delta. Southwest has frequent flights to LA, so I called up the Oakland airport while on BART and made a reservation for the 9am Oak to LAX flight. If I missed it, there was also a 10am flight.
I got home, drug my sinew popping bags back to the apartment, ran up the stairs, grabbed my passport (exactly where I knew it had been), ran down the stairs, grabbed the bags and drug them back to BART again.
The Oakland airport is a very short distance from me, but you have to take a shuttle from the BART station to the airport. I arrived, raced as fast as I can while lugging what began to feel like metric tons worth of baggage, and made it to the Southwest terminal at 8:20.I got my ticket, checked my elephantine bags and headed to the security line. The line resembled a particularly long lived tapeworm. I trusted in my karma, as I had let a rather frantic young woman cut in front of me last week when I was flying back from San Diego, and asked for a similar favor which was freely granted. Having bypassed half the line, I moved through security without incident with fifteen minutes before my flight departed. I was at gate 17, which was the absolute furthest gate from the security station. Shoes untied, I jogged the entire length of the airport to see my flight in the midst of boarding. I had made it with perhaps five minutes to spare.
So I used the restroom quickly.
The flight was blissfully uneventful. I was only going to be about 15 minutes off my original schedule. I had lost a few years off my life, but what of that?
I landed in Los Angeles and called my contact. A yacht supplier had been contacted by Bill and Linda a few days earlier for some last minute repair parts. He had sent some to me at the office, but a few more (the most crucial parts) had arrived since then and so he was going to meet me at the terminal and pass them over. This we did at the baggage terminal, and I decided that all this was for the best as I could just put the boat parts in my heavy bags rather than try to explain the odd devices in my carry on when I went back through security. We chatted and waited for my bags.
And we waited.
And we waited.
And the baggage machine came to a halt and we were left practically alone in the claim area.
For myself, I was not too concerned. If I arrived in Tahiti with the clothes on my back and my laptop and camera, I could get alone fine for a week. I could easily buy a swimsuit and some bare essentials once I got there. But I had a lot of food and stuff for my hosts in those bags. We learned that the bags had been put on the 10am flight... the one I had tried to hard to avoid having to take. My companion assured me that I had plenty of time, as he had made the flight to and from Tahiti many times. And so we waited until 11:20am when the baggage from the flight began to arrive and my bags came out mercifully early.
Now, one of the larger parts that he had sent me earlier was being replaced by a better part that had just come in. So I began digging through my bags in order to find the old parts to do a swap. I was unable to find them, and my concern was growing about missing my Tahiti flight, as there was only one flight a day. What I did discover was that certain items had broken, despite my having packed them with lots of padding, and that my entire bag smelled strongly of rum and tequila. I removed the larger pieces of glass from my baggage and disposed of them while my temporary companion sanguinely suggested hitting the duty free shop on my way to the gate. A brilliant idea, and one I would not have thought of as I've never had cause to enter a duty free shop before.
I passed through security with my highly alcoholic luggage without incident, hit the duty free shop and replaced the tragically lost booze, and made it to my gate as passengers were in the process of boarding. My margin was improving, as I probably had arrived with about 15 minutes to spare. Everyone jammed into the tarmac shuttle and we sped across the runway.
Once seated, I wondered if Mayu's recently cancelled ticket would leave me an empty seat next to me. Indeed, it seemed as though the entire middle section next to me was empty and I might even be able to sleep horizontally on the flight. Then a nice young lady asked a question in french to the three women in front of me, and they all checked their tickets and moved back a row. Three generations, like a polynesian Hecate, sat beside me. So much for stretching out. Still, it couldn't be helped.
Once we were in the air, I went to use the restroom and when I returned the lady to my left pointed out that the two seats across the aisle were empty. I could have sworn I had seen people in there earlier, but people seemed to be resorting themselves. She had asked the attendant and it was fine for me to move over. So I did, and they got room and I got room. The next time I made a bathroom run, I noticed how full the plane was and how very lucky I had been to score such a bonus... especially since the controller for the entertainment system at my old chair didn't work.
From that point, the flight was painless. I had been through the worst of it, and made all my connections despite my travails.
The fact that I had not seen the small box of parts in my run soaked belongings vexed me, but there was nothing to be done until I arrived on the island.
When I did, however, and got a cab to take me the short distance to the airport motel, I found that the box was nowhere to be found. I must have left it on my desk at the office.
I am normally a very drama free, competent traveler, but I had managed to mangle every step of this expedition so far. As I unpacked my goods, putting all my soaked clothing in the shower, putting dry clothes aside, and throwing away the towel and socks that were too encrusted with broken glass to be recoverable, I felt an odd peace. The worst that I had feared had happened on this trip. Point for point, everything I had dreaded happening had occurred. As I poured the remaining glass shards into the garbage can, and took a cold shower, rinsing my clothes until they no longer smelled like the town drunk, I knew that from this point on it would be easy. I would find out Bill and Linda's next port of harbor and pay the cost to do an international fed ex to the docks. As the dealer had pointed out, they done without them just fine for several weeks, and they could wait another week or two for them. The crucial part was safely in my bag.
I was asleep by 8pm, which to my body was 11pm, and I woke this morning to the sound of the domestic roosters that live in the homes near the airport.
I am in Tahiti.
After months of fretting, a week ago it was finally apparent beyond argument that Ms. Morita would not be able to join me in this excursion. Perhaps it was for the best, we reasoned, as her home has been attacked by virulent black mold since an upstairs neighbor left the faucet on, flooding the woodwork. Every day brings a new issue as the water flood has turned into a flood of destructors and constructors who are gutting her floorboards and replacing them with something a little less toxic. Her presence is needed at home, and she has already begun to make other plans to fill her time with fun, even if it's not on an island.
Still, my mind had been on the passport issue greatly, which makes what happened even more ironic. The day before my flight was the 4th of July, which I hadn't made many plans for. A last minute game night with the guys on the 3rd prompted me to move my "Invisible Forest" meeting to the 4th however, which put me right in the neighborhood for Oliver Crow's 4th of July gathering which I had also just heard about.
I saw a lot of faces that are too often absent from my view lately: Elizabeth, Alexis, Oliver and Elyse, Andy and Lorelei, Eric, both Edens, Joseph and more. I hung out longer than planned, and would have hung out longer but I was concerned about not being rested and ready for my early flight the next day.
I got home, and did several sweeps of the apartment, looking for anything that might need to go in my overstuffed bags. I normally travel VERY light, but the high expense of food in Tahiti had been impressed upon me, so everything that looked like it would keep started going in my bags. Eventually, I fell asleep around midnight.
I woke to my alarms at 4:45 in the morning and took care of final preparations. I put my bed back in the wall and revolved it so that the cabinet faced out to the room again. I grabbed my, now extremely heavy, bags and waddled the two blocks to the BART station. Almost an hour later I was at San Francisco International Airport, riding the AirTrain to the terminal, thinking about Mayuko and her passport issue when it hit me.
My passport.
In the drawer in the cabinet. In the one place I didn't check because my bed was down and I couldn't get to it. Out of sight, and very much out of mind.
It was 6:15am and there was no way in hell I was going to get to Oakland and back in time. I went to the Delta terminal and found out that the next flight to LA wasn't until 12pm. My flight out of LAX to Tahiti was at 1. That wouldn't work.
I drug my back breakingly heavy bags back to BART and got a drowsy call form Mayuko. My brain was spinning. I could try to get a flight to LA out of Oakland. Then it hit me. I had a three hour layover in LAX. I needed to get to LA, but I didn't have to get there on Delta. Southwest has frequent flights to LA, so I called up the Oakland airport while on BART and made a reservation for the 9am Oak to LAX flight. If I missed it, there was also a 10am flight.
I got home, drug my sinew popping bags back to the apartment, ran up the stairs, grabbed my passport (exactly where I knew it had been), ran down the stairs, grabbed the bags and drug them back to BART again.
The Oakland airport is a very short distance from me, but you have to take a shuttle from the BART station to the airport. I arrived, raced as fast as I can while lugging what began to feel like metric tons worth of baggage, and made it to the Southwest terminal at 8:20.I got my ticket, checked my elephantine bags and headed to the security line. The line resembled a particularly long lived tapeworm. I trusted in my karma, as I had let a rather frantic young woman cut in front of me last week when I was flying back from San Diego, and asked for a similar favor which was freely granted. Having bypassed half the line, I moved through security without incident with fifteen minutes before my flight departed. I was at gate 17, which was the absolute furthest gate from the security station. Shoes untied, I jogged the entire length of the airport to see my flight in the midst of boarding. I had made it with perhaps five minutes to spare.
So I used the restroom quickly.
The flight was blissfully uneventful. I was only going to be about 15 minutes off my original schedule. I had lost a few years off my life, but what of that?
I landed in Los Angeles and called my contact. A yacht supplier had been contacted by Bill and Linda a few days earlier for some last minute repair parts. He had sent some to me at the office, but a few more (the most crucial parts) had arrived since then and so he was going to meet me at the terminal and pass them over. This we did at the baggage terminal, and I decided that all this was for the best as I could just put the boat parts in my heavy bags rather than try to explain the odd devices in my carry on when I went back through security. We chatted and waited for my bags.
And we waited.
And we waited.
And the baggage machine came to a halt and we were left practically alone in the claim area.
For myself, I was not too concerned. If I arrived in Tahiti with the clothes on my back and my laptop and camera, I could get alone fine for a week. I could easily buy a swimsuit and some bare essentials once I got there. But I had a lot of food and stuff for my hosts in those bags. We learned that the bags had been put on the 10am flight... the one I had tried to hard to avoid having to take. My companion assured me that I had plenty of time, as he had made the flight to and from Tahiti many times. And so we waited until 11:20am when the baggage from the flight began to arrive and my bags came out mercifully early.
Now, one of the larger parts that he had sent me earlier was being replaced by a better part that had just come in. So I began digging through my bags in order to find the old parts to do a swap. I was unable to find them, and my concern was growing about missing my Tahiti flight, as there was only one flight a day. What I did discover was that certain items had broken, despite my having packed them with lots of padding, and that my entire bag smelled strongly of rum and tequila. I removed the larger pieces of glass from my baggage and disposed of them while my temporary companion sanguinely suggested hitting the duty free shop on my way to the gate. A brilliant idea, and one I would not have thought of as I've never had cause to enter a duty free shop before.
I passed through security with my highly alcoholic luggage without incident, hit the duty free shop and replaced the tragically lost booze, and made it to my gate as passengers were in the process of boarding. My margin was improving, as I probably had arrived with about 15 minutes to spare. Everyone jammed into the tarmac shuttle and we sped across the runway.
Once seated, I wondered if Mayu's recently cancelled ticket would leave me an empty seat next to me. Indeed, it seemed as though the entire middle section next to me was empty and I might even be able to sleep horizontally on the flight. Then a nice young lady asked a question in french to the three women in front of me, and they all checked their tickets and moved back a row. Three generations, like a polynesian Hecate, sat beside me. So much for stretching out. Still, it couldn't be helped.
Once we were in the air, I went to use the restroom and when I returned the lady to my left pointed out that the two seats across the aisle were empty. I could have sworn I had seen people in there earlier, but people seemed to be resorting themselves. She had asked the attendant and it was fine for me to move over. So I did, and they got room and I got room. The next time I made a bathroom run, I noticed how full the plane was and how very lucky I had been to score such a bonus... especially since the controller for the entertainment system at my old chair didn't work.
From that point, the flight was painless. I had been through the worst of it, and made all my connections despite my travails.
The fact that I had not seen the small box of parts in my run soaked belongings vexed me, but there was nothing to be done until I arrived on the island.
When I did, however, and got a cab to take me the short distance to the airport motel, I found that the box was nowhere to be found. I must have left it on my desk at the office.
I am normally a very drama free, competent traveler, but I had managed to mangle every step of this expedition so far. As I unpacked my goods, putting all my soaked clothing in the shower, putting dry clothes aside, and throwing away the towel and socks that were too encrusted with broken glass to be recoverable, I felt an odd peace. The worst that I had feared had happened on this trip. Point for point, everything I had dreaded happening had occurred. As I poured the remaining glass shards into the garbage can, and took a cold shower, rinsing my clothes until they no longer smelled like the town drunk, I knew that from this point on it would be easy. I would find out Bill and Linda's next port of harbor and pay the cost to do an international fed ex to the docks. As the dealer had pointed out, they done without them just fine for several weeks, and they could wait another week or two for them. The crucial part was safely in my bag.
I was asleep by 8pm, which to my body was 11pm, and I woke this morning to the sound of the domestic roosters that live in the homes near the airport.
I am in Tahiti.
Monday, July 02, 2007
day of madness
Today has been a day of frustrations, as I deal with major corporations on the phone.
Mayu is not able to join me on my trip to the islands, due to the epidemic passport problems that have been making headlines lately. As a result, I have been trying to work with Travelocity and Air Tahiti Nui to salvage some bit of the coast of her ticket. They're non-transferable, non-refundable, non-changable tickets, it seems. I'm trying, at the very least, to use the credit to bump up my flight to Business or First class as a solution that will at least make me feel like I'm getting something for the cost of the extra ticket. Travelocity, after several go arounds with support individuals who spoke in rapid, Hindi-accented English, promised to get back to me in 45 minutes with their final negotiation with Air Tahiti Nui. That was over four hours ago. I will try again tomorrow, as I don't want to spend 30 minutes on hold to start the process all over again with a new Travelocity rep.
To add to that, my XBox 360 went kerblooey several weeks back. I would put in a game, and it would tell me to insert the disc into an XBox 360.
Strange behavior, but an online search determined it was not a unique problem. Microsoft sent me a returns box (UPS 3 day service, each way) and there has been silence since then. I don't want the XBox to return to me a few days after I leave, then get shipped back to Microsoft, so I call them up and ask them to adjust the shipping information so it will rest here at work where someone can sign for it. Microsoft won't do it. They tell me to have UPS hold it. This is for a box that hasn't been shipped, mind you, so they can't give me a tracking number. UPS is polite, but finds the request rather absurd. They'd have to triple the size of their warehouse if they did this kind of thing for people. I call Microsoft back, and they are adamant that they can't change the shipping address on this box. After all, maybe it's already being shipped!
I ask them if they checked with service to see if the repairs had been completed. They hadn't. But call back tomorrow, they tell me.
Lovely.
The only people who have been truly helpful are the folks at Air Tahiti (not Air Tahiti Nui, which is a different airline) who happily cancelled Mayu's ticket from Tahiti to Rangoria with no penalty.
I like them.
So, I spent a lot of time on the phone while answering email at work, and am really no closer to a solution on either problem than I was when I began. The tickets, I am coming to accept may just be a $1400 loss. This hurts, but I console myself that at worst, I'll have two seats to myself on the plane and will be able to stretch out a little ways. Besides, I've lost far more than that on shows that I've produced. That doesn't make it feel much better, but it lowers my blood pressure a little bit.
I'm going to call my bank now and let them know that I'll be traveling, so that they don't freeze my debit card (again). Let's hope that this is relatively painless.
UPDATE: I couldn't reach a person at the Bank, so I sent an email that will hopefully find its way properly. But the good news is that Travelocity worked it out with the airline and they cancelled the extra ticket for the standard fee. I had hoped for a number of solutions, but this wasn't one I dared hope for. So, no first class for me, and no re-booking to go to New Zealand next year. But instead, an almost complete refund!
Mayu is not able to join me on my trip to the islands, due to the epidemic passport problems that have been making headlines lately. As a result, I have been trying to work with Travelocity and Air Tahiti Nui to salvage some bit of the coast of her ticket. They're non-transferable, non-refundable, non-changable tickets, it seems. I'm trying, at the very least, to use the credit to bump up my flight to Business or First class as a solution that will at least make me feel like I'm getting something for the cost of the extra ticket. Travelocity, after several go arounds with support individuals who spoke in rapid, Hindi-accented English, promised to get back to me in 45 minutes with their final negotiation with Air Tahiti Nui. That was over four hours ago. I will try again tomorrow, as I don't want to spend 30 minutes on hold to start the process all over again with a new Travelocity rep.
To add to that, my XBox 360 went kerblooey several weeks back. I would put in a game, and it would tell me to insert the disc into an XBox 360.
Strange behavior, but an online search determined it was not a unique problem. Microsoft sent me a returns box (UPS 3 day service, each way) and there has been silence since then. I don't want the XBox to return to me a few days after I leave, then get shipped back to Microsoft, so I call them up and ask them to adjust the shipping information so it will rest here at work where someone can sign for it. Microsoft won't do it. They tell me to have UPS hold it. This is for a box that hasn't been shipped, mind you, so they can't give me a tracking number. UPS is polite, but finds the request rather absurd. They'd have to triple the size of their warehouse if they did this kind of thing for people. I call Microsoft back, and they are adamant that they can't change the shipping address on this box. After all, maybe it's already being shipped!
I ask them if they checked with service to see if the repairs had been completed. They hadn't. But call back tomorrow, they tell me.
Lovely.
The only people who have been truly helpful are the folks at Air Tahiti (not Air Tahiti Nui, which is a different airline) who happily cancelled Mayu's ticket from Tahiti to Rangoria with no penalty.
I like them.
So, I spent a lot of time on the phone while answering email at work, and am really no closer to a solution on either problem than I was when I began. The tickets, I am coming to accept may just be a $1400 loss. This hurts, but I console myself that at worst, I'll have two seats to myself on the plane and will be able to stretch out a little ways. Besides, I've lost far more than that on shows that I've produced. That doesn't make it feel much better, but it lowers my blood pressure a little bit.
I'm going to call my bank now and let them know that I'll be traveling, so that they don't freeze my debit card (again). Let's hope that this is relatively painless.
UPDATE: I couldn't reach a person at the Bank, so I sent an email that will hopefully find its way properly. But the good news is that Travelocity worked it out with the airline and they cancelled the extra ticket for the standard fee. I had hoped for a number of solutions, but this wasn't one I dared hope for. So, no first class for me, and no re-booking to go to New Zealand next year. But instead, an almost complete refund!
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