John's Blog Updated. Original post with photos: http://travel.reservationkey.com Latitude: -10.09238 Longitude: -139.04509

Last night was a night to remember for sure. Bruce, Pascale and I joined the adults from Evergreen, Dennis, Carol, Mark, and Vicki, aboard Phambili with Tommy and Fiona for a potluck dinner followed by a mini music recital. All but one of the kids, Francois, Antoine, Josh from Evergreen, and Anina and Cameron from Phambili, had dinner on Calou followed by playing Uno and other games.

Each of the boats prepared a main dish for the adults dinner and we had a very filling dinner. Then the fun started with playing some music. Bruce kicked it off by playing a few French and Russian solo pieces on his button accordion. Then he accompanied Pascale as she sang some energetic French songs. After a brief intermission, Naoimi, age 12, and I played a few songs together on violin. She had been studying violin privately for a few years and is doing quite well, especially considering that it is difficult to keep practicing and advancing her skills while sailing. I wanted to play a few real violin pieces (instead of all the light classics that are more familiar to people) so I played the first few pages of Mendelssohn, Mozart and Beethoven violin concertos. Tommy has requested I play a full concerto next time as he really likes to hear the classics, so I better get a bit more practice in. To close our concert we got the spiral bound piano book of popular classics out and we all sang along with the violin to pieces such as themes from Carmen, an aria from Tosca, Tchaikovsky Piano Concert Number One. Fiona also had a few Beatles songs and songs from musicals.

By this time it was just past midnight and the crew from Evergreen were getting ready to leave when they discovered their dinghy was no longer tied to the back of Phambili. It looked like somehow the rope had loosened and the dinghy had drifted away. The bay we were anchored in is notoriously windy with huge gusts funneling down through the mountains and out to sea. The chances of finding it with such wind in the dark did not look good. A dinghy to a cruiser is like a car that an RV'er might tow behind them. Once anchored, the boat stays put and the dinghy is the way you get around. Losing it, especially so early in their trip, is a really terrible thing.

Tommy and Fiona set out in their dinghy with a flashlight and started inspecting the shores of the bay. Dennis joined us in our dinghy and planned to also join in the search. But then we started having trouble with our motor and it became clear that it would only add to the problems if we went out in the darkness, wind, and rain in a dinghy whose motor kept dying. So Dennis decided to weigh anchor and search using his boat. By the time Evergreen motored out of the bay into the open ocean it was well after 1:00 AM. On Calou we all went to bed about this time.

When we woke up in the morning Evergreen was not back. Phambili and us secured our decks and started motoring out of the bay, going over to the next island down, Tahuato. As we were leaving, Tommy contacted Dennis on the VHF radio and relayed to us the news that Evergreen had just located their dinghy! It was about 5 miles out, where it had actually drifted upwind, but with the current. We later talked with Dennis on the radio who said they had motored around all night without seeing any sign of their dinghy. They had given up the search and were motoring back when they spotted their dinghy only about 30 feet off of their course back into the bay. They practically ran into it! So, that was a relief to us to hear they had found it, and I am sure they were ecstatic to have found it. They will likely catch up on their sleep today and join us tomorrow in the new anchorage we are headed to.

Earlier in the day, yesterday, I spent about 4 hours working for ReservationKey, making some good progress on the new feature I am building. Since it was pouring rain most of the morning, this was a good day for programming. My work was interrupted quite a bit though as I had caused our aft head to become clogged. So I spent quite a bit of time working on unclogging the hose. I even dove under the boat and used a wire snake to work on the hose. Finally I decided to pour some white vinegar in and let it sit for a few hours.

Even though it was still pouring rain Francois and Josh decided to hike to the waterfall. I joined them and picked up Anina. We spoke to some of the local people as we walked through the village that warned the waterfall would be way to dangerous, but we decided to proceed anyway. It turned out fine. The only real danger would have been from falling debris if we had went swimming under the waterfall. The trail was well above the river and not a problem. When we arrived at the waterfall it was very obvious we would not be going in the water. In fact we could barely get close without being blasted by spray from the waterfall. It was a huge difference from my visit two days earlier. It was like we were standing at the base of the Niagra falls. On the way back we visited a fresh water spring surrounded by mint plants. We drank lots of the very refreshing and minty water.

Currently we are closing in on our next anchorage. We hope to have a bonfire and another music party on the beach. Unfortunately this may be our last night with Phambili for awhile as they are on a schedule to get to Tahiti to meet Fiona's sister. Hopefully we will join up with them in the Tuamotus in a a month or so. We have had a lot of fun with them and enjoyed experiences we probably otherwise would not have had.