Hello all,
While Amy was back in the US visiting her mom, sisters, and new niece Katie, I have been single handing again. Actually, not so much. I have been moving the boat around by myself, but luckily I was blessed with a great group of friends to travel with. We just today disbanded. Bill on "Solstice" is heading for the Lau group, Vulpia is back to Savu Savu to re-provision in anticipation of the owners coming for a cruise, and I have sailed to Taveuni to await Amy who is flying in in a few days. It was very sad splitting up but that is the way it goes. I agree with something Captain Fatty said once that he never says "good bye". It is a fairly small comunity and Im sure we will see eachother again. I feel very lucky to have been able to spend time with them, and for the most part the time Amy has been away has flown by. After we filmed at the school in Gamea we were a little bit too famous for our own good and we evacuated to an undisclosed tropical paradise (pictured) with our own, private, beach and reef. Thank you so much Bill, Cyrus, Brooke, and Lauren for some of the best highlights of the trip and several beach days that I will always remember.
Cheers
Eric
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The crew of Vulpia. From left to right: Cyrus, Brooke, and Lauren. Fellow mariners, world travelers, and kindred spirits.
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These are from a while ago. We stopped overnight in a bay on the south side of Vanua Levu. It had a vast mangrove forest which was home to thousands of Bats. We approached with stealth, however there was a lot of current that carried us right into the colony and they ended up getting an early start on their night flight.
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Dinghy raft up in the "Bat Cave Mangroves"
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07/13/2012, Qamea School
Hello all,
Yesterday my friends and I filmed at the school here in Qamea. My friends Brooke and Cyrus have an educational outreach program, traveloutreach.org, and Lauren and Bill and I were lucky enough to be part of it yesterday. The Idea is an educational/cultural exchange between kids from around the world. Sometimes the kids teach something they have learned in school, and sometimes it is a cultural exchange. Yesterday was a cultural exchange. We spent most of the day ashore having fun with the kids. They were shy at first but quickly warmed up. They danced for us, I taught them how to play Ultimate frisbee and gave them their own disk, Lauren learned how to play net ball, we sang songs, and Bill and Cyrus filmed it all. Pictured here is Brooke getting funky while singing with the kids. Hit songs included tracks from Justin Bieber and Shakira which the kids had totally memorized. It was extremely high energy and lots of fun. However, I might skip the funeral today and move to boat around the island for some peace and quiet. We are quite famous now and I have had several visits this morning from kayaks full of kids wanting to hang out and have a look at Secret Agent Man. All good fun though. Its just hard to entertain like that as they would stay all day if I didnt have something terribly important to attend to. Hope you all are well. Good luck to SV Doubletake at sea racing to Maui right now.
Cheers
Eric
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Hello All,
Here is "Chandon" sailing out of the anchorage.
I know you are probably overwhelmed with the blog posts. Well, thats how it is. Hit or miss. I happen to be in an extremely remote spot that happens to be able to see a vodafone tower. My life right now is Ok. I miss Amy very much but she will be back soon. I am getting immersed in fijian culture. Which is the point. My friends and I will be filming at the school here tomorrow which will be a highlight. Brooke and I scoped out Taveuni yesterday, which is where I will collect Amy. There will be a funeral on Saturday. A funeral here is a celebration of the persons life. That means: pig gets killed, music gets played, party is had... I cant wait. I am still an outsider but not for much longer. I have made lots of friends and have been invited to every village. I think I will keep my shell art knowledge from them because it has the possability of hurting their reef if they start harvesting shells. It was different in Kiribas because there were only 25 people. I love you all.
Eric
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This is Charlie. He is trolling with me outside the reef outide of Naiviivi Bay. He and his wife Mai live on Cisero On the right in the picture above.
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This fish put up quite a fight. I wish I had something in there for scale. Amy and my Mom know how big that bin is. Trust me... 15lbs. I took it immediatly to my local friends and they were like "No"... I said "Ciguatera?" They didnt know what that meant but I figured better safe than sorry. They told me I wanted trevalley which was what I was after in the first place. I was able to revive her and put her back on her reef.
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I met you in Rangiroa for about 5 minutes before you sailed off. Just found your blog through Renova, good to see you're still sailing.
I speared one of those, about half that size, incidentally in Rangiroa, just a few weeks ago. Same deal, the locals said, "no..." with grave expressions. Interesting how it's bad in both places. My fish wasn't so easily revived however, with his brains all rearranged by the spear...
-Dane, my blog's at www.cadenceofthesea.com
Hi Guys,
This is how kids get to school on Qamea. My friend Pita is the "bus" driver and does three trips every morning and three in the afternoon ferrying kids to and from school and their villages.
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This was taken a few days ago by a trail camera in my grandma's backyard in Preston Washington.
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"she got attacked by a bear"
Oh man... what was she doing?
"She was attacking it with a grabage can"
Eh?
"Yeah my grandma is tough"
