I had toyed with the idea of calling this blog the "Fairweather Blogger", as I had anticipated very sporadic posting. Sporadic would be an understatement so far! I apologize to those who have been checking the blog regularly in anticipation of ANY word from the wayward sailors... The truth is that I lost my remote sailblog login info, so my grand plans of being able to post to this blog via sailmail were stopped in their tracks. Our pactor modem is working swimmingly for our Reach the World postings and weather forecasts, but the sailblog was a no-go. Now that we've reached the islands, my energies (and very expensive French Polynesian internet access) have been devoted exclusively to writing and posting content for the Reach the World site. But, now here I sit in Taiohai Bay on the island of Nuku Hiva, with an hour left on my internet card, and an hour before bedtime to bring you all up to speed. Yes, it has been over two months since my last (and first!) blog, and a lot has happened since that time. In fact, rather than re-relating the last two months here in painful detail, I would invite you to peruse the many Reach the World postings that can be found on the site www.reachtheworld.org under 'voyage of the shannon'. Despite being geared for the slightly younger crowd, they will give you a good idea of what has been happening! In case you don't have the patience for that, I'll give you a basic rundown:
Ken, Britton and myself sailed the Shannon just shy of 2800 miles upwind to the islands of the Marquesas. The passage took us 32 days and was filled with plenty of tooth-rattling north pacific tradewind goodness. We ate like kings, read like scholars, slept like the dead, and bathed like sailors.�'We didn't see a single ship or any other sign of humanity for a month, and pretty much got used to feeling like we were the only people left on the planet. The Shannon made landfall at the island of Hiva Oa on June 6th, where Christina and Alina were waiting for us on the pier. After picking up the two wayward women and refilling our water and fuel tanks, the crew island-hopped to Fatu Hiva, Tahuata, Ua Pou, Ua Huka, and Nuku Hiva over the course of the month of June. We ate tons of fruit, caught fish, dove every day, did ridiculous amounts of walking and hiking, made friends, rode horses, ate pig, ate goat, caught crab, ate crab, hitchhiked, camped, carved wood, received gifts, gave gifts, made banana bread, troubleshot a leaky fuel tank, surfed, slept, got bit by nono flies, sketched, wrote, sang, cooked, biked, and typed.
Tomorrow we're headed back to Ua Pou to refill our water tanks, and then we're off to the Tuamotu Archipelago! It'll be a four day sail, and we're hoping to catch the solar eclipse along the way. Supposedly, we're in the best spot in the world to witness this event. I'm looking forward to some excellent diving where we're headed.
I wish this could be longer, but I'm running out of internet time!
We miss you all!