Love – Page 11 – Allora Voyage

Tahiti… aka Civilization

I’m becoming an honorary biologist out here!

Accomplished in Papeete thus far: (working list of paradise offsets!)

Wash Allora with fresh water for the first time in a year (Diana uses a toothbrush for her part)
Polish and wax cabin, and dodger
Inspect and put new seizing wire on anchor swivel
Clean and replace anchor markers
Adjust valves on Yanmar engine
Clean heat exchanger Yanmar
Replace coolant Yanmar
Check belts, hoses and impeller Yanmar
Install new AIS antenna and cable, solder new UHF connection
Dismantle, clean and relube primary winches
Troubleshoot Radar
Update firmware on multifunction navigation displays
Clean Namo with fresh water for the first time in a year
Replace D ring on Namo
Wash Allora with fresh water for the second time in a year
Climb and inspect mast
Drill rivets and remove lower shrouds
Replace lower shrouds (one broke a strand sometime since May)
Update software on iPads
Update software on Diana’s Mac
Update software on Marcus’ Mac
Replace battery on Marcus Mac book pro (new battery shipped from France)
Update Delorme
Update Iridium Go!
Rum and Whiskey provisions for 9 months
Charge flashlights
Acquire and consume as many pamplemousse as possible
Purchase dive tanks and dive gear, BCD’s and regulators
Install straps and bunnies for new dive tanks
Marcus’s bike to shop for replacing corroded gear ship cables and brakes
Clean, polish and wax Allora port side
Finish windlass rewiring/waterproofing
Rum tasting on Adagio also with friends from Reverence
Build seat for mast climbing rig
Umpteen bike trips to the store to provision
Stow provisions for nine months!
Clean mast to lower shrouds. Polish.
De-rust middle and upper shrouds.
Clean and scrub cockpit cushions
Clean and scrub cockpit seats
Install wheel holder for removing wheel from helm
Sundays 0600 market provisioning X4
Lubricate head (this is one of Marcus’s favorite jobs)
Clean helm bag
Scrub decks with boat soap and fresh water for third time in a year
Multiple doctor appointments
Charge rechargeable batteries
Charge handheld VHF radios
Clean, polish and wax Allora starboard side
Clean Bimini and connector panel with fresh water for the first time in a year
Polish dorades
Replace dorade gaskets
Edit photos for blog (the font should be larger on this one to reflect the magnitude of the task)
Provide copy for blog
Factory service for Yamaha outboard
Go through Aft cabin for disposable items
Go through fwd cabin for disposable items
Dispose of propane tank
Sell (or actually give away) kite surfing board
Clean fishing gear
Communicate via Skype with loved ones for the first time in months
Write emails complaining about destructive ferry wakes in Papeete harbor
Read first set of rejection letters on Slocum novel
Repair and re-bed shock connection freezer with 5200
Empty and clean freezer and refrigerator
Replace shock on freezer, and refrigerator
Empty and clean refrigerator
Rinse running rigging with fresh water
Exchange propane tank
Install new organization system for refrigerator
De-rust and replace washers on all hatches
Disassemble broken Lewmar clutch and investigate repair options
Order more fly tying materials
Order new butt section and new rod to replace broken nine weight
Swab decks final (fourth) time to remove grime just before leaving Papeete
Upload 8-9 new blog posts
Scrub window UV covers
Wash folding bikes
Fabricate dive flag buoy
Laundry, laundry and more laundry (dry on lifelines)
Finish cleaning the mast, checking fasteners, de-rusting
Plant herb garden! (Thanks to Birgit/Pitufa for the inspiration and AK/Pensive for some key supplies!)

Cross things off this list (thanks, Ian, how could I have forgotten the most fun task?!)

We are currently in Oponohu, Moorea awaiting a weather window to head south to the Austral’s, so the chore list grows, (clean waterline, PFD zipper repair, etc.) – but we are also exploring some of the dive sites on this north side, WITH OUR OWN GEAR!!

Rangiroa -The Tuamotu Folks Have Heard Of

Our first instinct, on our initial pass through the Tuamotus last year, was to avoid Rangiroa. It seemed too popular – with actual hotels for tourists, including those ‘elegant’ thatched roof bungalows out over the water that plague Bora Bora. But on our second pass this year, we ended up spending a month in this largest of the Tuamotus atolls.

I’ll keep my part of the motivation for staying so long to one sentence: Rangiroa has the best bonefishing in the Tuamotus. Okay, moving on. Okay, well maybe not moving on. I broke both my nine and eight weight rods on these fish. I used up my entire stock of number 4 hooks. I fished everyday, and there were bonefish wherever we went, even at the touristy Blue Lagoon. We’re not talking armies of tourists, lets say a couple dozen for a whole day in three or four small boats. One group even waved me over and fed me lunch. The tour operator was an avid fisherman and pure Polynesian friendly. He told about a spot where he’d seen a giant bonefish, so big that at first he’d mistaken it for a shark.

Unfortunately, I never got over there. The wind shifted and we had to pull up anchor – which is a short sentence for describing a pretty harrowing situation where our anchor windlass failed, and we had to untangle the anchor from some nasty bottom, manually, and then with a little luck and jimmying of the windlass control, we raised the Rocna, just as the waves and wind built in earnest. Fortunately, we figured out the wiring problem at the next anchorage and it was an easy repair. ~MS

To Be A Dolphin!

I don’t know quite how to describe the magic of diving with dolphins. They played, they chatted, they rolled and swooped, they came over begging us to rub their bellies. We lost track of our depth and where we were. They came to see us two out of our three dives in Rangiroa’s Tiputa Pass. It was probably better the second time, because it was easier to slow down and take it in, rather than worry that they would only be there for a moment. It was wonderful to swim with them in their element, to watch one jump up out of the water, looking from below. In Baja we always debated which we loved more dolphins or whales (now there’s a silly argument), and it generally depended on which we’d seen most recently. I remember us saying, ‘dolphins, definitely dolphins’ once, and seriously just few minutes later a humpback breached out of nowhere and it was ‘whales, definitely whales.’ Guess what the sentence is now? ~MS

©DS You’d see them from a distance and then in a flash, they’d be swirling all around you, doing all the tricks you maybe once saw on Flipper?!

©DS Master swimmers, elegant gliders, they move as if in a choreographed, perfect dance.

©DS Not sure whether I was more enamored with their clicking sounds or their smiles?!

©DS They’d go up to the surface to breathe and we’d just wait and hope they’d come back down and find us! We met a family with young enough kids that they were just snorkeling, but they shared stories of these moments when the dolphins would come up playing on the surface as well.

©DS The rostrum is the hard, beak-like mouthpart. Their sense of smell is poor, with no olfactory nerves or lobe in the brain.

©DS This is a world class dive spot mainly because of these dolphin pods, so they are quite accustomed to human swimmers and their curiosity matches ours, or so it seems.

©DS They normally travel from 4 – 10 feet per second, but they can reach speeds of 26-31 feet per second for short bursts of time.

This school of Longfin Bannerfish lends a bit of scale!

@DS Appreciating the abstracts in-between forays with the dolphins!

The wildlife of these remote atolls, which were originally called the Puamotus (poor islands) where lesser chiefs were once exiled, is addictive. It never stops. ~MS