Land HO!

May 15, 2010

We're 153nm from Rangiroa, and we've already started passing a few little islands.  We're aiming to arrive early tomorrow morning.  Birds have been showing up in greater frequency over the last 5-6 days, and every once in a while I find that my sinuses are a little stuffed up.  Now this is pure conjecture, but as we're in vicinity of land, albeit little bits of land (Marquesas are directly North and some little islands of French Polynesia are to the South), I'm guessing that allergens are getting carried in the air. 

French Polynesia (FP) covers an area of the South Pacific Ocean about the size of Europe. It is made up of over 100 islands in five archipelagos.  Rangiroa is in the Tuamotus Archipelago, once called the Dangerous Archipelago on account of its treacherous currents and lurking reefs.  We were not provided with the electronic charts for this area, so our chart plotter which is what steers the boat is useless as we get closer.  We have a large scale paper chart for SE Polynesia to help us avoid the little islands, and thankfully, I have very detailed electronic charts on my computer, but we're going to be doing a lot of eyeball navigation.

Oly is a bit stressed.  He has a flight from Tahiti to the U.S. on the morning of the 18th.  We MUST get in tomorrow (16th) so he can fly from Rangiroa to Tahiti on the 17th, when he'll have to sort out hotel and taxi and all that jazz to make his flight. 

We've had rough weather over the last 18 hours or so, going through several squalls.  In the worst of it, the autopilot couldn't hold a course (we had to go straight into the wind and waves), so I was hand steering on a joystick down below.  (A joystick, seriously?  I said to Oly, "I've never used one of these before."  His answer: "Playstation Generation"  (Remember he's 24 going on 25)).  Anyway, we got through it no problems.  This morning we've got more rain but no wind or wind on the nose, so we're motoring.

The owners are aiming to arrive in Tahiti around May 30, and they've given Jean permission to take the boat to Bora Bora where his daughter lives.  I don't really know what I'm going to do.  I've got to get to Tahiti by May 25 to pick up my next batch of Accutane.  FP is very very expensive to stay on land, with very few if any sort of hostels.  So unless I quickly find another boat to jump on, I may stay with Bubas to Tahiti, Bora Bora, then back to Tahiti.  We shall see.