Sailed to the Tuamotus

Two major milestones from this last trip! On June 21, Jazz celebrated her 37th birthday, and at sunset Villa reached her 10,000th mile with us! The celebration was a bit less festive than we’d hoped, as we could hardly walk. Not due to alcohol, as one might assume on such a grand occasion, but because we were getting the shit kicked out of us.

The three days and nights (both must be mentioned as they were endless) were some of our roughest in years. We sailed with scraps of sails out, tight to the wind, and practically directly into huge waves. An endless deluge of seawater over the whole front deck into the cockpit from multiple angles. We really should have put up the Isenglass, but once we were going we didn’t feel like it. A shelf in the pantry broke. It’s fallen off before, but this time the metal holding it on sheared. The water intake for the toilet was out of the water so much that it was unusable, and we had to leave a bucket of salt water in the bathroom to flush. Captain’s litter was jumping so much in his litter tray that he refused to use it. For the second time ever, Captain peed twice and popped once on the carpet. Fortunately all in the same place, on the carpet we had to rip out after the hot sauce shelf break accident during hurricane Gonzalez. Easy clean up outside, but guarding Captain on the la st day
to carry him back to his box when he headed towards That Carpet was a pain.

Arriving is often a joy, but this arrival, in a private paradise was sheer pleasure.

We anchored yesterday afternoon on the east side of Raroia, our first atoll in the Tuamotus. We’re the only boat here. Because of the crap sail to get here, that is not surprising. But having this paradise to ourselves will hopefully be worth it. Unfortunately there is no internet, despite Viva’s less-than-helpful map promising coverage in the islands. Sorry for the calls we’ve missed and the dropping out of contact with no notice.