Today dawned completely clear. Just a few tiny clouds way down on the horizon, hundreds of miles away. We’ve not had a clear day like this yet, apart from perhaps when we were at sea, back in March. Early this morning there was heavy rain, waking me up and sending me dashing to shut hatches. Even at anchor it’s hard to get a full night’s sleep! The rain clouds were gone before dawn and now it’s hot. Viciously hot. Even with the sun shades up in the cockpit and the front of the spray hood unzipped to let the breeze through, it’s not nice to be sat up on deck. Even though the view is stunning (yet again), we’re hiding below, away from the sun, at our fourth anchorage in Fakarava (16 13.89 S 145 33.50 W). Just 2 miles up the shore from where we spent last night. Hardly worth getting the anchor up … “we should have just let out more chain to get around the corner” Dave said!
Eva is sorting through some of the gazillions of photos that they’ve taken over the past couple of weeks. Dave’s making a fishing lure from a piece of pine that he’s spent the last couple of days carving. I’m sporadically dipping in and out of a few books – not really in the mood to read “properly” today – waiting for some epoxy putty to cure on the windlass (anchor winch). Turned out that we broke a piece of plastic off during the epic session getting the chain up in Makemo. Once the midday heat eases off, and then we’ll head out to explore.
But first, let’s catch up with yesterday. As we approached the anchorage I spotted a dwelling, and then in the afternoon when we went ashore we bumped into it’s occupants. A middle aged man, surprisingly slim for a Polynesian, in a bright yellow and purple sarong. His dog, a timid brown pup trying to be brave by shouting a few hesitant barks at us. And two tiny 3 week old kittens, struggling to scramble over the white coral beach. “Bonjour!” he greeted us with smiling eyes and a warmly offered handshake, strong work-hardened fingers wide apart. We pulled the dinghy up the beach, and wandered through the low scrub to his house. More of a shack than a house; wooden stakes holding up a tin roof, with neatly woven coconut matting as walls. Just one room, with a couple of sleeping platforms of white coral pieces, a cooking area and a couple of open doors. Round the back he had a modern looking water cistern, which he said he’s constantly having to drain because lizards fall in and die, tainting the water. So today he’s “asked for more rain” following the latest suicide. His accent was strong, but I could understand most of what he was saying. Chatting in French, he lopped a couple of coconuts down using a long stick with a hook on the end, sliced the top off and handed them over. Mmm, fresh coconut milk.
He showed us around his land, which he’d been clearing for years, along with his sons. Removing the scrub and bushes by burning them back, leaving just coconut trees and coral. Here and there he’s planted flowers and other domestic plants, in upturned coconut husks which provide a little something in the way of nutrients. He said he also bought “bon terre” from Tahiti in ton-loads, which was delivered by boat, good soil for getting plants started in this harsh ground. Sprinkled around the base of some of the coconut trees like a white collar was light coloured coral collected from the beach, contrasting with the darker old reef coral that made up the rest of the property. He’s put a lot of effort into making it nice. Would have been fun to stick around for the evening but the sun was sinking, and the no-nos starting to bite so we made a promise to return in the morning, and retreated back to the safety of the boat.
A couple of days ago we ran out of water in the 50 gallon aft tank. The forward tank had a few gallons left as reserve, but not much, so it was a sign to start getting more active with our water making. Back in San Francisco I installed a machine that turns sea water into fresh water via reverse osmosis – basically squeezing salt water through a really fine membrane at super high pressure. It means that we don’t have to plan our voyage around where we can pick up water. It’s been working really well, but the pump does use a lot of electricity. This morning I got the batteries back up to a happy charge level using the engine for a couple of hours, running the water maker at the same time. Once the sun was up high enough to feed the solar panels and provide the hungry machine with enough power, I left it running while I joined the others ashore to explore with our new friend. Took some spare mesh netting as a gift to hopefully help him with his lizard problem.
I couldn’t understand his name (and didn’t ask him to scrawl it in the sand which would have been a good idea) so let’s call him Freddie. It sounded a bit like Freddie. Yesterday, anyway. He called himself something else today. So Freddie, cold beer from Rafiki’s stores in hand, showed us over the motu to the reef on the ocean side, and all over his property, pointing out various shrubs and bushes along the way. The plants his wife put down last year, the coconut trees his sons planted “when they were this high”, indicating a three-year-old’s height with his hand. He says he’s got three houses, one up in the village where his wife is, and one further down south, but he likes it best here – I can see why.
But, again, it’s “time for us to move on” (an all too common phrase at the moment) – we’ve snorkeled all the reef here and want to see what’s around the next corner … which brings us to this baking hot afternoon, sat just around that next corner, waiting for the day to cool down.
Road and Ocean 