My three weeks in San Diego handed in a flash. It was great to be house for James’s wedding ceremony, however between errands, visits with associates, and procuring lists, I used to be a human pinball. I am exhausted, mendacity right here stressed in my bunk within the predawn hours, attempting to resolve what to do subsequent. Swell gently pulls towards her docklines on the marina in Tahiti, as if she’s able to get again out to sea.
Pacific Islands Tahiti Map
With cyclone season approaching, I really feel the strain to go away immediately if I’ll make it to New Zealand the most secure, commonest place cruisers select to spend the South Pacific storm season. It could be about 3,000 nautical miles of crusing with solely a pair fast stops. Though I might love to stay round, cyclones do hit French Polynesia and my present visa is just for one month. I am additionally nervous that the neighborhood I am constructing by means of my weblog and journal articles will lose curiosity if I do not preserve transferring to ever-new locations. I hesitate to jeopardize the trickle of earnings they supply. Regardless of my fatigue, heading west looks like the most suitable choice.
Pacific Islands Tahiti
Whereas I lie there mulling over the required voyage preparation to go away for New Zealand, it happens to me that I’m shaping my journey round assumptions of what I believe my supporters again house need me to do. They do not know how busy I always am to maintain up with the countless upkeep, passage prep, checking the climate, emails, crew scheduling, social invitations from different cruisers, and writing updates, on prime of each day chores and feeding myself.
THE PACIFIC ISLANDS TAHITI SURF SURF TONGA SURF SAMOA SURF FIJI Photo Gallery
What do I wish to do? I abruptly ask myself, staring up on the gentle blue ceiling the place the daybreak gentle illuminates the picture of my household and a sticker of Mom Mary above my bunk. My thoughts flashes to that leisurely week within the outer islands after Ryan and Taylor had left.
Pacific Islands Close to Tahiti
I wish to decelerate.
I need the liberty to maneuver at a extra pure tempo. I need time to mirror and work on myself. I need extra nature and solitude. I wish to stay by the moon. Nobody is requiring me to rush throughout the Pacific in a single season; I have been placing that strain on myself as a result of it is what all the opposite cruisers I’ve met are doing. What about going north?
A surge of pleasure flushes by means of me. I throw again my sheet, leap from my bunk, and pull down the roll of charts from the bungeed stack above the nav station. Whereas again in San Diego, I might come throughout the Nationwide Geographic Journal I might saved since my youth, containing an article about Robin Lee Graham’s crusing journey aboard Dove. I scan the chart, and there it’s the little string of islands within the Republic of Kiribati he had visited 1,500 miles to the north, and out of the cyclone hazard zone. It is nearly perpendicular to the trades from right here, so if I select climate window, I ought to be capable to make it again and discover extra of this space after cyclone season.
South Pacific Islands Tahiti
A younger sailor from a neighboring boat has a automotive and agrees to assist me run errands to provision for the journey north.
“There’s nothing however palm timber up there,” he warns. “I might get extra rice.”
His phrases excite me much more. I pile the cart excessive with cans and dry items, and I even spring for a motorbike, understanding I will have time to discover through the 5 months of cyclone season. The following day he helps me change my engine’s water pump impeller and tighten the spring on my shaft packing system. I buzz by means of my guidelines with journey on my thoughts I tackle gasoline, prime off my water tanks, look over my ropes and rig, and head to downtown Papeete to verify in a foreign country with customs and immigration.
After which, on my final night tied to the dock, I obtain an electronic mail from the Spaniard. “I already bored with Central America. Is simply too many vacationers and water very polluted. Te echo de menos mucho (I miss you dearly) y el Pacifico too. I am coming again for discover you. I arrive in Marquesas in a single month. Espossible for you allow Swell in a marina in Tahiti and fly as much as meet me? We will take pleasure in Marquesas collectively, then sail down to choose up Swellito. Te quiero, Gaspy.”
I blink. I blink once more. I reread it. I stare in disbelief on the phrases in entrance of me. I shoot up from the desk and dance across the cabin. My real love is heading my approach!
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