Ship’s Log

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Oooh heaven is a place on Earth

Krister summed it up pretty perfectly over margaritas the other night, “This place is like a joke, it’s like they said let’s take all the money the US spends on the military and spend it on public services.” Nail, meet hammer. Brisbane has free museums, free multi-city-block-long-swimming-lagoon-with imported sand, free public transportation in and around […]

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Mystery Island

Mystery Island is a little sand spit in the lagoon that we anchored in at Anatom. The island is haunted—or so the locals believe—and this makes it uninhabitable for any ni-Vanuatu. The interesting thing is that they don’t mind going over there for the day to sell cheap “made in China” trinkets to cruise ship […]

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Cooks Bay, Mo’orea & Fare, Huahine

Mo’orea and Huahine are my favorite islands in the Societies and close to my favorite in French Polynesia. They both have a laid back air and, as much as any of these heavily visited islands, seem less fatigued by the demands of tourism than I would have expected.

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Fakarava: First Days (in Photos)

I’m still catching up with my thoughts on Fakarava. The passage was too short to properly transition from the fierce rugged beauty of the Marquesas to the low, almost delicate Tuamotus. Our first night on Fakarava was spent catching up with long lost friends from Estrellita. The next day was spent snorkeling and watching the […]

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Daniel’s Bay: Aka Survivor 4 beach

I’m not sure I knew that Daniel’s Bay (aka Hakatea Bay) was the site of Survivor 4 when we decided to check it out. By the end of our 5 days there it seemed to be the theme for everything. So much so that when I organized a little beach bonfire on the last night, I […]

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Taiohae and D’Anaho Bays

I kind of pride myself on having a “feelings” kind of blog. You know, the kind that is more interested in how a place, or thing, or experience made me feel rather than (strictly speaking) a description of the place/thing/experience in question. Which is sort of by way of explaining why I’ve been a little […]

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Our Days at Sea

I was stunned I think, when Ruby asked me why the days were so short. We were on our boat, sailing across the Pacific, from Mexico to the Marquesas, a passage that takes around three weeks (24 nights out for us) and my almost eight year old couldn’t find enough time in the day for […]

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Ship’s Log: First Overnight; Monterey to Morro Bay

Standing here, at the refrigerator/nav station/electronics table, and reflecting on our first overnight passage, what strikes me most was how noisy it was. Not up top (in the cockpit) but down below. We started the day with a strong WNW breeze which soon turned into 15-20 knts of NW. This was perfect for our southbound […]

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Day 0

We did it! I can’t describe the ellation I feel right now as we bob around at anchor in Horseshoe Cove. We set the anchor around 4pm. With the sails already tended to, the only thing to do was flip up the solar panels and tidy up the lines. Then we all retreated to the […]

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Ship’s Log: 4th of July Weekend, 2011

I’ve found, time and again, that no plan is the best plan. This weekend was a perfect proof of that theory. On Friday night we still didn’t know where we were going. Would we go back to our old tried and true anchorage (Horseshoe Cove) or brave the sail-in-sail-out anchorage at Aquatic Park? Would we […]

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