Category Archives: Austral Islands

Tahiti beckons

June 2016 What if I want to stay…? If you had told me I’d be sitting in the cockpit in French Polynesia, snug in a sweatshirt and fleece blanket and cradling a cup of tea, I’d scarcely have believed a word from your lips. But here I am in Raivavae: faded sorority hoodie, blanket, tea. […]
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VIDEO Ep. 20: French Polynesia~Red Thread & The Isle of Blue Sky

May & June 2016 Our passage from the Gambier Islands to Raivavae was seven days of the most peaceful ocean sailing imaginable. We always had just enough breeze to keep our sails filled and when the breeze picked up, we caught our first fish since our passage to the Galápagos! What a sight Raivavae was […]
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Bon appétit! Diner à Chez Linda

June 2016 Up and over a steep hill, 6 of us walked for 45 minutes beneath the shadows of banana stalks, mango trees, and a blackening sky. Reaching our destination, we stepped through the darkness across a cement, shell-embossed path toward the silhouette of a woman waving to us from a lit doorway. We slipped […]
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Summit a mountain, endure a gale, and hitchhike to church

***SORRY FOR THE BLOG DELAY…our computer died, and it has taken us a while to get a new one, so we can continue posting our South Pacific tales!*** June 2016 I’m sweating but not hot. Dewy foliage tickles my bare arms, and my trousers, which are too long, are now damply limp and heavy from […]
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A dirty game of “Dodge the Bommie”

May 2016 “Seven, six, five, four…we’re aground!” Neil shouts from the helm, as he counts down in feet the rapidly diminishing water beneath our keel. Fortunately, the grounding was but a gentle kiss from a sandy seabank. Steadily we scooted off the shelf and back into deeper water, where we’d been trying very unsuccessfully to […]
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Paddling and pedaling as a cruiser quartet: Getting to know Raivavae

May 2016 Perhaps it was because our arrival came at the end of the most tranquil ocean passage we’d ever experienced, a far cry from the guttural relief we felt at the end of our passage to the Gambiers. Or perhaps Raivavae is just that beautiful. A more spectacular landfall can hardly be imagined. Raivavae […]
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