Category Archives: South Pacific

October 2019 Tahiti Vacation — Days 3 and 4

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Day 3 – Tuesday

We started the day off by heading over to Mahana Park to go snorkeling. Unfortunately, Keith did not want to get into the water. 

Because of the recent full moon, the current was unusually strong. Christi and Eric had bought new fins for the trip that were attached rugged water shoes. The selling point of these fins is that they are easy to walk in, making it much easier to enter via the beach; the downside of these fins is that they don’t provide as much power while swimming as full length fins. Christi only went in for a short time because she felt like she couldn’t fight the current with those little fins. 

Keith and Christi hung out on the beach looking for beach glass while Rose and Eric snorkeled. Here are some pictures that Rose took: 

Parrotfish

Afterwards, Keith and Eric went to Continue reading →

October 2019 Vacation in Tahiti — Days 1 and 2

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We are on vacation in Tahiti (by airplane). Since Tahiti is such a special place to us, we wanted to write some posts about what it has been like to come back again.

Day 1 – Sunday 

Our flight arrived at 6:00 am. Keith and our friend Rose were astounded to see chickens running around the airport’s parking lot. Christi and Eric informed them we’d be seeing chickens everywhere.

We rented a car and headed straight to the condo that we had rented in a suburb to the southwest of Papetee, the main city in Tahiti. The condo is near the airport and Marina Tahina. The condo had looked nice online, and Continue reading →

Book Coming Soon!

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Volume 1, of the yet untitled book covering San Diego to Australia will hopefully be ready to purchase soon. Many people have asked us why they should buy our book if they can read our blog for free. Here are a few good reasons:

  • Prologue: How we formed the dream and the early planning stages.
  • The entire 21 day passage from San Diego to Nuka Hiva has been re-written. At that point, the blog was in real time and we didn’t want people to worry about us. But the truth was that it was tough!
  • Many new stories from the journey – And there are some really good ones!
  • In Retrospect sections with great insights — so you can see the situation through the eyes of a newbie as we learn, while simultaneously seeing the same situation through the eyes of experience.
  • Streamlined stories – some complained our posts were too long and detailed, and the book is a condensed version they will enjoy more.
  • Formatting is first person, through Christi’s eyes – Some complained they didn’t like the third person format, so they will enjoy the book more.
  • Actual dates on each post. On the blog, the dates are not real time, which is a significant piece of information for anyone hoping to follow in our footsteps.
  • All profits will go to our cruising fund. The more books we sell, the sooner you can start reading about our next journey! So, buy one and get all your friends to buy one, too!

Oman to Egypt – Days 7 & 8

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Yesterday morning, we saw a pod of dolphins playing at the bow. There were only 5 or 6 and they didn’t stay long, just a couple of minutes. They were tiny little guys, the smallest dolphins we have ever seen.

The waves were mildly uncomfortable in the early hours of the morning, and as the day progressed, the waves got bigger and bigger. By the afternoon it was definitely well into the “uncomfortable” category, not quite at “miserable”, but close. Eric got sick. His body just doesn’t do well in the lurching head seas. We had to lower the RPMs by 200 because we were just hitting the waves too hard at the higher speed. We were only doing 4.8 knots, abysmally slow for 1700 RPM.

Today the ride started off just a touch better than yesterday. In the afternoon, the sea Continue reading →

Oman to Egypt – Days 5 & 6

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We have a confession to make. As you all know, when we crossed the Pacific Ocean on our 21 day passage from San Diego to Nuka Hiva, the blog postings were in real time. We didn’t want anyone to worry about us, so we seriously downplayed how miserable we were during that passage. Now that the blogs are no longer in real time, we feel no need to underreport. By the time an entry gets posted about ugly seas, we are already safely in a port, so no one needs to worry.

A secondary reason we downplayed our misery on that first passage was because we were novice blue water travelers, and we didn’t want to sound whiny. We figured that Continue reading →