Raivavae, Les Australes 30 June 2010 23.8643S 147.6884W

We arrived around 2 in the morning yesterday, slept off the worst of our fatigue, then spent most of the day trying to bring order to chaos on board. Windy weather is keeping us from going ashore – too windy to launch the dinghy (25 knots with gusts above that), and rain is predicted. Winter in the tropics can be unpredictable weatherwise. So we got here a day early spent that day cleaning up the mess, now we wait and hope for better weather. We had lots of rain in the Gambiers, but the dinghy was already in the water, so we’d still venture out to explore and often come back drenched. A few boatbound days, helps us catch up on schoolwork and chores. This last crossing gave us a healthy chores list. We had a little bit of water intrusion in the aft cabin, that I had not noticed until the books went flying out of the shelf. It wasn’t a massive amount of water, but enough to wreak havoc on our reference book shelf, and the foot of our mattress, so I’ve been spending a lot of time trying to set them out to dry, bring them in before squalls, flip the pages on the books with color plates so the pages don’t stick together. It’s been a depressing task, but only one book I had on photography tips is irreparable. Sun yesterday helped dry everything some, today’s grayer weather, is keeping the project indoors. Part of airing out the boat then included some rearranging, to find a semi-temporary safer place once they’re dry. Fixing the leak is a bigger project involving reseating or replacing a couple of the back windows, so we’ll need some time in a calm anchorage with no rain before we can tackle it. I would say it’s a testament to the intensity of the weather of this last crossing, six months of all kinds of weather, and this area had never leaked. Frank says it’s not related, it was beautiful weather for sailing, the seals just give up at some point. Yes water is a big part of the sailing experience, but I prefer it when it stays outside the boat.

Raivavae is lower in altitude than the Marqueses, but there are similar dramatic cliffs, peaks and rock outcroppings, they just start lower down. From the boat, shore looks drier than anywhere we’ve been in the southern hemisphere yet. There are fewer coconut trees than Gambiers and the Tuamotus, but this island does have an outer reef with motus, and some of the same beautiful blue and turquoise waters. From Google earth, it looks like there is a road that traverses over to the other side, which promises some spectacular views, but for now all land activity remains out of reach, watching land out the window is not half bad though. There’s a small round little Motu out my port window that looks different from any we’ve seen so far; not a single coconut tree on it, instead it’s all fuzzy looking with big lacy-leafed trees. Until we can go visit, I have no idea what kind of trees they are.

I’m really enjoying the novel “My Name is Red” by Turkish author Orhan Pamuk. It’s a romance/murder mystery, which takes place in 16th Century Istanbul in a community of miniaturists. My mind is filled with visions of illuminated manuscripts, rich colors, and minute details of Islamic Ottoman life. I get a visual shock when I go from his descriptions of illustrations of bright robed sultans, and leafed or gilded page borders, to look out at the landscape in front of me trending toward blues, greens and grays. The only red visible is a bright red navigational marker – a spar with a red square on top – warning of a coral head below. I’m only about half-way through, but every page is luscious and vivid; the character’s egos, emotions and thoughts are thickly intertwined with descriptions of the process of creating the richly illustrated books, and with descriptions of the stories they tell and how the detail of a scene, the elements rendered, the colors chosen, the character of the brush stroke all contribute to capturing the essence of a moment in a tale. The book is full of philosophical questions about art, ego and spiritual belief. I’m not looking forward to it ending. One of the joys of working with lots of bright people at UCLA, was the great book recommendations everyone gave me before I left, Thanks for this one Diane!

In one chapter it describes how when one sultan would overthrow another, he would have all the artists and painters, cut the books apart, and put them back together in a different order, to change the stories – or where the old sultan’s face was used to depict a traditional hero, he’d have them replace it with his own portrait. Our books on board look like war casualties, strung about the cabin, I may have to have my artists, paint new faces on the fish in our “Audubon Field Guide to Fishes Whales and Dolphins” and I would not be surprised to see Logan’s face appear on his favorite Nudibranch in his guide to “Pacific Coast Nudibranchs.” I’m afraid with our library, it would not be that meaningful to reassemble them to create new books, “The 12 Volt Doctor’s Practical Handbook on Electric Eels,” “Weather Guide for Whales” or “Adolescent Writers Between Pacific Tides?!” Since the pages all now have the wavy texture yellowed color of illuminated manuscripts, maybe we should decorate the boarders with kelp, waves and flying fish, just to perk them up a bit. They are looking a little sad right now.

xoxomo