En Route from Marqueses to Tuamotus 28 May 2010 13.0193S 140.0932W

We left the Marqueses early yesterday. Our destination is Amanu in the Tuamotus. We expected this to be a 3-4 day crossing, Silver Lining is happy in these trade winds and it looks like we may need to slow down in order to arrive early enough in the morning to catch a slack tide into the pass and early enough in the day to have good visibility of the nasty coral heads that litter these lagoons. The Tuamotus are a vast expanse of atolls; each one is formed by an old volcano that sank leaving only the living reef that surrounded it and continued to grow even as it’s island disappeared. So the structure of these atolls is coral, and they are very flat. It should be an interesting contrast to the steep basalt cliffs of the islands we’ve been visiting.

You’d think I could just pretend this was day 22 of our original ocean passage, and that I’d be able to just slip into the passage rhythm. Instead I’m feeling very antsy, eager to arrive, and worried about not being able to sleep enough. Are-we-there-yet syndrome was tempered today by the appearance of at least 10 rainbows throughout the day, rainbows of every color shape and size: stacked rainbow bits in clouds, full grand arcing rainbows, double rainbows, rainbows that looked like they were pouring out of the clouds along with the rain. Amazing sites all, but those of you who have sailed in these parts know that a day full of rainbows is an athletic day at sea. Every rainbow announces or follows a squall, every squall requires some rapid sail changes, every sail change means a turn of the winch, and no our winches are not the electric ones, where you press a button. Luckily the sailing, kayaking and hiking have begun to chip away at my desk-job physique, and for the most part I’m feeling up to the task, although if it’s windy it’s still Frank who goes on deck to haul in the fisherman.

We had one especially epic end to a scrabble game in the cockpit today, when one squall surprised us (well we were pretty engrossed in the final moments of the game). It knocked us sideways a bit, spilling letters in the cockpit. Of course the excitement gets amped up by our autopilot deciding this was just to much to steer on his own, so he goes through his failure tantrum, beeping incessantly at us. Frank then took a turn at hand steering, wanting to ride it out without taking in sail so Silver Lining’s rails got nice and wet, he changed his mind when pots started clattering below, so the kids and I jumped to the task of easing the main and fisherman, and taking in the staysail. By this time even the kids were starting to enjoy the ride, must have been all the exercise pumping endorphins through us, then the most brilliant rainbow of the day appeared (along with a good dousing), and icing on the cake “snap” – FISH ON!

We didn’t have to count the scrabble points to know that Frank had once again slaughtered us as brutally as he attacks every fish that lands in the cockpit, with whatever it takes. Logan’s taken to trying to predict what Frank will hit each fish with next, one day it’s the winch handle, another the wooden scrub brush handle, the next a screwdriver at hand, today Logan tried handing him a butter knife that was left in the cockpit to see what he’d do with it, but Frank was rushing on deck to retrieve the fisherman sail. Logan has moments where he so looks like Frank…his eyes lit up as he dropped the butter knife and reached for the winch handle to silence the bonito’s panicked drumming. Next thing you know he too will be pulling off 30-plus point scrabble words every turn. Fils de son pere!

Bonne Apetit! xoxomo