Shark encounter

Shark encounter
Moorea is just 15 nm downwind or leeward, as we sailors
would say, some may say it is west, but hey, it’s the same in
the end. From Tahiti it was just another Island and it has
been luring me to go there since Mexico and for more than a
week I looked at it, thinking of it as my new home, and it
seem to get closer to that reality, as the German embassy is
working to get my German Passport and perhaps even the
Hungarian too. I’ve been told because I did not file a request
to cancel my citizenship when I became Canadian, I still
have it. That, indeed, is great news and will make living in
Fr. Pol. possible.
Looking at Moorea for this long time, without money, no
work, except for the two massages, I set sail to the Island of
my dreams with a Dutch friend, Erick, and with little wind an
a lot of motor, we made the trip in 3 hours. Sailing into Cook
Bay is easy and the edges of the reef are well marked, with
a leading line and range lights, anybody could do it. Erick is
good crew and we set anchor in 12 meter water close to the
Bali Hai hotel, next to another known character, Bruce on
S/V Loki, named after a Norse God of mischief. Erick and I
went ashore to do some internet and I found a mail from my
daughter, demanding in a thinly veiled tone to make sure I
will deliver her jacket she forgot on my boat and find out if
indeed my ex-girlfriends cat could be taken on a plane to
Canada. Oh, how I will miss that cat.
I replied to her letter and then went to watch a much more
pleasant show on DVD about people in jail being beaten and
abused.
On Sunday we decided to see some sharks and swim with
them and some Stingrays, sliding up our legs and letting us
pet them. I managed to touch a shark with my hand and its
skin felt like sandpaper and it bolted off like a stung cat.
There were about 10-15 all around us from about 5’-15’
(1.5-3.0m) big and it was not a bit dangerous as some
stupid movies would have you believe. I dove with
hammerhead sharks in the Galapagos and nothing happened
there either. There is a possibility, sharks want to clean their
reputation and present themselves from their best sides or
they just eat tourists, in which case I admire their choice of
selectivity. They certainly taste better after the sharks
scared the crap out of them. I’m sure Hannibal Leckter
would agree.
The Stingrays were as big as a kitchen table and when they
touched, it was like gentle hands were caressing the body.
This brings to mind a question, I wont say from whom, if
fish have teeth, and from my observations I can say: most
living beings, especially the bigger ones, most certainly have
teeth, with the exception of hockey players perhaps, and if
they decide to eat you, they will use them, unless somehow
they learned to manage knife and fork.
Then I met a pro kite surfer by the name of Tamataro who’s
got to be the worlds best kite surfer. He is the one who
surfed over the Golden Gate Bridge in SF. Now, that’s
awesome. I am looking forward to learn this kind of surfing
and take lessons from him when I got settled here.

Manifestation.

After leaving from Manihi in the Tuamotus, enroute to Tahiti, I stabbed my toe on a block and broke a toe. Nothing new, but painful still. Fixing it with masking tape, intended for use on other things but broken toes, I set sail to Rangiroa in hopes to have someone looking at it. Well, someone looked at it all right, handed me some more masking tape, just what I was looking for, and advised me to take it easy. I would have loved to go snorkeling there as I heard wonderful things about their drift-dives but could not put on fins, for goodness sake, I could not even row the dinghy, and so I became a prisoner aboard Symbiosis. My plan, to arrive in Tahiti just a couple of days after my daughter, had to be canceled. The time I had on my hand now, I used to rearrange the boats inside as I had now more space. The winds inside the atoll blew with about 15 knots and if my toe would not have been broken, I could have rowed the dinghy ashore and send a message to Jeanette about the delay but it did not let off. I waited and when the wind finally eased, I left this lovely place. Once outside the atoll, the winds were coming from the NE, made for a good ride, but I had to hand steer most of the time and it made it impossible to rest. At night it occurred to me, to rig the wind vane and see if it would do the job as it was supposed to and it seemed to hold course and I stretched out on the cockpit seat and closed my eyes. When I opened my eyes an hour later, the trim tab jumped the groove and floated on its pendant like a hooked fish, faithfully in the wake of Symbiosis. The course was steady 360 degrees instead of 215. After resetting the course, installing the trim tab, trimming the vane and relieving myself, I returned to my place and kept an eye on the steering unit for an hour. It held its course. I closed my eyes to rest. Again, awakening about an hour later I found the boats course to be a steady 360 degrees. The trim tab was still in place. The conclusion is; the boat wants to go to the North Pole and just waits for me to close my eyes to change course. I guess it’s a battle of wills.

In the late afternoon I sighted land, Tahiti, and watching it, my thoughts turned to my childhood dreams, when I first heard about Tahiti and how much I wanted to one day see it and live there, how my dreams turned into reality. In the evening I entered the Passe de Taunoa and turned starboard toward an industrial area, winding channel, no lighted markers and almost running into a reef, managed to find an area to set anchor and sleep. There was no one in the area where I anchored and I found out later; it is not allowed to anchor there because it is a shipyard. It makes no difference to a dead-tired sailor, but nevertheless, I weighted the anchor and followed my track out the harbor and into the entrance to Papeete, followed south along the airstrip and ended up in marina Taina. This happened to be in the morning hours before I had any breakfast and to my surprise, there is a voice sounding just like that of my daughter. Poking my head out from the hutch, there is Jeanette in the flesh, in a dinghy with a fellow names Mike from a boat called “This side up” I saw first time in Hiva Oa.
They hooked up and Irma, my ex-partner, will sail with him to New Zealand while Jeanette will be with them for a while in this area until she returns to Canada, unless a shark will get to her before she can make her escape.
So, here I am, without crew, no computer I can use to navigate with and no paper charts from the area other than small scale, lots of detail but useless for longer passages.
A very good friend has sent me some money to prevent me from eating my socks, (I run out of shoes) and now as I’m getting popular doing massages, I am able to buy some delicacies like bread and butter and food for my and Irma’s cat. In case I find a boat to sail to the mainland, I will leave my boat here for a few weeks while getting my account reactivated in Canada and then return.
Ah, the adventures one has when one has decided to be free.

To disappoint optimists.

Some optimist expected us, I think me in particular, to get lost at sea on the way to the South Pacific, but I'm happy to foil their expectations. Rumors of our demise are vastly exaggerated. Yes, we did have a long passage due to light winds, a barnacle encrusted hull, a lost propeller in the doldrums and ripped sails, but we are still among the living, unless we managed to look dead very convincingly after five weeks of bobbing, running out of propane to cook anything warm and living on nuts, dried fruit and chocolate covered raisins, a hard life, indeed. My partner has never sailed before on the open ocean, has panicked only once...every five minutes and to my delight, survived the ordeal and when we finally sighted land, shed tears of joy and promised never to put her feet on a boat again. I still have to finish the trip and get to Tahiti but when we arrive there, she will never have to sail again.
Coasting around the eastern end of Hiva Oa, Marquesas, in the late afternoon, we decided not to make land fall until the following morning and hove to. At daybreak we continued toward Atuona and around 10:00h in the morning we got radio contact with a vessel named "Imagine". A man by the name Bruce organized a tow for us into the harbor and assisted in setting out our stern anchor and welcomed us to Polynesia with french bread, pampelmouse, butter and to my relief, no dance. Another boat , "Wasabi", lent us his propane bottle and we enjoyed a hot cup of tea after almost two weeks of abstinence.
We decided to go for a little walk on the island to see if the legs would be able to carry the rest of our body and to my surprise, they did, but, oh boy, what a pitiful sight we were, walking like drunks and grinning like imbeciles.

Jeanette, my daughter, joined us in Nuku Hiva and has lost her sea-legs and now moves on the boat like a seal, nose close to the rail, ready to share her breakfast with the fish, which she did with relentless vigor, a noble action and very entertaining. For some time I wondered what some folks meant when commenting on the vertical racing decor on the side of the hull, until I found some bits and pieces and recognized them as foodstuff when surveyed the vessel.
I still enjoy the ocean but have acquired a symptom known as ogre-ism according to my crew and tempers are flaring like sudden solar spots. But we will not let that spoil the taste of the soccer-size grape fruits, the sweet mangoes, breadfruit, passion fruit and other assorted delicacies.
The trip itself was great. We had no storms although the waves were about 10-15 feet and we had sometimes a day with about 20-25 knots of wind but nothing serious. That is of course not the opinion of my partner and she thought the waves were crazy.
My frustrations were with the slow speed of the boat because of the growth on the bottom, we could not do better than 5 knots at best. In the doldrums we cheered when we got 2 knots.

The Way to Paradise.

In our quest to happiness we’ll find no fact so true,
The surest way to Paradise passes right through Hell.
No words, no hints, no stories told will ever be as real,
Just the act of daring, facing our fears, can truly tell the tale,
I say: The surest way to Paradise passes right through Hell.

It all begins so easy, high hopes and dreams and trembling hearts,
And yet, in the pit of our bellies are knots, dark shadows, the unknown,
Expectations, worries, nagging thoughts, all a cause of sleepless nights.
Will the journey we prepare truly be as we plan, or will it go as well?
I say: The surest way to Paradise passes right through Hell.

To taste life in its many ways, we must have courage, to break limits,
Embrace sights along the way, watch the fears, Forever it’s the same.
The path is not the one we know, not for the faint at heart or timid,
Just the act of daring, facing our fears, can truly tell the tale,
I say: The surest way to Paradise passes right through Hell.

Winds, waves, the darkness of the night, Sounds that can’t be right,
It’s new and frightening, looking for security, holding hands so tight,
Deep inside a doubt arises, did I really want to do this trip with you?
But fear is not geography, something we need to solve alone and well.
I say: The surest way to Paradise passes right through Hell.

Heavy seas, a rolling deck, slipping, sliding, handling sails at night,
snagging lines, snapping, flogging ceaselessly, asking all our skills.
Never a moment silence or rest, escape from all the work and swell
Death glaring at our back, waiting for an opening, never out of sight,
I say: The surest way to Paradise passes right through Hell.

Finally, land rises from the sea, a sob escapes the throat,
a tear, falling so hot, it burns. A smile as wide as garden gates,
forgotten are the sleepless nights, the hardships for a while,
relief floods through the veins like vine, nothing matters, ring a bell,
I say: The surest way to Paradise passes right through Hell.

The mates we meet, who share our dreams, just maybe for a while,
Who’re going through the same old fear, to deal with it in their own time
Understand, the enemy is not our mate, the sea or ship, but our fear.
It’s inside our very being, bringing light to the heart is our task and do it well,
I say: The surest way to Paradise passes right through Hell.