20 Years Ago Today -- April 9, 1996 -- Day 1

Here's the start of a series of posts quoting from my travel log from 20 years ago.  I'll attempt to post them on the day, 20 years later.  They describe the roughly 3000 nautical mile sailing passage starting from Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, and making landfall at Hiva Oa, Marquesas, French Polynesia.  I'll try to post some pictures along the way, though much of the passage went with few photos (the days before digital cameras).

This was a double-handed passage aboard a Valiant 32 named Vahevala, based out of Washington state.

Tuesday, 96-04-09  Day 1 -- Leaving Puerto Vallarta, Mexico

Up at 07:30. Quick breakfast, then Skipper John and I went to Los Pinos to buy vegetables and fruit [having stocked up on more durable produce in the previous days]. The selection was more limited than I had expected, but we bought N$70 worth.

Returned to the boat by bus and then walked over to Commercial at Plaza Marina to finish our provisioning. We each bought a CD of the single Macarena, by Los Del Rio, which has been a very common sound throughout our stay in Mexico. Bought meat, a bit more fruit and bread, then returned by cab to the boat. Total less than N$300.

John checked us out with port captain and immigration and received the Zarpa - a beautiful certficate saying you've left legally. I had one last shower and wrapped the fruit in aluminum foil.

I dragged John to Joe's Fish Taco for lunch before we left, and had one last Mexican lunch. I mailed 8 postcards and a letter to the Bluewater Cruising Association.

We left the dock at 14:00 CDT (1900Z) and were waved off by a few friends. Hopefully we'll run into them again in Polynesia.  We played the Loggins & Messina song 'Vahevala' on the stereo as we left the harbour, then played Macarana in Banderas Bay.

We had nice wind all afternoon in Banderas Bay, but from the West, of course. The wind went light at sunset and died after dark, so we started to motor west.

John heated a can of Chorizo (spiced pork) and one of frijoles which made a nice Mexican supper. Unfortunately, it didn't agree with me and after about 6 hours of feeling ill, I barfed it all back up. [This was the only time in a year of sailing that I threw up at sea... must have been nerves and greasy food, a bad combination in the first few days of a passage.]

I had 20:00 - 24:00 and 03:00 - 06:00 watches. Great phosphorescent dolphin activity a couple of times in the night, with them leaping out of the water near our bow. Three amazing meteorites too.

Turning

It's time to turn around this stagnant blog.  I have a few pretty big changes in life that are worth writing about in the coming weeks, so it's time to get off my butt.

One major motivator is that it was 20 years ago this month that I set out on the biggest sailing passage of my life. That trip has left a permanent impression on my life, and I'll share some of my notes about the passage, written at the time. That trip has also spawned a pretty decent song, which I'll share here in the coming weeks.

I've also recently gotten rid of my beloved vehicle of the past many years, and am finding the world of vehicles has changed for me as a result. Since I have been struggling with how to lower my carbon footprint, the area of transportation has certainly been a key consideration.

And finally, once again I have been challenged with an interesting situation regarding my employment situation. Since I think it's an indicator of bigger issues happening in the world, I think it's worth some discusssion as well.

So that's what's coming in the near future.  Frequent updates, if I can manage to live up to my own expectation. Drive carefully...

A Letter Home From The Marquesas

Related to my last post with the tsunami warning while sailing in the Marquesas, I came across the following letter at my mother's house on the weekend, which was written a couple of weeks before the tsunami story unfolded.  It is a mid-90's narrative of a short cruise through the Marquesas Islands in French Polynesia aboard a 30' sailboat.  The dawn of the internet was happening at that point, but not yet really available to deep water sailors.  How times change...

Monday, May 27, 1996
Baie d'Hakahau, Ua Pou
Isles Marquises, Polynesie Française

Dear Mom & Jim,

Hopefully you received a postcard from me sent from Atuona shortly after our brief phone call. I promised to write you a real letter, so this will be it. The ridiculous cost of phone calls from here, plus the irritating satellite delays, makes writing a more effective means of communication (from me to you, at least).

We've now been in the Marquesas islands for 3 weeks, and I've thoroughly enjoyed the islands and their people, as well as meeting other cruisers from Canada, U.S., England, Wales, Scotland, France, Germany, Sweden, Cayman Islands, Saint Martin, Australia and New Zealand [more than half the boats here came across from Panama via the Galapagos Islands, whereas Mexico had almost entirely Canadian and U.S. boats]. The weather has usually been pretty dry, except at Atuona, Hiva Oa, but last night & this morning were pretty wet. It's warm, occasionally hot, but usually nice at night, with daytime cabin temperature usually about 90ºF. The islands themselves are tall & breathtaking, volcanic in origin, with lush vegetation covering them. The peaks, often vertical for 1000-2000', rising to 4-5000' elevations, are magnificent, but often shrouded in clouds.

From Atuona, on Hiva Oa, where I spoke to you, we sailed south to Fatu Hiva [about which Thor Heyerdahl wrote a book of the same name]. The village there has about 100 people, many of whom are wood carvers or make tapa cloth. There were many children, who swarmed around us at times  so insistently as to be irritating. For the most part, I enjoyed the kids, but John (skipper) found them a pain in the butt -- one day while rowing the dinghy ashore, about 5 older boys swam out & clung to the dinghy, making progress virtually impossible for about 10 minutes. The village is at the foot of a valley with imposing rocks rising 1000' on either side of the entrance, then opening into a lovely valley a mile wide and a few miles long, surrounded by jagged, vertical peaks -- perhaps a volcanic crater at one time. We hiked an hour up the valley one day with a couple of 10-year-old local boys as guides, to visit a spectacular waterfall, dropping hundreds of meters down the valley side. The water was amazingly cold, considering the tropical climate.

At Fatu Hiva, some of the cruisers arranged for one of the woodcarvers' families to put on a traditional Marquesan feast, which over 25 of us attended for US$10 apiece, seated around a big table in his showroom/workshop. From my logbook: "They put on a magnificent meal, with goat (very good), green papaya coleslaw, banana paw, paw paw (the consistency of paste, but somewhat tart), chicken, poisso cru (raw fish -- skipped that), sashimi (skipped), rice with coconut milk (very nice), pamplemousse & bananas, and jus de pamplemousse to drink (excellent)." I should note that "pamplemousse" is not normal grapefruit, but a giant, coarse, sweeter variety than what we get at home. The rind is often an inch or more thick, and the fruit is absolutely delicious.

Before leaving Fatu Hiva, I bought a few small wood carvings from Henri, the fellow who put on the feast. We looked at tapa cloth (made from the bark of some tree & painted in black ink with traditional or modern Marquesan tattoos & tikis & other patterns (gecko, sea turtle). The quality of the tapa varied greatly from one artist to the next, and I didn't find anything I liked in a size small enough to safely carry home. Most of the carvings & tapa made in the Marquesas are sold in Tahiti.

From Fatu Hiva, we sailed north again, to the west side of Tahuata island & settled for a few days in an open anchorage under a very steep hill/cliff, rising a few thousand feet above. The water was pretty clear & I got in some good snorkelling, even swimming (very briefly) in sight of some dolphins (who wanted nothing to do with me). We visited tiny Hapatoni village in the next bay, with only 40 villagers, and I bought an ornate wooden dagger & a small tiki statue. The main "road" of the village was stone-filled & level and has been there longer than memory. Signs of stone house platforms were also visible on the hillside above, attesting to the much larger population before the arrival of europeans (the Marquesas have ~7000 people now, compared to over 60,000 150 years ago).

Farther north along the coast of Tahuata, we spent a few more days in our first anchorage with a white sand beach (previous bays had stone or dark [lava] sand, rather than white [coral] sand). Hana Moe Noe was definitely a pretty bay, and also had pretty good snorkelling (no, I haven't yet seen any sharks).

From Hana Moe Noe, we sailed north around the west end of Hiva Oa, and spent one night in Baie Hanamenu, at the NW corner of Hiva Oa. We hadn't even planned on going ashore, but heard that a wild boar (as opposed to a wild bore like me) had been killed the night before, and a pot-luck dinner was planned at the home of a frenchman living there (only a few inhabitants in this isolated valley). We took a cake & wine and enjoyed a nice evening. We watched them split & grate a coconut & make coconut milk from the grated meat, in which they cooked a pot of crabs. We also watched the opening of the earth oven in which the boar meat was cooked -- a hole in the beach in which a fire had been built, and stones placed inside until they were hot, then the meat on top of stones, covered with banana leaves, and sealed over with sand. With coconut-milk rice, pear & some raw fish (which I skipped), it made a great feast. Boats in Baie d'Hakahau, Ua Pou (courtesy Wikipedia)At 0300 that morning (still that night), we set out for the island of Ua Pou, which we reached in late afternoon (~60 miles).

After getting settled at Baie d'Hakahau, we were told that there was a big party in town that evening so we went in & bought tickets. It was some sort of fund raiser, and many of the other cruisers were there as well. The dinner included breadfuit & yams (yuck), coconut-milk rice, pork in a mushroom sauce, poisson cru (I finally tried the raw fish -- not too bad), somehitng like Chinese spring rolls (quite good), french bread, and cake for dessert. The entertainment included Marquesan dancers of a number of age groups & was quite interesting -- I thought the young 8-year-old girls the best, swinging their little hips at full speed. Later, the party turned into a dance, and was obviously the only entertainment in town -- everybody was there. We left ~22:00, as we didn't sleep much the previous night. The town of Hakahau is pretty, quite modern, with magnificent spires rising above the town to the south: God was clearly having fun when he built this place.

From here we expect to visit the leeward side of Ua Pou, then head for nearby Nuku Hiva & visit a few of the anchorages on its coast. Then, off to the Tuamoto archipelago (about 5 days' sail from here), where we may stop at Ahe and Rangiroa before continuing on to Tahiti (roughly a month from now).  From there, I expect to fly home to Vancouver & start to put my life back in order. I'll call you guys when I get to Vancouver, or if I change plans significantly  Take care. Hi to Anne's family & Jim's kids.

Love
        Dave 

Waiting for the Tsunami

I found the large earthquake last week in Chile and subsequent tsunami warning in the Pacific to be a very stressful event.  It surprised me, as I don't recall having similar stress in past events.  I guess it must be a result of having watched in horror when the Japanese event caused such horrendous devastation.  The previous major tsunami events in Thailand and Indonesia had been horrific, but unfolded mostly after the fact in the news.

I'm currently sitting in Montreal, and was certainly not directly threatened by the Chile event, though I do have a boat in the Vancouver area, and family too.  The risk there was virtually nil from this event though.

But the fact that the tsunami warning was in place in the Pacific region for many many hours really drained me. I worried for those potentially in its path.  This is not typical of me... I'm not overly empathetic by nature.

What this waiting did for me, though, was recalled an event years back when I was directly affected by a tsunami warning.  I figured I'd recout it here, since I found the situation interesting and quite surprising at the time.

This was close to the middle of 1996, and I was on a sea voyage, travelling in French Polynesia.  The 30' boat I was on was anchored in a bay on the north shore of Nuku Hiva, the most populous of the Marquesas Islands, and located about 1000 miles northeast of Tahiti.  It was a beautiful anchorage off a small village in a lovely valley, with a sand beach, good holding for the anchor, and protection from the open sea.

About the second night we were anchored there, we were awoken about 1am by someone knocking on the boat's hull.  When we scrambled up on deck, another cruiser was alongside, and stayed just long enough to pass an urgent message, before moving on to the next boat in the anchorage.

The message had been relayed from a villager, who had been kind enough to come out in a boat and wake the anchored yachts.  There was a tsunami warning in effect, and the village was to be evacuated to higher ground. All boats needed to leave the harbour within the hour, in order to ensure they were in deep water at the time the tsunami would arrive, as we would all be crushed on the beach if we stayed in the anchorage.

Thankfully we were in an anchorage with a straight forward exit which could be navigated in the dark.  I feel for those who might have been anchored behind a reef and unable to flee until daylight.  As it was, we got into deep water in less than an hour, and spent the rest of the night sailing 5 miles off the north shore of the island, landing in a new harbour the next morning.  Other than having left that paradise anchorage a day or two earlier than planned, we were none the worse off.

The unbelievable thing to me at the time was that this tsunami warning had been caused by a 7.9 earthquake in Alaska.  We were in the southern hemisphere, and I couldn't believe a wave could possibly reach us.  These days, we know more about the destructive power of these waves, and I'm thankful that this remote village had a good tsunami warning system in place way back then.

Thankfully, the Chile earthquake this week does not seem to have caused any widespread damage from waves. The lifting of the tsunami warning lifted my spirits, but got me thinking more about my trip to paradise.

Quick Thoughts After A Week In Montreal

Montreal's a great city.  No doubt.  I haven't spent any significant time here since about 1987, so it's fun and interesting to try to get to know the city a bit again.  Frankly, this time I'm an urbanite, whereas last time I lived on the west island in the same suburban lifestyle that I've had most of my life.

So this time is a bit different.  I'm living in Westmount, and commuting in the subwway (Metro) to work.  No car, which is a different way for me to see the city.  Better to experience the real city, probably, though I found it harder to get my bearings than I do in a car.  Particularly because we travel underground a lot.  But at least it's warm down there.  The city has been pretty cold for my first week here.  The natives are restless, with a much colder than typical winter now having overstayed its welcome.

I've found lots of good food here.  That wasn't a surprise, but a welcome confirmation of my impression of Montreal.  Coming from Vancouver, where food is cheap, diverse and excellent, I could easily have been disappointed, but I'm not.  I do think restaurant food is more expensive here than in Vancouver, but it's based on a pretty small sampling to this point.  The food has been interesting enough that i'm thinking I might start a side-blog with quickie restaurant reviews.  But maybe I'll be too lazy for that.

I really like riding the Metro.  It gets you across town efficiently and and without freezing.  But it's noisy.  Far louder than my normal living environment in Vancouver, and I'm finding that a bit disturbing.  Noise blocking headphones/earbuds help some, but I don't wear them when traveling with my colleages.

I'm really looking forward to discovering the music scene here.  So far I've seen/heard nothing.  I don't even know anyone interesting in Montreal to follow on Twitter, so suggestions would be welcome.  Oh, I guess I have Nikki Yanofsky, but that's about it.  Tomorrow, I hope to get a visit to Steve's Music.  I haven't been to the Montreal store since a trip my high school rock band made in a Volkswagen bus back in the late '70s.  Should be fun to visit.  I'm missing my regular visits to Long & McQuade around the Vancouver area.

Until today I've been pretty positive about the experience, but I found myself kind of down in the dumps at work this morning.  Rather than join the lineup in the cafeteria at lunch, I decided to dash out and ride the Metro north to the end of the line at Cote Vertu.  I didn't know what was there, but figured it was as good a place to explore as any other nearby.  Somehow, fate must have been guiding me, as I walked a block south down Decarie from the station and immediately found Decarie Hot Dog.

This is a place I remember eating lunch with office-mates when I worked in Montreal in 1986/87.  I had only a vague recollection of where it was, and previous searches on Google Maps hadn't turned up the location.  Stumbling on it on a very short lunch break was completely unexpected, and very welcome.  I sat down to the "traditional": 2 hot dogs, all dressed (with lettuce!), fries and a Coke.  There were only a few people in the place when I was in, which surprised me a bit... I recall the place being elbow to elbow, and having to reach over people at the counter to get my food.  It was the same friendly environment, though.  No... they don't want your money up front... please enjoy your food and pay on the way out.  This little diner has been in business since I was an infant, and I can see why... it's highly recommended for a little taste of tradition.

As I walked briskly back to the Metro, I found my mood had lightened considerably, and I proceeded to quite enjoy my afternoon.  Rock on!