Family

When I visit a new country I tend to see all the ways in which its culture is different first. A week or so into my visit the similarities with my native culture overtake the differences and I am overwhelmed (for a time anyway) by the beauty of our world’s diversity. Here on Samoa (pronounced Sa’ moa) I have yet to move fully into the second stage. Every time I feel like I am close, something alien is revealed to me that sets me back to seeing the differences. This (two) island nation is gorgeous. Its people are, by and large, incredibly outgoing and proud of their heritage, and they share a (second) language. I had expected this (amongst other things) to make it easy for me to fit in and feel welcome here. Not so much. ...

We arrived in Apia, Samoa early in the morning yesterday. Thankfully the internet was fast enough here to upload a few photos.

The idea was to get off the boat and stretch our legs. We had been to swim with the rays the day before, but that doesn’t really count. Our feet hadn’t touched land in a few days and we thought a little walk would do us good. The Mo’orea Agricultural Center looked like it was close to the head of the cove we were anchored in, so we hailed Wondertime and met at the beach in our dinghies. ...

When I talk about our time in Papeete (Tahiti) I am inclined to describe it as all work and no play. When one is bogged down with projects like the Frankenfold (a.k.a the mainfold from hell), it is easy to forget that much fun has also been had. So before elaborating further on All The Fun® allow me to describe this particular bit of boat owner’s misery. Frankenfold Convivia has had numerous small fresh water leaks since we bought her. These have been dealt with more or less as they came up, and along the way I have even managed to improve on the system. On passage we started to develop a leak at the kitchen faucet, the location and disposition of which made it very difficult to fix. The short term solution was to decommission the faucet. Plumbing then took top priority on my project list. I had plenty of time to think about how best to address the situation. I wanted to remedy the existing problem and also make a substantial improvement to the overall stability of our ship’s pressurized water system. Ultimately this would have meant removing all of the hose and replacing it with Sea Tech hose. This being the middle of nowhere, I was not holding out of that. Plan B was to replace as many of the nylon fittings as I could and add a manifold as close to the pump as possible. After several (though it seemed like several hundred) trips to several hardware and marine stores, I was able to get all of the part together and complete the project. The result (as seen below) is not beautiful, but it works and solves a problem that would have been inevitable had I not taken the time. ...

Peer pressure was (for once) well placed when it was applied to our reluctance to hike “5 hours” to see another waterfall. We had already seen one in Fatu Hiva and it was quite magnificent. That hike was great too, but I just couldn’t motivate for a much longer hike, even if it was the 3rd highest waterfall in the world. “It’s amazing,” “It’s breathtaking,” “You’ve got to see it, really.” We heard nothing but praise and even from people who had already trekked to the one in Fatu. In the end it was Wondertime that brought us around to the hike. They hadn’t arrived yet and we didn’t want to leave for the Tuamotus without catching up with them. For so many reasons, this was the right call. ...

I’m not sure I knew that Daniel’s Bay (aka Hakatea Bay) was the site of Survivor 4 when we decided to check it out. By the end of our 5 days there it seemed to be the theme for everything. So much so that when I organized a little beach bonfire on the last night, I sheepishly touted it as the Survivor Beach Bonfire. Our stay there was nothing like the reality show though. We spent our first day on the beach, collecting limes and coconuts and generally making ourselves at home on the abandoned shore. The gendarme from Taiohae was there, which we thought was a little weird until we discovered that he was probably investigating the sensational cannibalism case* that has made the news (though thankfully not enough to catch our parents attention) lately. ...

We have been living on dirt for a week now and it’s not as totally weird as I thought it would be. Of course, I have been working on the boat every day, so it’s not like Convivia and I are estranged, but it is strange to watch the kids spread out all over this little house like gas (filling all available space). The boat was supposed to splash on Friday, but they found hundreds of blisters and they had to be dealt with. The yard has been great. Their staff have helped me through countless hardships and even lent me tools (an unheard of generosity in the realm of boatyards). ...

I know, I’m a broken record, but I feel I underestimated Mexico and want to shout its praises for all who, like me, didn’t know what they were missing. I know I’m not that first to blog about this, we aren’t even the first to get video, but still this is special. I took this footage after a long, stressful and slightly anti-climatic day. Afterwards I felt renewed, and ready to rock some bureaucracy. I can’t say public transportation in the USA ever gave me that much!

The Crew of Convivia has so much to be thankful for. Amongst those: Our health Enough wealth that we can afford to be together all the time Enough love, patience, wisdom that we would want to be together all the time The realization of a lifelong dream This wonderful floating home The support and love of our families and friends A wonderful, diverse, and supportive cruising community (both near and far) Thanksgiving in a climate that demands we wear swimwear to dinner Reflecting on the overwhelming bounty of our life is a daily, or at least weekly occurrence lately, but on this day I observe our good fortune in the context of 36 previous days of Thanksgiving. I have never, on this day, felt anything less than a heart full of gratitude. If a heart full is the yardstick by which such things are measured though, I must surely have grown another heart this year. ...

Okay here is another installment of …in Photos. I may have to add some to this gallery, so feel free to check back in a few days.

Okay, it’s been a long time since I had enough bandwidth to upload photos. Now I have this Telcel data plan and I’m going to put it through it’s paces. So here it is folks, all of the pictures from San Diego through Puerto Los Cabos… after the break Sorry for all of the duplicate subject matter. I got a little lazy towards the end.

Other than Tucker not going to work it seems like our day to day routines are really normal. Tucker wakes up early with the kids and makes me coffee before he gives me my wake up call. We make a breakfast or two and get dressed for the day. We go about our day doing boat projects or walk to a grocery store, or look for a place to do laundry. The kids play, read, do workbooks, make crafty projects, make messes, play games and video games, go for walks, find parks, climb trees, go to the beach, and visit with friends. All of our meals are at home or packed up as picnics. The pace is really perfect. Ruby has time to sew with my help; to concentrate on her cursive handwriting; or to sit in between Olive and I and give us very specific and serious lessons so that we can become competent Angry Birds players. Olive looks for jobs and fixing projects whenever he can. Today he very seriously threaded buttons onto embroidery thread (really a distraction so I could work with Ruby on her project) and made several strands as gifts for all of us. ...

Standing here, at the refrigerator/nav station/electronics table, and reflecting on our first overnight passage, what strikes me most was how noisy it was. Not up top (in the cockpit) but down below. We started the day with a strong WNW breeze which soon turned into 15-20 knts of NW. This was perfect for our southbound passage and if it had not been for that square swell, we would have been in total heaven. As it was the boat handled admirably and we sailed most of the late afternoon and evening on just the genoa. By 1 am the wind had completely died and we had to turn on the engine. ...

In lieu of a real post I present this photo montage of our last 3 days.

With just 4 work days between me and the life I have dreamed about, things are getting a bit hectic. We’ve been frantically dealing with last minute details like: shredding 25 hard drives and 26 backup tapes; buying a watermaker, swim ladder, coffee roasting drum; fleshing out the amazing first aid kit that Vick’s mom made with prescriptions etc; trying to cram in as much time with friends as we possibly can; etc. We are in a strange state of limbo that leaves us feeling neither excited nor particularly stressed. It’s hard to be too stressed when you are counting down to a dream life, and it’s hard to be excited when you have so much to do. Instead I find myself looking ahead and feeling brief moments of exhilaration which I quickly squelch so that I can stay focused. It’s like dreaming about someone else’s life. ...