Loco

Our departure from Les Marquises was not nearly as epic as our departure from Mexcio as this time we only had 4 days of sailing ahead of us. However, a few nights of bad wind slowed our progress considerably and threatened my sanity once again.

One night, during a particularly boring 2-4am lookout shift, while cruising at the daredevil, batten down the hatches, man over board speed of 3 knots, I watched with horror as a cloud, yes that’s right, a cloud, overtook us. I was only able to console myself with the fact that this turbo charged boy racer super cloud looked a bit like Africa on the radar. There’s nothing like some endless boredom to kick start your imagination.

Luckily we managed to catch some good wind during the day and we did eventually make it to Ahe, one of the largest landmasses in the Tuamoto group of islands. It seems ‘large’ is a term that is applied quite loosely when it comes to Pacific atolls as from the beach at one end of the island I could see all the way to the other side.

Having exhausted the island’s major attractions and reluctant to get back on the yacht I wandered aimlessly down the street, chasing crabs, and looking at the amazing selection of food in the shop, including “celebrity sausages” (insert your own sausage worthy celebrity here). As I turned a corner an extremely drunk man waving a tea towel tried to get my attention. As I got closer I saw that this was no ordinary drunk man but a drunken man with a bag of pearls. So I went over to say hello.

With one hand on a can of Heineken and the other resting lazily on a huge pile of pearls, the man looked me up and down, peering at me through one eye. He squinted through his drunken haze, and then declared “very beauty…” he paused, whether for effect or to remember the word in English I’m not sure, and then he triumphantly proclaimed “FULL, very beautiful!”

Quite what he hoped the outcome of this would be was not made clear, perhaps he envisioned me offering my body in exchange for pearls, I’m not entirely sure. Either way once he realised that I was not going to be forthcoming in offering myself as a prostitute, he fell back on safer ground. “Whisky!!!” he exclaimed, laughing to himself and pushing the pearls towards me “one bottle, one pearl”.

The moral questions raised by trading alcohol for pearls are ominous. Besides the fact it’s probably illegal, the man in question looked like he could do with a night off the booze. But it seemed that this man was just out to make a quick buck, and who am I to turn down a bargain?

After an hour of turning down marriage proposals and the promise of “beucoup enfants” I walked away with a pocket full of pearls. Luckily (for me) I had bought a bottle of Mexican tequila as a present for someone in Australia and was able to swap it for 6 shiny pearls. So even though I will be arriving empty handed down under I will look fabulous (darling) in my pearls. Now that I’ve got my hands on some treasure, and the fact that I climbed the rigging this week means that I am back on track in my pursuit of piracy. Yaaaarrrgggh!

At the risk of incurring the wrath of Tina Turner’s legal team, I thought it was appropriate to post a picture of the teeny tiny singer in celebration of Loco2’s achievement in being named one of the twenty best travel websites by the Daily Telegraph.

Given the meagre resources that we’ve currently got at our disposal (i.e. me and a laptop), this is a proud moment, and gives us a boost to keep plugging away at growing the site.

Amongst the other sites mentioned was the marvellous walkit.com and our trusty friend couchsurfing. My next blog will be all about my experiences couchsurfing around Eastern Europe.

As if to make up for the boredom and monotony of my Pacific crossing the last week has been a whirlwind of activity, shady deals and cultural diversity: from Polynesian men with tattoos covering half of their faces, and a transvestite waitress who wore her lip liner in an evil clown style, to an alcoholic pearl dealer offering me his hand in marriage.

Since my last blog I have been on land not once but three times! I spent a few days on Nuka Hiva in Les Marquises, 24 hours on the tiny coral atoll of Ahe in the Tuamotu Archipelago and the best part of a week in sunny Tahiti. I knew all those hours at sea would be worth it in the long run.

In between land the sailing has been approximately the same, water in all directions and saltiness all round. Salty hair, skin, and clothes, I am always salty, like some kind of delicious bar snack. In fact it occurred to me this week, during another of my deep thought night shifts that I share quite a lot with the humble peanut of late, salty, dry roasted by the sun, and a brilliant accompaniment to beer.

This dream was shattered though when curiosity got the better of me and like the filthy and disgusting individual I am I licked my arm, only to discover that I am far less delicious than I had hoped.

The arrival of land on the horizon couldn’t have come at a better time as I was seriously beginning to doubt my own sanity (as demonstrated by the peanut analogy and by the worrying fact that I caught myself pulling faces at my own reflection while on the graveyard shift). However, Nuka Hiva is a tiny island with an even tinier town, so my few days there were a slow reintroduction into the world of civilisation.

Though small and quiet, with only one restaurant and 2.5 shops, it was amazing to have more than four people to talk to, and more than 44ft to move in one direction. On the downside I did have to shower and at least consider brushing my hair.

That’s one thing that I definitely don’t miss about civilization. I’ve grown quite fond of the semi hobo look, so much so that I continued modelling my vagabond chic on land. However, I also fully embraced French Polynesian culture by eating brie and baguettes, and drinking red wine. So I must have looked quite a site; barefoot, and dirty on the beach, like a shipwrecked sailor that’s just raided a deli.

I celebrated my birthday in style by traipsing through the jungle with the heavily tattooed descendants of cannibals (seriously, Google it) in order to see what I was assured is the third highest waterfall in the world. Standing at 310 metres I suppose it was pretty big, but I was more interested in swimming in the nearby pools and re-enacting an advert for new improved herbal infused all natural essence of aloe organic fusion key amino tropical jungle protective conditioning shampoo.

While I busied myself with this important task I failed to notice that the pool in which I swam was also home to a family of massive eels, with savage pointy teeth and evil Wayne Rooney faces. My vision of paradise came crashing down around me as I ran screaming from the pool. You will be pleased to hear that I escaped wound free, and with remarkably shiny hair. An amazing birthday, and not one I’ll forget in a hurry.