A Melancholy Ink.

Approaching Tahiti- Point Venus just visible, where
Capt. Cook made his famous observations of the
transit of Venus.

Papeete Harbor. Busy.

Entering the pass into Papeete Harbor we passed to port some surfers riding little waves at the end of the jetty, just inside the (red!) channel marker. We passed commercial shipping vessels, hotels, and waterfront parks chock full of busy-looking people and romantic-looking people and people jogging for fitness. Countless outrigger canoes glided silently past. We made way for the yacht quay where we would tie up in downtown Papeete. Looking astern, the sun fell slowly toward Mo'orea twenty-five miles west and I could feel in my chest the allure of Tahiti. The site of her invoked the sense of that satisfying, indulgent refreshment one gets from the first sip of a frosty beer after a long day on the water. Exactly what I needed. Tahiti. Right down the gullet.

The Pacific had belted us for two days with southeast trade winds reinforced by a strong high pressure system (anticyclones in the southern hemisphere) to the South- the squash zone, as it's known- and a mixture of swell directions as thoroughly diverse as the campaign ads surely being distributed well at home these days. It was an onerous, if short passage, though Ardea herself didn't seem to notice. Her captain, though, licked by a bit of treachery from the sea, couldn't help but ponder the various virtues of a terrestrial lifestyle...

(I wonder what they did during the howling winds and sloshing seas? Maybe they went to a movie theater, or a restaurant, or maybe a bar. Maybe they just slept and didn't even notice it going on. It accentuates in my mind the notion of having become alien to urban, the thought that people here were dancing in nightclubs the night before while I, just a hundred miles away, clung to the steering wheel soaking wet in my boxer shorts in pitch dark composing a symphony of curse words and other angry sounds and trying to keep the boat pointed down the waves.)

Taking in the surrounding city, I felt duly out of touch with this type of life. I wondered if a month at sea followed by two in some of the most remote places in the world had begun to construct barriers to communication beyond that of language, for what else did I have to talk about but the wind and the clouds, the currents and the swell and little bits of rock cropped up in the middle of the Pacific providing refuge and small, welcoming communities? I wasn't feeling cynical. No, it was that I felt a misfit among the landlubbers whose daily activities and suite of decisions, risks and consequences were so dissimilar to what mine had now been for six months. It was a strange feeling to be back in a city, but don't doubt that we were entranced and delighted and drawn powerfully by the madness we observed from the quay.

Cars buzzed by, neon lights shone on hotels and restaurants, people were all over the place, hustling and bustling and all that city stuff. It had been so long. We settled in and caught up with Slick and Desolina, docked nearby. We washed and drank from the dockside spigot and wandered through Papeete proper. The spiteful seas of our passage from Faka Rava and the lengthy isolation from any sort of population center gave this city a brilliant novelty in our eyes. I, for one, was more appreciative of the city life than I had been for a long time. The variety of choice was tantalizing. In spite of a greater anonymity than I'd experienced in three months, I felt shy, a bit withdrawn. Still, I was tickled by the sight of so many people and so much activity.

We wasted little time in exploring the modern delights of an international metropolis, our energy renewed by quixotic pleasure. We ate hamburgers at a restaurant and finally drank a bit of ale; the mediocrity of the food and the expense of the beer were well mitigated by the ironic feeling of serenity in the ant farm of humanity. The boat secured in safe harbor, the ground solid beneath our feet, only a bit of automobile traffic and the occasional ruffian to worry about, the guard could be dropped a little, for a while at least.

We should have been exhausted, but Dana and I wandered the many wharfs of Papeete Harbor late that night. A downpour kept us beneath a tree for a time, waiting patiently; we could have remarked at how easily it came, this patience, that it wasn't irksome to slow or be slowed, that we'd changed a bit in our pace and perception. Released by the passed front, we walked over damp asphalt and swung open the creaky gate to a long quay lit by a row of orange lights where there was tied a ketch of at least a hundred feet in length. We meandered along staring at the vessel. The turnbuckles seemed as big as I, the masts far too wide to be wrapped by my wingspan. There were at least three large tenders about. We stared a bit in awe at the magnitude of the ship, contemplating the juxtaposition of equipment and experience. All I could think to say to Dana was, “Well- we came to the South Pacific on a ketch, too.”

We walked slowly away pretty sure we preferred the immersion of our experience, the mental impacts of a gnarly two days' passage already fleeting. We went to the food trucks, still open at midnight, and had second dinner. It was amazing, phenomenal in fact, to have this option, but we were quite sure that the seductive powers of well-developed civilization would soon wear away.

For several days in Papeete we remained entranced and intrigued. We visited the huge market where everything from trinkets to parrotfish are available for purchase and enjoyed cheaper beer from ample well-stocked grocery stores. We settled in on the quay and made friends with some new folks, Michael, a Scotsman on a boat called Barfly, and Troy, an Aussie on a boat called Yameja, both hilarious dudes of the best possible sort, with whom I would find myself spending a good deal of time in coming weeks. Mike, whose well-projected, ceaseless voice seems to rub its accent off on everyone, left Glasgow two years ago and has since crewed on five different boats en route to a piecemeal circumnavigation while surfing every wave he can find. Troy is making his way back home over the big blue crewing on a catamaran. Both had skippers away for a month and were meant to watch their vessels and enjoy Tahiti in the meantime. This we all did, with plenty of beer-fueled banter in the spacious aft gallery of Yameja.

It wasn't all beer and steak frites, though. Actually, we began a continuing stint of high activity there in Tahiti. The crew of Ardea made the grueling hike to the lava tubes, which were fascinating bits of geological history. We managed to find our way to the local soccer pitch- fittingly a fine artificial turf field complete with cork track just outside of the downtown area- for a couple of evening games. Dana and I accompanied Mike on the bus to Papenoo, one of the few beach breaks around, and caught some of the fabled Tahitian waves (ok, well, Teahupoo is fabled, and there are other insane reef breaks as well, but Papenoo is on a whole different, much lesser, level).

First lava tube.

Clambering between lava tubes.

The second lava tube atop the falls.

Clambering down from the second tube.

We stayed in town long enough to pick up Anna, who came to join the boat for a while, but by then the charms had mostly diminished. I noticed I was sensitive to the more polluted air, the lights and the general indifference among city peoples. It was noisy, too. Traffic was unending and passed just near the quay. That alone wasn't terrible to sleep through, but one night after a rain the roller for the ramp on the next dock over began to squeak a loud, high-pitched whine. It was irritating to me, so at 0230 I walked off the dock, down the waterfront a bit, and climbed over the fence to the offending bearings. I went to town with my bottle of WD40 and shut the thing up, longing already for the quiet of a secluded bay with stars unencumbered by city lights, the distant drone of the breakers over the reef and the lapping ripples on the hull the only persistent sounds.

Soon we planned to make the short crossing to Mo'orea, only about 25 miles. Dana would be flying home soon for good and I would be leaving for a hiatus to join my family for my grandparents' fiftieth wedding anniversary, so I wished to get Ardea to Cook's Bay where she would be safe and where Dana could get a last taste of the majesty of the South Pacific. He and I wanted to catch a few more waves in Tahiti, though, so we left early to get the bus to Papenoo for a morning session before departing to Mo'orea in the afternoon. Little did we know, the bus was not running, as it was some holiday, and we found ourselves sauntering through Papeete in the general direction of Papenoo. We had only what would have been bus fare and our surfboards. We spent the former on beer and a baguette and wandered merrily, making conversation with numerous characters attracted to the comical scene of a couple of Californians with surfboards who seem to have entirely lost the direction of the beach. It was an enjoyable meander, an appreciated look at the outer parts of Papeete and a slow brew in the subtle differences between this place and those we'd prior seen.

The jaunt to Mo'orea was windless. We motored the whole way, stopping for a time off of the northwest coast of our destination to splash and swim in the deep blue yonder. Pulling into Cook's Bay was for me an emotional experience, full of nostalgia and a deep satisfaction; I had studied at the Gump Research Station, a UC Berkeley field lab, for ten weeks in 2009, and knew and deeply loved the place. To putt past the old digs on my own vessel three years later represented something of significance for me, and I gazed almost in disbelief at the familiar and breathtaking landscape after we set the hook deep in the bay.

We made the usual rounds to friends' boats to catch up as the sun was setting. Soon after, the sound of music carried across the water to our ears, finding us want of a scene to explore. We went ashore and followed the tunes to a nearby lot where loads of people played bocce and celebrated life. It was only local Polynesians about, so we quickly attracted attention and found ourselves awash with conversation and hilarity. A large red canopy in the corner housed the band- drums, ukuleles and guitars- as well as a counter behind which a small crew prepared food, sold beer and organized the bocce tournament. We ate and drank and chatted about while local men, plainly drunk, played the best bocce I've ever seen. Dana, recalling our experience on Tahuata with Jimi and John, motioned toward one particular game after a ball came to a halt just next to the target, saying to a new Tahitian friend nearby, “Attack,” except with the proper accent making it sound more like “Ah-toc.” Thus began several minutes of uproarious laughter as the local guy went about telling his friends how the American guy, who speaks no French, knows “attack” as relates to the game.

Some time shortly thereafter, Dana learned that in that there tournament, the top prize was no less than a 20 kilo calf, fully butchered. He quickly decided to enter for a thousand francs and try his luck; I became his teammate, so it became our luck. We would need it. Dana told the woman behind the counter under the canopy that he would like to enter the tournament and presented her with the appropriate currency. After a few minutes of her trying to persuade Dana that his entry was a waste and that he might find a non-monetary game in the early afternoon on the following day, she accepted his money and wrote down his name on the bracket. It should be noted that Dana, as so many of us, alters the name he gives people slightly in order to assimilate the sound with whatever language is spoken. In Mexico, Dana was Dan, I was Con-Nore, and Taylor was Tay-Lore. In French Polynesia, Dana is Don, I am Connair, and Taylor is pretty well understood.

Don and I showed up to our first match and our opponents greeted us, shook our hands, stood back and gave us a quizzical look. Obviously we hadn't realized that it was BYOB. We had beer, but we were forced to delay the game until the neighboring match finished, so we could borrow someone's balls. The nice lady behind the counter, who spoke quite good English, coordinated the loan for us after Don approached her regarding the embarrassing lack of balls. Once equipped, we began what would be possibly the most uninspired and brief games ever played on the island of Mo'orea. Don and I were caught off guard. It happened so fast. We played to seven, lost in two rounds, the minimum possible. It's redundant to point it out, but we did not score any points. They barely even needed to attack.

We sauntered for a minute or two after our opponents laughed and thanked us and walked away. The woman from behind the counter saw me. I told her we lost. She picked up the microphone and the loudspeaker blared, “Don, you have lost. Please return all the balls. Very embarrassing.” And so another bout of laughter focused our way as our short careers in competitive Polynesian bocce came to an end. Perhaps our real problem was in treating it just like bocce. Really, they call it petanque, and the balls are slightly smaller and made of metal. In fact, it's starting to seem like a cut and dry case of equipment-based disadvantage. Trade for some ceramic balls of increased diameter and we'll see who's attacking.

Obviously we considered entering a one thousand franc cash side bracket, but, in the end, we figured all the sport was cutting into our time with beer and new friends. So we partied on in fine fashion well into the night, as it was Dana's last and there remained many Hinanos to hold in toast to such a fine seaman. Surely the following morning was imbued with a melancholy ink.

Dana and I took the ferry back to Papeete and celebrated the many thousands of miles of ocean we had together traveled over beers with Troy and Mike. We were, in the end, happy to have experienced what trying weather we had on the California coast and finally again en route to Tahiti. We survived and kept the boat safe and now we sat in one of the most captivating places in the world having accomplished something that only just a few years before had seemed an improbable dream. Though I was on all too many occasions a cantankerous captain, I couldn't in retrospect make any complaint about Dana's fine service on Ardea. To be sure, while he began as a novice crewman, he departed among the ranks of capable offshore sailors, a proud accomplishment. Dana took off late that night and made it home some twenty-four hours later, albeit with staph infections on both feet from festering tropical wounds (reportedly healed). I left a day later, excited to see my family for an intermission, wondering about the new chapter of this journey to follow.