Sailing Miles

A three-day adventure! Dodging squalls! Braving the Isles of Disappointment! Fixing stuff that broke! Crashing through steep seas! Eating weeks-worth of fruit before it goes bad! Aaaarg! 🏴‍☠️🦜

Cindy had some insightful thoughts in the middle of our three-day passage between island chains in French Polynesia.
We decided to share them.

Well, it seems it's time to move on from the Marquesas. In the evening, we were surprised to see a cruise ship pull into "our" anchorage at Hapatoni, a quiet, secluded piece of paradise. We were anchored at the base of volcanic mountains covered in palm and lemon trees. The steep cliff continued under the water ~ a wall home to so much sea life, brightly colored Pacific fish and coral. We had watched manta rays swimming at the previous anchorage, and spinner dolphins at this one.

Rains had clouded the water with muddy runoff, so we couldn't snorkel and see where our anchor ⚓ ⛓️chain was. Praying 🙏🏼 that the anchor ⚓ rode ⛓️ wasn't wrapped around a rock, we were so thankful 🙌🏻 when we weighed anchor and it came up with no problems. Lifting the mainsail, we cruised past the Paul Gauguin cruise ship. Our course is SSW. With the full moon, the Southern Cross is still visible, as we sail straight toward it. (The last half off our crossing from the Galapagos to French Polynesia, the Big Dipper was to starboard, the Southern Cross to port, steering for Orion.) I felt a little like the girl in Moana. We were on a beam reach and the seas weren't too rough. The only land for 3 days, between the Marquesas and the Tuamotus, is the Isles of Disappointment. These 2 tiny islands lie directly in our path. As I researched which direction to best sail around them, I ran across this article about a travel writer who visited Napuka and Tepoto in 2019. The islanders think he was the first non-Polynesian visitor to the island in over 70 years. It's a fascinating read, we got to learn about and see pictures of these islands we will be sailing past.

https://www.bbc.com/travel/article/20190319-a-journey-to-the-disappointment-islands

Signing off with moonlight on the water

A journey to the Disappointment Islands In 1765, an English explorer gave two islands a rather unfortunate name that has sheltered them from the world and preserved one of Earth’s last paradises.

Whew! I guess our brains work better in the morning.

Wordle 1,786 6/6

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The Eagle has landed. Oh, wait... S/V Miles has anchored.

After almost 3000 nautical miles, we have arrived in the Marquesas group in French Polynesia. 🇵🇫

At first light the call rang out "LAND HO!"

Cindy George

So, celestial navigation is just a matter of following the arrow? I thought it was more complicated. 😜😂🧭🌌

We started off with a short hike to a beach with iguanas and sea lions, Carola Beach.
We ended up getting a taxi and had three more hikes!

We had a fun tour day before we departed Santa Cruz. Most guided tours are $180 pp. You can spend $400 pp easily.
We hired an air-conditioned taxi for $100 for both of us!