Author: Scott and Kathy Erwin, Sail the World

Crazy storm past over last week. LOVE our anchor, thats for sure. Harder it blows the harder she digs in.
We clocked over 50 knots multiple times and had sustained 30-40 knots for a day. A few boats here broke their snubbers (the rope attached to the anchor chain to softwn the pull and protect the windlass)

Ahhh, sunny day coming!

The clarity of the diving in The Tuomotus is stunning! We have all been in the water nearly all day all about our boats. See the octopus cleaning his head with his tiny arm? And the colors of the coral, reef fish, shell…but best of all is sharing this incredible life with friends on SV Simplicity.

More go pro photos, as we just can’t get enough of the colorful and strange sealife here in the Tuomotus. Good thing there are no jellyfish (yet anyway) and the water temperature is perfect for just a bathing suit!

Snorkeling here on Amanu has 60-70+ feet visability and ASTOUNDING coral. Much more today but check out our new friends!!!
Note: I said “White Tips” in the Video but they are black tips. Kathy has snorkled every day and has been very lucky to see dozens of black tips reef sharks, 1 XL green morey eel, 1 8 foot wide manta ray, dozens of brilliant blue clams and 2 cantaloupe sized octopus.

After a good swim and back deck shower, we look up and see this awesome sunset. Another great day!

Amanu Atoll is a seldom visited Atoll in the Tuomotus that has a population of about 220 people.
We spent a week here and checked out the village and surrounding coral reefs.
An Atoll is basically an ancient volcano that is sinking into the ocean with coral now topping the outer ring. The center of the lagoon is mostly over 100’ deep with coral heads called “Bommies” that come all the way from the bottom to within inches of the surface. This makes navigation around the inside of the atoll very challenging. Amanu was seldomly visited by cruiser’s because up in to 2019 the atoll wasn’t even on Navionics charts. We used multiple navigation aids to get around but the most useful was Satellite photos used in a program called OpenCPN. Thank you Bruce on SV Migration! We spent the last week with Bruce and Alene on SV Migration getting a good education on French Polynesia and OpenCPN.
It is windy here! With no mountains for cover and the island chain being in the trades we saw between 10 and 20 knots ALL the time, with squalls up to 35 knots. We used a mooring to secure Sea Bella upon our village visit and we almost chaffed through both our mooring pendants on the coral. Expensive and valuable lesson!!!!!
The reefs are amazing to snorkel and we were fortunate enough to see many sharks and mantas. We spent as much time in the water as we spent on shore cracking coconuts (a true skill).
Our visit to town was on a day that the village was welcoming some visitors from a National Geographic ship and we got the full tour. See the attached kids dancing

The Mayor of this town is 30 years old and is in his third term. Francois became mayor at 19 years old when the previous mayor (his Father) was lost at sea.
Francois was flown to France and celebrated as Frances youngest ever mayor.  The mayor is also a member of the welcoming band and seems to be in well control of the island.
Today we are off to the next Atoll to the west called Makemo. 175 miles so we should see the the completion of this passage by midday tomorrow.

Footnote on Starlink…..
Unfortunately Starlink needs to start making a profit and we received two emails that said we were both using the service outside of our continent and on the ocean. 😕
Well for us to upgrade to the proper plan it will likely to be between $250-300 a month for the Mobile Global plan. Between Sat phones, cell phones and Starlink, something has to give. Our fixed budget probably can’t support it all so we may be offline as Starlink still isn’t robust enough to replace our Iridium Sat phone. 😕
Hopefully we find a solution but if we don’t post as often don’t worry about us. We are just waiting for connectivity……

I was in heaven sitting in the sand playing with the local children for hours. Without knowing their Tahitian language or French, which they now learn in school, socializing takes a different approach. Bringing heart lollipops help in starting up an interest, friendship, and trust. However, there is an art in this ‘giving’. If you simply hand over a lollipop, the child may just run off and eat it. You haven’t gained a thing. She may even bring back a friend to get a lollipop as well. But, if you play a little game like tic tac toe, or do a little whistle for them to copy, hide a coin, or turn take humming a little tune, now that builds a fun connection for both parties. This little 6 year old girl in the red dress stole my heart. She was so playful and engaged me in a drawing game in the sand. She also insisted on giving me a taste of her lollipop. The 3 year old boy in my lap was a bit more shy, but he was happy to give me a snuggle. Fun was had by all.

Most perfect place, we will be back- Fatu Hiva (Bay or Vírgins aka Bay of Penises)

Photo blast from 4 days ago in Fatu Hiva. We must be moving too fast or having too much fun to do a post…LOL
The hikes are so rewarding and there are no plants, reptiles or animals to worry about. The altitude we were climbing in made this hike a very “tropical” misty experience.

We spent many days with a new friend Christian, he is a local carver and chef. We fell in love with this tiki and bought it. The next day Kathy hiked up to the farthest home, where Vanessa painted a Tapa, the local artisan craft.

The bakery was closed, so Agnes swooped in and took us home. She gave us her baguettes, cold drink, fruit and special cancer cure jam, make from who knows what! She told us her life story (all in French) and was a great pantomime. She gave us a special tour of her garden, showed the vertical way she plants orchids, and explained her citrus grafting technique (in French). So special!!

Goodbye for now magical Fatu Hiva, see you in 6 or 7 months, as that is our plan for the Summer (US Winter). We have a 3 day sail to a SE Tuomotu Island Amanu. All the islands we will be “INSIDE” over the next 2 months are strange Motus: any island or islet in Polynesia, more specifically meaning atoll surrounded by coral reef. Fun new adventure!

Marvelous Mantas!! Lucky me, I got to swim with a group of local manta rays just outside of Atuona, Hiva Oa. What an awesome experience to have these large, graceful, plankton feeders come gliding right by. Alene on SV Migration and I were able to get right in the middle of their feeding path. These 15′ wide giants would feed ladder style, one on top of the other, to catch the most plankton. Then, they would somersault or do an about-face and return on the same path. Don’t almost seem to smile and laugh? When they got near us they would just glide right under. So spectacular!! We headed to the southern most Marquesan island, Fatu Hivu (the beatiful Bay of Virgins). It was named something else, you guess. It also has a Manta family nearby, so stay tuned!

Fatu Hiva! Prettiest place on Earth.

The flora here in Nuka Hiva is breathtaking. Take a look! Since the Marquesa Archepelegos are the most distant from any continent on the globe, the endemic fauna are quite limited. Only 41 or so species of birds here, most are tropicbirds, small bluish doves and some kingfisher. There is a wide variety of insects, large yellow wasps, but we haven’t been bothered by any in the least bit. The greatest number of species are the butterflies and moths, some only found around these Islands. The rest of the land mammels seen were introduced by the Europeans in the 1800’s. We have seen these domestic wild animals: pig, goat, horse, cow and chickens. Strange that there are no snakes at all really no other endemic mammals.

How do you describe a place you never imagine existed?
This anchorage is
Yosemite + Gillian’s Island + The Garden of Eden

The mountains sore 3000 feet surrounding this bay and are covered with coconut trees and tropical plants. Most of these plants you’ve only seen in your moms potted terrarium. When you go to shore you are welcomed by the locals that only want to cook for you and provide you with the most lush fruit you’ve ever seen. The few paved roads are over grown with flowers, breadfruit, limes, oranges and Pamplemouse.
The weather is as perfect as a late summer day, where you need to keep the sun off but the sunset is quite welcomed with a fresh breeze that keeps the boat cool and fresh.
In the bay we work on the boat and wait for the Mantas to swim by or pick at the Ukulele. We are greeted often with visiting boats from France, Denmark, Canada, Switzerland or other areas that challenge our language skills. There are very few Americans here and somehow that just feels perfect.

I’m not sure what we are going to see next but all I know is that in all the years of travel and sailing I’ve never been to a more beautiful place…..and what’s better is this is the road less traveled. You just can’t get here any other way.
Oh yeah, Kathy and I celebrated our 12 Anniversary the other day in a bay almost as perfect. We were happily all alone on a beach with a hut, coconut trees and a fire with Hot dogs!!! The most perfect Anniversary we could ever hope for.
What’s next? Who cares…….
….we’re stickin’ around here for a few. (But the Tuomotus are calling)

BTW, trading amongst the locals is alive and well. Maybe even a little black market. PM me if you heading this way next year and you want to know what these folks need or want. 😕

Hiva Oa, Marquesis, French Polynesia.
We sailed to Hiva Oa on Monday and officially checked into the country of French Polynesia on Tuesday. Since then we have done a ton of boat chores (yes, we have to work at this life) and have made an effort to see this beautiful island. Hiva Oa is the second largest island in the Marquesas Island chain and has about 2,100 people living on it. These islands are Volcanically formed and have rich black soil. The jungle is massively thick and full of healthy green plants than makes it hard to walk through. These islands make me think that this is what Hawaii looked like 150 years ago before we over populated it. Only it’s much more lush here.
Kathy read something somewhere about a short cut path to town. 20 minutes later she was leading five of us up a hill that reminded me of the movie “Romancing the Stone”. I am sure it wasn’t the path we were supposed to be on.

The town is cute and a little more than just basic. 2 restaurants, one bar, an ATM, a few other stores and chickens everywhere…..We rented a car and drove around the Island with cruiser friends. We saw the Ancient Tikis that dated back to 1500 BC and met a man that helped us to some coconuts. Again, the locals are just so happy to spend quality time with us.

What strikes me funny is the lack of a fishing industry. We were so used to pangas everywhere in Mexico but here there are very little commercial fishing. We actually haven’t seen one commercial boat. Most of the fishing we’ve seen are the locals fishing for themselves but not even much of that. The diet here is mostly fruit, coconuts, baguettes and simple foods imported from New Zealand or Tahiti.
Very little fresh fish in the markets.