Call of the Wild…

My coco climbing skills are definitely rusty, but I managed to make this harvest amidst a day of surfing, diving, and roaming the empty motu.

Free to move again, I decided to take a little time for myself and travel around the islands a bit while my current visa was still valid. After that, the government would give me an extension to do the boat work again, but I figured I might as well take advantage of a bit of ‘floating’ freedom while it was possible.

The north swells were lighting up all sorts of different reefs all over, and with the slack El Nino winds, I studied the charts eventually tossed my anchor inside a new lagoon with no one around. The next few days were the kind that make all the work worthwhile…I surfed morning and evening with a few locals, and in between, made myself busy organizing, writing, drawing, strumming the chords James had taught me on the guitar, doing yoga, and climbing trees on the motu.

It had been so long since I’d been in a wild place, and I felt so happy wandering in the palm shadows and staring long and hard at the night sky. And funny, but I wasn’t sure what thrilled me more–the sight of an empty wave standing up on the reef in front of me, or the sight of Swell’s drawers all cleaned out and orderly. How long I had just shoved things into the drawers, awaiting  the day when nothing more pressing took priority! It was four days of blissful freedom and solitude until the wind turned onshore.

Rumor had it that Jimmy Buffett was playing an almost unannounced show in Bora Bora. But there was a sizable north swell coming…what should I …?