Quiet heros in the forgotten valley.
Mami Faatiarau is 79 years old. She lives in an isolated valley in the Marquesas Islands. Only a walking path connects this valley to the main village, but she doesn’t want to move to the more populated valley like the rest of her family. She and Maoni, her disabled adoptive son prefer to stay in […]
Pacific Arts Festival…Culture is Beautiful!
Every four years, the ‘Festival des Marquises’ brings representatives from all over the Marquesas Islands and around the Pacific to celebrate the culture that makes each island unique. Food, dance, traditional medicine, palm and pandanus leaf weaving, tattooing, sculpture, and various other cultural arts were performed and shared with the other islanders and guests from […]
Plastic-Coated Paradise??
…Yet another plastic-ridden beach thousands of miles from any significant metropolis… Mckenzie and I hiked over the hill from where Swell was anchored hoping to find some wind-swell peaks to surf one morning. Instead, we discovered this spectacular 1/2 mile-long beach coated in plastic trash (and Portugese man-o-wars!) from end to end. This beach faces […]
I Want Water Wings!
Feeling a bit blue, I dinghy slowly back towards Swell. Apparently the internet on the island is down…So much for the skype date with Mom. The water is a mystic green, full and soupy with plankton and little jellyfish. Out of the corner of my eye, I spot something flick the surface up ahead. There’s […]
Fenua Enata: Where’d everybody go?
There is nothing like laying eyes on new land after a long, tough passage at sea. The remote, uninhabited bay was an ideal place to dry out, rest, and re-organize Swell. Over the week that followed, we set foot on solid land to stretch our legs and explore the jungle-covered valley. To our great delight, […]
Airborne Popcorn and Free Showers at the Aquatic Rodeo: Passage Part 3
The fourth night was sleepless again. I rose constantly to check the wind direction—still ENE!!?!? Swell bashed into the waves more than I’d have liked, but we really needed to make some distance. If the weather panned out as now predicted, there were howling easterlies on the way. If we didn’t make it before they […]
Greenhorn meets the ‘Isles of Disappointment’: Passage Part 2
Day 3 An uneventful night had allowed for a bit of sleep. But not long after shutting my eyes for a nap around 10am, I heard Raiarii call me. I sat up straight to see a double rainbow arching off our stern. I rubbed my eyes, “DOUBLE RAINBOW!?!?!! What does it meaaaaan!!?!…Thanks for waking me […]
‘Lowered’ to the Occaison: Passage Part 1
Day 1 After hopping upwind through the atolls little by little, the Marquesas Islands finally sat at a reasonable cross-angle to the prevailing easterlies. With typical trades, Swell would be close-reaching. With anything but northeast wind, and it was likely to take about 4 days to make the 550-mile trip. And with new, able-bodied Tahitian […]
