S/V Halley

15 33.442 S 146 14.415 W Not. Gaugin, Herman Melville and Jacques Brel were onto something and we’re catching up. What a lovely place French Polynesia is. We just arrived at the Apataki atoll in the Tuamotus archipelago. A nice overnight sail from the Tahanea atoll. Now we are buckling down for another blow. A low pressure from the south will bring strong winds tomorrow, gusts up to 35 kt or 18 m/s. We have the anchor well set in sand and are floating the anchor chain with fenders and pearl buoys over the coral heads. We should be all good. But today was lovely, the pictures don’t do the colors justice. The vibrant blues and greens are unbelievable. Then throw in the shades of green from the palm trees and other tropical vegetation, then the shades of taupe, white and gray of the coral beaches, then the bright white of the Polynesian terns flying above. If I could paint, I would! 

16 57.379 S 144 34.881 W It feels like we are getting the hang of this lifestyle after three years of living at sea and the Tuamotus are definitely our favorite type of cruising grounds - vast, gorgeous and sparsely populated.  We spent almost three weeks on Makemo, which ranks as a top ten anchorage for us.  Just so beautiful and isolated.  Beach after beach, lots of healthy coral, tons of fish and more black tip reef sharks than mosquitos on a summer night.  There were a few other boats nearby and we made friends with a lovely Danish family and a German couple.  Snorkeling the reefs, hiking the beaches and coral flats, drift diving the pass into the lagoon, playing volleyball, sitting around a bonfire, cooking delicious meals, repairing this or that, reading, napping, and playing games in the evening with a cocktail in hand and an eye on the sunset.    I should probably add that Beata continues to work full time, warrior that she is, so she gets up at 3:30am weekdays to be on Cincinn

16 04.453 S 142 22.184 W The Marquesas was all about tall, foreboding volcanic mountains with ever-present clouds hanging over the peaks and gorgeous tropical jungle vegetation in the valleys. We’ve now sailed 450 nautical miles south to the Tuamotus archipelago of French Polynesia. It’s night and day from the Marquesas. The Tuamotus is a collection of low lying atolls with crystal clear water that shifts from vibrant marine blue in the deep to neon turquoise in the shallows. There is nothing but coral, palm trees and sand. We are anchored in the calm of the lagoon but have the sound of the ocean crashing onto the surrounding reef as a reminder of where we are. We felt far away in the Marquesas; the Tuamotus has brought it to a new level. Turns out that our first landfall in the Tuamotus is right where Thor Heyerdahl landed Kon Tiki after his epic journey across the South Pacific in 1947. We dinghied over to the island and walked out to the breaking waves on the edge of the reef. For s

08 52.831 S 140 02.821 W It was good luck and bad luck; the autopilot broke during the Pacific crossing, but it broke within sight of land on the last day. Had it failed sooner, we would have hand-steered around the clock in heavy seas - an exhausting proposition even with a crew of four.  The other engine starter - the one that didn’t break in Panama - has now failed as well. Here, the good news is that we can manage with one engine. But maneuvering at slow speed is difficult, an issue in tight anchorages. We also have no redundancy to fall back on should the one engine break at an inopportune time. Replacement parts are on order. With some luck the new starter arrives this coming week. With additional luck, that fixes the engine problem and we can resume day sails around the Marquesas islands.The autopilot will take longer to arrive, likely several more weeks. Our next long passage, to the Tuamotus archipelago, will have to wait until it is fixed. But we could be stuck in a far worse