Weddings, Mountains and Ocean
Halley is back on the water. We took a 2 month land break and returned to the boat after Thanksgiving. It does feel like home-sweet-home. No wonder really - we are now into our 4th year as full-time cruisers. It’s our “back to normal”, as crazy as that sounds.
The time on land was really nice though. Great to see friends and family. Sixten and Lauren were married and we are so happy for them. After the wedding, we drove out to Montana and spent 7 weeks at the Heekin ranch. We saw early fall progress into winter. Lots of hiking, friends and kids visiting, cozy evenings by the fireplace, grizzly bears by the kitchen window, elk in the meadow, etc. It’s an incredible place. And funny how it’s so different from our boat life, yet so similar - nature and solitude.
We spent Christmas and New Year’s on the Fakarava atoll in the Tuamotus island group. It’s our first Christmas away from the kids, but we had a nice time with other cruisers we’ve gotten to know. Fakarava is well-known among scuba divers as one of the premier dive sites in the world. We did several dives and they were incredible. The “Wall of Sharks” dive is one, not for the faint-hearted.
Now we are slowly making our way south-east. Counter-intuitive since it’s back in the direction of the Americas. But we want to be well east of the 150th parallel to stay away from the seasonal western Pacific cyclones. Our target is Gambiers, another island group in French Polynesia. It’s a haul and against the prevailing winds, but we get there by waiting for good weather windows. We jump along the atolls of the Tuamotus island group and then have a final 5 day passage to make it there. It's taking remote to another level… Once In Gambiers, we’ll stay put for a few months to wait out the cyclone season. Several of our cruiser friends are heading the same way and it’s supposed to be a beautiful and friendly place - should be a great time.
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