Scott and Mary's new friend, Antoine, bestows on them the virtues of music technology
S23 07.22 W134 57.98 Rikieta Village, Mangareva Island, Gambier Island Group, French Polynesia (Mangareva means Floating Mountain in Polynesian).
Scott (YT) and Mary Flanders (MS) left Gibraltar on 16 September 2006, and we’ll be following their journey every step of the way, thanks to this unique online “blog”. For a complete list of all the couple’s blog entries click here
Scott and Mary’s new friend, Antoine, bestows on them the virtues of music technology
Saturday 31 May
Well, mis amigos, this high-tech junkie is sitting in the pilothouse listening to Antoine’s music loaded onto the hard-drive while pounding out this latest blog.
While helping us with the music Antoine blurted out something like “living in caves or stone age something or other” in exasperation, trying to explain why we couldn’t make “normal’ music CDs directly from his CD. Personally I didn’t think there was anything wrong with the boom box our oldest son gave us ten years ago. So now we have every Antoine song from 1974 until present. We, in turn, gave him some electronic information he didn’t have.
The big news in the anchorage this morning is that the supply ship is in. This means a number of things. Hopefully we’ll have tomatoes and fresh veggies later this morning. Most of the anchorage boats need fuel so there is a scramble trying to borrow empty 200lt barrels (55gal) from locals. Afterwards they will transfer the fuel to more manageable jerry jugs. The ship’s fuel pump is too powerful to pump into jerry jugs, however they will pump directly into the boat’s tanks from their tanks. We have a number of empty jerry jugs and have offered them via VHF to the fleet to use. We will give some away as we don’t anticipate having to use them again in our cruising and we don’t want to haul them around for years ‘just in case’.
Today turned out to be another big hike day. After trekking the southern jungle trail, we crossed the island and tried to circumnavigate the island on the western road and around the southern tip but it was not to be. After a lot of walking the road ended in a family’s yard. The southern road was as pretty if not prettier than the northern road around the top of the island, with solid trees, flowers and flowering trees lining both sides of the unpaved road.
Sunday 1 June
We spent yesterday evening aboardBanana Splitwith Antoine looking at his video of the Gambiers and surrounding islands, plus the Polynesian Islands we plan to visit. In addition to being a musician, Antoine has made a number of travel videos and documentaries for French TV. He quickly forwarded through his travel documentary, ‘Tahiti And Her Islands’, with most of last night’s time spent on the Gambiers. Many of the shots were taken from exactly where we have been. He uses a polarized filter and the water scenes are stunning. If our blogs have stirred a desire within you to cruise around the world in our little white fibreglass ship, visiting interesting places with a dash of adventure thrown in, let us warn you that this video will drive a cruising stake deep into your dirt-dwelling hearts. Danger lurks here. Grave danger. If you are strong, healthy and up to the task, visit www.antoine.tv to order your copy of the documentary.
I got sidetracked with Antoine discussing the technical aspects of photography and I even got a tutorial in good film making with quality equipment. What a difference. The only downside, according to Antoine is that it takes 50 hours of film to produce one hour of product. I’m not sure I have enough patience to attempt a professional quality film but I am drooling over the new camera he is about to buy.
Later this morning we’ll lendBanana Splitour Baja filter to transfer fuel to their tanks (after the rain quits). It’s a long story but yesterday all the cruisers received their fuel pumped into mostly rusty 200lt fuel drums. After this he’ll set off to another part of the atoll and we’ll go ashore for a hike.
Sunday 1 June pm
During a short lull in the rain we helped filter the fuel intoBanana Splitand it rained for the rest of the day. The other yachties in the anchorage were out in bathing suits doing their laundry.
Our latest plans (as of the last five minutes) are to leave Monday at about Noon and head to Papeete, Tahiti, via the abandoned island of Taravai we saw on the way in. If we can find our way in we’ll spend a day at Taravai and then set off on Tuesday when the light is good enough to read the water.
Monday 2 June
The wind blew into the anchorage last night for the first time, a bit more than forecast. We even had a little chop, so we’ll fire this blog into space and make our decision later today. If we do leave today it will preclude visiting the nearby island, as the wind will put us in an uncomfortable position. We’ll see. Ciao.
Picture 1. Baby grouper caught on a dinghy trip through the reefs.
Picture 2. Scott and Giant Trevally
