Tsunami Alert in New Caledonia: ALL CLEAR. ALL CLEAR.

For the few of you that may have noticed, there was a big earthquake off of American Samoa this morning and a subsequent Tsunami warning went out for the whole neighborhood. The warnings here in New Caledonia said we'd be "hit" at 9:16 this morning, but they did not give any  advice on how severe the "Tsunami" would be. I guessed that it would probably be minor, if at all present, but images of Thailand and Indonesia a couple years back kept flashing before my eyes, so we decided to take the most prudent course. Sophie took the kids to school, which is on high ground, and I took the boat out into the lagoon in deep water by myself.

9:16 came and went and there was no excitement, so I brought the boat back to the dock and tied her back up and settled back in.

For those of you who may know him, former Autodesk colleague, good friend and fellow sailor Wayne Hodgins aboard his yacht "Learnativity" was in Pago Pago harbor in American Samoa at the time of the quake and he is safe and sound (Wayne's blog here). There was a lot of damage from the tremors and a big tidal wave in the town there, so he is apparently helping out as best he can. Wayne is sending Twitter updates via his sat phone regularly. We wish everyone there the best of luck.

Sorry, Pas de Place

When I wrote the very first posting for this blog, I was riding in a plane from Fort Lauderdale back to San Francisco. I had just put the boat aboard a cargo ship bound for Ensenada and I was going back home to pull up roots definitively. Now I’m sitting in a plane bound for Brisbane (Australia) from Noumea. It’s the same crossing we will undertake in the boat in December, except instead of 3 hours it will take us 4 days. Maybe 5.

Obviously the daily posting isn’t working out, despite some wonderful email support from 3 of you (thanks mom). So, I’ll have to take up where I left off. Now where was I?

Oh yes, Ile des Pins, a weird dream, generator trouble, and Annabelle’s birthday. Well, the update on those is that the generator trouble is probably fuel-related. I’m picking up new Racors (filters) in Brisbane. Mom analyzed the dream and it was all about the events of the other night when we bumped the reef in the night. Something about my super-ego being pissed off at my ego for giving me a hard time for being careless even though it wasn’t a big deal. Makes sense to me.

We’re back in Nouméa. Well, I’m 20,000 feet up, but the boat, Sophie and the kids are back there. We had a great sail back from Ile des Pins. Just the opposite of our last trip there, we got to sail with favorable winds there and back–which means the wind turned in our favor at just the right time. We were sailing with the wind at about 90º to 110º (meaning on the side and a little towards the back), and it was blowing a good 25 knots. We had all our canvas up for a while with the big reacher reefed in behind the blade (Solent). I think we averaged 9 knots for the 6 hour trip and did a good stretch of 10’s and 11’s. Not bad speed for a house with a washing machine and the inventory of a Toys ‘r’ Us.

We wanted to spend our last night anchored at a little reef called Mato, but when we pulled in it was still real windy and there wasn’t a lot of swinging room between the coral heads. No thanks. Had enough of the things that go bump in the night. So instead we went to the Amedee Lighthouse and took a mooring. We were the only ones there and got to enjoy the beach by ourselves right before sunset.

The next morning we sailed for 2 hours to Nouméa. Sophie called the marina to see if we could get a spot for 2 nights, and after insisting a bit, we got a “temporary” spot which we’d have to vacate immediately if the owner of the berth came back in from their trip to Vanuatu. Sure enough at 6:30 the next morning I peer out the window and cruising in is the big catamaran whose space we’re in. I hustle out on deck to tell the owner’s wife–who is on the foredeck giving me a hard look–that we will move immediately. At least this time I was wearing pants.

So, engines on, undo all the lines and water and power connections (which take me about an hour to set up each time), and off we go waving apologetically. One of the reasons we stay at the marina is that the anchorages in Nouméa are super crowded. I hate crowded anchorages, especially ones like these that have boats at anchor and some on moorings (much shorter lines, thus smaller turning circles when the wind shifts). This means all the boats swing in different ways and it’s very hard to predict what will happen when the wind changes. So, I start cruising around, heading for “that open spot over there” and when I get there I look at all the boats and go, Where’s that open spot?

After the fifth or sixth loopty-loop (which makes you look like an idiot driving around the anchorage as everyone is waking up and having coffee in their cockpits), I say f*ck it (hey, it’s 7AM and I haven’t had my tea yet), and we head to the fuel dock. At least they’ll let us tie up. We were out of water (the hose wouldn’t reach at the marina), and I don’t want to use the watermaker in the harbor. Plus I figure we’ll top off one of the diesel tanks to see if some extra pressure in the lines will help the generator (it didn’t). This way I can also save some face and take the time to plan my attack for when we’re back in the anchorage looking for a spot. 250 liters of diesel and 800 liters of water later, I head to that “Big open spot over there”, and it’s not actually that bad. Our goofy French microwave WiFi system even works there, so we drop the hook, just as the wind starts to come up.

The only downer for us in New Caledonia has been the lack of marina space. It’s a huge deal for all the yachties–visitors and locals alike. There are 280 boats on waiting lists for the 3 marinas which are all completely full. This creates a very strange atmosphere among the boating crowd and everyone is very nosy and suspicious. People rat each other out for breaking the marina rules so they get kicked out and free up a spot. It’s a bizarre vibe. In other countries, as visitors, we’ve always been given a spot, even if the marina is “full”. Here we’ve had to fight tooth and nail for the berths we’ve had. We’ve had to call in favors with all of our friends here, many of which are in high places including maritime organizations, etc. Still, no love. We got kicked out of our last spot with 3 hours warning. “Cette après-midi, vous dégagez! On a un super-yacht qui arrive çe soir, donc vous comprennez”. Only the French can tell you to f*ck off and leave you feeling as the one guilty of some vague impropriety. Well the super-yacht never showed, but we lost our spot and Sophie managed to wrangle a spot for 2 weeks in a marina that doesn’t allow liveaboards (we had to keep a very low profile).

I’m going to Brisbane to help out a friend from Noumea who just bought a new sportfishing boat (a Cabo 48 Flybridge, for those who know). The boat was delivered there from the factory in the States via cargo ship and now all the electronics and accessories need to be mounted on board. It’s quite a job with more than a dozen people working on the boat for a couple of months, so I’m just helping out with some project management, my passable command of the English language (although most the time I don’t understand what those Austrlian blokes are saying), and moral support. I’ll be gone for a week or 10 days, so it was critical for us to find a good spot for the boat while Sophie and the kids are on their own. We started asking about places more than a month ago. Sorry, full. Luckily, our friends aboard Celera, a beautiful 20 meter sloop (what most of you would picture when you think sailing yacht), have a spot at Port du Sud for the whole season. They happen to be going to Ile des Pins for 2 weeks during my trip, so they’re letting us stay in their berth while they’re out. Phew!

Yesterday morning at 11 I get an email from Patrick, Celera’s owner, that his oldest daughter has lost her passport so she and his wife will be delayed until Monda, and they won’t leave until Tuesday. Oh shit. I’m getting on a plane and Sophie can’t move the boat on her own–Marina maneuvers are the trickiest. We immediately started calling all the marinas and hopped in the dinghy to go over to Port Moselle to see if they would give us a spot.
We get to the marina office at 11:10.
Office closes at 11:00 on Saturdays.
Sophie calls the after hours number.
Sorry, no room (I’m looking at the guest dock. It’s half empty. Or half full. Either way, there bloody well is room).
We see a friend who runs a charter business there. He starts calling all over town.
Nothing.

Patrick calls me to work out details for dinner tonight. As soon as he realizes our predicament, he says, No problem, I’ll move Celera out to the anchorage and you can move Océalys in on Sunday morning before you leave. We’ll just spend a couple of nights at the anchorage before heading out. Patrick is a true gentleman. One of those rare ones. It’s a huge pain for him. He’s got to provision for 2 weeks with 10 people on board. He’s just flown in and surely the boat needs some looking after, which is always easier when you’re docked. He really saved us from a potentially huge hassle, Sophie having to ask someone from another boat to help her move the boat, etc.

So the boat is safely moored and I’m Brisbane bound. I’ll try to send an update from Oz.

G’day.

Daily Update: Three-for-One

Alright. So much for my plan to do this every day. I'm not sure why,
but I can't bring myself to sit down and do it regularly. I guess I
don't feel like there's necessarily something exciting to write about
every day. I suppose we can take a composite of the last 3 days to
make something readable...

The weather finally started to calm down a bit after what, 4 days of
strong wind? There's been some rain from time to time, but overall I'd
call the weather pretty damned nice. The kids have been doing school
in the mornings until about 9:30 or 10:00. Today, for the first time,
I joined in and did English with Massimo. He did pretty well with me
and complained a little less than he usually does with Sophie. I only
had to threaten to throw his Nintendo into the water once. After
school we go for a dive. Despite being a popular spot here, there's
good fishing on the reef just outside the anchorage. We can always
spear a parrot fish or two for lunch. I speared a nice fat one this
morning, but the camera was apparently off when Sophie snapped a
picture from the dinghy.

Yesterday was Annabelle's 5th birthday so we had a party at lunch.
Massimo and Annabelle baked cupcakes and decorated them while I
cleaned and cooked a fat parrot fish. Annabelle got a huge doll house
(which I find absolutely ridiculous to have aboard a boat, but...),
and a Nintendo DS. A pink version of her brother's favorite toy. They
spent the afternoon networking them and sending each other messages
and drawings. Annabelle even got a phone call from grandma, but she
refused to talk to her (sometimes, like me, she doesn't like talking
on the phone).

Our friend Jaques aboard "Mamou", a Nouméa-based Outremer catamaran,
gave Annabelle a lobster for her birthday. We had it for lunch today
and it was delicious. I've never been good at hunting for lobster.
Takes too much patience looking in all those holes.

After diving and lunch, we usually have a siesta for an hour or so
while the kids watch a DVD. It's our only break from them. Afterwards
we usually do a bit of exploring in the dingy and then it's time to
cook dinner.

Interspersed through all this I've been doing a little bit of
maintenance and so on. I installed a small electric bilge pump in the
dinghy so we don't need to use the bailer and sponge to keep it dry.
Unfortunately the engine is not producing voltage the way it's
supposed to, so this has turned from an "install a new toy" project to
"troubleshoot the outboard motor" project.

Also, after not running the generator for a couple of months, it's
exhibiting some strange behaviour. It has a hard time starting and
then has a very rough, very low RPM idle. Then the RPM will slowly go
up, then back down, then slowly up to it's correct speed. Then the
thing runs fine. I suspect a fuel delivery problem. Feel free to send
an email if you have any suggestions. Could be air, but once the air
is out of the lines, the problem should go away (and it doesn't- it
comes back every time I start the thing). So my guess is either crud
in the injectors or crud in one of the fuel filters. I hope it's crud
in the filters, which I will change when we get back to Nouméa. Crud
in the injectors will require professional service and persistent air
in the fuel means an air leak somewhere which could be a nightmare...
Oh well, not really a big problem, just that it's nagging the back of
my mind all the time. I even devised (in my head) a scuba tank-powered
blower to clear out the fuel lines after I awoke from a bizarre dream
at 4am this morning.

I dreamt that I was riding a bicycle at the Berkeley Marina. The
fascist government there (that part's not in the dream, it's real) had
made it illegal to ride a bike on this 100 foot long stretch of trail.
Somehow I knew that, but the sign illustrating the interdiction was
faded and had graffiti all over it. I rode to the end of the little
trail, turned around at the dead end and started riding out. As I was
bout to exit the path onto the frontage road a barrier sprang up. It
was designed to catch violators, but it malfunctioned and only came up
about 12" above ground, then slowly came up the rest of the way. I
shook my head and was convinced that some group of militant Berkeley
Hippies had rigged the thing, so I pulled out a knife and cut through
the 3 cables that were stretched tautly across the path. No sooner had
I sawn through the last cord than a Berkeley Park Ranger SWAT team
descended on the scene. I won't bore you with the rest of the details,
but I remember being very stressed out when they pulled my mom's car
(the big one Mom, since I know you're going to analyze the beans out
of this) onto a flatbed tow truck to take it to the impound yard. They
also confiscated my bike, which I was upset about, but mostly I was
furious that they were making such a big deal out of such a silly
misunderstanding. I found myself spewing a wonderfully rich and
profane string of expletives at the head Fascist-Hippie-Park Ranger
protesting the idiocy of Berkeley's public policy. Perhaps deep down I
want to go home but just can't come to terms with the social climate
there.

I dove on the hull today to inspect the results of my mooring error
the other day. There are a few scratches in the bottom paint, but
nothing even into the gelcoat. Very minor. In fact the worst of it
seems to have been caused from that fishing lure I wrapped around the
prop on the way here... Never mind, another small error... $100 for
the lure and a clean spot on the hull where the taught line scraped
off the slime.

Since the weather's gotten nicer, we're going to stay here one more
day to wait for our friends aboard "Sol Maria". They're a wonderful
French-Canadian couple we met in New Zealand last year. In the morning
we'll have a mission to get fish and maybe some lobster of a big feast.

Now I have to go read the kids a story for bed, then off to bed
ourselves.

Bonne nuit from Ile des Pins.

Long Night, Bad Day

I know most of you think that our day-to-day life is like an extended
tropical vacation. Yesterday is a great example of the difference
between staying at Le Meridien on the beach for a couple of weeks and
doing what we're doing. Plus, yesterday I made the first real mistake
since we left California.

After a 4-hour sail on Friday from Baie de Prony to Ile des Pins, we
arrived at the northernmost anchorage in Gadji. There's a small lagoon
surrounded by little islands. The whole lagoon is about 8 feet deep
and the entrance is a bit tricky. At times we had as little as 18"
under the deepest part of the boat. Running aground (hitting the
bottom) is one of the scariest things for a mariner, and our boat
isn't particularly suited to that sort of use. It was blowing about 25
knots as we came in, which makes it hard to go slow since the wind
tends to control the boat more than you. That's called not having
steerage.

Anyway, we pull into the anchorage uneventfully. There are 3 other
boats anchored here which makes it a bit crowded. It's the school
holidays so everyone with something floaty seems to be out cruising
for a couple of weeks. The wind was blowing out of the North so I
picked a spot towards the northern edge of the lagoon in order to be
blown towards the center, into deeper water. Sophie put out 200' of
chain so we could be sure of not dragging the anchor. We were in about
9 feet of water and the boat draws 4'3" (1.3m). The forecast was for
the wind to turn to the South during the night. I was aware of this
when we anchored, but for some reason I: a. Didn't really believe it
even though I knew it to be true, and b. I somehow got disoriented and
intuitively felt that when the wind was coming out of the South it
would have been coming from "that direction over there" which was
actually East. Oh great. Some mariner I am. I can't map the cardinal
points to the surrounding geography in my head, despite having paper
and digital charts right in front of me.

So, as predicted, the wind shifts 180º during the night and starts
blowing out of the South. Exactly out of the South at 20 knots, just
like they said. So instead of swinging directly away from the shore
and the patch of coral heads there, we swing right into it. Not only
that, but because I had laid out so much chain, we were way in towards
the shore.

I woke up at 0300 because something felt wrong, it was pouring rain
and the wind was up. When I got out on deck, there was enough
starlight/moonlight that I could clearly see what was going on. Huh,
I'll be damned, I said to myself. It's blowing out of the West! (nope,
it was the South). We still had 9 feet of water under the boat but
just off to Starboard, there were two little reefs. Occasionally we'd
drift over the closest one. The sounder showed that we still had 4
feet of water under the boat. The sounder is in the hull, a couple of
feet underwater, so that made 6 feet of depth on the reef. I checked
the tide table in the computer and factored in the discrepancy between
the computer tables and the locally published tables that I couldn't
find. Remember it's 3 A.M., pouring rain outside and I'm groggy and
half-naked. Not to give you the mental picture or anything, but for
some reason when you're scrambling around on deck, being half naked
makes a difference.

I set an alarm on the depth sounder and decided to wait it out,
thinking that we could have cleared the little reefs if we eventually
did go on them and that the wind would change and push us the other
way anyhow. I must have fallen asleep around 0530 and was then woken
up by a gentle scraping on the skeg right under my head. The skegs are
like fins that stick down in front of the propellers and rudders to
protect them in case of a collision. They're very strong and can
support the entire weight of the boat. I got up, went outside and saw
that we were in the same spot and were occasionally heading over the
closest little reef. I still had it in my head that the wind would
change and push us the other way. I'm all for being optimistic, but
talk about wishful thinking. After a few more minutes there was a
healthier "crunch" as the wind shifted slightly and put us on top of
the next reef. I shot outside, started an engine and started pulling,
full throttle in order to swing the boat away from that reef. I yelled
at sophie to get on deck and man the anchor windlass. I wanted to pull
the anchor up and change spots. There was daylight now, so it was safe
to move around.

The problem now was that the wind, still blowing out of the South at
20 knots, was pushing us down against the reefs. As I pulled the boat
away, she would turn sideways to the wind, vastly increasing the
pressure exerted by the wind, which pushed us back down. We tried
letting out a bunch of chain, turning the boat violently and trying to
move away from the reefs in forward gear. There wasn't enough room to
do that and the chain was rubbing hard against the Starboard bow. So I
told Sophie to grab the knife that's kept outside in the cockpit for
emergencies, let out all of the chain and cut the piece of line that's
ties the bitter end of the chain to the boat. So we dumped the anchor,
which is a pretty big deal. It's kind of like pushing the emergency
"eject" button. Now we were free to move away from the dangerous
reefs. We moved to the windward edge of the bay and just kept the boat
stationary with the engines. That's very tricky because unless you're
moving forward, this much wind tends to push you down violently, so
you're always turning hard left or hard right under full throttle just
to keep the boat straight. Sophie had to do this while I got one of
the backup anchors ready. These anchors are stowed away and they need
to be deployed manually since we don't have a dual anchor setup on the
bow. I think it was around this point that Massimo was nice enough to
hand me a pair of pants.

It took me about 15 minutes to get the new anchor all rigged up and
then I "tossed" it overboard–the anchor and 40' of chain weigh more
than a hundred pounds. Another hour of trials and tribulations with
this anchor and finally we had it rigged so that we both felt
comfortable with me leaving the boat to go get the primary anchor. The
problem was that if this temporary anchor broke or dragged, Sophie
would only have a few seconds before we were blown onto the other
boats anchored behind us. We left the engines running the whole time.

Massimo and I got in the dinghy and with the help of a neighbor we
recuperated the main anchor and 300' of chain (which weighs about 1200
lbs). The chain was wrapped around the reefs and was bar-tight. We
started at the bitter end and pulled it up into the dinghy. Luckily
the water was only 8 feet deep, so it was easy to dive to the bottom
and we were only ever pulling on 8 feet of chain by hand. We brought
the whole mess back to the boat and threaded it back into the
windlass, and into the chain locker. After that we ditched the
secondary anchor with a bumper tied to the end of the line and re-
anchored with the main anchor in a better spot more suited to
SOUTHERLY winds. One more trip out to recuperate the secondary anchor
and then another hour of work to clean up and put everything away.

By now it's 11:00 in the morning and the kids have been holed up in
the boat behaving themselves because of the emergency on board, so
they're ready to go nuclear. We take them out to a little beach that's
so beautiful, with such fluffy white sand, that the morning's drama
just melts away.

All in all, it wasn't really that big of a deal since there was no
damage to the boat and no one was hurt. It's just frustrating to me
since there was a lot of action required because of a simple
misjudgment on my part, all of which put the boat at significant risk.
We all need a good wakeup call from time to time.

It's still blowing 20kts-25kts out of the South, but we're going to
try to hunt some lobsters for lunch with our neighbors who are locals
and know all the good spots.

-maurice

Baie de Prony

We woke up yesterday morning to pouring rain and big gusts of wind in
our little anchorage at Ile Ouen. The wind started turning further and
further north, which made the anchorage more and more exposed. We
didn't want to go to Iles de Pins with such poor visibility. There are
dozens of reefs on the way, so good light is essential. We thought
we'd spend another day there, so the kids started school. Soon though
things got worse, so we decided to make the 16 mile trip to Bay de
Prony. It's a huge, deep bay with lots of little inlets that provide
good shelter in any weather.

Sophie wanted to get some practice handling the boat, so she was in
charge of navigating, driving the boat and making all the decisions.
We motored into more than 30 knots of apparent wind, but it wasn't bad
at all since we were in the lee of the big island so there was no
swell of chop. By about noon we dropped anchor at the end of Bonne
Anse, the first inlet in Prony.

Sophie made lunch for the kids. I was feeling crummy (which apparently
also affected my cognitive abilities) so I decided that having a bowl
of oatmeal with a dozen prunes in it was somehow a good idea. You can
imagine how I spent my afternoon.

That evening a couple more boats came into our small bay. The boat
that anchored next to us got the usual angry stares (from inside the
boat so they can't see). I don't know what it is. There's a strange
sort of territoriality that establishes itself at anchor. You don't
want anyone near you because if someone drags anchor you could
collide. On the other hand, the other guy has to anchor somewhere. I
always hate being the latecomer to an anchorage and having to be the
one anchoring "close" to the next boat. In fact, I'll often choose to
anchor elsewhere rather than squeeze in with the pack.

The wind did a complete 360º overnight and this morning the rain
stopped and we can see patches of sky. We're going to go for it and
head for Baie de Gadji at Ile des Pins (which the snobby cruisers
insist on calling The Isle of Pines in English since it was named by
Captain Cook). There's a good trolling spot on the way, so hopefully
we'll get a tuna or wahoo. It's a 7 hour trip, so we're in a bit of a
rush to get going as it's already 7:15 and we need to get there before
the sun is too low.

For our friends who are following our footsteps in the next couple of
days, we are anchored at: 22º 22.57' S; 166º 55.11'E
We are headed to: 22º 31.903'S; 166º 25.277'E

That is all.

-maurice

Ile Louen

In keeping with the "day-in-the-life" theme, here's how we spent the
rest of our day today (presuming the SAT phone doesn't crap out here).

We finally managed to get everything stowed on board and left the
marina at 10:00 this morning. Not an early start by any measure, but
we didn't plan on going far. The wind was a bit out of the north, so
we decided to sail all the way to Ile Louen instead of going to Tombo.
If we had done that, then tomorrow would have been a tough slog to
windward to get here. It took us just over 3 hours since we were doing
up to 8 to 8.5 knots close hauled in 20 to 28 knots of wind. The water
was quite calm, so we just skimmed along uneventfully. We had to take
a reef at one point (reduce the size of the mainsail) since the wind
was steadily above 25 knts, which is when we take our first reef. We
take our second at 30 knots and our third, and last reef, at around 40
or 45 knots, but we've never needed it.

Sophie did some school with the kids and then some arts and crafts
before lunch. We had sandwiches and then the kids watched a DVD while
Sophie and I sailed the boat.

We arrived at our anchorage at around 1:30, cruised around the bay to
find a good spot and dropped the anchor. There's only one other boat
here. It was blowing a good 28 to 30 when we anchored, and there was a
lot of strain on the anchor chain, but the holding is god here, so I
guess I'll sleep comfortably. For the technical folks, we're anchored
in about 25 feet with 150' of chain out.

I took a 30 minute break while Sophie entertained the kids with books
and activities, then they came in to the cabin to play "Tarantula"
which is basically them piling on top of me and me fending them off
with tickles. 20 minutes of that and then we pumped up the dinghy a
bit and put it in the water, got everyone ready to go ashore, and
spent a couple of hours on the beach. There's an apparently defunct
hotel on the beach. It's clearly still being kept up–the grass is
mown, debris from the coconut trees neatly piled up, etc.–but there
was no one around. The beach was nice and sloped very gently so the
kids could run around a lot without getting into deep water.

We headed back to the boat and then Massimo and I got fishing gear
out. We wanted to head out to a little reef as the sun was setting to
try to get some cuttlefish. It was still quite windy and we didn't
have a technique for this type of fishing, so we did our best until it
was dark and headed back to the boat empty handed. Meantime Sophie and
Annabelle cooked up some dinner while Annabelle also did a bit of
school. Then it was Massimo's turn for a little reading (in French)
before we sat down to eat. After dinner Sophie did the dishes as I sat
down to write this. Now, at 7:30, the kids are getting a story read to
them and will go to bed shortly. I expect Sophie and I will be asleep
by 8:30. Maybe we'll read a few chapters of our books or watch an
episode of Battlestar Galactica–we don't often watch movies since we
can never stay awake long enough to finish them.

We have to set out by 7:00 tomorrow morning to get to the Isle of
Pines early enough to have the sun still high up so we can see the
reefs on the way in. Hopefully we'll catch a tuna as we cross from
Grand Terre (the main island of New Caledonia) to the Isle of Pines.

Goodnight.

Back to Work

We're back in New Caledonia from our vacation in the States. We had a great 3 weeks there visiting with family and friends.

I started out by flying to San Francisco, via New Zealand, with the kids so that Sophie could have a week off on the boat by herself. The kids were awesome and handled the long flights like one big adventure.

Grandma and Grandpa took over the kids. They got intensely spoiled with daily trips to Marine World, various parks, pizza parlors, and toy stores (which has taken weeks to de-program). I got to hang out with friends all day, acting like I was 17 again. I spent my time eating at all my old favorite restaurants and touring car dealerships to test-drive all the good cars that have come out since I left.

Since spoiling just the kids was not enough, my mom took us all to Monterey for several days. She took us all shopping and we took the kids to the Aquarium every morning before the crowds flooded the place. Believe it or not, they got a huge kick out of it. Often they would point inside the tank and say to each other, Oh! You remember that time we swam with one of those in the Tuamotus? They got surprised looks from the other kids around them, especially when we were in front of the shark display.

Massimo had his 7th birthday party with his best friend Noah at the park he used to play in every day. The kids loved living a "normal" life, but by the end of it they were ready to go back to the boat.

I got a chance to talk about our trip at a PechaKucha night in San Francisco (www.pechakucha-sf.com). Coincidentally it was held in my old office building at One Market, which brought back a lot of memories–and people. It was a real kick to share our trip with the folks in the audience and I think most were pretty surprised to hear the stories in that context.

We're heading out of Nouméa for a 10 day trip to the Isle of Pines during the kids' school holidays. I'm going to try to do "day-in-the-life" updates to the blog during this trip as an experiment. There'll be no pictures since we're posting via satellite, but hopefully it will give you a taste of what we're up to.

In that spirit: Today the kids woke up at 0630, as usual. Sophie made them breakfast and then had to drive our borrowed car back to our friends' house. In the meantime I have been looking at all the weather websites for the coming week to try to plan our trip. Looks like we'll be OK, with a couple of rainy days at the end of the week. Now we have to do the final preparations on the boat, stow some things away, start the engines to warm them up and head out of our little marina. We'll either head to Tombo Reef for the night (16 nautical miles away), or over to Ile Louen (24 nautical miles), which won't be as nice, but will get us half-way to Ile des Pins, especially with the wind we have today.
Time to cast off...
-maurice