Polynesia. 3 Days in the Gambier Archipelago. Barely Time to Catch Our Breath, and Back Out into the Ocean Again—for a Thousand Miles

Polynesia. 3 days in the Gambier Archipelago. Barely time to catch our breath, and back out into the ocean again—for a thousand miles. — Andryukha, do anchorages like this really exist? — Like what? — Well, where it feels as though you’re on land. A floating village of sleepy yachts. — They don’t. — Then what’s this? — A mirage. We were as overjoyed to see land as if we’d spent not 3 days at sea, but at least a month. You can barely make out the two greyish humps on the horizon at first. But the captain shouts: — Land! and we race headlong into the cockpit. Probably because we weren’t expecting to arrive until tomorrow, and it’s hard to believe we still have half a day to go before reaching islands that are already in sight. Beside ourselves with joy, we rushed to email our friends from Easter Island and Pitcairn: the Swedish lads from Astrid and the Manaians, the elderly couple from the yacht Manaya, who are waiting for us in the Gambiers. We can see you, guyyyys. We’ll be there in the mooorning! The last day of the passage was surprisingly calm and allowed us to open the hatches. And no Neptune gave us a bath in bed. .. ,,,,,,,, . ,,,,,,,, .. ,,,,,,,,,, .. ,,,,,,,,,, . .. ,,,,,,,, . ,,,,,,,, .. ,,,,,,,,,, .. ,,,,,,,,,, . .. ,,,,,,,, . ,,,,,,,, The check-in paradox, beginning of day three We hadn’t even managed to tell you about our arrival and our reunions with comrades before we were already trumpeting our depar-ture. Three days on the calm waters of the lagoon went on cleaning, repairs, visitors, an outing by sea and land, new acquaintances, and even the internet. Funnily enough, in this first French territory since the Caribbean, we didn’t buy a single French baguette or a morsel of cheese. Apart from 3 ice creams (Magnums) and a kilo of garlic, we bought nothing at all. The purchases cost us 20 dollars. On Sunday, Andrey remembered the cheese, but working on such a day is a sin, so everything was closed. So we didn’t replenish our provisions. Outside the same little shop where we bought the garlic, the free internet welcomes yachtsmen. There’s also a local café here and a wooden jetty. Three posts flew off to Instagram and two to Facebook, and, growing bolder, we even promised to adorn the website with photos. The signal was half-dead by Saturday, and on Sunday we discovered that we’d be heading out into the ocean the next morning. The wind we need will start blowing at dawn, and the captain ordered us to weigh anchor at seven. So if a new post with photographs has somehow appeared on the website after all, it means: one, the first mate sat down at the oars at 4 a.m. and rowed ashore. Two, they don’t switch off the router ashore overnight, and three, they don’t let the dogs out into the yard. Success is possible only if all these conditions coincide. The post did not appear, because rain poured down all night and all day. Given the internet situation, the diary entries worth reading don’t make it online in time. There are bloodcurdling details from Pitcairn here, funny incidents from the passages, and, most importantly, the stories of the people we meet. And there are some real gems among them. We’ve decided to publish them as a separate book. An alternative to Jack London’s South Sea Tales, with pictures. Probably ought to have pictures 🙂 . .. ,,,,,,,, . ,,,,,,,, .. ,,,,,,,,,, .. ,,,,,,,,,, . .. ,,,,,,,, . ,,,,,,,, .. ,,,,,,,,,, .. ,,,,,,,,,, . .. ,,,,,,,, . ,,,,,,,, Meanwhile, we weighed anchor at dawn and are sailing towards the Marquesas Islands, driven by 20, sometimes even 25 knots of wind dead astern—what in Spanish is also called viento en popa. Lady Mary is rolling from side to side; the waves are 2 metres high, but short. Our faces are sometimes gloomy, though not very. The captain spent half the day airing himself in the rain, helping the windvane steer, while we devoted ourselves to reading and cooking. At last we caught a fish and are making stew. While the captain was chopping through the hefty head of the first mahi-mahi, the fishing line screamed furiously. We dropped the sail, the captain put on the fighting belt, but the rod bent into a bow and the line barely wound onto the reel. We never found out what kind of monster we’d hooked, but it was definitely bigger than that marlin the size of the first mate that we couldn’t subdue on the way to Easter Island. This one, of course, sank too. Along with the hook and the tasty little pink silicone squid. In half a day we covered 65 miles. And about 4.5 thousand miles across the Pacific in total (more than 8,500 km). Wow, already. Coordinates: 22.13° S and 134.47° W. The blue arrow on the map—that’s us 🙂