Day 1

The day starts with a quick trip to the market for the last-minute fruits and vegetables and gratuit good-bye mosquito bites.  The shower mesh bags end up working well for this project.

All four of us wedge ourselves into the non-American-size Pierre’s car and head to the immigration office at the airport. We wait, and we wait, and we wait. The immigration officer must email some document to the Port of Papeete to clear us for departure and then get it emailed back. Arnaud warns us that an email here can take up to an hour to reach the destination. Turns out he is not joking. I ask if it would be faster just to drive there and back with this paper. So, we wait some more. Now it is 11 am and …. lunch time. All the officers leave for lunch. The French way. And we wait again. Turns out they have finally received the email but could not open the attachment.

We hop back in the car and head to the Port of Papeete. Pierre runs into his instructor from the captain licensing school and this impressive, big guy is exactly the person running the whole Port Authority and gets our departure papers in order in 30 seconds and chats with Pierre for another half-hour.

Nikki, the energetic yacht broker from Sail Tahiti meets us on the street and Jim gets to sign his final papers on the hood of the car in the street. Can’t get more efficient than that.

We stuff ourselves with the last real meal on shore at La Retro before motoring to the fuel dock in the Taina marina again but with the right paper this time for the tax – free fuel which is substantial savings.  Woohoo, the adventure is starting to shape up. The guys are filling diesel into bottomless tanks, fuel bladders, and portable containers. Enough diesel to motor all the way to Hawaii in case we get no wind.

 It is so hot, we can’t wait to get into the open ocean just for some breeze. We hastily rinse the boat, snap the only picture of the whole crew together and depart.

Pierre goes over the (safety) instructions:

1. No peeing overboard at night on your watch, he prefers we go and use the toilets.  And that means no peeing into the dinghy. By accident.
2. There is only one captain on board. Oui, monsieur!
3. You are responsible for waking up and showing up for your watch shift ready to go. If the captain finds you sleeping on your watch, he will lose it. Big time!

 A piece of cake. Even a caveman can do it. Well, errr, even I can do it. I am still the enthusiastic beginner. And not too inconvenienced by the rule #1.

As we motor carefully through the reef, we pass the beautiful Moorea island on the port side. I snap some more photos and a strange feeling starts sneaking in as the islands get smaller and smaller behind us. Wait, shouldn’t we be sailing into the sunset, just like on our previous trip? This time we are sailing into the unknown and the vastness of the ocean lying ahead of us is truly intimidating. I can finally put a finger on this feeling – intimidation, with a hint of fear after realizing that there is no way back.  The best way to tame that gremlin – keep yourself busy. As a rookie sailor who does not know what else to do, I jump into cooking an early dinner.

Besides giving us some promising winds from the very beginning and some strong Tahitian paddlers to ride our wake, the Tangaroa god sends some odd refractory swells, waves, and wind patterns as well, coming from both islands. I’m about to find out that it is far cry from a blessing from gods.

A hint of nausea is creeping in and I ask Jim to place a Scopolamine patch behind my ear. I am all ready to conquer the Pacific! The guys hoist the mainsail which starts the boat seriously moving. Unfortunately, it is not a smooth ride. I must run out of the galley for some fresh air every occasion I get.  By the time I am done cooking the eggplant-chicken-rice dinner, I am so seasick, I can’t even smell the food. Later I manage to eat two baby bananas and quickly regret that.

I brush my teeth and without any warning the tiny sink gets full of not so tiny banana pieces. They look perfectly good, not digested at all. There is nothing left but to scoop them out with my bare hands and transfer them to the toilet. I hate wasting food. That’s my Lithuanian upbringing. All this action causes Jim to gag behind me, but he is holding up (holding in?) well. I am starting to reconsider my new hobby of sailing.

The other day while I was getting dressed, I wondered “if it will be too hot or I will run out of clothes” (like it is possible). I ask Jim, “if push comes to shove, is walking around the crew in shorts and a bra acceptable?” Jim is hemming and hawing and finally replies “nah, that white bra kinda doesn’t look sexy”, thinking I might be embarrassed to be seen in it. I tell Jim that my goal is precisely not to send sex appeal messages to three guys on the boat for a few weeks.  He agrees it is a good choice in that case.

After thoroughly cleaning my upper GI tract multiple times within the first 12 hours of sailing, I am laying on the settee like a lifeless jellyfish in tropical pajamas. When I had morning sickness a few decades ago, the only food I could keep in my stomach while studying for the Oral Surgery exam, was grapefruit. This time, the uncooperative pamplemousse squirts juice then falls apart, ending up all over my pj top and drying out in chunks. Not-looking-sexy mission accomplished in a record time! I still consider it success however, as it is my first successful meal during the crossing.

Lesson learned today: The Scopolamine patch does not have a placebo effect if you place it the wrong side up.