Arrival in Civilization
Harmonie
Don and Anne Myers
Tue 29 Apr 2008 06:38
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17:32.404S 149:34.247W
We arrived in Papeete, Tahiti today (Monday) at 9am
after what we would like to claim was a nice, calm, relaxing sail.
Not.
At about 4pm yesterday afternoon, we were sailing
along nicely when the wind started to shift rather wildly. The sky to the
south turned ugly. Really ugly. The worst we have seen since
starting the rally is a few squalls here and there. Squalls aren't bad
because they are small, you can usually see where they start and where they
end, and they blow through fairly quickly. This thing building in the
southern sky yesterday was a monster, it spanned the entire southern horizon and
seemed to be moving slowly against the wind toward us, as well as Cleone,
Viva and Wizard - all of which were sailing within fifteen miles of
us. This storm was not part of any forecast and our barometer did not
indicate anything was amiss atmospherically. Even though we could see it
was much larger than a typical squall, we still thought it would
blow through fairly quickly and without much force, so we turned north in
an attempt to get a better angle on the wind and possibly escape the worst
of the storm.
The sun was setting as the wind started to
build. Ten knots, fifteen, twenty, twenty-five, thirty, thirty-five,
gusting to forty - all in a matter of minutes. Definitely not your typical
tropical squall. We scrambled big time to bring all but a scrap of the
head and mizzen sails in as fast as possible. The wind howled, gusted,
threw the sea into a boiling mess and tossed us around a bit. Lines were
banging on the mast, the tiny pieces of sail we had out shivered
loudly under the pressure of the wind gusts and the sun cover we didn't have
time to put away vibrated like crazy adding to the general bedlam.
Night descended. It was pitch black, the wind was howling as it gusted,
the sun cover rattling, the sails and lines groaning, the boat moving vigorously
as it pounded through some waves and was pushed side-to-side by others. We
both sat, hanging on, but not white knuckled, in the cockpit staring into the
black ahead of us. Lightening flashed, the boat moved - up, down, side,
side, repeat. Five o'clock slid by, six, seven - up, down, side, side,
repeat. At that point, those sea legs I've been bragging about completely
abandoned me and I became a totally useless crew member with my
head hanging over the lee rail. Soon after that I went to bed and didn't
get up until ten when the storm was over and things had calmed down.
Captain Don, on the other hand, kept his set of sea legs completely intact,
sat at the helm throughout the five hours it took for the storm to
finally blow through and suffered through one of the worst meals I've ever
provided - luke warm 'Mexican surprise' served in the mixing bowl with a
couple of tortillas thrown on top for fun with a fork. Yum,
yum.
The storm finished its business, the rain set in,
the wind died and we were motoring again through stirred up waters by ten
o'clock. The three other boats were fine as well. No one suffered
any damage and all four of us gained a story to tell. The storm was nasty,
but mostly because we've been spoiled by incredibly good weather since we
arrived in the Caribbean five months ago. When compared to the night of
the flying pears that occurred on our way from Norfolk to St. Thomas, last
night's storm was not nearly as exhausting as it was much shorter and the
waves did not have time to build to more frightening heights. Although, at
least we were expecting the night of the flying pears because it had been
forecasted (not the flying pears part, but the high winds) and we were prepared
for it.
This morning on the way in to Papeete, we laughed
because we both felt like we were re-entering civilization. Who would have
thought that we would consider Tahiti civilization? It is though, Papeete
is a real, live city with a busy highway and shops and restaurants and people
that walk around fast and, what's this? work. The first thing we did is
walk to a restaurant and order giant cheeseburgers and fries. We're sure
our French waitress was disgusted with our Americanism. Can't help it
though, we've been craving a cheeseburger for months. It was excellent and
so were the fries. We had a toast to electric motors. If
it weren't for the five electric motors that power the furling and
unfurling of our sails, we would not have been able to reduce sail so fast
when the storm hit us harder than we were expecting. So, here's to
electric motors and civilization.
Anne
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