February 2009

Hello everyone,

I was telling you last month that at the beginning of January, Raivavae empties of its inhabitants, who all go to bivouac on the surrounding low islets... The suddenness of the thing has been extraordinary: on Monday morning, we saw dozens of long boats or motor boats come in, they landed huge families, who set tents, tarpaulins, fitted power generators that brightened the horizon, which remains black all the other nights of the year; it lasted exactly five days; on the following Saturday, quite as suddenly, everything was packed up, everyone returned to the main island... talk about short holidays! It is true that the inhabitants of Raivavae would not, for all the tea in China, miss Sunday's mass : here, they all belong to the same flavor of protestant cult, that remains very powerful on the island, and is characterized by very frequent ceremonies, during which all the women have a new dress made, each time from a material common to the whole village, and sing endlessly insistent hymns whose polyphony is breathtaking

Then peace has returned on our favorite anchoring spots, and we have resumed our calm days, working at the editing of our next videos and at the new edition of one of my books; an engine breakdown has compelled me to spend a day or two at the bottom of the engine room, the sweet pleasures of getting one's hands dirty!

As I could not fix the matter by myself, we sailed to the nearby island of Tubuai (where the Bounty mutineers tried in vain to settle down before heading for Pitcairn island), a twenty hour cruise away; a sympathetic mechanic tried to tackle the problem, but the anchorage at Tubuai was so rolly that the poor guy was paralyzed by seasickness and endlessly threw his breakfast back to the fish, until I managed to move Banana Split into much quieter Tavana bay. We also took advantage of the cruise to fill up in Tubuai's small supermarket, a commodity that doesn't exist in Raivavae, and also to stock up with fresh fruit and vegetable that grow in abundance on the island; the return trip was excellent, and here we are back in the magnificent bay delimitated by long Haamu islet. We have quite a lot of work to do, but the setting is so wonderful? I won?t describe it too much to you!

I send you some of Raivavae's sun, next month I will tell you about my plan to record again one of my songs dedicated to the protection of the sea, ?Touchez pas à la mer " "Do not touch the sea ".
Greetings
Antoine