JUNE 2011 2011

Hello everyone,

On March the 3rd, a small embarkation ? under 18 ft. - left the shores of Peru; it was devoid of any engine, sails or even oars (although Anne Quéméré, who was alone on board, had previously been known to do long crossings on oar power ; this time, she had chosen to sail from Peru to French Polynesia, pulled by one of those kites that are more often used to pull kiteboarders across flat lagoons or bays? Her plan was to sail close to 4000 nautical miles across the Pacific Ocean; after less than one month at sea, she suffered various breakdowns, including one of the boat?s steering cables, which she could not repair, several ?wings? (kites) and to make matters worse, 50 days without communication with land, as her sole satellite telephone had also broken down. Yet, her parents and friends succeeded in following her progress westward thanks to the daily position given by her satellite tracker.
On the crossing?s seventeenth day, Anne?s father, on board a sailboat that had left Tahiti, succeeded in reestablishing contact with her, just as the little boat had crossed the finish line in Polynesia, by entering the Tuamotu archipelago close to the atoll of Pukapuka (famous predecessors, the sailors on board the Kon Tiki, had crashed and lost their raft on Raroia atoll, a little farther south.).

It was a short time after she had reached the atoll of Makemo that I was able to meet Anne (whom I had been introduced to in Brest, France, at the beginning of her previous attempt) , and to crown her with tiare flower leis. An extract of the story in Polynesia?s daily newspaper, La Dépêche, can be found (in French) in the News/actualités/Presse page on this website.

We had just returned to Makemo after spending two months in France, discovering again through the airplane?s windows Banana Split safely anchored in its small hoa ( a shallow false pass separating two islets (or motu) of an atoll?s coral barrier. We have stocked up with water, fuel and food, for a few more months in our favorite islets, were we have, for a start, sowed and planted a few papaya trees, as a gift to future visitors, natives or passing sailors.
We send you a little sun from the Tuamotu Archipelago.
Antoine