September 2016

Hello everyone,

I have often said that my biggest disappointment, since 1969, has been that space travel has not progressed, and that we are not able, ourselve, to even make a tourist orbital flight. Failing to navigate through distant galaxies, we chose to do through landscapes that seem the most alien, like the Tuamotu?s lagoons. Nevertheless, Banana Split dreams in secret of incursions into hyperspace, why not to Alpha Centauri, which is, after all, only 4 light-years away from Earth. And the other night, it was delighted that Francette and I dedicated our efforts to succeed in taking a picture of it under the kind of starry sky which can only be found in deserts or in these lagoons. The result could be improved, but here is the fruit of our efforts; for the record, we had to land on the beach in the deep of a moonless night, avoiding crushing crabs and hermit crabs that pace it night, to set the camera on a tripod with a 30 second exposure, while weakly illuminating the boat by means of a small flashlight.

FYI, here is also a photo of the same place under the sun. Probably one of our quietest anchoring spots, which wins it the name of anchorage number 3. These two months have passed just like a few days, in the heart of the Tuamotus, almost without meeting anyone. Just a picturesque appointment made by e-mail with a journalist from France?s leading daily newspaper, Aurélie Sfez, who flew all the way from Paris to write a sympathetic portrait. We took her on a a quick tour of some of our favorite parts of Fakarava, she was amazed at the 40 shades of blue of the lagoon and the colors of coral, which showed signs of revival despite the warming trend; she was also worried at the numerous shark that teem in famous Tetamanu pass.

It?s hard to tell you the wealth of the hours and weeks we spen in these spots that coincide absolutely, totally, with what makes us dream. We will return, but for now, Francette has flown back to France for various obligations, I'll immerse myself in the maintenance of the boat and prepare for my own return to France in early October for the simultaneous release of our new ohoto album dedicated to Polynesia and a DVD set brings together our most recent films about the Caribbean, Polynesia and the Indian Ocean islands (the three destinations that figured on our very first VHS set, "Once upon an islands ...", 23 years ago), and our end-of-the-year tour of conferences o with Connaissance du Monde, and yet, a brief stint at the Paris Boat show).