May 2018

Sirens, mullet fish and kisses

Mournful sirens linger on the anchorage, while a large white catamaran named Planet Ocean moves away from Pakokota's small "service anchorage", halfway up Fakarava atoll; it is a family that leaves for Raiatea, in the Leeward Islands, only two or three days sailing awy, but the distance is immense for the children on the sailboats remaining at Tuamotu, and who had time to bond links of friendship with the children on Planet Ocean. So they took out the foghorns, to greet the departure of their friends.

Mariners have got ?family fiber? these days, and parents often look for boats with children of age comparable to those of their own children, to sail for a few days, a few weeks, and discover together the joys of stopovers.
As far as I?m concerned, my three children have a big advantage over many others ;-) They are around thirty (no, not in number, or I was not advised, but in years). And I'm delighted when their extremely passionate lives (Manea, a video games designer in Montreal, Teiki a cybersecurity consultant in Paris and Vaimiti a cook in top restaurants around the world), when their extremely passionate (and exciting) lives leave them time to sail a few days or weeks on Banana Split, as was the case for Vaimiti and his companion returning from New Zealand two years ago.


The day I left Hao Atoll, a teacher welcomed his wife, and as he is very popular the whole island crowned her! The crossing was very calm, with some moments of total calm. On arrival in Fakarava, Saté, the fisherman of the island, had just fished a dozen large mahi-mahi (dolphin fish), which seemed to interest the nurse shark that sleeps in front of his house.

At the moment, for me, it is studious solitude, since I work on the texts of the new photo album in the series "Escales" (Stopovers), dedicated to the Caribbean; as usual most photos have been taken by Francette and me over our many trips and shootings in the region concerned, but the Internet now allows us to complete our choice with some very beautiful pictures selected in online databases: but that requires a good Internet connection, which is not really the case in the Tuamotu, until the arrival of a cable that is desired. So I?m taking aplane to Papeete for a few days of selection work, and I will take the opportunity to have a tooth refilled, the sealing of which is the trunk; and to see Vaimiti and his friend Stephane, who have just finished a seasonal commitment in a 2-star restaurant in Courchevel, the K2. they are brimming with projects for the coming seasons.

I spent the first part of the month in my absolutely preferred anchorage, with no other visit than that of seabirds and turtles. And dozens of baby mullet fish that swam around me, opening their mouth regularly, seeming to blow kisses .. cutyer than those of Macron and Trump!
Kisses for May!

Antoine