May 2002

Hello everyone,

If you had a chance to visit our website in the recent weeks, you know what has been my occupation during the month of April : crossing solo the eastern Pacific, from the Galapagos to French Polynesia : it was the fourth time in 25 years I did this crossing, but it' s always a bit frightening to know that after a few days there will be no turning pack, the only way out will be to complete the crossing : in fact, if you consider a sailboat sailing around the world along the trade winds route, it's the longest crossing without any stop possible : this part of the ocean is totally deserted.
The crossing was practically perfect, about 3 days of motoring in search of the trades, then two weeks of perfect sailing weather, blue skies, very few squalls, wonderful days with plenty of time to live and dream ; the last two days have been a little more complicated, as a squall ripped off a part of my mainsail and the weather forecast made me imagine some bad weather that didn't eventually materialize and after 21days at sea, I reached the wonderful island of Mangareva, in the Gambier islands, French Polynesia, a perfect image of Yesteryear's Polynesia.

Not much has changed in 25 years, about a thousand happy Polynesians still leave peacefully among trees and flowers, at the foot of surprising churches built in the 19th century under the command of Père Laval, a catholic priest who succceeded in converting the whole population of the island in less than one month ; later, Père Laval had to leave the islands because traders and whalers came in conflict with him, and accused him of behaving like a dictator, causing the death of many locals... it was certainly partly true, but the same story more or less happened in the whole Pacific, when unheard of illnesses brought by western ships caused the death of the largest part of many island's population.