June 2007 2007

Hello everyone,

It has certainly happened to you to watch Google Earth to try and see your house... but zooming onto one's boat is another story : you need to know at what date the satellite photo was taken, and where your boat was located at that time. When I zoomed onto the island of Raivavae, where I have spent, in three successive stays, close to five months since may 2006, I noticed that the Google Earth picture had been taken on a day when three yachts were at anchor in the bay at the island's Northwest end, a rare occurrence in this island that's visited by less than 8 boats each year. And I remembered that at that time, I was at anchor in the lagoon, at the island's other end? So I zoomed onto Raivavae's Eastern end, ( 23°50 S, 147°37 W) and voila! , Banana Split, easy to recognize thanks to its two hulls, in an anchorage really lost at the end of the World, and almost in real time!
I remember anchoring my sailboat there to seek shelter from a strong Northwesterly wind due to the passage of a cold front, that made the anchorage in front of the village of Rairua uncomfortable. I had taken advantage of the occasion to attend a mass held for the great ceremonies of ?mé? (held in may each year); I have gone back to see them this year, but in another small church, the one at Vaiuru, and the celebration was also very spectacular, as all the women of all villages each year make a new dress in one of the three colored materials chosen , one for each village; the singing was really unforgettable, I?ll certainly include some of it in one of my next documentaries.

But all this is almost history for, as the climate was getting a bit too cool , at the end of May, over the Austral Islands, we have again headed for the Tuamotus to spend there a few months : the crossing has been perfect, and at the time I write these words, we have made a short stopover on the island of Anaa, usually out of reach because it has no harbor, just a spectacular mooring available when the sea is calm; and we will reach in a few hours Fakarava, one of the largest atolls in the Tuamotus, once the capital of the archipelago, today very quiet, especially in the small islets of its southern part. I will tell you about them next month.
A warm hello to all those who come back often to visit this website and its forum, as well as to those who discover it for the first time.