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The master piece!

Polynesian Sand Art

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My beautiful and very talented friend, Valerie, created a sand art masterpiece for us.  She is a self-taught artist well-known all-over French Polynesia.  She sells and sends her art to the States, Canada, France and Tahiti.  It will be very difficult to showcase her creations as you just can’t appreciate the intricacy without seeing it in person.  But I will endeavor to try for you.

Valerie uses local, natural sand and soil for all of her work.  First, she considers her customer and creates a story for them.  This story is then conveyed using Polynesian symbols and designs.  The second step starts with outlining the story on graph paper.  The third step is artfully and carefully gluing the particles of sand and soil into place.  Yep, you read that right.  She applies hundreds of thousands of particles of sand and soil individually to create her sand art.

Breaking down the artwork by sections…

The Fairytale of My Life

The 1 represents Matt.  He is the man, solid.  He gave and continues to give force and protection to his wife, Christine.  The 2 represents, Christine.  She passed from life to death and from death to life.  Matt (3) and Christine, as the wind comes from the North (4), travel across the ocean (5).  With their love and passion (6)., they take care of each other and their home (7).  Generously (8) giving.  Christine, you are a beautiful woman (9) and Matt is your hero (20).  Like the bird, you always take flight (11) to other islands and countries.

Starting at lower right corner.

  1. Arm/Leg “Puha tahi” (bend with two matching ends) = Matt. Force, solid, protection
  2. Marquesan Cross “Peka ‘enana” (above arm, square) = Christine. Transformation, cycle of eternity, from life to death and death to life.
  3. Man “Vahana” = Matt. The husband.  Woman = Christine. The wife.  (stacked man with woman above)
  4. Cohort of the Tiu God “Pi’I ia o Tiu” (design looks like X’s with dots on top). Wind from the North.  Those that go beyond the sea
  5. Sea “Tai” (waves over arch). To Travel.
  6. Love “Hinena’o” (looks like checkerboard under the waves). Love passionately. My lovely wide.
  7. Woven material “’A ‘aka ha’a” (zig zag with lines under love). Made with Pandanus Odoratissimus leaves.  Woven together for life.  Home, family, take care of each other.
  8. Arm (armpit) “Ka’ake” (bottom center, below bird and shooting up to the left of the arm/leg #1) force of generosity, gift of love, cherishment.
  9. Woman’s belly “hope vehnine” (two images, left of Marquesan cross). Femininity, beauty.
  10. Manta Ray “Haha’ua” (center). Men’s protector animal and wisdom.
Sand Art Story

Sand Art Story

Continuing the Journey

You are always read to listen and understand others (12).  The ancestor’s spirit protects you (13) and also the good luck spirit gives you power (14).   You’ve got courage to brave (15) the ocean even when it’s raining, windy, and stormy.

  1. Bird “Manu” (bottom. Semi-circle) Taking flight, soul’s journey
  2. Ear “Pua’ika” (left of bird, looks like surfer’s “s”) always ready to listen, understanding
  3. Sacred Divinity “Etua po’o’u” (below bird and ear). A protector or ancestor’s spirit.
  4. Glinting / Gleaming look “Mata Hoata” (type of tiki. To the left of Sacred Divinity) Good luck spirit which gives power. Awaken to the world.
  5. Ornament for the calf “Poe vae” (Two stripes from Sacred Divinity to flower. Hourglass design) Represents courage and bravery.
Sand Art Story

Sand Art Story

The Guiding Star

The compass (16) is your star who guides you across the ocean.  Success (18) in all your life, trip, and love.  As the turtle (17), you always return to the sea (19).  For our continued journey to see and meet other worlds and new friends.

Compass and Turtle

Compass and Turtle

I zoomed in on a small portion of the photo with the hopes that you can see the sand particles.  There are dozens of colors of sand in this small corner alone.

This is a photo of the sand art as a work in progress…she has drawn it out and is working on adhering the sand.

Work in progress

Work in progress

And the final masterpiece of sand art….

The master piece!

The master piece!

Me and Valerie, the artist extraordinaire!

Valerie and I with my Sand Art

Valerie and I with my Sand Art

It takes Valerie between 3-4 weeks to complete one sand art creation.  She inspires me and leaves me speechless with her talent!

Events from this blog post occurred during the end of March.  Our blog posts run 8 weeks behind our adventures.

Easter Celebration

Easter Celebrations in Gambier

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We celebrate Easter Polynesian style in Gambier.  I join my friend Poerani (the English teacher in Gambier) at St. Michael’s church.  Several days before Easter we peek in the church and see them creating magnificent floral arrangements.

Easter floral arrangements

Easter floral arrangements

They are both beautiful look at and smell amazing.  The kind of smell you want to roll around in!  The church always leaves the windows and doors open.  However, it is always super duper hot once the population fill the pews.  I decided to sit near the side door so I can get a breeze and escape if I get too hot.  Lucky for me it was not a particularly roasting day and there was a decent breeze.

Easter services at St. Michael’s church meant that the entire church was decked out.  Flowers on the pews and the vestibule covered in a pretty pale yellow.

Easter at St. Michael's Church

Easter at St. Michael’s Church

They had about 20-25 people singing and several others on instruments.  The songs were in both French and Mangarevan which did not help me at all.  A large screen displayed the words but by the time I figured out how to say one word, they were twenty words down the road.  But I enjoyed it none the less.

I had to use my imagination a lot and did my best to remember Easter services back in the states.  With everything in French there were few words I understood.  But it felt good to participate.

Afterwards, Matt met us for Easter lunch at Poerani’s house.  She went crazy with lunch.  She served a huge leg of lamb, rice and corn, and a gratin plantains.  After two bottles of wine and lots of food we waddled back to the boat.

A truly wonderful Easter celebration

Events from this blog took place on 4 April 2021.  Yes, we are very behind on our blog postings because the internet is 2G in Gambier. At least they are coming out 🙂 

Rainbow across Mangareva

A Community Coming Together

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A nightmare = getting injured in remote places.  A blessing = a community coming together.  Do you remember how the United States pulled together and stood as “one” a truly “united” country after 911?  Where you were proud to help your neighbor and proud to be an American?  I had that same feeling again (on a much smaller scale) with our local community here in Gambier.

Several boats were anchored near a small uninhabited motu called Tauna (pronounced Towna) which is about 7-8 miles from the main village of Rikitea.  It takes a sail boat about 2-2.5 hours to get from Tauna to Rikitea. 

A father of two girls was up early to foil board (kite boarding on a foil).  He fell near his boat and was stung by a jelly fish.  The father, now patient, had a severe allergic reaction.  His friends brought him on his sail boat where he was ferociously vomiting and in extreme pain.

Sugar Shack was located in Rikitea.  We first heard about the incident on our hand-held VHF radio.  However, we only heard bits of the conversation because our handheld was not strong enough to receive the transmission.  We turning on the ship VHF because it has a larger antenna and we could hear better.  Not expecting to be able to do anything – just being curiously nosey.

The Help

Eve from “Auntie” was visiting us on Sugar Shack during this time which was around 0830.  Nathan, a 14-year old boy on a neighboring yacht in Tauna, hailed us on the VHF (thank goodness we switched to the ship VHF). He asked if the physician was in at the clinic.  Their plan was to bring the patient to Rikitea on their sail boat, which would take 2-2.5 hours.  That’s a long time to be in severe pain.  As I am communicating with them, Eve flags down a panga with 75hp outboard (super-fast).  The men on the panga are part of the pearl farm community, we did not know them.

We were able to communicate the medical emergency using broken French.  The panga had a dozen empty water jugs and a cooler in their panga.  These items had to be removed and were quickly unloaded onto Sugar Shack. Matt jumped in with them to take them to take them to the patient at Tauna.  The plan was to load the patient and bring him back to Rikitea in the panga.  The panga can make this route in 15-minutes vs the 2-2.5 hours in a sail boat.  Of course, this is in the midst of a rain storm and the arrival of the supply ship.  But our community did not waiver. 

With Matt on the way to the patient, I convey to Nathan (who is on a boat near the patient’s boat), that they should not head this way in their sail boat.  I told him that a panga was on the way and will transport the patient and his family to the hospital.

Community

The community jumps into action.  I call my friend Stephan (local) and ask him to help me secure to take the patient from the dock to the hospital.  He calls his friend at the gendarmerie (local police) and tells me they are on standby to help.

Another cruiser went to the hospital to tell the doctor a patient with a severe allergic reaction to a jelly fish sting was coming in and to be on standby.

And yet another cruiser went to the dock to wait for the panga to arrive to help load the patient into the vehicle.

In the meantime, it is still raining, the dock is getting more and more crowded in anticipation of the supply ship and we have no way to reach the panga to tell them we made transport arrangements on shore.

The VHF and the SSB are constantly in use as Sugar Shack becomes the central hub for all communications.  We end up using the SSB radio to communicate with the boats in Tauna and use the VHF to communicate with shore.  The community was calling me on three different VHF channels and the SSB trying to solidify arrangements.

About an 45 minutes after they left, I see the panga on the horizon and call everyone into action.  It worked seamlessly.  The transport and gendarmerie met them at the dock and rushed him to the waiting physician who was able to treat him and get him stable.  He was released and feeling much better within 5 hours.

What Happened?

Once the patient was onboard his boat, he would not stop vomiting.  He was in extreme pain.  The patient’s wet clothes were removed just before the panga arrived.  He was laying on the floor of his boat as they helped change him.  This caused tremendous pain and his breathing became labored. His breathing was so bad that he almost stopped breathing.  They gave him an epi pen injection which helped tremendously.

As the patient and his family were coming to Rikitea, one of his friend’s was hanging his swim trunks.  He found a 3’-4’ barb / tentacle inside the patient’s shorts.  They called me to tell the physician and family.  Yikes!

The Outcome

The patient had massive welts all across his belly.  The same panga brought him back to his boat and he was resting by evening. 

The rain finally stopped and the community was able to retrieve packages, water, propane, and fuel from the supply ship with no delay.

The local community and the sailing community reacted quickly, efficiently, and professionally.  It was one team coming together to provide aid and care for this human.  It was so fulfilling to be a part of this community.

I did not have an opportunity to whip out my phone to take any photos which is why there are none for this blog.  Imagine that?

Events from this blog post occurred on 9 February 2021.  Our blog posts run 8 weeks behind our adventures.