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Christine's Birthday

Kiritina’s 53rd Birthday

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Christine in Mangarevan is “Kiritina” isn’t that pretty?  Whoop, Whoop, Whoop!  We celebrate my birthday on Taravai with locals and cruisers!  We have celebrated Matt’s last two birthdays on Taravai and I was super excited to be here to finally celebrate mine too!  Matt started out my day by taking a photo of the sunrise and leaving me a digital card on the iPad.

Lots of good friends and fun times!  Photo Top: Eve on “Auntie”, Alan and I.  Middle: Daniela “Yelo” and Valerie, Herve, Ariki, Valerie and me. Bottom: Eve “Auntie” Herve and Daniela “Yelo” and me and Eve.

Great friends!

Great friends!

A Feast for All

It was a feast of feasts!  Herve grilled up chicken, fish, and pork ribs.  Guests brought a vegetable lasagna, cous cous, rice, cole slaw, deviled eggs (egg boats), salad, veggies, and more!

Such tasty foods

Such tasty foods

We all over are because we wanted to try all the dishes – but man-o-man we had to waddle away from the table!

Matt & I, Valerie & Alana, Daniela & Valerie

Matt & I, Valerie & Alana, Daniela & Valerie

Lots of drinking….

And of course, Jell-O Shots (they were red which turned everyone’s tongues red)

Beautiful Gifts

Beautiful and generous friends gave me gifts.  Anki and Seavert from “Major Tom” gave me a beautiful shell bracelet, Eve from “Auntie” gave me a gorgeous petrified mammoth bracelet, Daniela and Rolf from “Yelo” gave me birthday chocolate, and Michelle and Rene gave me a few stunning pearls. I am truly blessed for such generous and kind friends!

Lots of Games and Sport

We played a lot of volleyball games. Taravai rules:  any body part works; serve any way as long as it gets over the net; when the ball hits the net, it starts your three touch over; and score said in French.  Always a blast!

Volleyball Competition

Volleyball Competition

And lots of pitonk or bacchi ball.  The winner, tosses the small white ball is tossed into the field, grass, or sand.  Two teams try to get their stainless-steel balls close to the white ball.  You can hit the other team’s balls out of the way, you can hit and move the white ball and you can toss your ball however it works for you.  The team with the closest ball(s) gets a point(s).

Pitonk (Bacchi Ball) at its finest

Pitonk (Bacchi Ball) at its finest

Look at the concentration on all the faces.  Hard to be serious when there has been a wee bit of alcohol consumption.

Pitonk (Bacchi Ball) at its finest

Pitonk (Bacchi Ball) at its finest

Super Sweets

We must not forget about the sweets.  Eve made me a tasty chocolate cake and I brought strawberry cupcakes and dolce de leche ice cream to top off our day!

Birthday cake, cupcakes and icecream

Birthday cake, cupcakes and ice cream

It was a truly beautiful and heart-warming day.  Our friends sang Happy Birthday in 4 languages!  Rene brought out his uke and provided amazing Tahitian music throughout the day.

It drizzled during the party.  However, Valerie said that it was God’s way of blessing me.  And a beautiful rainbow to celebrate the day:

Rainbow across Mangareva

Rainbow across Mangareva

This day made me feel truly blessed to be alive and in French Polynesia surrounded by such love.  A great way to start my 53rd year in this world!

When I finally got back to town where we had 2G internet access I was overwhelmed by all the birthday wishes on my facebook page – thank you so much for the love!

Events from this blog post occurred around January 16, 2021.  Our blog posts run 8 weeks behind our adventures.

Rikitea – Parting is Such a Sweet Sorrow

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We decided to spend a week in Rikitea which is the main anchorage of Mangareva.  Typically, we try to avoid staying in this anchorage for that length of time because it is often crowded with other cruising boats.  However, it is the main island with the only village and we needed to get a few things done like fixing our alternator plate and provisioning.  As a bonus we would have time to spend with our local friends who live in the main village.

The Rikitea anchorage was crowded with over 30 boats.  In addition, we were hit with a maramu (storm) which brought rain, high winds, rolly waves, and cold weather.  But there is always lemonade to be made with those lemons.

Rikitea Rrewards

Rikitea Rewards

We hung out with our local friends Stefan and Manu a lot.  They have baby goats that needed constant feeding and cuddling.  I signed up for that chore.  I dragged Missy and Yanel (HooDoo) along to help out.

Stefan's Baby Goats

Stefan’s Baby Goats

Polynesian Party Sugar Shack

We invited Stefan, Manu, and Popo back onboard Sugar Shack for the weekend.  We had planned on sailing to another island, but bad weather made it a weekend at anchor in Rikitea.  Dada and his two kids came for dinner and brunch the next day but did not stay the night like the others.  Our local friends brought an immense about of food and showed us how to prepare meals Polynesian style.

Tangled and Twisted

One day during our 10-day stay in Rikitea we had a particularly hard blow (gusty winds).  It whipped us around and close to a float.  We watched it and felt that we were far enough away to avoid getting tangled.  However, when we woke the next morning, we discovered the ball wrapped around the chain and the bridle.

We could not do anything about it as the winds were howling and the seas were a large.  We finally get a calm day with no wind and no swell a week later.

Matt starts to pull up the chain only to realize that it is not one float, but many.  In fact, it looks like we hooked the entire pearl float farm!  These shots were taken from the bow looking down.

 

We had to tie a secondary line to raise the chain since the floats were all tangled.  Of course, I got the line all messed up and it over rode onto itself.

Matt hops back in the dinghy to try to figure out this mess.  5 balls, tons of line and everything tethered to a big cement block at the bottom of the 16-meter Riketea anchorage.

After several hours, we finally came to the realization that we could not detangle this mess without getting the hooka or dive gear out.  Our friends on Hoodoo have a dive compressor and offered up one of their dive tanks. 

Diving the Tangled Web

The good news about having to dive this mess in Rikitea is that we get to check out Matt’s dive gear which has not been in use for a awhile.  Matt got all his gear on and went down under.  It took him well over an hour to remove everything including 6 floats, a pear net, half dozen lines in various widths, and 3 pearl floats anchors.  It appears Gambiers did not want us to leave either.

And we are now free to leave Rikitea.

Matt enjoying a morning SUP

Taravai Rest and Recovery

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What a difference an anchorage makes, after 5 nights at sea and having disrupted sleep. We anchored in Baie Onemea in Taravai.  This is where we dropped the hook 10 months ago with our friends on Agape and Halcyon.  There was one other boat here when we arrived, but we were too tired to go somewhere else.  So, we anchored far out of the bay to have a better view of the sunset.

We woke to a beautiful, calm, flat, bay that had a light breeze.  So beautiful and perfect. Taravai is just what we needed after this long passage.

Taravai Mornings

Taravai Mornings

We spent 2.5 days in Baie Onemea.  Mostly catching up on sleep and cleaning.  The boat was a disaster both inside and out.  We had a perfect view of the sunset each night and were surprised to see a very big green flash on our first night.  Of course, we didn’t capture it on camera, but you have to believe me!

Matt captured a few shots of the sunset while I took photos of him.

Sunset Photos Taravai

Sunset Photos Taravai

It looks like Cousin It at the helm, but that is me :0

Cousin It watching the sunset

Cousin It watching the sunset

Taravai Village

On Sunday morning we motored the 5-miles over to the “main village” of Taravai.  I put that in quotes because there are 4 families that live on this island. They have a church and nothing else.  No magasin, post office, cars, or roads.  However, one of the families is super generous!  They host a Sunday Funday each week where they provide the main course and the guests bring the apps, salads, sides, desert, and beverages.  There are games, music and good times.  We celebrated Matt, Rachel, and Becca’s birthday here last May.

On the way over it was impossible to miss the absolute beauty of the island.  It is incredibly lush and green.  Dozens of shades of green can be found covering the hills.  The Gambiers had a particularly wet season so everything is thriving spectacularly.

Taravai Hillside

Taravai Hillside

Taravai is synonymous with Valerie and Herve who live in the main village.  They served up BBQ’d goat which Matt said was amazing.  We met lots of new people and ran into some other cruisers we have not seen since we arrived a year ago.  There are 4 main islands and lots of motus that make up the Gambiers.  At this time, there are only 15 boats in the entire archipelago and 10 of them are at this anchorage for the festivities.  We are early in the season so I am sure more boats will be coming soon. Last year when we arrived, there were 35 boats in the Rikitea anchorage alone!

Several boats left the next day.  By Tuesday, it was just Sugar Shack in front of Valerie and Herve’s place.  Nice, all to ourselves again!  Matt took advantage of the calm days and went on a long SUP ride.

Matt enjoying a morning SUP

Matt enjoying a morning SUP

Taravai was just what we needed after this passage.  It gave us the chance to rest and recover and then to reengage with other cruisers.