Today we left Nuka Hiva and are headed South West toward Fakarava, one of the many many atolls in the Tuomotus. The last bay was full of boats we have met on our journey: Balu (from Ireland), Ketchup II (from Australia/England), Carina (Washington State), Suwarrow Blue (Holland), Mainly (Florida), Leonidas (from Santa Cruz!), Irene (Finland) and Jubilee (U.S./Columbia). It's nice to be part of a group that knows our names and invites us for nibbles and drinks in the evenings. Although we're from many different countries, different backgrounds and different ways of looking at the world we have a lot in common. We all understand what it's like to lose your autopilot or to have miserable weather. We reminisce about various anchorages we've been through and find out about each other's families. We exchange weather interpretation software and tips about how to down load grib files. We help each other out. For example, Suwarrow Blue brought us 2 dozen eggs and 2 baguettes of bread the other day on their way from a different bay. It saved us an all day trip. We hadn't even officially met them yet but they showed up at our boat with our groceries in hand.
And of course, like all communities, there's gossip. We hear about who has the unseaworthy boat, who is the ungrateful single-hander, who lost their sail overboard on the crossing from the Galapagos, and who took 92 days to sail from Panama to Hiva Oa by himself. It's more wholesome than TV but can cause alliances between groups of boats. Brian and I try to meet each person for ourselves and make our own decisions.
But now we're off and we hope to meet up again with our floating community members in a different bay in a different group of islands.
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