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“Oh, the Places You’ll Go!” Bachué Explores the South Pacific
Accompanying quotes used in the title and as section headings are from Oh, the Places You’ll Go!by Dr. Seuss, published by Random House in 1990.
by Renée Athey
MY HUSBAND AND I HAVE BEEN ASKED HOW WE PLAN FOR LONG SAILING VOYAGES. It is a difficult question to answer. Tito (FLA) and I definitely do NOT have the same style of going about anything, let alone planning a trip on a sailboat from Florida to the South Pacific and beyond. But somehow, our sojourns all come together.
I can say that our voyage of this year, in 2019, was a long time in formulation—perhaps even decades. From all reports (of a time before I knew him), aside from a wacky captain, Tito’s first passage across the Pacific Ocean as a 20-something crew was the adventure he’d always dreamed about. The weather was warm, the wind was predictable, the sails were set and hardly adjusted for weeks at a time, and French Polynesia was idyllic: full of music and pretty girls. For a long time, he’d wanted to do the trip again, but in his own boat this time. He finally found the perfect boat for the task, and the plan was put into motion while the two of us are still healthy and energetic!
A few years ago, we took this same boat, a dark-blue, 54-foot Hanse named Bachué, to Panama, and extensively explored both the Atlantic and Pacific sides, as we used to do when we were younger. The boat proved to be strong, dry, comfortable, and reasonably quick. We decided that 2019 was the year we could sail Bachué to Panama again and then keep going on the path that so many sailors take, to the South Pacific.
Pacific
Anchorage in Fakarava, Tuamotus
This trip beyond Panama to the Galapagos and French Polynesia was completely new and exciting for me, and coming so many years after his first voyage, almost like a new experience for Tito. We both learned so much.
Tito and I have been at this sailing thing for quite a long time now, and back in 1979 or 1980, when the Panama Canal was still being run by Americans, it cost us a whopping $70 to go through it, which seemed like a lot at the time. We always transited center-lock then, just us behind a huge ship. These days, the transit costs more than $3,000 for a medium-sized vessel, and a boat will almost always be “nested” (translation: rafted) with one or two other boats. A lot more folks are doing this nowadays! The “pilot” of yesteryear is now an “adviser,” so the captain of a vessel really does have the last word. The canal experience is a ballet in motion, and it never gets old for us. Panama itself has so much history, cultural depth, and biological interest. Tito and I were married there, and it feels very familiar.
A third bridge across the Panama Canal, on the north end, will soon bring to an end the unique drive over the very tops of the lock gates between Shelter Bay Marina and Colón. The canal ferry will also cease to be an option. While yacht people at Shelter Bay may applaud the decrease in time to get to Colón for provisioning, the new Atlantic Bridge will most certainly invite development that will have devastating effects on the jungles full of noisy monkeys,
Through the Canal
To the islands
And finally...
I am told that a sailor used to be able to decide on the fly where to drop anchor. That is definitely not the case with the Galapagos Islands anymore and probably for good reason. Our legwork for a visit to the Galapagos, done many months in advance, was trying, to say the least. An agent in the islands had to be hired, his frustratingly inconsistent communication dealt with, a long list of requirements fulfilled, and voluminous documentation produced. The U.S. government shutdown got in the way, a request to expedite got lost, and a voyage to the Galapagos was almost abandoned. Tito and I are so grateful that things finally fell into place!
The mere prospect of arriving in the Galapagos helped propel us through a blustery 1,000-mile voyage from Panama to the south, uncooperative winds being the rule. There was the added bonus of crossing the Equator. Tito and I lingered there briefly in the middle of the night. The next day, the specter of the inspección loomed big. We arrived in San Cristobal on a Friday afternoon on what reportedly was a rather obscure national holiday. Nevertheless, nine officials came by water taxi and climbed onto our boat, each of them wearing a uniform for his or her respective governmental agency, one young lady with fins in hand to inspect the hull for cleanliness. This minor crowd streamed into the cockpit, took their seats, and started firing off questions—from all directions and all at the same time. After what seemed like an eternity: all safe and sound, inspection passed, the hull declared beautiful and clean. We were in!
A giant tortoise at the Charles Darwin Research Station takes a big stretch. Puerto Ayora, Santa Cruz, Galapagos.
“You’ll be seeing great sights!”
The author's son, Mateo, surfs at El Cañon, a mile-long walk from Puerto Baquerizo Moreno, San Cristobal.
The sheer enormity of a Galapagos giant tortoise is only appreciated when standing next to one, peering into its beady eyes, which can only be done in a protected reserve. Likewise, that is where one can marvel at the unexpectedly tiny size at which the tortoises begin. Equally amazing on the island of San Cristobal is the astonishing number of sea lions—an estimated 4,000—that live fearlessly amongst human beings, on the rocks, on the public beaches and docks, and on the park benches. From our anchored boat, we saw them in the harbor, heard them barking and sneezing ashore, and also smelled them, in a fishy sort of way. The island of Isabela has its little penguins and hordes of baby iguanas. Santa Cruz has more of the same, but also tourist boats galore.
Large, noisy groups of sea lions are a common sight on the beaches of San Cristobal, Galapagos
Tito and I felt privileged to sail to three of the many volcanic islands, and even more happy to share it all with our 27-year-old son, Mateo. We got into the frigid waters with Mateo more than once and marveled at the bounty of sharks, fish, and sea turtles in very close proximity. Mateo enjoyed world-class surfing daily in San Cristobal, often with sea lions playing in the glassy waves next to him.
Celebration of native music, Nuku Hiva, Marquesas.
Education is a top priority for the Ecuadorians who make the Galapagos their home, and the children are taught about conservation from an early age. Charles Darwin is famous here, of course, but we learned that despite his theories, he probably enjoyed a bowl of turtle soup as much as his shipmates who hauled live tortoises aboard for their voyage onward. Thank goodness for different sensibilities today! Galapagueños are proud of their treasure, and while carefully orchestrating everincreasing tourist activity, there are sincere efforts to control garbage and to protect this UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Traditional tattoos and ceremonial paddle, Nuku Hiva.
Tito made the 3,500-mile Pacific crossing with a longtime friend and his 25-year-old son. Being out at sea for three weeks is not my idea of fun; I need more sleep than the experience can offer! I monitored the voyage from Florida the best I could, relying on Marine Tracker and periodic satellite phone calls from Bachué. Iridium texts came through the most reliably. Both texts and calls most often involved a request for yet another boat part that I would please shop for and bring when I met them in French Polynesia. Although certainly not a nightmare, Bachué’s crossing was anything but relaxing. In the course of a few days, a white squall blew up some minor rigging, a sleeping whale was nearly hit, and there was a middle-of-the-night encounter with Chinese longline fishermen who were in pursuit in a panga! The crew were reportedly most anxious to arrive on terra firma.
I rejoined Tito and Bachué on the other side of the world, in Nuku Hiva, Marquesas Islands, French Polynesia. This place is like no other. The beautiful, imposing mountains of this island are ever-present, ever-changing with the moving sunlight, always lush and green, and often misty at their heights. An abundance of soft folds of terrain fall away from equally numerous knife edges of high rock—up to 4,000 feet high. The forests are filled with waterfalls, wild horses, goats, pigs, and prehistoric stone carvings. The crowing of roosters seldom ceases. There are breathtaking vistas at every turn, whether on land or sea. There is a handful of bays of various sizes, each boasting mountains that rise dramatically straight up from the undulating waters which seemed to be filled with giant manta rays and turtles. Where there are people, there is music—of the special deep drums covered with cowhide and of the 8- to 14- string Marquesan ukulele. The natives, men and women both, are extensively tattooed: they themselves are works of art. And they are very friendly: “Bonjour, bonjour!” French is the predominant language, which made communication a challenge. Our knowledge of Spanish helped, though!
Dramatic shadows at day’s end in Anaho, on the north side of Nuku Hiva, Marquesas.
Tito and I tarried in Nuku Hiva, especially enjoying the calmest and least-settled anchorages. We actually circumnavigated this hulk of about 135 square miles. Every nautical mile sailed provided new and awesome perspectives of the island’s fins and spires.
I thought about a young Herman Melville as we left Nuku Hiva behind. He jumped his whaling ship here with a friend 160 years ago to escape an unbearable captain and live in a village, Taipivai, alongside a pretty nearby harbor that Tito and I visited. Melville considered his newfound home to be paradise for a while—he even wrote a book about it, Typee—until he developed concerns about whether the locals might be fattening him up to eat him! The idea titillates the imagination.
St. Mark’s Church, Tearavero, Kauehi, Tuamotus. The church is the center of town activity. Its bell rings often, and loudly.
“Do you dare to stay out? Do you dare to go in?”
Tito and I felt some relief in departing the Nuku Hiva bay at Taiohae, but only because of the oft bone-wrenching Pacific surge in the harbor. We looked forward to anchoring in calm waters within a coral atoll in the Tuamotus to the west. The ideal tides for entering any one of the Tuamotus atolls are calculated days out, to allow for the perfect arrival time—in excellent light and slack tide, whether high or low, to ensure safe entry through the pass. It makes for just a bit of anxiety! Stories of close calls in the passes, or of those boats that didn’t make it, abound in sailing circles.
The highlight of our three-day sail from the Marquesas to the Tuamotus was the intersection of our course with the path of a pod of a dozen or so whales. They looked like giant dolphins. They surfaced like submarines, and had undersized dorsal fins. A couple crossed our bow, and the others swam right under the boat. All continued on their way. I learned from some later research that they were most likely Longman’s beaked whales, one of the world’s rarest cetaceans.
The small village in the atoll of Kauehi, dominated by a church, is comprised of only ten families. The locals are very friendly and never pass you by without a greeting, usually a cheery iaorana (“hello/good day”). The local industry is copra, used to make coconut oil. Black pearls were once farmed here, but alas, no longer. From the middle of this large, crystal clear, super-turquoise lagoon, we were surrounded by 360 degrees of coconut palms, four miles or so in every direction. And, unbelievably, we had this very calm anchorage all to ourselves.
The neighboring atoll of Fakarava, including its southern anchorage of Hirifa, is a lot bigger, but equally beautiful. It is a center for black-pearl farming. Many more Air Tahiti flights arrive here on a regular basis, so there are more tourists, and the locals are a bit more aloof. The internet was fairly good in the village, and the connectivity with the outside world was eerily reassuring.
Having safely negotiated all of the atoll passes chosen, the time came for the push toward Tahiti.
Tito and I scooted out of the Tuamotus on a low, outgoing tide, and under sail, keeping an eye on relatively nearby atolls that we passed as the day came to an end. As darkness fell, a fair amount of light emanated from a small atoll to the north called Niau, and at about that same time, a long, flat cloud seemed to lower and conjoin with the village’s glare. Eerily, the image took on the shape of an atomic mushroom cloud, even softly glowing. It brought to mind the rumblings of activism that are taking shape nowadays throughout these Pacific islands, all the way to New Zealand. Folks want to know more about how nuclear testing in this area right up through the 1990s is now affecting their health. Some islands are obviously more affected than others. Scary stuff!
This voyage of 235 miles to Pape’ete, Tahiti, included two overnight sails. The navigation screen told us that the depth is in the vicinity of 14,000 feet! It was difficult to grasp. Tito took that depth number of 14,000 feet and turned it on its head—literally. He thought of Colorado’s “14-er” peaks, and pointed out that it was as if those huge mountains were under us, instead of majestically standing in the distance. It gave us both another unique perspective of the immensity of this ocean and this planet.
There can hardly be a darker sky than in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, and there are a trillion stars up there. We followed the Southern Cross every night. The Big Dipper was upside-down, and Orion was turned on his head. And the Milky Way stretched from horizon to horizon! We felt lucky to have weather that was good enough to enjoy all of this with each of our passages.
Other than a pair of Bryde’s whales in the Galapagos and our Polynesian pod, we had thus far been distracted while sailing by only a few flying fish and a handful of seabirds. Besides the stars, I was entertained while on watch in the wee hours by the phosphorescence that streamed from behind the boat as we trucked along at seven or eight knots. There were myriad tiny bright “Tinkerbells” on both sides of our wake, and the wake itself sometimes produced very large globs of brightness that made my head turn.
Sunset near a black pearl shop in the village of Rotoava, Fakarava, Tuamotus.
Marina Taina, one of Pape’ete's sprawling, crowded marinas and mooring field
Tito and I learned about the ARGO (Array for Real-Time Geostrophic Oceanography) Project on this trip. Identifiers— little diamonds with a letter C within—frequently popped up on the electronic chart as we approached some kind of object, sometimes closely. There were a lot of them! We did not know what they were when we were passing them and wondered about maybe even hitting them, but later we learned that there are roughly 3,000 ARGO devices out there, producing 100,000 temperature/salinity profiles per year. The floats descend as deep as 2,000 meters. These cylindrical, battery-operated data collectors, each with a latitude and longitude location, apparently are supported by different countries, and transmit their data to satellites when they rise close enough to the surface of the sea. We wondered if each ARGO also recorded that we sailed nearby!
“Ready for anything under the sky.”
During our sail west toward Tahiti, I became alarmed when I sighted land long before I expected it. My “land ho!” was met with surprise from Tito, too. We were seeing the peaks of Tahiti from 75 miles away, just after the sun had set. A double-check of all navigational aids confirmed that all was on course, all was safe, and that the highest peak on Tahiti stretches 7,500 feet. No wonder we could see it from so far out at sea!
Tahiti was probably Tito’s biggest surprise in his return to the South Pacific. Pape’ete initially reminded me of Miami in many ways. It’s tropical. It’s partly cloudy. It’s hot! The waterways are filled with many fast-moving power boats, including jet skis. The marinas along the palm-fringed waterfront are quite large and are replete with sailboats of all shapes and sizes, including many super yachts. One marina alone owns 150 moorings between the reef and the channel, and every mooring is occupied or reserved into 2020. A very chic, welllighted, well-stocked Carrefour supermarket was filled with shoppers in bright, flowery clothing, each of the women with a flower tucked in behind one ear, the men tattooed. The place had a local feel, with its soundtrack of French and Tahitian, and I unexpectedly thought of a Super Publix in Miami where everybody would be speaking Spanish. The traffic on this town’s main road moves fast, too—Pape’ete’s very own U.S. Route 1. This is not what Tito remembered, nor what I expected.
But then there are those soaring mountains, and the hundreds of sleek outrigger canoes that filled the lagoons on the morning that we negotiated our entry to Pape’ete—confirming the fact that we definitely are not in Miami. There are as many rowing clubs along the waterfront as there are sailboat marinas. A muscular, tattooed Polynesian in a single-person outrigger canoe is a powerful sight to see, but six muscular Polynesians in one boat, all paddling fiercely in synchrony? Exponential!
Tito and I felt lucky to get a slip for Bachué on the outskirts of Pape’ete. We had to Med-moor there without a gang plank ready to go, but that task just got shoved to the top of the everpresent list of things to do. Resolved in a day! Being near the “big city” enabled us to correct two other nagging issues that were hanging over our heads: 1) stainless-steel anchor chain that had developed “crevice corrosion” just about in the middle of the length (totally replaced, immediately), and 2) the long-stay visa for French Polynesia that we thought we had in place and needed to have to return next year to the boat (required much more time and diligence, but eventually resolved). Tito and I are now official temporary residents of French Polynesia, and the owners of new galvanized anchor chain!
Bachué will spend her next months alone in a hurricane hole in Tahiti, with intermittent checks by a fellow sailor who will stay on through cyclone season. The Great Spirit willing, Tito and I will both be back on the boat in 2020, seeing a bit more of Tahiti together, and looking forward to the new adventures that the islands beyond Tahiti will bring. Moorea and Bora Bora beckon, as do places with other exotic names like Huahine, Ra’iatea, Taha’a, Niue, Tonga, and Fiji. A sailing plan will develop, as it always does, depending on time, weather, desire, and more. Options abound! ✧
Photo by Sky Smith.
About the Author
Renée Athey and her husband, Tito Vargas (FLA), met and lived in Cartagena, Colombia, where Renée was a Peace Corps volunteer. In the early days, they sailed the southwestern corner of the Caribbean and the Mediterranean, then relocated to St. Petersburg, Florida, where Renée’s family lived and where she had a brief stint as a sailmaker, followed by a career in education. Renée and Tito spent many years racing sailboats on Tampa Bay and in the Gulf of Mexico. They brought up their son, Mateo, in the youth sailing program, volunteering and traveling with him around the world to compete in regattas. They cruised as a family in Florida, the Bahamas, and Mexico. Renée and Tito’s longtime connection with Panama was renewed more recently with a couple of years of “commuter cruising” on both the Pacific and Atlantic coasts of the country. Renée always finds herself with more than enough material for her writing and photography.
Wherever they sail, Renée and Tito regularly return home to Florida and do their best to fit in time to ski in Colorado. Bachué, a 54-foot Hanse built in 2009, has been a dry and comfortable home away from home for the past decade of adventure on the high seas. They are pictured here with their son Mateo in San Cristobal, Galapagos.
