YOUNG SALTS ACROSS THE PACIFIC —

Throughoutmy six-month journey through the South Pacific, there was only one thing that remained constant: With each new person aboard the boat came some unpredictable and unique qualities that made the sailing experience that much more special. Often, the most interesting of plans came from the minds of the younger crew; the kids who had never sailed, lived on a boat, or in some cases had not spent much time on the ocean at all.

In mid-June, we were heading over to the south pass of Fakarava to an anchorage adored by many sailors looking to dive with sharks and head southwest to the Society Islands. It was a beautifully clear sunset evening, and our crew of nine at the time sat around for "sundowners," cocktails at sunset at the stern of SV Nogal. The sky was bright, blood-orange and pink, and the water rested calmly around us despite the busy depths below brimming with life.

It had been a few weeks now into my life aboard the boat, and I began to adopt boat mentality — always alert to sounds, surroundings, and most importantly, squalls. That night, I noticed there was this Finnish monohull off our starboard side that seemed just a tad closer to us than I remembered. The wind started to shift directions, and we began to rotate, entering the realm of anything possible. A classic conundrum and one that would surface time and time again.

I had checked the anchor earlier that day, after setting up the threebuoy rigging system where we attached three buoys to the chain about four to five meters from each other to keep the chain from snagging on coral. The buoys became a routine procedure, given the field of coral landmines that we encountered at many anchorages.

Even with the buoys, I knew something was up, so I decided to grab a snorkel and dive down the length of the chain. I found that our chain had wrapped around two separate rocks, creating a chain triangle; a straight line of chain extended from the boat to the first coral head, a right angle was made from the chain that stretched to the second coral head, and the hypotenuse was created by the chain that went from the second rock back to the boat.

Acouple of weeks later, some other kid got to experience that same feeling.

It was a hot, "busy," and exciting scene at la station-service, the community's gas station/convenience store that operates as one of two grocery stores on the entire island of Fakarava. In remote paradise there isn't really any other context that exists that could be used to understand how we had made such a massive mistake that day: contaminating the water tank with diesel fuel. In our defense, the silver screwable plates where both diesel and water go look identical, other than, of course, the big writing that says "WATER" and "DIESEL." Duh. (For the record, this wasn't the kids' fault…)

Swimming below the net at the bow, I alerted the crew, and soon my two brothers jumped in to help. One brother steered the getaway car, the dinghy, to ensure I could move quickly out of the way once directing the boat where to move. I instructed the crew aboard Nogal to move according to how my other brother was doing with unraveling the chain some five meters below us.

It wasn't the cleanest process, and a few friendly reef sharks swam curiously to assess our work, but we managed to free ourselves and resecure the anchor.

Once back on the boat, the three of us stood dripping wet, high-fiving each other in the cabin among everyone curious to understand what we'd seen while we attempted to paint an accurate image. There was the daunting nature of ensuring I signaled correctly to give my brother the right slack, so he didn't lose a hand, while racing against the fading light. You could feel it in the three of our explanations — the experience was a thrill.

Thankfully, only a small amount of diesel entered the water tank, allowing us to safely dispose of the water-fuel liquid before cleaning out the rest of the tank. But the smell remained. I remembered feeling worried that this might end the trip early or change our itinerary, given that we planned to make the passage to Tahiti in the next couple of days. Looking back now, I only laugh at the fact that I was so worried. I had no idea what was to come.

"I know you just got here but is there any way I can convince you to help me with this?" I asked my 24-year-old cousin from North Dakota with a smile and a bribe. Even though his first encounter with the ocean wasn't until he was 15, and he had never set foot on a sailboat, my cousin had committed to spending a month with us aboard the Nogal

So, there we were on his first day with us, neck deep in the starboard fiberglass water tank with a mask on. We used soap, vinegar and finally vodka (putting the flavored Smirnoff to a better use) to ensure no smell remained, which seemed to do the trick. It ended up being three days of cleaning and testing the water's acidity and salinity to ensure it was safe for drinking.

All in all, our spirits were high (and maybe we were too) and we laughed all the while.

From Fakarava to Tahiti to Moorea, only the kids were subject to seasickness. Yet, once we arrived in Teahupo'o, they were the hungriest for adventure. My cousin, one of my brother's friends and I spent the day attempting to find a hiking route hidden in the steep, lushly green volcanic mountains behind a private residential area where a Frenchman kindly offered us directions.

Unknown to us at the time, the town was flooding. That day happened to be one of Teahupo'o's biggest swells of the decade. By the time we returned to town, water was lapping in the streets, carrying toys and sofas from living rooms into the sea, and burying shores where surf-watchers once stood watching famous surfers tackle beastly waves. Children hooted and hollered as their kitchens became pools to play in.

No one was allowed to swim or boat and tie up near land, mostly because there wasn't anything to tie up to above water. Only two hours before, we had walked along that very same dock. Now, all you could see were boats magically maintaining their same position, secured by lines that disappeared ominously into the depths below.

Thankfully the mayor of Teahupo'o instructed la gendarmerie to drive us to a spot where our dinghy could come close enough to shore to bring us back to the boat. Yet ultimately, they didn't bring us close enough, so we decided to hitchhike to a spot where we could see Nogal from the shore in hopes of being able to access the water and somehow make our way back to the boat.

"Bonjour! Pouvons-nous aller à l'eau là-bas pour faire un tour jusqu'à notre bateau?" ("Could we go to the water over there just to get a ride to our boat?")

I asked the woman whose backyard faced our boat, about 80 meters out from the water's edge. She looked out to the ocean to where I was pointing and looked back at me discerningly. Her face read, "What are you doing!?" yet she agreed to let us pass.

The three of us scurried down to the water's edge, holding our stuff firmly with sore legs and muddy feet. We balanced on slimy rocks we could only feel beneath our toes and waved our arms in the air ferociously yelling out to our boat — the only boat crazy enough to anchor around the corner from this world-renowned surf spot firing historic waves.

We were swimming distance to the boat, but the water in front of us was dark and murky; we (sadly) knew waste was swirling around from the flood, and we had only one dry bag for our valuables. Finally, we got my brother's attention. He motored over, pulled us into the boat while avoiding waves crashing against the concrete behind us, and navigated the shallow coral below to get us back to the boat.

The Society Islands had started off with a bang, and this was just Teahupo'o.

Moorea

was a whole other world of boat fun, particularly on one spirited evening when we didn't have the leisure of land, daylight, the Teahupo'o mayor (the first female mayor and a sweet old lady), and police helping us.

It was one of those calm, full-moon, war m, beautiful evenings in the Opunohu Bay anchorage, a picturesque bay where flat and glossy water stretched some 60 meters behind us to the shore. Not even a slight rustle of the sails or ripple in the water could be heard around us.

We were anchored in roughly 3-4 meters of water with about 10-15 meters of chain out. Earlier in the day we had some wind, which picked up at random moments and just ever so slightly through the night.

At around 3-4 a.m., I woke up and stepped upstairs out of my cabin to observe our position, finding that we were some 30 meters off from our anchor spot. Guess the wind was more fickle than anticipated that evening. It was a miracle we hadn't hit another boat, given that roughly 20 boats, mostly catamarans, dotted the waters around us.

I got the whole team up and before I knew it my cousin and I were both underwater, guided by the blue lights that allowed us to see to the sandy bottom where the anchor sat loose on top of the sand, wrapped in its own chain.

Without consistent wind, the anchor chain had spooled on the ocean floor and managed to get wrapped around the anchor so that when any wind stirred, it could create enough lift to drag the anchor, allowing us to drift. We took turns diving down and wrestling with the chain until it was freed. Luckily the water helped with the weight of the otherwise 100-lb anchor, but it was no small task.

While underwater, eyes wide, I tapped my cousin and pointed above as a huge ray passed through. Not an eagle ray but your usual stingray, with its long-pointed tail, just gliding through the water, its wings flapping slowly and gracefully. It took no interest in us, our mouths full of air and eyes wide trying to steadily move away without interfering with the ray's plans. We were quite a sight.

Moments later, we gasped for air water, signaling to my brother to start pulling up the anchor and swimming to the stern of the boat so we could re-anchor.

"That ray!" I yelled to my cousin as I toweled off. He climbed up the ladder off the stern of the boat, smiling at me. "Yeah, that was scary for a second there!"

We congratulated each other on the heavy lifting and attempted to fall asleep again. Some poor sucker got stuck with anchor watch. But with wet hair and adrenaline from the excitement of it all, we ended up staying up and rehashing how ridiculous we'd both looked underwater, and laughing about how there really isn't anything like battling an anchor underwater moments after waking up in the dead of night. It wasn't long until exhaustion wiped us out.

Whetherit was my cousin, my brothers, or my friends who joined along the way, it was the young people keen on diving the anchor, swabbing the decks to insane music of all genres, climbing the mast to check the rigging, avoiding passing ships in the night, and reefing the sails. It was also we who did most of the laughing, joking, dancing and game-playing.

I hear stories from older sailors, "old salts," but much less of the trials and tribulations of young crew lucky enough to be aboard boats, lacking all experience and sailing terminology but possessing the energy and boldness to act at a moment's notice, get dirty, and laugh when something inevitably goes wrong.

For 147 days, I lear ned more than I could have ever imagined. But the most memorable parts were watching my friends at the wheel on a seven-day passage smiling into the wind and learning to struggle steering according to AWA. It was dancing like a madwoman for silent disco in our berths, wearing noise-canceling headphones (the essential passage-making item) or preparing a hot meal for five while being tossed around by waves, upwind sailing from Fiji to New Zealand.

It was the time when my friend and I attempted to stay afloat holding a line we'd rigged to a mooring ball that was three meters below the water in Taveuni, or when our beached dinghy on the island of Navadra in the Yasawas became a bathtub and was almost swept away during high tide

(we managed to save the dinghy and steal the wine from the adults). There were the days when we dropped in volleyball games with Fijians, hitchhiked with a family of Tahitians, or shared stories at a sailing women-only potluck. Of course, the comedic value was always appreciated, particularly when an 11-year-old kid insisted on stocking up