Optimism and positive thinking are almost universally regarded as things to strive for. Nobody wants to hang around a pessimist or Debbie Downer, and everybody tries to view the glass as half full, not half empty. There are many books out there (one popular one is called The Secret) that teach people how to think positively, and that positive thoughts will cause the universe to reflect positive energy back on your life, which will lead to desired results. In the context of sailing, we think all these concepts are dangerous and should be filed away under the “bullshit” category in one’s brain. We will explain.

If you’re taking off in an airplane there’s no sense getting too concerned about the small possibility of a plane crash – optimism here that everything will be OK, despite the tiny chance of a crash, is harmless. That’s because there’s nothing you can do to affect the success or failure of the flight – it’s beyond your control. But the pilot is in a much different situation, and if his optimism and positive thinking causes him to underestimate a risk, skip a safety check, ignore a wind instrument, or relax his concentration on the belief that positive thoughts lead to desired results, then the airplane really is in danger. It’s critical that the pilot understands his actual circumstances so he can evaluate risk accurately and respond in the most appropriate way. That ability, to evaluate risk and respond in a way that’s appropriate, requires, not optimism, not pessimism, but the unsung hero called “realism”.

If you go sailing a boat across oceans, your situation is much more like that of the pilot than of the passenger. You’re in an environment where you’re constantly evaluating risks and making decisions that affect your safety. This is particularly true when difficult weather conditions are a possibility – a crossing can be made very safe or very dangerous depending on the strategy you use to plan your crossing and the tactics you use along the way. Preparing the boat for a passage, deciding when to leave in light of the forecast and seasonal weather patterns, choosing a route to sail, deciding when to reduce sail area, heave to, or deploy a sea anchor as conditions deteriorate… all these critical decisions require the most accurate assessment of your surroundings that is humanly possible. Judgment errors, whether caused by optimistic or pessimistic thinking can both be dangerous, but more often it is optimism that puts people into hopeless situations, like being stuck in the middle of a storm without the proper equipment and no easy way to reach shelter. History hasn’t been kind to skippers who’ve tried to “positive think” a set of storm sails into existence, or used “optimism” to relocate a 25 ton boat to a safer place several hundred miles to the north.

So we’ve now fully rejected these fluffy notions about positive thinking, and as we head into the next three months of more challenging sailing between here and the Australian coast, we’re comforted only by our own sense of reality… that we have some understanding of the risks, a realistic grasp on our own capabilities and weaknesses, and that we understand, based on the experience of others, what works and what doesn’t. We’ve planned our itinerary to arrive in Australia by the end of November to avoid the dangerous cyclone season, but in this unpredictable part of the world, the weather doesn’t always obey human concepts like dates and defined seasons. We leave Bora Bora today after three days on the anchor with heavy gusty winds and again head west into long stretches of open ocean – the forecast looks good for a speedy westward passage. We know we’re generally heading for Tonga 1400 mikes away, but our specific route and possible intermediate stops will depend on conditions as they develop. The weather related risks out here are still low at this time of year, but we’re preparing for big weather anyway, and will be practicing emergency tactics at sea if we come across even moderate weather we can use to simulate a storm. We prefer this practical approach of practice and preparation to the more simplistic and easier one of thinking positively n’ stuff.

If you ask any American high school student who discovered America you’ll get the same, although wrong, answer almost every time…. “Columbus”. If you ask a French student who discovered French Polynesia, we suspect you’d get an equally consistent, and equally wrong, “Bougainville”. These answers tell us more about the writers of history books than they do about actual historical facts. It was, of course, the Amerindians (Native Americans) who came across the Bering Straights from Asia to discover North America, and it was the Lapita voyagers from the Philippines or Taiwan (some debate remains) who migrated east to discover all the islands of the South Pacific. The writing of history books is a privilege that goes to a place’s most recent conquering force, and that explains the absence of Polynesian and American Indian names from the title pages of today’s history books.

By comparison to their Asian counterparts of thousands of years prior, the European explorers seem risk averse and even a bit wimpy. The ancient Polynesians left Asia in small outrigger canoes powered as much by human paddlers as by the wind, and headed into the abyss without the help of any navigational equipment other than their own human senses – waves, clouds, wind patterns, and the stars were their only navigational aids. Their ability to find land and slowly populate all the islands of the South Pacific is a maritime accomplishment, and a symbol of courage, that has no match in any time or place of human history. From where we are now in the Faaroa River area of Raiatea, Polynesians launched successful voyages to the east, north, and west, eventually populating Easter Island near South America, the Hawaiian Islands, and even New Zealand…. all of it using rudimentary outrigger canoes, coconuts, and not much else. It’s unknown how many voyages ended in the death of the entire crew, but with land covering less than 1% of this enormous South Pacific Ocean, survival was probably a matter of extraordinary luck.

Over the past few days of exploring around the gorgeous reefed islands of Raiatea and Huahine (now 20 miles to our west), we’ve had constant reminders of French Polynesia’s fascinating voyaging history. This is because outrigger rowing is still such a deeply engrained part of the culture here, so countless outriggers fill many of the bays in the late afternoons when the sun falls of its high arc. Like dolphins, they enjoy surfing on our wake as we motor through, and we love having these Lapita descendants by our side. It’s been an easy way for us to make some new friends and practice the few words of Polynesian we’ve learned…. we doubt there is a more friendly and welcoming native people anywhere we’ll go.

We’ve also been spending a lot of time exploring the reefs by dinghy and walking around the Polynesian villages that line the shores of all of the Society Islands. A highlight for us was a two mile dinghy ride up the Faaroa River…. the only navigable river in all of French Polynesia. Even though there’s an occasional small cruise boat around in some of the larger anchorages, we’ve found almost no other tourists anywhere we’ve been, and that’s a big part of what makes these unspoiled islands so special.

Our next stop will be Tahaa, just north of Raiatea and so close that the two islands are surrounded by the same barrier reef. Then we’ll be heading west to our last and most anticipated, French Polynesian island, Bora Bora.

Life in a modern western metropolis is easy, safe, and comfortable. Buildings keep us sheltered from the rain and sun, concrete on the ground keeps the rocks and dirt away, climate control keeps the hot and cold outside, cars save us from expending our own energy, restaurants and grocery stores eliminate the hazards of hunger, a city agency makes sure animals stay off the streets, laws keep almost everything orderly and civilized. We’re always well fed, normally well rested, rarely wet or cold, almost never in any significant danger….even smelling something foul is unusual. We take for granted that these features of modern city life are good things… that the safety and comfort makes us happier. We’re starting to reconsider all this.

Imagine for a moment a futuristic way of life where safety and comfort are even more perfected than in modern cities. Imagine you can work from your perfectly stable climate controlled home through your computer, avoiding the need for a commute. Imagine that food and groceries are delivered to your front door by robots, and prepared for you by advanced kitchen appliances. Imagine you can use virtual reality goggles to interact with friends and family anywhere in the world, and simulate any other “worldly” experience you want for free, but of course without the slightest danger or discomfort of the real world. Owning a car, taking a subway, putting on a jacket, or even going outside would become totally unnecessary because you could do everything inside from your home. A worthy aim for the next century might be the total elimination of every imaginable inconvenience, discomfort, and danger using innovation and technology – a perfect human way of life.

But there’s a problem with this theoretically perfect imaginary world. It’s missing something….. something difficult to describe, but something big. And the more perfect the imaginary utopia becomes, the more the idea becomes an obvious and epic failure. Exactly why is difficult to put into words, but It’s got something to do with being a human.

When we moved out of the city 18 months ago and into a 56 foot plastic tub, we gave up many of the “desirable” features of a city life. We often find ourselves sweating from heat, dripping with saltwater, chilled from a storm. The wind blasts us, the sun burns us, the waves rock us, mosquitoes bite us. We walk for miles, lift heavy objects, hitchhike, kill fish on the back deck, knock our heads on low beams, scrape our bodies on coral, pick fruits from trees, bang things with hammers, change oil, repair toilets, snap ropes, and climb masts. Our feet are always filthy, our toenails even get ripped off from time to time. Mold is a problem in our lives, and things around us often stink.

So the funny thing about this damp and smelly life of inconvenience, discomfort, and danger, we’ve found, is that nothing seems to be missing …. we’re happy the way it is and we wouldn’t change a thing. Exactly why isn’t clear, but again it’s got something to do with being human. All of our senses are fully engaged every day, we face real risks, we’re in contact with the earth, the sea, the weather, and the elements, and perhaps experiencing all this is part of what drives our human spirit.

These were some of the thoughts that went through our heads today as we hiked deep into the interior of Moorea, one of French Polynesia’s most scenic volcanic islands just 12 miles from the big island of Tahiti. After three days in Papeete (Tahit’s capital city) doing repairs and provisioning, we were glad to be back onto a lesser developed Polyenesian island where things are a bit more dangerous and uncomfortable, but also much more beautiful and “real”. As we crossed the dusty crater floor, sun blasting from above, sweat dripping from our eyebrows, we asked ourselves whether the whole concept of modern city life might have gone too far, and we think, perhaps, it has.

We’ve got one more day to explore Moorea before we resume our march westward to the “leeward islands” (the most downwind islands) of the Societies. We’ve got just a little over a week left in French Polynesia and four more islands to go, so we’ll be keeping up our usual high pace.

Every place we go seems to have a unique set of sailing challenges either relating to the weather conditions or the geography. In the Mediterranean it was the fierce seasonal winds and lack of shallow anchorages. In the Caribbean it was the poorly charted shallow areas and impending tropical storm season. It is always something different, which is why this type of sailing is such an impossible skill to master…. the more you sail, the more you understand how much you DON’T know. This probably explains why we don’t find many arrogant skippers around the place – those ones have probably finished their sailing careers upside down or perched sideways on a reef somewhere.

The Tuamotus is a place with perhaps greater challenges than any other we’ve been to so far. Skippers in these waters have compared the dangers in the Tuamotus to those of rounding Cape Horn, and although we think that’s overstating things quite a bit (the invention of GPS has made sailing here much safer since those claims originated), the Tuamotus is still a great place to end a sailing career or wreck a boat with a single minor oversight.

There are 78 islands in this archipelago, 76 of which are low lying coral atolls that are nearly impossible to see from further than 8 miles away. These islands were formed by volcanoes that long ago receded beneath the surface of the sea, but as they sunk coral continued growing towards the sunlight, leaving these unusual low lying ringed islands lingering just barely above the surface. It is a bizarre feeling to be sailing among the islands at such close ranges and still frequently see only a totally flat horizon. Because of the curvature of the Earth, the tips of the palm trees start to become visible about 10 miles away, but you’d never notice them unless you were already looking out for them. This is the biggest reason most people sailed way around the Tuamotus before the invention of satellite navigation, and also why every atoll has an impressive number of shipwrecks dotting their outer shores.

With modern technology it’s easy enough to avoid crashing into the atolls. Entering the narrow passes into the lagoons is the real challenge and the one that seems to continue to baffle cruisers here today, including us. Water enters the lagoon, not just through the narrow passes as the tide rises, but also as ocean swells send waves crashing over the outer reef. All of this water has only one way out, which is through the passes, and this causes large currents in the passes, which are sometimes inflows and more often outflows. Depending on the direction of flow, the volume of water, the ocean swell, and the wind, entry can become impossible either because the water is flowing so fast that it overpowers the engine, or because standing waves form which can throw the boat around to the point that they can dismast even large sailboats. Predicting whether the flows will be in our out, and at what speed, is a complex multi-factor analysis, and many cruisers find it easier to just show up at the entrance and wait with binoculars, sometimes for hours, for the moment when tidal inflows or outflows neutralize the flow from the water entering over the reef. This moment of “slack water” when the current slows and begins to reverse, and the water goes flat, occurs four times each day and is almost always a safe time to enter.

After doing this five times now and spending hours free diving in the passes, we’re finally getting comfortable predicting conditions and maneuvering around the Tuamotus. Unfortunately this is not very helpful as we’ve arrived at the far west end of the archipelago and it’s now time for us to head for Tahiti, where our new knowledge about these islands will be completely useless. We might hit one more atoll on the way out of the Tuamotus if conditions permit, but otherwise we’re taking advantage of the ideal wind forecasted for the weekend and making a beeline for Papeete, Tahiti’s capital city, about 175 miles west of our current position. It’s been almost two months since we’ve seen a grocery store or had a decent internet connection, so we’re looking forward to a brief encounter with civilization (with an emphasis on the “brief” part).

As humans, we’re terribly suited for life underwater. Without any ability to take oxygen from the seawater, we’d suffocate in minutes. We’d succumb to hypothermia even in the most tropical seas, and if by some miracle we were still alive after a few days, our inability to take food or fresh water would surely finish us off within a week. These are similar to the problems we’d face if we tried to live on Mars or the Moon, so our interest in life below the surface is understandably limited.

But that is a huge shame, and this is something that’s just now beginning to dawn on us as we start to experiment deeper underwater here in the Tuamotus archipelago. These volcanic reefed islands (“atolls”), each forming a ring with a giant lagoon in its center, are teaming with a huge variety of fish, rays, sharks, and coral formations, almost all of which can be explored within 20 meters (60 feet) of the surface. It’s difficult to imagine how one could design a better place for this type of underwater exploration, and that explains the reputation this place has as one of the best, albeit most difficult to access, diving locations in the world.

On Tamarisk we have no diving equipment other than flippers, masks, and snorkels, which does limit our experimentation slightly. But more than offsetting this (by orders of magnitude) is that we have Javi (aka “Tarzan”) aboard with us, who just happens to be a free diving instructor and, after years of training and diving since he was a kid, now seems almost more comfortable below the surface than he does on land. For those not familiar, free diving is the complex discipline (one part sport, one part art, one part yoga) of holding your breath and diving deep beneath the surface without the help of normal diving equipment. With nothing but flippers. a mask, and a kilogram of lead weight, Tarzan can go to depths of 50 meters (150 feet), which is about twice as deep as most recreational SCUBA divers normally go out here. Even beginners like Piers and I can already reach 10 meters, and can reasonably expect to reach 15-20 meters after just a couple of weeks of practice under Tarzan’s guidance.

But our ambition with free diving is not to achieve world record depths (which, by the way, is an absurd 100+ meters). Our goal, like most free divers, is to experience a new level of comfort below the surface so we can explore the reefs and come a bit closer to the incredible sea life that fills these places and experience for ourselves, even for just a minute or two at a time, what an underwater life is all about. If you’d like a small but inspirational peek at what’s possible with free diving, check out Tarzan’s experience in the Bahamas last year in this video clip.

It’s time for us to pull the anchor now and continue our march west through the Tuamotu atolls. The trick here is to get through the narrow passes in the reef into the protected lagoon (most atolls have at least one or two safe passes), and anchor as near to the pass as possible. The passes are generally deep and safe for us to enter either at low or high tide when the tidal currents are minimal (currents can reach 8-9 knots in the passes and create huge standing waves and washing machine sea conditions at other times) Once we’re anchored safely, we take the dinghy back out through the pass because this is where the impressive sea life is to be found. Once outside, we jump in the water and drift back through the pass with the tidal current into the lagoon, free diving the entire way through. We’ve explored the pass at the Makemo atoll and the South Pass of Fakarava this way, and we’re about to sail 30 miles north inside the Fakarava lagoon and do the same thing at this atoll’s North Pass. The whole thing is a bit addictive, so we need to be careful not to get delayed in the Tuamotus too much…. the Society Islands are next on the list and we’re being careful to preserve each precious day we have planned there.

Tarzan free diving in Fakarava:

Sir Ernest Shackleton’s famous newspaper ad for his historic 1914 Antarctic sailing expedition read:

“Men Wanted for Hazardous Journey. Small wages, bitter cold, long months of darkness, constant danger, safe return doubtful. Honour and recognition in case of success.”

The irresistible human attraction to explore the far corners of the Earth, despite the uncertainties, discomforts and hazards, and without any obvious reward other than the experience of the voyage itself, defies reason and is impossible to describe to someone not gifted (or afflicted) with the obsession. The success of Sir Shackleton’s ad shouldn’t be too much of a surprise.

For the first time in our journey, we’re exploring what must be on any list of the of the world’s most remote destinations. Bouncing around the Marquesas islands and experiencing a small slice of the slow and simple Polynesian lifestyle feels a bit like exploring in a different era of history. The yachting facilities are almost non-existent (good luck trying to find even a fuel dock) other boats are few and far between, and most of the small Polynesian villages lack what we (westerners) think of as essentials to survival (things like banks and internet connections… even finding a phone booth is a challenge). But for people who go out into the abyss searching the far the side of the world, these are signs of success, because it means you’ve found what you were looking for.

We’ve done pretty well in avoiding injuries and expensive learning lessons lately, but that changed a couple of days ago as we got on the dinghy in a small Polynesian town on Tahuata and headed back to the boat for the night. The dinghy is notorious for creating many of the practical hazards that cruising sailors face, particularly in a place like Tahuata which is so basic that they don’t even have a dinghy dock to make a safe landing. So we pulled the dinghy off the rocky beach and pushed it out into the (mostly) small waves, then quickly tried to start the outboard engine. This was the precise moment when we failed to notice the incoming medium sized wave, so as I pulled the starter cord on the outboard, the swell swept beneath the dinghy and threw me backwards overboard. That would have been a particularly funny moment worthy of a photograph, except for two problems. First was the fact that the camera (a very expensive one) was in my backpack, now about 12″ beneath the surface of the Pacific Ocean. Second was that in the chaos of my futile attempt to get the backpack out of the water before the camera filled with saltwater, I stepped on a rock, which grabbed my big toenail, and separated it from the toe itself, leaving it attached only at the base and leaving a bloody mess dripping into the sea. The “funny” was difficult to find in this situation, and the photo op instantly destroyed along with the camera itself.

Unfortunately the saga was not yet over, and if you have a weak stomach for things like blood and torn nails, skip this paragraph. So, back to the toenail, and the problem of its remaining attachment point at its base. Anyone who’s done this before knows that taping it back down to the toe is not going to work – the nail has to come all the way off, meaning a trip to the medical clinic is in order for a quick procedure. The problem in places like Tahuata is that there is no medical clinic, and this leaves us in a bind. The idea of sailing back to Hiva Oa and losing a couple of days seemed pretty intolerable compared to the solution of performing the operation using our own resources. So with a pair of needle nose pliers, a bucket of iced water, three shots of Stoli vodka to numb the senses, and one mighty Sir Shakleton inspired tug, the nail was off and the problem was solved.

So with an expensive and painful learning lesson behind us, we were free to sail to our last Marquesan island, Fatu Hiva. Here we found another stunning rugged cloud covered landscape with weather changing so quickly that it makes you want to just sit on the deck and stare for hours as the scenery changes before your eyes. The tall volcanic mountain peaks in the Marquesas islands and their simple barely-habited Polynesian villages create an environment that feels almost too mysterious to exist in reality, yet here it is.

And with that, our short time in the Marquesas draws to a close. We’re now pulling the anchor and heading for the Toamotu archipelago three days away. With good weather ahead and some of the most unusual ringed island formations anywhere on the planet, we’ll be doing our best to make the passage as quick as possible,

NOTE: data is again difficult here, so additional photos for this post will come shortly.

It would be unfair to the Indian Ocean and the Atlantic to say the Pacific is the world’s greatest ocean. They are all giants and each is worthy of the seafarer’s most profound respect. But privately, after dedicating about a month of our lives to crossing this behemoth, we think of this one as something different from the others. With Panama 4000 miles behind us, and the Marquesas Islands now visible off our starboard bow, it’s tempting to bake our last chocolate cake and celebrate the completion of our Pacific Ocean crossing. But to do so would just demonstrate our ignorance about what this ocean really is all about. The computer tells us that Singapore, still on the shores of the Pacific, remains more than 7000 miles ahead of us, trivializing our accomplishments in this ocean so far. This slightly irritating factoid probably won’t stop us from baking the cake today, but the truth is that we probably don’t deserve it yet.

This realization is nothing to be upset about because there are some very redeeming things to consider about our current situation (and I’m not just talking about chocolaty treats). I’m of course talking about everything else that lies ahead in our remaining time in the Pacific. In many ways we’ve been looking forward to this portion of our voyage more than any other so far, and Hiva Oa now directly in front of us marks the official arrival of this anticipated moment. The tropical islands of the South Pacific are perhaps the most beautiful in the world; their remoteness has left their shores virtually untouched, and their indigenous cultures largely in tact (despite European colonization of all the South Pacific Islands in the late 1800’s). The underwater life in the South Pacific has no equal anywhere thanks to the abundance of volcanic archipelagos (and the coral growth that accompanies them) which dot the next 3000 miles of ocean. Then comes Australia and South East Asia, with landscapes and photo opportunities that are probably second only to Iceland, plus a whole new world of cultural variety far removed from anything we’ve come across yet on our voyage. We would say we can’t wait to get there, but the truth is, given our envious position at the most upwind end of the South Pacific Islands, we can.

With the exception of a handful of other mid-ocean yachties, a few astronauts in the ISS, and possibly Edward Snowden (we don’t know because we haven’t checked the news lately), few people can say they haven’t been inside a country yet this month. As of a few moments ago there are now three less people who can make this odd claim. That’s because we have just sailed out of international waters and crossed into the territorial waters of…. drumroll…. wait for it…… France, or more specifically, its “collectivity” French Polynesia (home to the Marquesas Islands, the Tuamotus, Tahiti, and the Societies among others). Most of the imperial powers gave independence to their overseas colonies long ago, but for whatever reason the French have decided it’s a better idea to keep control over their most beautiful islands around the world, something we noticed earlier this year in the Caribbean. And although we can’t blame them too much for this (we’d probably do the same), it does feel a bit strange to be in this hemisphere on this side of the globe, and still be under the jurisdiction of decision makers in Paris, literally a world away. It’s particularly strange because the culture here and the vast majority of inhabitants are primarily native Polynesian, not French, and it’s been that way since the beginning of recorded human history. We understand that many Polynesians have been less than 100% happy about their newfound French-ness, particularly the nuclear weapons testing part of it, which took place down here until the mid 1990’s (officials in Paris apparently finding the Marquesas better suited for it than a place closer to, say, Paris). But as so often is the case in a world dominated by militarized western powers, the interests and desires of the native people tend to be counted for little….it’s just the way things are. And so it is.

The last few days of this crossing have been a challenge, with squally weather, variable winds, and a lumpy seastate that feels disproportionate to the mostly light winds we’ve experienced. Each time we’ve set the sails, something’s changed within an hour (normally the wind dying to a few knots or making a big directional change) and we’ve had to reconfigure. So we’ve spent a good amount of time working on the deck and also a chunk of time on the motor, none of which has put a damper on the excitement level. Despite missing the perfect finish we were hoping to describe in these paragraphs, we consider the 18 day crossing to be a huge success, fortunately without any overly expensive learning lessons. We hope this is a sign of progress, not just good luck, time will tell. Now it’s time to prepare the boat for entry formalities and, more importantly, prepare ourselves for a cold beer ashore.

UPDATE: Now that we have found a wifi connection, We have uploaded photos to the two prior Pacific Crossing posts.

It’s easier to understand St. Bart’s if you start by quarantining some of your thoughts. So for now, forget about the fiscal cliff, forget about the unemployment situation and record food stamp participation in the US. Forget about austerity in Europe, riots in Greece and Spain, and insolvency across the West. Forget also about poverty in Africa, hunger and food price inflation and the like. None of these thoughts will help you understand St. Bart’s, so suspend them for just a moment.

Now imagine a place where money and resources are infinite… a place where everybody who wants a mega yacht can have one. A place where a $10 million New Years party for your closest 400 friends is an annual routine. A place where the corner market stocks its shelves with $300 bottles of vodka like they’re cans of baked beans. Now imagine that place really does exist on the western side of a tiny Caribbean island called St. Barthelemy. You’re now close to understanding the surreal place we’re anchored just outside Gustavia marina amidst a sea of boats that makes St. Tropez look like a place for novice millionaires.

So here we are celebrating New Years alongside the world’s richest and most famous in an environment that really should only exist in an imaginary world. And although we’re more disgusted than impressed by wasteful displays of excess like Roman Abramovich’s billion dollar mega yacht, “Eclipse”, anchored just a few hundred yards off our stern, we had no problem quarantining those thoughts last night as we headed off in the dinghy to get our night started, already very cheerful on our $9 bottle of vodka. But as we sat on the marina wall a few hours later when the clock struck midnight, and as the New Year fireworks lit up the bay overflowing with mega yachts, and as the captains all blasted their horns to ring in 2013, and as the world’s elite popped open new bottles of Dom from their top decks just yards away, we realized something – in a place like St. Bart’s we’re perfectly happy to be spectators watching from the sidelines.

We’re now pulling the anchor to head north 20 miles towards another French Island, St. Martin. We’re expecting a return of something resembling reality there, but with the stream of megayachts now leaving St Barts and pointing in that same direction, we’re not quite sure.

From our imaginary world in St. Barts,, we wish a very happy and healthy New Year to our friends around the world! Cheers, Salute, Noroc, Nastarovia, Cin Cin, and Prost!!

In our high school days we always thought history class was the most boring of all the subjects. Why we should care about what happened hundreds of years ago was never clear to us. Since then, our opinion about the interest of world history has taken a full U-turn. Today we believe few things are more interesting than history, and it’s impossible to understand the significance of current events without first understanding what’s happened in the world over the years. This is particularly true as you travel – many of the things you see and hear would make no sense without the context that history provides.

We’re now sitting on the anchor in Guadeloupe after two days of exploring the two big “wings” of this butterfly-shaped island. Guadeloupe is an overseas territory of France. – the locals here are all French citizens and, unlike many of the Caribbean islands, Guadeloupe has never been an independent country since it was colonized in 1635. It seems like every island out here has an interesting history like this involving some aggressive European colonizers coming in around 1500 – 1700, followed by a period of various conflicts and treaties whereby the island changes hands, normally between England and France, until finally late last century many were “given” independence. Others, like the Virgin Islands, Anguilla, Guadeloupe, and Martinique remain territories of a western imperial power.

These complicated histories are not just interesting factoids for history nerds – the cultures here today are very much a fusion of the local Carib culture that existed before the Europeans arrived plus the imperial culture that has been introduced, and it’s fascinating to see what has resulted today. In Dominica, where we were a few days ago, the British elements of the culture are almost unnoticeable, except for the fact that all the locals speak perfect English. When we learned that Dominica successfully defended itself from French and British colonizers until 1805, then achieved independence less than 200 years later, it made sense why that island today is the one that offers the most “real” Caribbean experience.

As we chomp away on some French baguettes reminiscing about high school history class, our primary focus is now turning to an arithmetic problem. Tomorrow we head to Antigua and we’re debating whether or not we should attempt the shallow 3 mile channel that splits the two halves (butterfly wings) of Guadeloupe. If we make it, we will save five hours of sailing tomorrow into the wind, but there’s a catch. The channel is 1.80 meters deep and our depth is 1.97 meters. We figure they probably measure the channel’s depth at low tide to be safe, but if we leave at high tide tomorrow morning we’ll gain an extra 0.20 meters beneath our keel (the tidal swing being 0.2 meters). Wiser more experienced yachties probably look for a much bigger margin of safety than our 0.03 meters if we attempt this. But we prefer learning lessons the hard way (it keeps our blog more interesting than the others) so we’ll be up at 5am to give this a shot.

There are a lot of things we love about a traveling lifestyle – the list is far too long to type here. If we did type it, though, one thing that would appear at the very top would be experiencing a touch of local life in the foreign places we go. It’s easy to be a “tourist” and see the sites and taste the food, etc., but to really get to know a place you have to go further than the tourists go, you have to go off the beaten path, you have to take more than a superficial interest in the culture, and most importantly you have to spend time getting to know local people. When we’re able to take those extra steps, the rewards for us over the years have been remarkable, and we’ve formed some of our most lasting and valued relationships this way. These people have shown us the world through a different lens, they’ve given us perspectives about life that fundamentally change the way we see things, and in doing so, they’ve expanded our minds, they’ve humbled us, and they’ve made us care about people and cultures everywhere, not just those close to home.

The reason I babble on about this here is because we’ve had just such an experience over the past few days Rapallo, thanks to the Pelloso family (to which our friends Lisa and Mara belong). By train, they took us to the Cinque Terre fishing villages, which are a must-see for anybody coming to this part of Italy. But the real fun began when they invited us to a family dinner at their hilltop home just outside Rapallo. This is where the Pelloso family ran a family business making olive oil, and today the house still has all the original production equipment in perfect working order – they could make oil tomorrow if they were so inclined. We learned about the olive oil machinery, the family’s local shoe companies, and the cliff-diving uncle known as “Tarzan”. We finished off the night at a local tavern telling sailing stories and getting so drunk that we forgot to wake up yesterday morning to leave for Monaco! Grazi (thanks) to the Pelloso family for such an amazing time – it was difficult saying arrivaderce (goodbye).

We’re now back on track after sailing most of the night towards Monaco and arriving there a few hours before sunrise. We threw the anchor just outside the harbor, snagged a few hours good sleep, got the sunrise pic inside the Monaco harbor, and are now on the motor in windless conditions heading for St. Tropez. We’re looking forward to a relaxing evening there tonight because we’ve got a big two-day passage to the Balearic Islands in Spain that begins tomorrow morning. Unfortunately this means we won’t have time to infiltrate a French family on this trip, but we’re feeling far too Italian for that right now anyway.