Kuta, Bali, Indonesia
Here is an important bit of travelers’ etiquette that you should become aware of:
When you join a long-term traveler, you need to be ready to pay the tax.
Continue reading “Traveler’s Tax”
House or Travel?
Karumba, QLD, AU
As our time wound down in Australia we found ourselves having a difficult conversation about a choice we could not had foreseen coming when we first started this adventure.
Like we said last week, we had a good time “living the dream” and we were successful at said dream; we had completed what we originally set out to do. Much more than what we originally planned actually, as this whole “sailing to Australia by way of Tahiti” kind of came together on the fly. What we had not anticipated was that the dream would actually be fairly profitable. You see, Australia had been good to us on the job front and their wages for the jobs we worked were, when compared to the United States, 2 – 3 times higher than what we would have been paid in the states. Alongside that we had watched our money very carefully and saved every chance we got. Also don’t forget there were 2 of us. What that all boils down to is that when we originally planned our trip, we had not expected to leave Australia with a surplus of cash. As it turns out, we did have quite a reasonable surplus…which led us to a question we weren’t sure how to answer:
House or Travel?
Life passing us by
Baltimore, Maryland, United States
It is once again time for Greg’s birthday entry-
One can always rely on family to ask the questions everyone else is quietly wondering about:
“Greg, it’s been almost 4 years now.
Aren’t you worried about the world just passing you by?”
The exact words change from member to member but it’s a question family members have asked us more than once over the past 2 years.
And by “world” we know what’s meant:
Career, Paychecks, 401Ks, retirement, medical / optical / dental benefits, long term financial plan, you name it. A life beyond the next 2 months and a gig that falls into the category of “reliable income.” Something I can expect to have for an entire taxable year that will pay a wage somewhere near what someone of “our experience” should be getting. One that would possibly involve trading in the sails for a desk…or at least a consistent cell phone number.
Freaking money people. Cash. An income. Jobs. Mortgages and the like.
Or as some call it “a REAL life.”
When are we going to get off our butts and stop letting REAL LIFE pass us by?
Continue reading “Life passing us by”
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A Month of Thursday
Thursday Island, Australia
So keep in mind that sign, and the information contained thereupon, as we go though our entertainment options on Thursday Island for the month we were there.
Thursday…now available in Island format!
Thursday Island, Queensland, Australia
After the arduous process of “studying” for our Responsible Service of Alcohol test we passed our course and became certified Australian bartenders!
About 48 hours later came our first outback pub job over at Thursday Island, Australia.
One hitch – where the heck is Thursday Island?
Now we know what you’re thinking –
Semper Gumby
Opua, New Zealand
So there we were (doesn’t every great story start that way?) in Coff’s Harbour and little did we know that this would be the end of our Australian East Coast Adventure.
[fgallery id=11 w=450 h=385 t=0 title=”Great Australian East Coast Adventure”]
We were doing a bit of work at a hostel in exchange for accommodation, deciding what our next move was going to be and looking at the boats available on FindACrew.net. Huh. Imagine that! There was a boat in New Zealand looking for a couple of crew to help deliver it to Australia! We got in touch with the owner, who was willing to pay us to fly out to his boat so he could get it delivered to a transport ship in Brisbane and sent back home to the US.
He seemed like a decent guy on the phone and since he paid for the flight, we decided to take a risk and were off back to New Zealand!
Lazy Birds
Dunedin, NZ
The Kiwi Roadtrip continues!
As long as you don’t mind the pressing need to bundle up in order to explore a land listed as “one of the closest to Antarctica” it’s sometimes hard to decide which is more magnificent, the countryside around Dunedin or the immaculate buildings in the city itself:
Needles, Haystacks and Islands
Toau, Tuamotu, French Polynesia
When we look at those words up there and realize that we could be putting those letters together at random for all the good it does describing our location to you. We can tell you exactly where we are and at the same time tell you nothing at all. We’re working on getting a map up. Here, we’ll give you a little orientation. How about a satellite photograph of the atoll:
That help? Still no, huh? Let’s zoom out a bit:
Just in case you didn’t know, the blue stuff is water. We would like to point out that if you put the entire landmass of our planet into this one ocean, there would be STILL be room for a second Africa, give or take. Like we said, the scale of things out here is massive. “Needle in a haystack”? From now on we’ll be saying “it’s like trying to find an island in the Pacific.” People live on them. Granted, not a lot of people, but still.
And yet, here we are. It’s amazing that these places are REAL. There are places on the map that almost no one has ever heard of and these places are actually a lot closer than most of us realize… yet drastically separated by water, language, culture and a lack of regular air transport (you saw the major / only airport of the area). Coming from the States, it’s actually easier, cheaper and WAY faster to get to Sydney, which is still several thousand miles from us, than to get to this little atoll. The Pacific islands are weird that way.
The fact that you are way off in the middle of nowhere is always right there, right in your face. You get used to over time and you stop thinking about it. It’s amusing to think back on how we called Nuku Hiva “the big city” but it is the largest settlement we’ve encountered since leaving Mexico a few months ago. It wouldn’t even count as a village in the San Francisco Bay.
Greg has long been a proponent of the philosophy that humans can normalize just about anything, along as they are exposed to it enough. Isolation is the status quo out here, after all. Polynesians don’t wander around in a state of shock at their removal from the regular world; to them, this is the regular world. Over time, it becomes regular to us as well and we stop thinking about the fact that there are places in the world where it takes more than 20 minutes to walk from one coast to another. Then something little makes you think of it, like zooming out on the navigation computer while planning a route. Then it all comes rushing back, “Holy heck we’re over 1000 miles from the nearest continent!” It actually scares you a little bit as you think to yourself “how the heck did we get here on a sailboat!?”
But you’ll have a hard time beating the views.
Or the sea life.
Thanks to the Fakarava hotel band for the music.
Living in Farkarava, French Polynesia
Fakarava, Tuamotu, French Polynesia
Welcome to the main town in Fakarava. So what does one do here?
(aside from the diving, we’ve already established that’s amazing. Well, that and suicidal crabs)
1) First off, secure transportation. Preferably, transportation with shock absorption.
What Tiffany fails to mention in the video is that at that point we still had to bike back… And it was a very long trip home, let me tell you!
2) Well, there’s the dive center.
Two notes here:
– Greg can officially now say that he’s had a French tutor. Which is cool, right? The fact that his tutor was male and taught diving vice female and “l’art d’amour”…eh, less cool. He thinks that the fact that he learned to dive in French Polynesia almost makes up for it.
– If you are one of those people looking to jump the puddle, as it is called, get your dive certification in Mexico. Yes, we realize that it is expensive compared to other things in Mexico and you will tell yourself “nah, I won’t dive, I’ll just snorkel.” No you won’t. What you’ll do is snorkel by yourself and be terrified of all the sharks swimming around you while you’re all alone and all your friends are off diving. Remember the part where they school? Like fish? (ask Greg how he knows this!)
Then all your friends will gang up on you and convince you that paying the exorbitant prices for a private French diving instructor is actually very chique (a French word, not coincidentally, I’m sure) and is a really good idea in order for you to fully experience this “once in a lifetime diving opportunity.” They will be right and you will be a fool for not having paid half the price in Mexico to get your certification. The one consolation you will get is that the instructors in French Polynesia are really cool and they use your practice dives as opportunities to actually show you some amazing stuff. Still, it’s WAY cheaper to get your cert in Mexico.
2) The store, where we discovered that your local grocer is actually not only a national brand, but an international one:
For you east coast people, this is like running into a Publix (or in the case of our Texas friends, an H.E.B.) out here in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. I mean really? Safeway? In FRENCH!? Who knew?
3) The church (which is actually pretty cool)
Click on the photo above to enlarge it. The shell chandeliers and other decorations were amazing!
(to be continued… We had way too many videos for one post!)
The Ballsiest Way to Travel Known to Mankind
We’ve found a Microsoft background!
North Pass, Fakarava, Tuamotu, French Polynesia
We are here:
Which, in and of itself, is freaking awesome! However when I took this picture I had this weird sense of déjà-vu. Now I’d never been here before (duh) and I don’t remember seeing any movie that was ever filmed here and since I have a hard time remembering the name of the place while standing on it, it’s unlikely I ever googled it…but it nagged at me. This remained a mystery for some time until a while later when I was looking through my photos and happened on the Microsoft vista sample backgrounds.
This is Microsoft’s photo.
Holy cow I was living in a Microsoft windows background!! I’m still deciding if this is the most awesome thing ever or proof positive that no matter where you go, Bill Gates will find you.
The North pass is the main village of Fakarava (ooooh, look honey, a grocery store!) and they also have an ACTUAL hotel with guests and stuff. It’s attached to the dock we’re anchored off.
And the ACTUAL hotel has an ACTUAL bar, with ACTUAL drinks…and a really inventive “green” bug deterrent system.
Also, the art at the bar documents what can only be described as the Polynesian predecessor to the Jackass television show. Submitted for your approval as the ballsiest way for mankind to travel…ever:
I’ll stick with just the wind, thanks.
They also have passable (for Polynesian standards) internet in the hotel lobby and in their good, kind, warm hearted, Polynesian naiveté they offered to let us use it FOR FREE (gasp! It is unheard of!) So this is our office for the next few days:
