Tiffany and Greg Around the World
518 people
About 466 miles from “Cans“
Sometimes, oh and without warning of course, the whole town just separates from the mainland and becomes an island for a few months…so you want to watch out for that.
and the largest gator (sorry…CROC…because it matters while it’s eating you…) ever caught in the history of the planet? Yeah, right down the road.
28ft, 4in long. This is a to-scale model!
Welcome to Karumba
Tiffany’s been having a craving for rice pudding lately. For some weird reason she gets this craving every few months (this and Mexican food. Nope, not supposed to make sense). In our previous lives this was easily and promptly solved by a trip to Trader Joe’s…
Unfortunately for her, they have not yet expanded to Australia. So she took her tastebuds online. Now, Tiffany prides herself as a rather “uncomplicated” cook. She can cook, and very well thank you, but generally she looks for what both Greg and her agree are the “3 hallmarks of good food” –
if the recipe calls for more than about 3 ingredients, she’s usually just not interested.
Fills one up without getting them fat
We would choose to eat it again
That being said, since we’ve been traveling and eating restaurant food or quick stuff, both of our desires to cook have increased (a little bit anyway). The great thing about living on a boat is that you learn lots of new recipes that fit our criteria exactly.
What is awesome is that both of us have learned to make lots of new things that only take a few ingredients and we’ve gotten to the point that if it has 5 ingredients we’re willing to put the effort in.
Especially if one of those ingredients is coconut milk.
Continue reading “Coconut rice pudding”
Because when you pronounce the “R” in “Cairns” the locals genuinely have no idea what you’re talking about.
Seriously people, it’s a word. In our common language. You can look it up.
Who uses a silent “R”!?!?!
They have this giant outside pool right next to the ocean that anyone can use and the fish sculptures are a symbol of the city.
Oh, and just in case you’re asking. “Guys? Why do they have a giant public pool right next to the ocean? Can’t people just swim in the ocean?”
Why yes, yes they could. Right up to the moment where the giant crocodiles that are all over the place ate them.
Which would of course lead you to then ask “Guys, didn’t you just go diving in that water?”
For our Thanksgiving festivities in Australia Tiffany made pumpkin pie.
Which, is kinda not a big deal right?
…until you realize that Australians are not familiar with the concept of putting pumpkins in a pie one would eat for dessert. That means no canned pumpkin to fill the pie.
Oh, and while we’re on the topic: They also don’t know what graham crackers are either so, consequently, no premade graham cracker crusts.
(how do you people LIVE!?!)
And just kinda figure out the rest.
One of several murals over the urinals in Oktoberfest beer tents.
Who do these people think they are, Kiwis!?
We did our very best to have as authentic an experience as we could at Oktoberfest
Continue reading “Lederhosen!”
Papeete, Tahiti, Society Islands, French Polynesia
Tahiti is also the place where we part ways with FLY AWEIGH. A few months and about 5000 nautical miles ago, two friends asked us to come with them on an amazing adventure. To do what many dream about but few actually accomplish: to sail a 44 foot sailboat from Mexico to Tahiti. Along the way we’ve faced thousands of miles of open ocean and become shellbacks, combated air pirates, opened coconuts with dull machetes, swam with 250 sharks and had a dozen other adventures. What was promised was the trip of a lifetime. It did not fail to meet that lofty mark.
Now we are here, in a place we talked about as if it would take an eternity to get to and really it only took a couple of months. Our time together has come to an end. Since we already have our next boat out of Tahiti lined up in a few weeks and Tiffany’s mom is coming out by plane (wuss 😉 we will become “normal tourists” for a time. It should be interesting. Don’t worry, we’ll keep the blog going with our adventures in Tahiti & Bora Bora just like we did in La Cruz de Huanacaxtle. Allan & Alison will continue on their cruise and we will very likely see them again on this trip. From now on though, it will be as friends passing in a port.
“Shipmate” is a term that people throw around a lot without understanding what it means. Most seagoing military types understand what it means to serve on a ship with another person: when it comes right down to it, it’s just you and your crew against Continue reading “The Little Boat That DID!”
So, did you know that we can speak German?
Um, not really, but we’re HUGE fans! 🙂
I have significantly improved my German vocabulary on this trip. I used to know all of one German word – “nein!” which means “no!” And then we discovered in Alameda THE German restaurant in the San Francisco Bay Area – Speisekammer (also know as Spice-en-whatsit) and then my German vocabulary grew by leaps and bounds! Speisekammer means “pantry” and they have the most awesome vegetarian strudel (which is a pastry-like thing) and they have TO DIE FOR Macaroni and cheese (or, as the Germans call it Gratinierte Kasespatzle. I only ever remember the spätzle part of it… So tasty, with caramelized onions, asiago and parmesan cheese… Mmmmmm….).
So by my count, we’re up to three words – Nein, Speisekammer, and Spätzle. Have you ever heard that traveling can expand your horizons or teach you language skills? Well it can! In Mexico, Tiffany’s Spanish got a lot better, and in the Tuamotu of French Polynesia, our German got a lot better!
“Wait a minute…” you’re probably asking yourselves. “I thought French Polynesian people spoke French or Tahitian or Marquesan? I didn’t know they spoke German too!” And you’d be right, they don’t. But there are tons of travelers who pass through that do! One thing you must understand about travel: there are Germans everywhere. Which is really cool, because Germans are the nicest freaking people you will ever meet. Greg has literally never met a German that he did not like. Elizabeth from our Pacific Puddle Jump buddy boat PROXIMITY is German, and at one point we had 4 boats headed toward the same island, all within about a day or so of each other and on every boat at least one person spoke German! How crazy is that?
We had BOREE, STERNCHEN, PAIKEA MIST and us on FLY AWEIGH. Burt and Ingie on BOREE are Germans who have been living in Australia for a number of years, the owners of STERNCHEN (which means “little star” – ha! Another one!) are Germans who speak some English, Michael on PAIKEA MIST is a German-Canadian, and Allan on FLY AWEIGH took classes for his degree in Germany. At one point, STERNCHEN called BOREE on the VHF radio to ask for some technical assistance, and I learned new German! We heard them call on the VHF radio to switch channels to “acht” (which means “eight”) and followed them over to channel eight, so Allan could listen in and keep up with his German and his long standing underway technical assistance skills 🙂
While we were listening, I learned 2 new German words – “computer” and “easy-peasy”. Now, you may be saying to yourself, “hey, those aren’t German!” But I counter – if you walked up to four Germans having a conversation in German, then the words they use MUST be German! Ha!
We have now over doubled our German vocabulary! Sternchen, Acht, Computer and Easy-Peasy!
Once we all got into port we actually got to meet the crews of BOREE and STERNCHEN and spend some time with them. We had some wonderful conversations. Greg is a huge fan of the German language, he just loves the way it sounds. (Greg – Actually, I believe my EXACT words were “someone discovered the sound of awesome and just decided to make an entire language out of it!”) Greg was such a big fan that Ingie even gave him REAL German Bread!
You do not appreciate how awesome this is. First off, it’s hot as heck here (80 F is the average temp) and no one has air-conditioning. She turned on her gas stove in her boat and heated the whole thing up, for several hours mind you, to make us bread.
Also, do you understand that we are 6,435 kilometers, oh sorry, 4,000+ miles *flying!* from Spice-en-whatsit! 9,655 miles flying from Germany! Need I remind you that those flights don’t even exist, so add in mileage for stops in Tahiti and Hong Kong. Do you know how much a flight like that would cost!? And. We. Have. FRESH German bread.
Do you have fresh, hand-baked German Bread right now? No, no you do not…and ours will be eaten before you get here so don’t try it.
During our discussions, we got to talking about the happy birthday song, and how the Germans don’t really sing happy birthday. Here’s why:
Which lead to Burt telling us about how Germans like to smash words together to make new words. His example: the soccer world cup. In German it’s one word: Fußball-Weltmeisterschaft.
So awesome…
How many languages can you speak?
Oh PS: Greg can curse in German too. Who says you don’t learn useful skills in the Boy Scouts? 😉
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!)
Random uninhabited beach, central Fakarava, Tuamotu, French Polynesia
Figuring out that US $67.25 doesn’t even buy a single dinner out for Tiffany and myself at any restaurant on the island (seriously, crazy expensive here), my career as a professional dare taker comes to sudden, if not awesome, end.
Not that I won’t take dares. Please, by all means.
We hauled anchor and headed up the Coast, well, the coast on the inside of the island, which isn’t very far from the other coast on the outside of the island. Here let me show you what I mean:
Yeah, that’s really it. Think about that for a second, they live on an island no wider than a few football fields in the middle of the Pacific. There is a certain reassurance that large land mass provides, a reassurance that until now I had not ever noticed before. It is something very disconcerting about being able to see both coasts at the same time of the only land for about 100 + miles. Something in the back of your mind that says: hey, if there’s a tidal wave buddy, or maybe a hurricane, this island ain’t gonna do much more than trip it up a bit. You’re basically screwed…
…it gives one pause.
Dropping anchor for the night, we went ashore and decided to have a “genuine natural Polynesian island beach experience.” What does this mean? More coconuts!
Few points here:
1) What did Tiffany and Greg learn from their last coconut experience? Not a DARN thing, thank-you very much!
2) Actual Polynesians are not in any way interested in “genuine natural Polynesian experiences.” I met this dude a few days later:
Huh, a fire axe. Don’t see that in too many beach movies eh? Just in case you are wondering, they cut open the coconuts and let them dry because the milk is worthless. It’s the coconut oil that is the cash crop.
The evening culminated with a perfect sunset barbecue, though more ended up being on the menu than was originally scheduled:
I swear dude, it was suicide. I have witnesses.
Kauehi, Tuamotu, French Polynesia
So that’s the city sign. Guess they don’t exactly have a city line, being as there aren’t a lot of other cities out here to butt up against.
So the semi-obvious question I left out of the previous entries (I ran out of space!) was, “Greg, I get how the islands got there, how did the PEOPLE get there?!?”
Good question, and the short answer is…no one actually knows for sure.
Some people say they sailed from South America. Some dude name Thor (no, really, it’s his name) sailed a raft from South America to prove this theory. He made it to the Marquesas, so, it possible. However, the current popular theory is that the ancient Polynesians came from Asian stock:
(thanks to httpthe.honoluluadvertiser.com)
The summary version is that the Polynesian people were beyond comprehension badasses at seagoing navigation. They were human sextants capable of determining their exact position on the largest expanse of bleak nothingness on the planet Earth (the Pacific Ocean) by doing things such as watching the stars, checking the angle of the waves, looking at birds in flight and…no that’s it. That’s what they did. I am not a Polynesian. I use a GPS because I suck with a sextant, much less reading the angle of a wave bounced off an island 100 miles away (not making this up or exaggerating here.) So these people sailed against the current and upwind in what amounted to two canoes tied together by some wood and some sails lashed on top. Why did they sail against the wind and current? So that if, while exploring, they failed to find any land, they could easily get pushed back home once all the food and water was used up onboard. Doesn’t that just sound swell? Well it sure did to them because they got really, really good at it. Therein how they found, charted and settled all these islands long before we Europeans with our clunky tall ships (and syphilis! Let’s not forget what we brought to share!) showed up on the scene.
As for Kauehi city, well, city is a generous term. Here’s me in the center of town, which also doubles for their beach:
They have a “store” (it may one day grow up to be a 7-11) where they sold baguettes!
Our elation at being able to resupply our junkie fix for awesome fresh French bread was short lived when we found out that the baguettes were frozen. It did lead us to wonder though: are they frozen because they got shipped here? Or do they just turn on the bread baking over once a month to save energy? Unfortunately my limited French skills did not cover such complex topics of conversation. I did manage to find ice cream though. Hey, if they can freeze bread they can have ice cream. More importantly, I can have ice cream.
The main structure of the town is the church. We were lucky enough to be here on a Sunday and we attended a Catholic mass in Tahitian. Though we couldn’t understand the service, we did get to meet the entire town (maybe 100 people in total) and they were really nice to us. Also, the percussion instrument in the choir was an Alhambra water jug. I felt that it would be disrespectful to tape this guy playing during mass but man, WOW. You’d be amazed how good people can get at playing an empty plastic water jug when it’s the only instrument available for 600 or so miles.
They have a dinghy dock and yacht anchorage. The monthly resupply ship, their only semi-reliable (weather depending) means of contact with the outside world, stays offshore and sends in small tender vessels with supplies for the residents. No exports that I am aware of or could find evidence of are taken back out to the ship. With only 100 people on the island and about 30 yachts a year that visit, they have an almost untouched natural beauty and crystal clear blue water right up the edge of the dock.
These people LIVE here. Perched on this tiny ring of coral in the middle of the ocean. They fish, collect rain water to drink and they have been doing it for hundreds of years.
-Greg
