Between Nuku Hiva, Marquesas, and Apatake, Tuamotus, there are 525 miles of open ocean

"So you were dreaming about guzzling strawberry-flavored cod liver oil while getting shot out of a cannon?" "Yeah, and when I landed, somebody handed me a greasy pork sandwich."

There is a narrow channel through the coral--on the fourth day the wind changes, and we miss it by a mile—means two more days zigzagging along the northern coast.

We're being tested, I say, and if we're found wanting, we will be punished again.

So I've learned. I stay calm. I realize I even feel happy out here. The atoll looks beautiful, those bursts of aquamarine before the breakers hit the coast, the yellow and green palms against the gray sky. We tack, the coast shrinks again.

Tallulah has stopped saying "Ready go" but every picture in her books is a picture of meat. We don't have any more meat. Or eggs. We have beans. This type of family togetherness begins to strike me as unnatural.

Adam has been at the tiller since three in the morning. Late that afternoon, I hear an onrush of water against the hull and feel the boat straining against the wind. We're less than two miles from the channel into the lagoon. Adam adjusts the sails under the gray sky, I’m steering, thinking up recipes using eggs. The wind seems to grow tired, then it renews itself. Suddenly we're at the entrance. And we're shooting through that narrow channel. The cobalt current rushes against us, the water is rippling, corrugated. Wind holds steady then falters. We can see in there. The water is turquoise. We can feel the ancient summons of the tide. Dusk is falling. I'm struggling to hold the tiller straight, Tallulah piggyback, lighthearted in this ecstatic rush of elements. She wants to know what dad is doing up there, lifting a palm to the wind. Talking to Yemaya, I suggest. She sings a wordless tune, and the wind suddenly blows. We burst into the open waters of the lagoon, lavender clouds against the illuminated gray of the sky. The anchorage is deserted except for a huge Australian boat, the crew staring at us as we race past. In the sheltered shallow waters drop anchor as light is extinguished like the falling of a curtain. Is this paradise?

There are many devils in the army fallen from heaven, who chose Lucifer and await his command in the struggle against God. And so this paradise of blues and greens has its fallen angel, alcoholic and alone, his eyes obscured by cheap sunglasses, a bag of black pearls at his side. He drinks Ricard. Tying off his large open boat to ours he boards, bringing misshapen pearls, toys for the baby. He sits and drinks, as if awaiting some communication that’s slow to come. The bottle is empty. Adieu, he says, without meaning it of course, and settles himself again. We pour him Cuban rum, to placate, assuage, and sit in the silence. At last, the invisible sign, and with a cry, he descends again to his brilliant corner of hell.

Adam is...

8 degrees N [er, wait--would that be south? all he said was 8]
138 degrees 32 minutes W
120 miles offshore, thinking about doing laundry and eating something other than lentils and weird sourdough bread

Adam is...

400 miles from Nuku Hiva with good steady winds. He has been inspired by the work of Benjamin Franklin. He even talks about getting some rimless glasses. Except he doesn't need glasses. He's been out there a long time.

Adam is

0 degrees 21 minutes N
130 degrees 32 minutes W

"An atoll is a group of motus."

Where is Adam?

Nuku Hiva bound at:
2 degrees 48 minutes N
128 degrees 3 minutes W

Where is Adam?

Eating lentils at degrees, 51 minutes N, 125 degrees, 38 minutes W. Twelve hundred miles from his destination, with the wind coming out of the SW.

Adam is at sea--he's reached the trades, he says--the wind was blowing at last when we talked, him out there in the ocean and me lying on the futon in my sister's guest room in Greenville, SC. He's on his way toward Tahiti. Lulu cries for dad--she can say it with a "d" on the end now. My sister and I will take her to the zoo tomorrow. This is a strange life.

Thanks, Judy, for the photo of us together

Northerlies

Christmas day, La Cruz de Huanacaxtle
Christmas has gotten weirder and weirder. Now we’ve begun to collect icons: a Virgin of Guadalupe, La Guardia—a blond angel watching over children crossing a rickety bridge—an Italianate Mary, Joseph, and baby Jesus with an Oración por las Familias printed on the back. Lulu, as she’s begun to call herself, bites it and says “baba, baba.” She loves pictures of other babies. We’re not feeling particularly religious, just kinda lonely.

Christmas Eve, Puerto Vallarta
Walking toward the corner where we planned to meet after a spontaneous hour of Christmas shopping, in a papeleria for streamers, a candy store for bright foil chocolates and the Telas Parisina for sequined and glittery ribbon, I passed an office set into the steep hillside, faded olive green chairs in an empty waiting room, the walls covered with portraits—a lowering doctor wearing huge square glasses holding newborn twins by their feet, faces red and swollen with birth, a woman’s white, emptied abdomen at the edge of the frame. On the other side of the room was a soft, pale Jesus and a young man holding out his arms to measure a prize dorado suspended on a hook, the glistening blue bay in the distance.

December 20, Tehuamixtle
I got sick, too sick to move for a couple of days. It must have been food poisoning. The evening of the third day we up-anchored and sailed toward Cabo Corrientes. We'd try to round the cape, then curve toward the top of Banderas Bay. That morning a wind began to blow hard from the north. We hove to and waited for it to change, tossing in a heaving, spray flying, churning factory of wind. On the second day we turned back. Fast through the swell toward Tehuamixtle again, the implacable drip of leaks in the deck. We went to a hotel. The room had four beds, all with bright red satin coverlets, and buckets of fake flowers rooted in sand. Next door we found Socorro cooking enchiladas and fishermen sitting in chairs overlooking the bay, watching kids bag oysters on the dock. She was padded, quiet and smiling, heating oil in a pan, pollo deshebrado marinating in chile sauce. “Socorro—what does it mean?” Adam asked. “I don’t know what it means,” she said thoughtfully. I think to myself, I looked that word up recently. We eat plates of enchiladas and sopes and drink agua de lima. “Whenever you are hungry, come and I will feed you,” Socorro tells us. Socorro—it means succor.

December 14, un restaurante de mariscos, Punta Perula
La dueña and her daughter waited with me at a table under the palapa. They showed me their cross-stitch. Pillowcases--a bouquet of red roses, a pair of bluebirds. Mi Amor. They brought the finished covers out from a room behind the kitchen, smelling of mildew. Contigo duermo en el cielo. “I also made one with turkeys,” the señora tells me. “Turkeys are so beautiful.” The women tell me in Spanish the colors of the yarn—tinto, verde de caña, verde de banderas—unfurling patterns stitched while waiting for customers, watching the light on the water, boats rocking in the swell. “There was a one-eyed man who used to come here,” the old woman says. “He was from pa’alla”—up there—the curve of her fingers taking in the United States. “He came for years, but I haven’t seen him in a long time. I suppose he’s never coming back.” Love, I dream with you—stitched in the blue of the sky, above an arbor of roses, a wine-red heart.



PS sorry for the lack of visual stimuli, our camera succumbed to our gritty lifestyle and is holding our photos hostage for now.

Spinnaker run to Barra de Navidad

Towards Puerto Vallarta

Fog and foot

Light winds, moving south

We make our way down the coast of Baja with fellow escapees from Ensenada.

Comin' in hot

Leaving San Diego

Escaping the threat of 40-knot southerlies we pulled into Glorietta Bay, right next to the Hotel Coronado. Heading in, we rowed out of the way of a huge cruise ship which I had mistaken for a building, and then continued to row around aircraft carriers and past the late-night skyline of the city. We left before I could realize my fantasy of poached eggs with hollandaise sauce and coffee in the hotel. We followed another mammoth cruise ship toward Ensenada--the passengers were most likely playing slots and enjoying the midnight buffet while we blew south in the warm, midnight Santa Anas.

The oar

Thanks a million, Marv, for finding an oar for us, and Tim, for collecting it and masterfully connecting it to the rental car.

Enjoying the sunset at zero knots

Seagull chases pineapple

We were going slow, but the pineapple was going pretty fast.