Tahiti

French Polynesia - Posted On

It takes me one week to get out of Tago Mago. I really wonder why I had taken so much time after.

Too much time has passed on this boat. Delphine gets her terrible bad mood once more, this time I don’t really know why, and I am not looking forward to understand to honest.

In the first morning, Fred informs us he is stopping the sailing world tour and he is going back home for one year leaving the boat in Raiatea. Big news!

Laurent and Delphine are quite desperate about the news while I see it as a good sign. It pushes me to find another boat. I am very much fed up of Delphine’s up and down mood! Change, at last!

I am quite surprised to see them deciding to take the plane to New Caledonia. “- we don’t like ‘begging’ people to go on their boat and prefer answering the adverts on the Internet.” In less than two hours I found a potential boat leaving to New Caledonia. It’s so easy here! And they give up while they were giving me so much of ‘motivation’ for sailing. I don’t really call that adventure, but tourism…

My objective now is to find a boat to go to New Caledonia. Searching field is marina Taina. In two or three days I have two main options coming, both terribly tempting. It makes the choice really hard!

Option “Kamoké”: French Sailing Vessel (s/v), 16m with Pascal, Bénédicte and their two children. Travelling for many years now, they really travel the way I like, completely opposite of Tago Mago style. In my opinion they take their life as a game, not SERIOUSLY as other boring people think they are…

They go to Vanuatu first, passing two months there, accept that my friend Nadège come with us and leading to New Caledonia and New Zealand in November. They don’t even ask anything as cost sharing, they would be simply happy to have me on board as crew member. Perfect!

Option “Lady K”: English S/V. Superyacht, high rank of luxury, 24m. We enter in a complete another world here. Toby, 33, Australian, and Ayla, 29, UK are paid crew on board all year round. They work for the very rich owner of the boat, taking care of it and delivering it anywhere he wants it.

They are willing to take me as an extra crew to the Tuamotu and then to Tonga islands in August. They also offer to pay the plane ticket to Nadège from New Zealand to come along. ‘Cost sharing’ is not part of their vocabulary, I will not get properly paid, but I have to pay nothing… and Nadège will be part of the Pacific adventure as well!

Why Tuamotu? A total solar eclipse will happen on the 11/07; my two-year birthday of my trip! They would drop us there for 3 weeks and offer us the return ticket to Tahiti while they go cruising with the owner’s family. It looks too good to be true!

This option also gives us the opportunity to get a first experience as crew member on superyachts, a very well paid position… I think about the future.

After three days of deep thinking I finally make my mind up for Lady K, the super yacht option! Departure to Tuamotu is planned for the start of July, leaving me one month to appreciate Tahiti and waiting for Nadège arriving end of June.

Not only do I find a boat to go on but I also find a job on another s/v, a 30m long this time! Umatalu needs some day workers to clean… everything. Young Swedish boss Alex takes us for a wakeboarding session one morning. Just to let you know how the job is like. But it is also quite a hard job when he asks me to clean the whole dock with a toothbrush, no kidding!

Working on such a boat is excellent to make contact with the crew world. I get other jobs after that giving me the possibility to leave in this over expensive society of Tahiti.

While looking for a job in the marina I meet Davy, young adventurer of the sea. He offers me to take over his job position… and to live in his house with his mates! Quickly he explains he also wants to go to France on a bicycle.

This is how I get to meet the “Pierre à feux” team, five young people living in a house around which they set some tents to have more space. I love their lifestyle!

“France calls Olivier…”.

Nico, good friend of mine from France gives me the contact of Xavier and Helene, close friends of him. With them I will get back to the old way of the French culture, good Tahitian meals all evening making stupid play on words, drinking good wine and joking about everything.

Among the people I meet, back to the sailing world, a huge 35m s/v Infinity is stationed next to Tago Mago. Crowded of young backpackers I have some really good time there talking about life, travel, world and sea adventures. They match so much with my conception of the universe.

They invite me for a trip to Moorea as well as other Tahitian people. Among the guests I meet Domi, a good friend of my sister back in France! Such a hazard!

By that time I also have the magazine Latitude 38 giving me an interview about the sailing part. It’s interesting to share the tips for the potential future hitchhikers.

“- Olivier, you haven’t talked about paragliding recently, have you?”

That’s quite true, my old Ozone wing is well packed deep in the bags, suffocating down there. And here we go, Tahiti is THE place for flying in the Pacific ocean.

Punaruu flying site awaits for me, covered of wings every morning. They are 75 pilots here, some fly every morning.

We fly downwind of the island, covered from the Trade winds. It gives a bit of a complex context to deal with but with the time it’s really OK to understand.

Six months without flying was too much. I need to get more trust in my gear again. But how wonderful I feel again in the air! I fly above the shallow crystal clear water of the green coral lagoon.

We land on the beach, after some bumpy loops in the air.

Nadège is back.

She’s coming! On the 27th June I wait for her at the airport. Tradition here is to welcome arriving people with a flower collier. I add up a floral crone to this, she gets covered of flowers!

We are two again; the team is now on for the second part of the world tour. She has no time restriction this time. We will try to go back to France together for... the next years to come. Let’s see! This is definitely another adventure coming up.

She puts texts and photo on this blog: http://gogirlgo.revolublog.com/ , you are welcome to check out.

Right now, having passed a month in Tahiti working most of the time cleaning boats, we are ready to leave, heading our way back to the Tuamotu, one of the most beautiful places on Earth, an archipelago made only of paradisiacal atolls.

Our objective is Makemo, nearly on the total sun eclipse shadow coming on the 11/07. We will stay a month there playing Robinson and his “Samedi” (she arrived on a Saturday:)), fishing and cutting coconuts, happy life!