I decided to fly from Brisbane to Melbourne; it just made more sense. Beacho convinced me that I wouldn’t be missing much by traveling over land and this way I’d get to see more of Melbourne. Sydney is expensive, he said. I’m staying at his place on Separation Street, in the Northcote neighborhood, with his bandmates and his girlfriend. I parted with Mike and Vick on Island Buoy and left them to transport the boat from Brisbane down to the Gold Coast. We spent our last day together cleaning the boat from bow to stern. Mike got a working visa is going to look for employment in Oz before he gets on another boat heading west. Vick’s plan is to stay with his dad around Brisbane and eventually return to South Africa.

Beacho’s had a pretty tight schedule but he’s been making time to show me around. I don’t mind because I just wanted to see him and how better to see him than in his everyday element? He’s been going to the gym in the morning, then practicing piano, then teaching guitar. In between he’s been working on his upcoming solo tour, booking shows and making posters. He’s always been disciplined about his music. I’ve been looking for jobs and revamping his website. Although I missed his Brisbane show (by one day!), I was lucky enough to catch Electric Jellyfish’s last show last Saturday in Melbourne. He also took me to the Northcote Social Club where Adam, the bassist, works and Hayden used to work before he passed. On Monday morning, Linda, his girlfriend, and he took me to see Bridget and Hayden’s memorial bench in the Royal Botanical Gardens. Afterwards we checked out the Salvador Dali exhibit at the National Victory Gallery. Last night we went to a pub quiz and I won a free jug (that’s Australian for pitcher) of beer for guessing correctly that Honolulu is the only US city with a Royal Palace.

I’ve also been hanging out with Andrea, an Aussie girl I meet in Mexico with Canice with whom I’ve stayed in contact. She’s been excited to show me around Melbourne, which is good because that means Beacho doesn’t have to play full time tour guide for me. She’s relatively new to the city, too. She showed me around downtown and took me to the restaurant where she works and her local neighborhood pub. Bars and restaurants, she says, this is what we do in Melbourne. You’re getting the real Melbourne experience. I’m fine with that I said, I don’t feel the need to touristy stuff just because. It’s what we do in San Francisco. I just like to have a good time. The best way to see a place is by visiting someone who lives there.

Tonight is my last night in Oz. I’m going to go with Beacho downtown and meet up with Andrea at her bar after she gets off work. My flight leaves Melbourne at 3:00. It goes to Sydney then I hop on another plane for a 13 hour flight to LA. Then I go from LAX to SFO, landing at 10pm. Since I’m crossing the International Date Line, I arrive in California the same day that I leave.

I’m looking forward to seeing all my friends and family at home.

Will update more about the trip over and photos sometime in the future (hopefully).

Island Buoy is a delivery job. She’s a 30 ft Rayvin catamaran, much shorter than Crystal Blue Persuasion. The skipper is a young South African and the crew member a Canadian. They seem like a fun bunch.

Bringing my trip to a close, I’ve been taking a look at airfare home. I originally intended to use credit from Hawaiian Airlines flight that I booked last year from San Francisco to the Philippines. The ticket I purchased to the Philippines was because I originally intended to start my journey there. When that plan fell through, I canceled the ticket and found that it was neither transferable or refundable. Oh well, I thought, I can just use the credit to fly home from Australia. Not so. As it turns out, the credit is only good between Manila and San Francisco. And I still have to pay a $200 booking fee. This is what happens when you don’t read the fine print. I just took a look at flights from Melbourne to Manila, and it looks like it will still be cheaper for me to fly to Manila in order to use my Hawaiian Airlines credit. But it’s going to be a flying hell. My flight from Melbourne to Manila will have a stop-over in Kuala Lumpar and my flight from Manila to San Francisco will have a stop-over in Honolulu. Is it really worth the distress to save say $500? Should I forget my credit and fly non-stop Melbourne to San Francisco? I haven’t bought my ticket yet because I don’t have my credit card on me, so it’s still up in the air, but I’m probably going to go the cheap route.

It’s about 1500 nautical miles from Denarau to Brisbane and the skipper estimates it will take about 2 weeks. With luck, I’ll be able to meet the Electric Jellyfish on tour in Brisbane. They are the friends that I wanted to visit in Melbourne anyway.

I’ve been enjoying my last days in Suva with my old crew mates Tom and Jan. We’ve hardly left the yacht club because it’s got all the entertainment we like (and jugs of beer are only $5). There are no hard feelings between us. Tom’s looking for crew, but if he doesn’t find any, him and Jan are perfectly capable of sailing Marlin by themselves.

I’ll update everyone back home when I finally have my flight booked.

Right now I’m in Niuatoputapu, Tonga. The name means “forbidden coconut.” This is the least populated-populated island that we’ve been to, with about 1010 people living here. In fact, there was a death here the other day so I guess the population is now 1009. The island is far away from the other Tongan islands and on the way from Samoa to Fiji. An 8 person airplane stops once a week and a supply boat comes about once a month, weather depending.

It was a two day sail here and a little rough. After the first day we switched to two hour shifts. The wind was on our nose and the constant crashing of waves over the bow somehow found their way into my cabin, through a crack maybe, and half my bed was soaked, amongst some other books in my cabin. Everyone and everything survived and dried.

Like usual, we planned on staying here only 3 days, but because of imperfect weather we’ve been here for over a week now. On top of that, we lost a day because we finally crossed the International Date Line. The time is the same as in Samoa, but Tonga moved themselves to the other side of the Date Line before the last millennium so that they could claim their kingdom as “the land where time begins.” (Samoa is UTC -11 and Tonga is UTC +13.)

The first night here we went to a potluck then watched a traditional dance recital at the primary school.

One day we hiked up to the summit of the island with another boat, Drina from Sydney, and took some photos.

When we’re exceptionally bored, we walk to the Palm Tree Island Resort. That’s the only hotel on the island. They have some cold beer. As you can imagine, there were no guests at the time. But Laura, the proprietor, has two couples arriving next week. There is a party there this evening that should be composed of the 4 other yachts anchored here. The hotel is actually separated from the main island by a lagoon so we can walk there at low tide or take the dinghy at high tide.

We were going to leave for Fiji (Suva) this morning, but the wind was too much, so hopefully we’ll leave tomorrow. One day, I’ll make it to Australia. Slowly, but surely.

The “deserted” island we went to was Suwarrow. It’s a national park of the Cook Islands. There was one family that lives there as caretakers for 8 months out of the year. There were also anywhere from 5 to 7 boats anchored there. The first night we arrived, there was a BBQ amongst all the boats on shore. We passed the days snorkeling and fishing, usually unsuccessfully. When it wasn’t too windy we tried trolling in the dinghy. Otherwise we fished off the boat. There were plenty of sharks in the lagoon, about the length of my arm. Sometimes we caught them fishing, other times they would steal our fish before we could reel them in.

Three boats left Suwarrow at the same time, headed for Apia, Samoa. It took us 4 days. By the first night on sea, we were no longer in eyesight of each other but we all ended up getting into Apia the same day, within 5 hours. Arriving on a Sunday, we weren’t allowed to leave the marina until we were checked into the country, which would have to be done on Monday. Luckily, Radek, a Czech guy from another boat, managed to sneak out and smuggle in some beers for the night. We had spent the previous 20 days sailing and on Suwarrow completely dry, as in no alcohol, so we were extremely eager to wet our whistles. In fact, our whistles have been well wetted every night since.

So far, the highlight of Samoa has been our hitch-hiking out to the east coast and staying at the Taufua Beach Fales. “Fale” is a Samoan beach hut. The huts were nice enough; it was the hitch-hiking that was the highlight. A great way to see the countryside and meet the people. Everyone here has been really friendly and we had no troubles getting rides. I can safely say that Samoa has been my favorite place since I left Ecuador.

Now it looks like we will be leaving on Monday for Fiji. Maybe Wednesday. Who knows?

P.S. Here are photos from Samoa

In every anchorage we go to we meet a bunch of other boats who are doing the same thing and usually organize potluck between a couple of them. A lot of them also have websites, so now I will give them a shout out. Coromandel Quest Tom knew from Panama. They greeted us with breakfast our first morning in Tahiti. Zephyr we also met in Tahiti and later on in Bora Bora. The skipper is South African and he traded his Polish crew member for a Canadian in Tahiti. The Polish guy had actually emailed Tom in January to see if he could crew on Marlin but was too impatient to wait till March. In Moorea we met O’Flo, which was a catamaran with 11 people on board. I think there were 5 originally but they had friends come out to visit while they were in French Polynesia. Lastly there is Ragaine II. They fly under the Lithuanian flag and we’ve been hanging out with them in Bora Bora.

The photo above is from the top, not the tippy-top, but still the top of Bora Bora. It was a steep hike/climb. All the way I was holding on to something: a tree, a root, a rock, a rope. I’m still sore two days afterwards. But it was worth it. Someone told me that only 35 people go up there a year. They way down was just as hard, sliding on my ass most of the way. That’s Tavish in the photo next to me; he’s the new crew member for Zephyr. It was his 3rd time up there this trip and he had done it a year before.

Today Tom, Jan and I rode bikes around the island. Not sure when we’ll be leaving here but our next stop will be Samoa.

Our second day in Papeete, while I was lounging in the cockpit, a fellow was waving his hand at the gate to our dock trying to get my attention. He was waving and pointing to what I later learned was a six pack of Hinano. Feeling lazy and figuring he wasn’t looking at me or was mistaken, I ignored him and kept reading my book. Eventually, the guy from the boat across from me got up to let the stranger in and I figured that he knew the guy. A moment later they were all on the boat next door having a beer.

Not too long afterwards a tall, head-shaven Scandinavian-looking guy came up our boat and said, “So I hear you guys are looking for crew? That’s great because I’m looking for a boat to crew on.” I agreed with him that the situation was beneficial for both of us and we were both surprised at how easy it was to find crew and/or a boat on which to crew in Papeete. Almost every boat crossing the Pacific stops here and it’s not so isolated by air as it is by water. These properties give people the freedom to switch boats or quit on sailing altogether, like Brad did. I referred Jan (that was his name) to the captain because I didn’t want to assume any responsibility that wasn’t mine.

Long story short, Jan is Marlin’s newest crew member. He’s 40 years old and from Denmark. He crewed on a Moorings charter boat delivery from Capetown, South Africa to Tahiti, which was the boat’s final destination. I was initially wary about taking him on because he kept badmouthing his old skipper. But after talking to the his other crewmate I decided that his old skipper was indeed crazy.

On Thursday morning we left Papeete for Cook’s Bay on the Island of Moorea, which is close enough to Tahiti to see. We stayed an extra day in Papeete because Jan wanted to watch the Champion’s League game with Barcelona playing Manchester United. Barcelona, “his” team, won 2-0.

Moorea is far more tranquil that Papeete. I didn’t see much of Tahiti other than Papeete because there were no bicycles to rent, cars were too expensive to rent and I failed at figuring out the public transportation. I decided to save my explorations for the smaller islands, which is exactly what I did on Moorea. One day we walked from Pao Pao, where our boat was anchored, along the shore to Vaiare. On the way back we cut over the mountain taking a steep trail. At the top we were rewarded with a spectacular view of Moorea’s reefs and Tahiti in the distance. The next day we rented bicycles and rode around the perimeter of the island. We paced ourselves so that it took us all day to do the 62 kilometers. We started the cycle off with a stop at a local fruit juice factory that was offering free samples of their juices and liqueurs.

My camera broke during the rainstorm that I got stuck in while in Galapagos. Because of this I’ve been mooching other people’s photos, which is why I’m slow to post photos here. The photo from this post I ripped off of Flickr. The camera on my iPhone still works, however, and here is a photo I took of our stickered mast. I have some friends that will get a kick out of this photo. This is the third time I’ve been on a trip that has been logged via stickers placed on the mode of transportation.

Our next stop will be Bora Bora, for which we’ll probably leave tomorrow. It will be our last stop in French Polynesia and I will finally get my bond back. (I had to pay a bond on entering French Polynesia to ensure that I left or had enough money to leave should I decide to illegally reside here.)

Brad and I always joked about making a newspaper for Marlin. Had we followed through, the biggest headline of the Marlin Wake, (that was the name I gave the fictional paper) would be: “HURSH TO JUMP SHIP!” Two days ago, the crew of Marlin was enjoying the good weather and wind when abruptly Brad said, hey guys—. I was startled by his assertiveness and waiting to hear something profound like, I think we should have beans tonight for dinner, instead of pasta. Then he came out with: I’m going to get off the boat in Tahiti. This was the last thing on either Tom’s or my mind and we both took our time to process the curious statement. At first I thought he was just making funny, a sarcastic comment that we usually make to each other to make the days go by. Then he elaborated, as if he could tell we would need more of an explanation for such change in the universe of Marlin and to prove he wasn’t pulling our legs. He said, I’ve been thinking about it for a while, and I wanted to make sure. Ever since we left the Marquesas. I know it’s a decision that I’ll regret but I’ll regret more not going. But I know that once I’ve made up my mind, and that I’ve begun to think about the other possibilities, that I now have to go.

I’ve thought a lot about what he said, especially since I’ve had by doubts about sailing and a longing for the civilized, sedentary world. One of my favorite pastimes on the boat is thinking about all the wonderful, simple things that I would be doing were I not on a boat. (Much as I thought about sailing into the sunset when I felt trapped in the same routine—rat race, if you will—on land.) In fact, I’ve made a list of the things I plan, intend or pretend to do when I get back, including books I want to read, movies I want to watch, restaurants I want to eat at and things I want to do, like baking an apple pie from scratch. I didn’t pry too much into his reasons, but think that if Brad’s so confident in his decision, it is best that he does his thing. Tom and I will work around the obstacle. This is all part of cruising and part of the adventure I sought. We’re going to look for another crew member or go it two. Either way, we will make it to Cairns. I’ll be sad to see him go. I’ve been smelling this guy’s farts for over 53 days (he’s the one who’s counting).

In other news, I got an email from Gary, captain of Crystal Blue. It turns out he had to send Larry home and he’s sailing the cat back to Pacific coast US. I was just as shocked at this news as I was by Brad’s departure. I think he was probing me to see if I would crew on the way back but I don’t think I would do it, even if he paid me, I’m looking forward to my return.

Other than missing out on the Block event of the year or maybe even the decade? That is Fat Pat’s 30th Birthday Celebration with cameos from Mike Franz of Paris, the crazy Quebecker Francois and all the Barnett Circle/Arden Park-fostered, grown-up-children and their lovable significant others, I’m doing honky-dory.

Our next stops will be the various islands of the Society Archipelago: Moorea, Huahine, Bora Bora, et cetera.

We had several ways to measure our progress and to keep us entertained. One was the odometer on the GPS. This told us how many miles we had traveled but, while impressive at times, was not an accurate way to measure how close we were getting. As you know, you can’t always travel in a straight line, even with a sail boat. We were at the mercy of the wind and its whims, which were generous most of the time. A more accurate way to measure our progress was distance, as the crow flies, to our destination, which didn’t always agree with the odometer. The first week or so we went south to 8° S latitude in order to escape the doldrums. Sailing almost perpendicularly to the direction we wanted to go, we didn’t really gain on the islands. But I consoled myself saying it was a strategic move that would allow us to sail ata faster and friendlier angle in the future.

At 8° S we found the wind we were looking for but it was directly behind us from the east and there were 5 foot waves. Ideally you want wind from the south or southeast. Anyways, it made for a really rocky, uncomfortable ride. Instead of keeling over on one side and staying there, the boat was keeling all he way to the left and then all the way to the right with every wave that passed under it. After two days we were fed up with the conditions and decided to go back north where we could catch slower winds and make for a smoother angle to the island and once again we were making miles, but not really getting closer. We were in email contact ith some kiwis we met at Puerto Lucia who had left before us and were farther south. They warned us that conditions were more intense down south where they were at 12°. The conditions they were in wound up breaking their jib foil and they used the spinnaker the whole way. Once we wee north it was smooth sailing the rest of the way. All in all we traveled an extra 600 miles farther than the shortest distance.

Another way I gauged distance was by longitude and time zone, and compared them with cities in America at the same longitude. One day we were in Denver and a few days later we were in Salt Lake City. Galapagos lies right in the center of the UTC -6 time zone, known as Central Time in the States. Our destination in the Marquesas is situated on the western edge of the UTC -9 time zone. In fact, they offset their clocks by 9 and a half hours because of this. A time zone is 15° of longitude, which, along the equator spans 900 nautical miles (15 x 60nm) which is about 1000 statute miles (7nautical miles = 8 miles). According to this crazy method, I’m now somewhere in Alaska.

Most of the time we were hand-steering in 2 hour shifts. This made the days go much faster. By happenstance I wound up with the 3-5 (AM and PM) and the 9-11 (AM and PM) shifts. So I slept from 11 to 3 and 5 to 9 and had 8 hours of free time, 3 of which were usually dark. I spend most of my free time reading. I read Anna Karnina, an impossibly long novel for an impossibly long journey. Also two Paulo Coelho books of Brad, including The Alchemist. I finished Voyage of the Beagle and am now working on the PADI Open Water Diver Manual as I plan on getting SCUBA certified along the way.

We caught 7 fish along the way. 3 dorados, each one bigger than the one before it. A skipjack tuna, a sailfish, a 50lb black marlin (at least that’s the consensus, I still suspect it was a sailfish) and a prized 40lb bigeye tuna (like a yellowfin). All of these fish were caught without rod and reel, simply a fishing line wrapped around a spool and a boat winch for a bit of tension. The bigger fish presented somewhat of a problem because they were more fish than we could eat at times. The bigeye was enough to feed 50 people so we at 3 portions each for 3 meals.