To celebrate Capt K’s 37th birthday, we invited our local friends in Makemo to join us on a 4 day excursion around their atoll. Let’s start with a bit about our friends:

Leon & Soraya — we met Leon in Marquesas, at the Hiva Oa Boatyard, while repairing the fiberglass damages on Aldebaran (in July of 2017). He’s incredibly enthusiastic about everything he does, and kindly invited us to spend Sabrina’s birthday in Makemo last year, on our way through the Tuamotos.  So it’s uncanny that now, the following year, we were celebrating Kristian’s birthday with them too! Leon is a professor of mechanical repair at the college in Makemo, and Soraya is a retired admin from the government center.

Henere & Kumuhei: They are neighbors of Leon and all teach at the same school. We met them at a pizza party that Leon organized at his home (he’s got an amazing wood-burning oven!). This lovely couple grew up in Tahiti, and just moved to Makemo a few months ago after completing their teaching credentials in France. Henere teaches physical education and Kumuhei teaches English. Living in the Tuamotos is a new experience for them, but they are embracing the atoll life to the fullest!

My biggest surprise was how excited all four friends were about being aboard the sailboat. “There are no mosquitoes! The view over the water is so magnificent! Life on the boat is so fun!” They kept exclaiming with glee. I never realized that being on a sailboat would bring them so much joy to the locals who seem to live the ocean life daily! This in turn gave us a lot of satisfaction.

We went to two spots on the atoll: the motus in the SE side called Napahere, and the shallow anchorage in the far eastern corner, called “Trou de la Baleine” or Whale’s Hole.

 

The most distinct thing about cruising with locals was how they created so much food and camp comforts directly from the land, with very little. Here was the approximate order of events for the first 24 hours:

• 2pm. Arrival at the Motu Napahere. Within 10 minutes of dropping anchor Leon and Henere were campaigning to spearfish, which we harvested fresh fish until late afternoon
• 3:30am. Leon and I went to shore with the full moon to look for lobsters
• 9am. The crew goes to the beach to set up camp, by turning palm fronds into floor mats, serving dishes, and shade; they start a fire to bake breadfruit, lobster; gather brown coconuts on the ground for coconut milk, and green coconuts for drinking coconut water;
• 12pm. With very little to start, a decadent feast is created!