We are back down at Teahupoo, anchored in our favorite spot at the back of the actual Chope’s reef pass. It’s gotten a whole lot busier around here, now that the WCT is just around the corner. But the big thing everyone’s talking about is the Wild Card Trials. Manoa Drollet has been seeded straight into the main event, so that’s one less oke for the wild cards to worry about. But I feel sorry for whoever comes up against him in the main event. The oke simply charges here, especially when it’s solid. I think he made the final in 2007. But I have only seen Manoa out here a few times, when it was really pumping, I don’t think he lives near Teahupoo, apparently his pozzie is about an hours drive up the west coast. One of the local photographers here who knows Manoa well says that Manoa only appears at Chopes when its huge. So that may count against him if its small, like it was last year? The other contingent who really charge here are the Hawaiians, like Kalani Chapman and Kamalei Alexander. It’s a relatively short flight from Honolulu to Papeete, like 3hrs or something, so its easy for them to chase swells over here, and Hawaiians generally speaking are the most common surf travellers here as well. Some of the Hawaiians that I rapped to have done more than 20 trips and you can see it when they surf the place.
I must say, under 6ft Teahupoo is no heavier than many Indo and South African waves. Especially on a south swell, which is quite common, its not that heavy at all, and most of the locals go surf elsewhere in the vicinity. Its during these periods that I have clocked most of my hours, with plenty of those being ace out. And if Teahupoo is like that for the contest, then anyone can win. The lip is thin enough to hit, you can get a deep barrel and then just unleash.

We’ve been in this area for around 2 months, and I have seen that those duk south westerly ground swell are often spaced more than 2 weeks apart, which is why the Teahupoo WCT can be such a let down. I don’t know how good Jordy is in a backhand barrel. You must understand, the guys who do well here are not just absolute barrel specialists, they are also Teahupoo specialists, and I don’t know if Jordy is on that level. And he will probably be up against one of the seasoned wild cards in his first round. Eish! But then again, what the frog do I know, I’ve been on this boat for 2 years. Hopefully he will come over early and get the hang of the place. Because when those duk SW groundswells wrap onto the reef it’s a whole other story. The west bowl comes into play, and if you sit too deep you are dead. But even during a huge sw swell there will still be plenty of perfect waves running through from higher up on the reef, which is where I’ve gotten most of my bombs so far. Its here that you will see the inexperienced pro’s hussling each other like headless chickens.

Its crazy to watch this from the boats in the channel, you will see that inexperienced pack chasing each other deaper and shallower because to them it seems as if so many bombs are going through there unridden. Then you look to your right and further out, and maybe not so shallow, will be a motionless smaller pack of okes. They will be in position for those massive west bowl pits…just waiting patiently, because they always come.

Anyway, we’re not going to be around for the contest. There are too many other perfect uncrowded waves waiting to be discovered, and we have not even started our exploration of the leeward Islands, like Huahine and Raiatea. Here’s to Jordy!!!

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We are heading back down to Teahupoo but we cant stay for too long. We have a haul out booked at a boat yard for the 3rd week of August, so we will miss the contest. Shimmi’s rudders are vibrating, this caused the autopilot failure previously. So we hope to have the rudders re-sleeved which means about 3 days on the hard. After that we really hope that shimmi will not give us any more major shit. Everyone we speak to say that the first year of owning and cruising long distance on a newly bought yacht is make or break, as everything goes wrong, everything needs to be fixed/replaced and you have to really intimately get to know your boat.

So can someone please tell me if we are finally coming to the end of this soul destroying and prohibitively expensive “phase”? Anyway, yachties (grotty yotties) refer to this concept of constantly fixing things as “staying ahead of the boat”. And am I getting ahead of shimmi? Only time will tell. As I am writing this email the gennie just sputtered and died. Dirty filter? 70 hrs since last filter change, so maybe. What a pain. Incidently, this process of getting to know one’s boat transforms all yotties into so called “systems experts”. Unfortunately, topics surrounding boat systems thus dominate all yotty conversations, you can spot a long time yottie from a mile off, he is the guy who is constantly rambles on in a boring monologue all matters related to ship’s systems, it sounds like the soft far away drone of an almost broken generator, the purpose of this monologue often has the sole purpose of showing you how damn smart he is. I hope I am not describing myself….yet…

What I have realized is that cruising long distance equates basically to the crazy task of fixing one’s boat in different parts of the 3rd world. Utterly foreign places where you know no-one, know where nothing is, have no transport once ashore, cant get cash, where people don’t speak your lingo and charge outrageous prices for the most basic services. Where no spare parts are available, electricity in the wrong voltage and every cruising yacht is seen as a major source of income. One cruiser told me: Cruising is only 10% fun. The rest is just a slog. Yes, now that we are in our second year of “cruising with kids”, we can start having a few opinions on the topic.

We often wonder if we are doing the right thing. Especially w.r.t. the kids. They cannot hang out with their grandparents, extended family and friends and basically have no stable “neighbourhood”. This is a big thing which you take away from them. But in return you give them hands-on parents, 24/7. And they should do very well in Geography once in school! Who knows where or when our cruise will end, but I can tell you that we do miss home (and the babysitters!). Another weird thing that I miss is not being a local surfer anywhere, you always feel like an outsider.

Another thing I realized is that if I could come back to earth with any passport, it would be French: There are French Islands in all the oceans, and most of them have cooking waves: In the Caribbean (St Martin, Martinique), Pacific (Tahiti, Noumea, New Caledonia), Indian Ocean (Reunion, Mauritius) and so on. Cruising around with a French passport (and lingo) is just so much easier…Soon us Saffas on shimmi will have no choice but to depart from these beautiful polynesian islands…

Us English speakers think that the whole world is “English”, that English is the so-called lingua franca. Not so. Take Central America, where most of the language is Spanish. Call it a separate Spanish/Portugese universe, because that’s basically what it is. Now we are in a part of the “French Universe”. Which extends right around the globe. And another universe that we know so little off is the Chinese… What I am trying to say that when you cruise along the equator of the world’s oceans, the English language is of little use. No matter how loud or slow you talk. The South Pacific is also as far from home for South Africans as it is possible to be on the globe. We would love to fly home for a quick fix of family and friends, but its too far and too expensive. Also the main reason why none of you can come visit us…Anyway, I dont mean to sound down…I am just trying to share a bit of ‘long distance cruise reality’ without all the golden sunsets and feathering barrels which is just a distorted truth.

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