The Relationship Test...

Day 8 (July 31, 2011):

I'm starting this blog at 3:30AM. I managed to get a few good hours of sleep (thanks to MerCalm & exhaustion), but once I rolled over I was up for the duration.

Let's flash back to just before 7AM & I will fill in all the details of our first day at sea without Marseille. I crawled into bed with Avatar playing the night before & was asleep within minutes. However, once the boat started to sway in the middle of the night, I tossed and turned. The bed was hard & the dinghy was smacking the waves violently near our head. I pulled our windows halfway closed because the cold wind was chilling me to the core. Tossing and turning, turning and tossing and voila it was 7AM. I was extremely grumpy when I woke up & my back was sore from the stiff bed.

Our plan was to bring Marseille back to Sunsail by 8:30AM, so that we could get underway and head out to Tahaa. Once out of bed, we got ourselves ready for the day (basically put our bathing suits on & took care of hygiene needs) & we began breakfast. Marseille had coffee going by the time I got upstairs. It was glad that he started it and could talk me through how to make another pot (pour hot water in our “coffee pot” while holding the filter full of grinds over the pot).

I decided to make French scrambled eggs for breakfast since Curtis loves them & they've become a specialty of mine. Curt had the bacon in the oven & our pot (yes I said pot not frying pan – it's absolutely the only way to make proper French scrambled eggs – thank you Institute of Culinary Education) was ready to go. I was just about to pour my mixture into the pot, but while Curt was pouring milk into my coffee mug the board under my bowl slipped and the entire egg mixture ended up on the floor (both our faults because we shouldn't have been preparing food on the cover to the drying rack). I was so annoyed (still very grumpy from lack of sleep), but Curt quickly cleaned up the mess & brought me more eggs.

Round two of making eggs went off without a hitch. We enjoyed some coffee, juice, eggs & bacon in the saloon before pulling up the anchor and heading back to Sunsail. Once at Sunsail, Marseille brought us to the market. We first stopped by a local farmer & picked up 1 large breadfruit (basically an island grapefruit) & a bunch of white bananas (the peel is orange) that Marseille recommend we try baking in the oven.

We walked over to the only supermarket in town to get some fish, meat & veggies. I was pretty disappointed by their vegetable selection, as they had tons of lettuce, brown tomatoes, shriveled up peppers & cucumbers filled up an entire row. We opted to get carrots that looked decent & a giant bunch of green beans. Curt went in search of seafood, but wasn't impressed by the selection they had in the freezer or fridge section (no counters with meat or seafood here). We decided that we'd try and pick up fresh fish from a fisherman the following day to cook on our grill. Curt managed to find 1 piece of steak that looked decent (it was only $3.60 – looking back on it I'm wondering if it was actually steak. It could have been dog at a cheap price like that, as many locals eat wild dog).

We loaded up all our groceries & the beverage provisions that Sophie forgot to put on the boat yesterday & head back to our catamaran. We were ready to start our first sail...just the two of us. Once out of the marina, Curt asked me to take the wheel so he could get the main sail up. I refused. I was really nervous to take the wheel of this 40 foot catamaran & would rather put the sail up. Sunsail has a sail cover that is permanently attached to the boom (basically the sail flakes into it and you use tie it closed with the sail ties), which made it difficult for Curt to see which lines did what (without him coming up front to get a look), so he couldn't really give me instructions.  I was on my own to figure out which was the halyard, etc...

He was getting frustrated with me for not taking the wheel, but I keep refusing & eventually we got the 2 reefs in & the sail up. Our morning sail was quite nice. We were headed to our first anchoring spot near, which was halfway around Tahaa. The plan for mid-morning was to anchor, snorkel around the Motu & head out early afternoon for our night anchoring spot on the other side of Tahaa.

By the time we got to the Motu, I had spilled my coffee all over myself when we hit a wake. This was just not my day (and this was still only the morning). I rinsed out my cover up, hung it to dry & mentally prepared to set the anchor. Curt was still at the wheel & it was my job to drop the anchor. We arrived at our location and assessed the best place to drop our anchor. There was a lot of coral & we were just outside of very shallow water.

Our first attempt at dropping the anchor was not a success. Curt kept yelling for me to drop the anchor & I kept yelling that he was near too much coral. It was a battle of stubborn minds trying to accomplish a tricky task (the current and waves were pushing us into the coral & we were just not working together). After another failed attempt, Curt left the wheel to assess the situation & thought we needed to attach the anchor lead rope (used with catamarans to keep the anchor centered) to the rode of the anchor. He attached it and we went for our third attempt (this time I didn't argue that he was too close to coral & decided that if our anchor got stuck in coral it would be the captain's job to dive & get it out). This time the anchor didn't go anywhere. I told Curtis that his brilliant plan to attach the lead was a failure because we should have attached it after the anchor was secure at the bottom (he didn't come back to see what I was talking about and didn't really understand what I was talking about). He wanted to try again with the lead still attached. I took the lead off because clearly the anchor wasn't going to go anywhere (in my hast I didn't reattach the lead to the boat but wouldn't realized this until later in the day) & it was at that point that Curt told me to put the anchor away & we went for the mooring instead.

I grabbed our boat hook and prepared to grab the mooring. As we got close I realized that the moorings didn't have any rings and the hole at the top was too tiny to hook through. Curt went back for try number two & told me to try and grab the rope right under the mooring ball and pull it up. While he was giving me instructions we passed the mooring & since I was listening to Curt's instructions I missed it again. We were both frustrated with each other, our unsuccessful anchor attempts and our unsuccessful mooring attempt.

Curt motored away & said we were moving on. I was equal parts upset because we were arguing with each other and annoyed that he left the anchoring spot because I thought eventually we'd get it. I went into the cabin and pulled out my sailing books to figure out why we were unable to anchor properly (note: normally we don't anchor since we mainly do day rentals where we can tie up to moorings or dock the boat, but we were both taught how to set various types of anchors). I realized that I forgot the key 5:1 ratio, but also realized that our anchor wasn't marked in feet or meters so I had no idea how much rode I was actually letting out. Since the rode was inside the boat, I had no way to pull it out and flake it out in sections of 10 feet. Curt came into the cabin, did a little math & we figured out that 60 revolutions of the winch would roughly equal 5 meters to the bottom (we were mainly anchoring in water 5-10 meters deep, so this should work).

It was only when Curt was working out the math that I got nervous (not sure why since we were in 40 meters of water, not close to any shores & with no other boats in sight) that someone wasn't manning the wheel, so for the first time all trip I got behind the wheel. This was a turning point for our morning, as I felt successful at something, Curt was glad that I was actually feeling confident enough to take the wheel & we both apologized for being short with each other during our anchoring exercise. I stayed behind the wheel for a while, which gave Curt a much needed break. We both were able to sit on the captain's bench and enjoy the morning (we've been motoring since our failed anchor attempt).

I realized that it had been quite some time with our sails down & asked when we'd put them back up. Curt pointed to our instruments & it was the first time I realized that we've been going directly into 30 knots of wind for the past hour. Had Curt not pointed that out (I get really nervous in high winds & large swells), I probably would have stayed behind the wheel for a bit longer. I used the excuse that I wanted to check out our next anchoring location for things to do nearby & headed into the cabin for a bit. The wind was getting stronger & stronger as the day went on.  It wasn't exactly smooth sailing.  

After going through some guide books, I thought we should check out l'Hibiscus hotel & bar. We could use their free mooring, get drinks with them at happy hour & stay tied up to the mooring over night. Curt liked this idea & we both thought that since l'Hibiscus was in a bay that we'd be more sheltered from the wind at night, as opposed to anchoring out in the lagoon by the Motu.

It was about 2PM & we decided that we'd still go to our original night anchor location, practice our anchoring again & snorkel around a bit. This location was much more desirable for anchoring since the water was a bit deeper around the Motu, there wasn't a lot of coral & the current wasn't pushing us toward shallow water. We successfully anchored on our first try!! This was not only huge for our afternoon plans, but also a huge success for our relationship (no bickering this time around & excellent teamwork).

We opened a bottle of wine & sat in the saloon for half an hour watching our swing to make sure that we were in fact set properly. We still needed to connect the anchor lead line to the the rode. I tried to use our boat hook, but the lead was directly below the trapeze, so I couldn't reach it and pull it where it needed to be hooked onto the rode. Curt put on his flippers & snorkel gear and jumped in to hook it on from the water. The wind was picking up a lot and our boat was swinging bobbing around a lot. I was really nervous that Curt was going to get hurt in the process, but he managed to successfully attach the lead. I needed to let the anchor out a bit more, so that they lead made it's proper Y shape and the anchor lie in the center.

Once we were set, Curt came back on board & we prepared to snorkel, only we couldn't find Curt's mask. He had it on when he went in the water & he thought he handed it to me after he attached the lead, while he waited for me to let out the rode. I was certain he didn't hand it to me. He realized that when he swam back to the diving platform he tossed them up on the deck. We searched & searched but couldn't find it (we figure it fell off the back when we went over a big swell), so I stayed on board while Curt swam around for a bit checking out what was around us. By 4:30PM, we were showered & ready to head into the bay for l'Hibiscus happy hour.

We tied up to a mooring & were preparing the dinghy when I thought it was much windier than it had been all day. I asked Curtis if this was a good spot to tie up for the night & he told me that if it was rough (large waves & strong winds coming in to the bay) that we'd have to rough it for the night because the sun was about to set. We got into the dinghy & I felt really queazy. The swell was getting bigger & the sun was almost set. I was nervous about heading back to the boat in pitch black (we left our anchor light & deck lights on but it was still very dark). Curt told me we would be fine.  I love that his calm demeanor is always able to balance my high anxiety.

We spent the next couple of hours hanging out at l'Hibiscus, drinking wine, checking our email (I of course posted yesterday's blog) and unwinded from our tense day of sailing. Curt adjusted to the land within half an hour, but I still felt like I was on a boat the entire time we were at l'Hibiscus. We boarded our dinghy at 8PM & planned on making dinner once we got back on the boat. The ride back to the boat in the dinghy was rough (swells were high, the wind was still strong & we had very low visibility). I started to feel really nauseous.

I wanted to put the dinghy back up on the boat (this catamaran has a drop down bar to set it in the water). I held the dinghy as stable as possible, while Curt searched in the dark for the hook to connect to the drop bar. Our dinghy was bobbing all over the place, despite my best efforts at holding it steady. I feared Curt was going to get knocked off the dinghy by the drop bar & I would never be able to find him if he was knocked unconscious at night. We tied the dinghy up, but let it drift a bit further from the boat so it wouldn't smack around so much while we slept.

All of a sudden the nausea took over & I ran to the edge of the boat. We found some MerCalm in our first aide kit & I laid on our kitchen bench to let the anti-nausea medicine kick in, while Curt prepared dinner. This was the first time I have ever gotten sea sick in my life. I'm not sure if it was true sea sickness or part nerves from the waves/strong winds & part sea sick. The MerCalm worked well & I fell asleep at the kitchen table. Curt tried to wake me up for dinner but I was out for the count. He managed to prop my head up with a pillow & cover me with a blanket. I slept from about 9PM to midnight before waking up to boat bobbing up and down violently (ok maybe I'm over-exaggerating this part a bit but the movement definitely startled me awake). I tossed and turned on the bench but was afraid to go down below to the head because I thought I would get sick again.

At about 3AM Curt woke up to check things out. I decided it was time to try sleeping my bed & went down below. I lasted about half an hour before coming up to take more MerCalm & blog, since sleep was not on my agenda this evening.

I'm desperately hoping tomorrow is a better day. For a large chunk of the day, I felt terrible that Curt was marrying someone who couldn't handle living on a boat, when this is one of the things he loves most in life. I did feel better when he told me that a family friend that races all the time gets very sea sick & always takes Dramamine when he gets on the boat. We'll see how I feel tomorrow – I'm certain that my attitude will improve over the next few days with regards to feeling more comfortable living on the boat & am hoping that the nausea goes away.

Next up on our itinerary is the island of Huahine. We'll actually be heading out into open water to sail to this island (so far we just been sailing inside the reef). I'm nervous for the larger ocean swells & the wind is supposed to be equally as strong (if not stronger) for most of the day tomorrow.

**Photos will be added at a better WIFI location, as the slow connection isn't cooperating.**