Thursday 28 August 2008

Yamana tours the Tumbleweed island

Helen: We had such a cool day yesterday - we hired a 15 seater mini van and Yamana tours went on the road with 5 adults and 4 children. Yes we survived the day with 4 9-11 year olds - they were actually really good and only started to get a bit wearisome on the final stretch when they were all knackered and tanked up on crisps and icecream! But, minivan and children aside, yesterday was cool becuase this place is made of limestone...which means there are cracks, crevices, gullies, arches, caverns and all other such formations all over the place. We trekked through some crazy lunar landscapes - all spiky pillars and pointy bits (reminded me of Return to Oz - kept turning round quickly expecting to see some of the rocks morphing into faces - the sentinels of the Gnome King - if you haven't seen Return to Oz get it out and see it - it's awesome - saw another great film the other day - Sweeney Todd with Johnny Depp - C liked it even though it was a musical - not sure all the throat slitting was quite approriate for a 9 yr old though!)
Where was I? Oh yes, crevices and gullies - we found a hidden chasm that had sand and palm trees inside steep sided limestone cliff walls - was totally hidden from above - looked like the set to The Lost World - it was so hidden you could imagine dinosaurs still lived there (but they'd have to be v wee dinasours - the whole island is so tiny!) C was in heaven as he took his climbing shoes with him and spent all day bouldering... So much more fun than the day before when we tried cylcing round the island in the midday heat with no shade and worse, no lunch. There are so few tourists here that there aren't many restaurants and shops - the only 'shop' we found outside of the main town was essentially a house just the same as all the others. No sign outside - not even a Coca Cola sign... The only reason we discovered it at all was because I resorted to the time honoured tradition of sitting down with a map - it's an international signal for 'help me, I'm a tourist'. Sure enough someone stopped and explained that the house with the crisscrossed balustrade was infact a shop. So we had icream, coke and chocolate for lunch!
Actually, the 'shop' wasn't just like all the other houses...becuase it was inhabited - so many of the houses here are deserted - it's really sad - the population used to be 5000 in the 60s, but people have been steadily leaving since then to live in NZ or Australia. Now the population is around 1300, but people leave their houses here to go to wrack and ruin becuase if they demolish them they lose their claim to the land...
Right, that's enough for now. We're leaving this evening as there's some weather moving in at the weekend - 6m seas - don't want to be caught out in that. There was some talk about leaving tomorrow morning...but sailors just don't leave harbours on Fridays!
Lots of love
will write when we get to Tonga (240 miles so should be 2 days...)
H&Cxx

Tuesday 26 August 2008

Niue Rocks

Helen: Got to be quick but thought you'd like to know that we have arrived safely in Niue - go look it up on an Atlas - tiny limestone rock 200 miles from Tonga. All the limestone means there's lots of crevices and caves and canyons to explore (well, if you're not a great big wuss like me). We're sticking to hiring bicycles today instead. I aslo wimped out of snorkelling yesterday as the sea is infested with highly poisonous sea snakes - apparently they 'aren't agressive' and you'd have to 'stick your finger down it's throat to get it to bite you'...but that's what people say about Rotweillers so I'm not taking any chances!

It really is quiet and relaxed here. Totally different from the bustle of Rarotonga. They only get a cargo boat once a month - so if they forget to order the icecream they run out! C has got another crazy drivers licence (to add to his Cook Islands one) - the Niue licence is covered in pictures of palm trees!

Our passage here was great - bit windy for a couple of nights and then, predictably, not enough wind, but the Yamana crew are great. Was a bit worried that sailing with 2 kids would be hell on earth - but they are bright and really fun to play with! Olive and I made a stuffed multicoloured parrot over the course of 4 days, and Ruben and Charlie made a hot air balloon out of beer cans, night lights and tissue paper (when they finally tried to launch it though it burned through the string before it could take flight - oh well, back to the drawing board...) Talk about blue vs pink!

Right, better go otherwise we don't stand a chance at getting round the island in a day - especially the speed C cycles at - they don't call him 'lightening' for nothing...

Lots of love
H&Cxxx

Wednesday 20 August 2008

Broken glasses and mended shorts

Helen: It wasn't my fault. It really wasn't. I put them down for two minutes and then a small child picked them up and they snapped. Doubly annoying because I really liked them, and they were my only pair. Will probably have to wait til NZ for a new pair. Humph. But...on the positive side, my sewing has been going really well. I've fixed C's beloved old blue Beefeater t-shirt and his everyday shorts (using a pair of our new skippers old board shorts - I even managed to make a headband for myself out of the same material so now C and I look like something out of The Sound of Music with our matching clothes...). And, best news of all, I've pretty much made myself a dress out of the hibiscus material I bought in Papeete. It fits perfectly...which means that getting it on and off is a real palaver. Will have to put a zip in or something. I spent all day yesterday on the sewing machine - took me and C at least an hour to try to set it up and, of course, there were a few moments when I screamed at it, but, all in all, it was a pretty uneventful session as sewing machine sessions go. I did run the batteries on the boat down though. Ooops.
We're heading out for Niue (world's smallest independent nation I think) today - should take 5 days. We should have a couple of days there and then it's on to Tonga - grandma is visiting Yamana so we have 6 weeks in Tonga on our own... Our first couple of days on board Yamana have been great (broken glasses incident excepted) - we even got a bedtime story last night - Alice is reading Lord of the Rings to the kids - but Rubin was so exhausted (because C had had them running around all day trying to make crutches out of odd bits of wood for their friend who had broken her leg!!) - he fell asleep before the Ring was destroyed... C even promised to read (and has since read) the first HP book - predictably he said it was 'rubbish'. Speaking of which - we went to see Indy 4 at the cinema on Weds - I was so excited...but it was awful :( - when did Indiana Jones ever, EVER, have anything to do with Aliens? Think Lucas and Spielberg got their films confused and thought they were making another Star Wars or ET. More money on scripts please, and less on bad special effects! Oh well, the whole cinema experience was a laugh. They wouldn't even run the film til they had at least 10 people, and then they just stopped it half way through for an interval!
Right, that's enough rambling - will write again, if we can, when we get to Niue
Lots of love
Hxx

Thursday 14 August 2008

Glow in the dark graves

Helen: Still loving Rarotonga. Been hiking twice, snorkelling, diving (where we were accompanied by Tommy the Trigger fish - he followed us around with his mouth open in the hope of being fed...) and even managed to hire Lasers (small one person dinghies - for me it was just like being back at school - I started to remember all the tricks we used to do - C wasn't very impressed when I started seeing how close to him I could tack, or when I practised the art of stealing someone else's wind...Oh well - dinghy sailing must be the only thing in the world I can do better than he can :) )

Rarotonga seems to be the Menorca or Costa del Sol of the Southern Hemisphere (except nicer) as there are lots of Aus and NZ tourists here and lots of bars and clubs. Even got C dancing last night. Only problem is that we have to keep reminding ourselves that, although everyone else is on holiday, we're not! This is our life - and we can't afford to go out every night!! But it has been fun so far. We had a BBQ at our hostel the other night and ended up drunkenly watching the Olympics at 1am. We have a pretty international crowd (Canadians, a German, a Swede and us Brits) so there was lots of friendly competition. I love the Olympics. When else do you get to watch women's weightlifting, or road cycle racing, or archery or table tennis or countless other obscure sports and be proudly patriotic about them?

Right, going to have to go soon as I'm being bitten to death by mossies. But that's about the only bad thing about this island. Other wise we're in love with the place - sunshine, motorbikes, tatoos, sailing - doesn't get much better than this! And, to top it all, it even gets cold here. Sounds odd, but after so long in the tropics it's nice to get a bit of variety in the climate. We've both worn our long trousers (pants - learning lots of Canadian English at the moment) and long sleeved tops and wooly hats, and we've used our sleeping bags. Knew there was a reason we've lugged them 10,000 miles around the world...Actually, it's a good thing the climate is changing - all our more summery clothes are beginning to look decidedly tramp like - I spent all day yesterday sewing patches on C's t-shirts and shorts. He now has a big flowery hand print on his bottom...

One final thing to tell you about before I go - all the houses here have family burial plots in their front gardens. I kid you not. They usually have at least 2 graves, but sometimes half a dozen. They're all above ground, rather than in the ground, as to put earth on a woman's body is considered very bad form. So people get buried in concrete tombs instead. It's very odd to see these graves outside people's houses for me as that's not at all what people do at home...but it does mean that they are nearly all very well tended, which is good - they nearly all have fresh flowers on - some even have 'glow in the dark' flowers that you can see at night...

OK, time to go
Lots of love
H & Cxx

Monday 11 August 2008

Photos

Helen: Forgot to say - we've finally found a decent internet connection, so there are lots of new photos at www.flickr.com/charlieandhelen...
hxx

Thursday 7 August 2008

They speak English and have Indian restaurants here!

Helen: Well that says it all really - how could a Brit be happier on holiday?! We've had a productive day today - C has hired a motorbike and booked another tattoo session to fill in some of the gaps on his arm, and I've collected a mountain of leaflets (Daddy would be proud) about what to do and reserved a table at the local curry house for supper.

We arrived yesterday evening with Candine - the first few days were a bit rough (35-45 knots) but then the wind disappeared and we had to motor the whole last day - typical! Lots of fun though - music courtesy of Anton's guitar (but if I hear Paul Simon or Dire Straits again before Christmas it'll be too soon - the CD player just plays continuously and no one could be bothered to change it!) Actually, everyone on board is so laid back that no one could be bothered to do much so I played mother for a week and cooked and cleaned - the boys were pretty grumpy that I made them eat vegetables instead of pancakes. I'm a pancake nazi apparently. But we had pancakes today - made by a Canadian the way they should be. Smothered in real maple syrup. Yum.

Really really enjoying Rarotonga so far - the people are great, scenery is stunning (C's already spied some rocks for climbing...) and they speak English with a heart meltingly relaxing Kiwi accent. Nothing is too much trouble.

Right, gotta dash.
Lots of love
H&C (both clean for the first time in a week - oh that feels good :) and we're doing laundry tomorrow. Wooohooo!!)

Saturday 2 August 2008

Time to go!!

Helen: Not much to report - have just been relaxing - walking, watching films, eating baguettes - even played the Name Game last night. But thought you might like this little gem: my seasickness pills (Stugeron) say that as well as treating motion sickness and dizziness they can be used to treat 'symptoms of a cerebrovascular origin including...unsociability and irritability disorders' - why did no one tell me about this before!!
Ok - got to get stowing - we're off to Rarotonga this morning - nearly left yesterday until we remembered it was a Friday - one of the sacred rules of sailing is 'thou shall not leave port on a Friday'. (It's also supposed to be bad luck to have a woman on board...)
Lots of love
H&Cxx

PS if you want to track our progress, go to www.winlink.org, then 'maps' then 'user positions' and look up VE0TIM (that's a zero not a letter oh) in the list on the right - then you can see us on Google Earth. Cool huh? There'll be a big celebration when we finally get 12 miles offshore and have officially left French Polynesia...