First Steps, Second Child

Eric spends most of his time in the little runway between settee and table, which we have made as baby-friendly as we could by adding cushions that we robbed from various spots in the saloon.  The other day Alisa looked down at him as he was ricochetting around and noted that he wasn't holding onto anything for a moment or two.

-Oh wow, there it is, she said.  First steps.

The event encapsulates everything that is different for this second child.  Elias' first steps were a moment of joy for everyone in the family, and we interacted with him throughout, cheering him on and kneeling down, arms held wide, to give him a target to aim at.

Eric, meanwhile, might have taken his first unassisted steps a week earlier, for all we know - we just happened to glance at him at the right moment in the ongoing tornado of our day spent keeping ahead of the demands of two kids, the boat, travel and work and noticed that he was walking...

Tahuata

After we'd been socializing on Fatu Hiva and Hiva Oa for a while, we decided that it was time to go to an anchorage with neither town nor village to regroup a bit.  Some Kiwis we met told us about the anchorage at Hananoemoa, on the northern end of Tahuata.  Broad sandy beach, they said.  Clear water. No swell.  We went the next day.  And the reports turned out to be accurate:

(It looks like we had the place to ourselves, but there were actually between four and fifteen other boats there throughout our stay.)

We ended up staying for a week while I worked on edits to the book.

Elias went swimming every day we were there, usually two or three times a day.  He swam off the jupe, he went skin diving with his goggles and flippers, and he played in the surf.

 Throwing a coconut up in the air in the surf is a lot of fun until, inevitably, it lands on your head.

We saw manta rays nearly every day.  If you get in the middle of the patch of plankton that they are feeding on, they will circle back to you over and over, giving you great looks.

If you have to do boat jobs, you might as well do them in your budgie smuggler!

One day we finally got our act together to get all four of us to the beach at once - and Eric slept for the whole time.  Alisa selflessly held him so that Elias and I could play in the surf.

The leeward coast of Tahuata.  We anchored off a village under these cliffs, hoping to get water.  But the trades were billowing over the island in such a way that they were gusting strongly onshore in the anchorage.  We didn't like it, and the book was ready to send back to the editor in Australia anyway.  So we bid a fond farewell to Tahuata and returned to the crowded anchorage of Atuona, on Hiva Oa, in search of water and internet.

The end.

Four Years

Well, today, June 23rd, is the fourth anniversary of the day we sailed away from our home in Kodiak.

On one hand, Alisa and I agree that these four years of travelling have been a complete blur. On the other hand, we also agree that we have a lot to show for that time - friends we never would have met if we'd stayed at home, and a very rich collection of experiences that are the everyday stuff of this life afloat.

We're anchored off the village of Hanaiapa, on the north shore of Hiva Oa. After the crowded anchorages of Atuona and Tahuata, this place is blessedly without another yacht. Getting off the beaten path isn't always hard!

It's a very bucolic little village - brightly-painted outrigger canoes on the cobble beach, well-tended gardens along the single-lane concrete road, fruit growing everywhere. And above the narrow valley, impossibly steep lava cliffs that hem everything in.

Exceptionally friendly people, though without a mutual language we find ourselves incapable of any nuance in our interactions, and it is all too easy to get 'captured' by the first or second person you meet, and to end up with obligations to see that person every visit ashore...

Alisa rose to the occasion for our celebration, as always - pizza for dinner, followed by chocolate cake.

Elias wondered what the fuss was about, though he was happy enough for the cake. What's so special about living on a boat for four years, he wanted to know.