Bill Edwards and Katie Smith's big adventure in paradise
Based in Denver, Colorado
Adventure sailing accomplishments range from sailing around the world, competing in offshore regattas, venturing to the world's remotest parts on an open-ended exploration, to mastering light winds on a skinny lake. Each accomplishment carries its unique challenge and provides individual achievement. 180 Marine celebrates those who follow their dreams. You only get one spin! Thank You, Bill and Katie, for all your support!
May 1, 2023 - Bill Reports…
Katie and I are back in the South Pacific for Phase 2 of sailing our Seawind 1160 Flite Deck. We left Colorado just over two weeks ago, and the boat is not on the water at this time. The good news is that we are in Paradise. We are located about 250 miles east of Tahiti. We are sitting on a Motu. It is a small land mass. A ring of Motus makes up an atoll.
An atoll is typically a ring of sand and coral with plenty of palm trees. The ring creates a protected lagoon. The water is beautiful. The Motu we are on has 8 local residences, and it can easily double with sailors coming and going in the yard. There are no local hotels, restaurants, or even a store. The nearest village is 15 miles away by water, and I mean a village. We are in paradise. We are living on our boat in a yard. Think of it like an RV park without hookups. Also, your RV does not have screens, air conditioning, or running water. When you want to get off the boat, you are climbing up and down a 6-rung ladder. We are living in Paradise. The air temp is in the high 80s, the humidity in the 90s, and plenty of bugs. Our escape is a daily happy hour soaking in the gorgeous blue water sharing a cold beer from the freezer. More to follow….
May 15, 2023, Bill reports…
location: Leeward Islands, French Polynesia
Finally, after 24 days in the yard, we launched Flite Deck on Friday, May 12th. We received the parts we were waiting for on Wednesday, May 10th. It took less than 2 days to install all of the different parts we ordered in. We are motivated. We expected to stay in the yard for 3 days when we first arrived. We have had many up-and-down moments waiting. I started on the engine parts Wednesday late afternoon and wrapped up Thursday morning. Then Katie and I installed new shifter and throttle cables for the starboard engine. With that done, I spent the rest of the afternoon testing the engines. They are working great, out of the water. I finished the new pin for the furler and forestay on Friday morning. With that, we are ready to let Flite Deck swim again. Starting just after 1:00 PM, the crew started putting Flite Deck on the hydraulic lift trailer, pulling her through the yard, and putting her in the water. Once in the water, I started up the repaired engines, and it appeared to be working. The crew pushed her off the trailer, and we were free. The shifters worked perfectly, even better than ever, and we pulled out of the launching area. After a 15-20 minute drive around to test the engines, we set the anchor and enjoyed being on the water. We spent Saturday and Sunday putting the last items together, like putting the jib on the furler and installing the battens and reef lines on the main sail. The water maker is working, and we have good fresh water with an unlimited supply. Katie did laundry using the large portable cooler as a washing machine. We plan on leaving the area today, Monday. The plan is to work our way toward Fakarava atoll.
May 19, 2023 - Bill reports…
location: Leeward Islands, French Polynesia
Last night, Katie and I had dinner to celebrate our anniversary and, even more, having the boat on the water. It was our first meal out since we left Tahiti on April 18th. This morning at the same resort, we had a pearl farm tour. One of the interesting items from the tour is that the farmers use a bank to start the pearl. It is really a ball, that the pearl material grows around the ball. The ball is from the shell of a muscle found in the Mississippi River.
May 20, 2023, Bill reports…
location: Tetamanu Village south pass Fakarava
After spending 4 days in the village area near the north pass of Fakarava, we set sail for the south pass, about 30 miles. We got a late start on Friday after finishing some chores and sightseeing. We sailed until 4:00 pm and looked for a place to anchor before the sunset. We found a beach all to ourselves. The water was beautiful, and the stars were bright. This morning we raised the anchor and had a pleasant sail in 6-8 knots of wind. We average about 4 knots of sailing. We arrived near the south pass around 11:30. I am scheduled for a few dives on Monday. After we set the anchor, we both snorkeled to check on the anchor. Katie got a chance to see her first shark. She didn’t walk on water and handled it very well. After lunch, we snorkeled some of the bommies. There are plenty of fish. We encountered a couple of sharks and a Spotted Eagle Ray. The coral growth is fantastic. We finished off the day with a brilliant sunset.
May 23, 2023, Bill reports
Location: Tetamanu Village south pass Fakarava.
Three years ago, I got my open-water diving certification. I did my first open-water dive two years ago at Catalina Island, CA. Yesterday I did my 2nd and 3rd dives ever at the diver's bucket list area. We dove to 109 feet, and it was like being in an aquarium, but with 1000s of fish and sharks. No pictures, I don't have an underwater camera for diving depths. It was a magical experience. I don't know how to describe it. The 2nd dive was a late afternoon/ early evening dive. When we went in the sun was shining. When we came back to the surface, the moon was up. It was a shallow dive at 95 feet. Again lots of fish. I did see an octopus.
june 2, 2023, Bill reports…
location: Location: Avatar, French Polynesia
We have been visiting a couple of different atolls in the last few days. One way of thinking about an atoll is that our is a bathtub in the ocean. When the tide comes in our out our has a minimal drain for the water to enter our leave. As we entered the Taou atoll on the eastern end, it was supposed to have an incoming tide, and the wind was also coming in. Not so. We had an outgoing tide with an incoming wind. That caused large standing waves. We had 10-foot waves that were chasing us. Two of the waves broke into the cockpit of Flite Deck. I have never had a wave break into any boat I have owned or chartered. At one time, we were on the wave just right and surfing at 15 knots. Not a fun feeling, but we could keep the boat under control. Yesterday we entered the Rangiroa atoll. We didn't have the breaking waves, but the current was intense. The picture shown in our chart plotter. The top two numbers can indicate how much current we had against us. The boat was going 7 knots through the water, but we had over 6 knots against us. The speed over the ground indicates how fast we would be walking over the earth then. To be clear, every exit or entrance to an atoll hasn't been that exciting, and most have been just another passage. The big thing is to with our timing a little bit better.
June 2, 2023, Bill reports…
Location: Comité du Tourisme de Rangiroa.
In the last few days, we have been visiting a couple of different atolls. One way of thinking about an atoll is that our is a bathtub in the ocean. When the tide comes in our out our has a very small drain for the water to enter our leave. As we entered the Taou atoll on the eastern end, it was supposed to have an incoming tide, and the wind was also coming in. Not so. We had an outgoing tide with an incoming wind. That caused large standing waves. We had 10-foot waves that were chasing us. Two of the waves broke into the cockpit of Flite Deck. I have never had a wave break into any boat I have owned or chartered. At one time, we were on the wave just right, and we were surfing at 15 knots. Not a fun feeling, but we were able to keep the boat under control. Yesterday we entered the Rangiroa atoll. We didn't have the breaking waves, but the current was intense. The picture shown in our chart plotter. The top two numbers can indicate how much current we had against us. The boat was going 7 knots through the water, but we had over 6 knots against us. The speed over the ground indicates how fast we would be walking over the earth at that time. Just to be clear, every exit or entrance to an atoll hasn't been that exciting, and most have been just another passage. The big thing is to with our timing a little bit better.
June 10, 2023, Bill reports…
location: Avatoru, French Polynesia
We have been in Rangiroa atoll for the last nine days. We are here killing some time before we head over to Tahiti. We have friends coming in on June 22nd and would rather spend our time here than in the capital city, Papeete. Saturday we took the dinghy to the village on the southside of the pass. We came across this beautiful church. For lunch we stopped at the restaurant I shared in an earlier post and had fried shrimp, with heads and tails.
On Sunday we took a tour with some new friends we met on Little Bird earlier in the week. We took a power boat to the Blue Lagoon. While we were there, we started out with a snorkel with sharks, again. Katie is getting a little more comfortable with the sharks. She did jump in the water when she saw them from the boat. Then the captain took the boat into the lagoon. We had a little hike through the water to a small motu where they have a hut set up to cook lunch and hang out. He took us to the coral garden and hike on bird island to see a bird rookery for four species of local birds, while his mate cooked up a great lunch. Afterwards the captain showed his skill at weaving. Earlier in the day, made a couple of serving bowls in 10-15 minutes. After a relaxing afternoon, we headed back to the main area we are anchored in. He took us through the pass to try to see some local dolphins. Not much action. We then stopped at The Aquarium. It is a local reef with with plenty of fish.
On Monday I got in a couple of dives with a local dive shop. The big attraction here is five local dolphins are “friendly” with the divers. They will come up to you and like to be rubbed and scratched near the pectoral fins and where the tail attaches to the body. Unfortunately, we didn’t see the dolphins, but the dive was still fun. We had drift dives through the pass and did see gray reef sharks. They are much larger than the black or white tip sharks. I also saw a large school of barracuda. Later that night we had a full moon. I was able to get some great shots from a moving boat. Later that night I developed a fever that knocked me out all day Tuesday and I spent all day Wednesday recovering.
Thursday the Aranui 5 ship came into port. It is an interesting boat as you can see in the picture. It is both a cruise ship and a cargo ship. We have been anchored off a beautiful resort that has the over-the-water bungalows. We were scheduled to stay at a resort on Moorea back in 2020. We didn’t make it due to Covid. We looked into staying at the resort on Moorea when we sailed there, but the rates have jumped really high (this resort is charging US$2200/night and they are sold out for the coming future). We decided we have the perfect room over the water everywhere we go. I spent the day after recovering working on my favorite area of the boat. The toilets!!! On the primary toilet, I had to unclog the holding tank so it would drain and the second head I spent two and a half hours troubleshooting and rebuilding the hand pump. No fun.
Friday afternoon we took a cab ride to the far village (about 8km) to a local winery. It is the only winery in French Polynesia and they grow the grapes on the atoll here. The wine has a very distinct flavor from growing in the coral based ground. They have three flavors, a white blend, a Rose blend and a sweet. They only had the sweet for sale. We are not usually sweet wine drinkers, but it has a “soft” sweet flavor that we enjoyed. Katie picked up a couple of bottles. They also grow and harvest sugar cane for making rum. The white rum tasted like jet fuel. They have an aged rum (4 years) that tasted ok. But it wasn’t worth US$110 a bottle. It also had a distinct taste. I believe it is because the rum was aged in wine barrels, not used bourbon barrels. Afterwards we stopped for a pizza at the local shop. Pizza is one of the best deals in French Polynesia.
Tomorrow, we plan on leaving for one more atoll, Tikehau, before a 250 mile sail to Tahiti. You can follow are travels on-line at https://forecast.predictwind.com/tracking/display/FliteDeck/
June 18, 2023, Bill reports…
location: Fa'a'ā, French Polynesia.
We sailed into Tahiti today!!! It is beautiful and busy here compared to the Tuamotus. The last picture is a sunset over Moorea. We will be there later this week.
JUNE 22, 2023, BILL REPORTS…
LOCATION: FA'A'Ā, FRENCH POLYNESIA.
Yesterday I enjoyed my 3rd winter solstice in a row this past year. I was in French Polynesia last year at this time, in Denver at December and now back in fence Polynesia. Being that French Polynesia is in the southern hemisphere, the seasons are opposite. We took a tour over the mountain and made some new friends that we went and joined them to watch the Marquesas dancers at a local hotel afterwards.
JUNE 26, 2023, BILL REPORTS…
LOCATION: Moorea, Polynésie Française.
Just another terrible anchorage we are in today at Moorea. We are getting setup for a dive trip tomorrow.
To continue following Billl and Katie, go to https://www.facebook.com/bill.edwards.988373
