Surf’s up in the Society islands – From Tahiti to Bora Bora

Post author:Gavin
Post published:July 20, 2011
Post category:French Polynesia kiteboarding Pacific Sailing scuba diving Travel

Andy and I are sitting in a cafe in Bora Bora, listening to Polynesian Reggae music, catching up on emails and writing the latest installment of the blog - Elyse and Scott are pearl shopping, Squander is anchored out the front in a perfect blue lagoon, dancing around in the light trade winds - it will be difficult to say goodbye to French Polynesia after almost two months of cruising these idyllic waters. Approaching Northern Tahiti. Having left the Tuamotu archipelago we did an overnight sail from…

Tuamotu part 2 – Toau, Apataki & Secret spot

Post author:Gavin
Post published:June 27, 2011
Post category:Fishing French Polynesia kiteboarding Pacific Sailing scuba diving Travel

The Tuamotu has been everything we could have imagined and more. I personally would love to spend 3-4 months exploring these amazing islands, with clear warm water, steady trade winds, an abundance of fish, seafood, deserted beaches, perfect waves, world class scuba diving, kite boarding, windsurfing, spear fishing and most of all friendly, welcoming people. Whilst still in Fakarava, our newest crew member, Moji went ashore and befriended Sophie, a French girl who had had enough of the rat race in Paris and moved to this Atoll…

Removing the microwave on a Jeanneau Sun Odyssey 45.2

Post author:Gavin
Post published:June 15, 2011
Post category:Sailing

The microwave on Squander gave up the ghost recently - not bad I guess seeing it's been used fairly constantly for 8 years. Trying to access the microwave proved to be an interesting puzzle, and repeated searches of Google didn't turn up anything... So I stared at it for a long time, unscrewed a few screws and slowly and mostly without damage managed to solve the puzzle. STEP 1: Remove the top vent - it should just pop out with a bit of help STEP 2 -…

Marquesas to the Tuamotu Archipelago.

Post author:Gavin
Post published:June 9, 2011
Post category:Fishing French Polynesia kiteboarding Pacific Sailing scuba diving

The Marquesas are widely reported as being the most beautiful islands in the Pacific. For us they certainly represented a wonderful landfall after the long sail from the Galapagos islands, however in our hearts we knew the Tuamotu archipelago was a lot more our style. So we collectively made a decision to wrap things up in the Marquesas as fast as possible, do the necessary paperwork to clear into French Polynesia, buy as much fresh fruit and vegetables as we could and head south to the Tuamotu.…

Sailing to French Polynesia

Post author:Gavin
Post published:May 25, 2011
Post category:Fishing Pacific Sailing Travel

We have 350 Nautical Miles to go as I begin to write this latest blog post on day 15 of our longest non stop crossing to date - 3000 Nautical miles (5,400 kms) of open ocean. By the time I finish writing and editing it, we are likely to have covered another 500 miles on what has become our trip home... back to Australia. It will also mean that we are more then half way across the Pacific. heading into town for last minute provisioning in the…

First steps in the Pacific & exploring the Galapagos islands.

Post author:Gavin
Post published:May 2, 2011
Post category:Fishing Pacific Panama Sailing Travel

After the excitement, the preparation, the antifouling, replacing spreaders, provisioning, buying the last minute essential spear gun, extra lures, surfboard wax, sunscreen and whatever else we could think of, we crossed the Panama Canal and.... relaxed... we were in the PA-CI-FIC - it wasn't so much that the Pacific is a more relaxing ocean, but we were past the point of no return, we had all put in big efforts to get Squander as ready as she could be and the Pacific adventure was underway... what will…

Crossing the Panama Canal

Post author:Gavin
Post published:April 7, 2011
Post category:Atlantic Pacific Panama thoughts Travel

There's a really curious side of sailing that may not be immediately obvious to people outside the cruising community. In our little sailing world, word of mouth is everything - where to anchor, where to eat, which marina is good, how much is diesel in the next port, did you hear about that Japanese boat that exited the Panama canal backwards, don't miss the so and so - the list goes on. The interesting thing that I have noticed is that in face to face conversations the…

Discovering the San Blas islands in the Kuna Yala – Panama

Post author:Gavin
Post published:March 28, 2011
Post category:Caribbean kiteboarding Sailing scuba diving Travel

We were meant to be across the Panama Canal by now and on our way to the Galapagos islands, but I couldn't be happier with our decision to extend our stay in the corner where Central America meets South America. We left Colombia with big smiles on our faces after a whirlwind 10 or so days there and were planning on stopping in the San Blas islands for a few days.... we ended up spending almost another 10 days in the San Blas and could easily have…

Colombia – we love you!

Post author:Gavin
Post published:March 22, 2011
Post category:Caribbean Fishing Sailing Travel

I initially considered a stop in Colombia a long time ago when planning the overall trip from Italy to Australia. I hadn't given it much more thought until some months later, when Andy came onboard and mentioned that he had heard the Carnaval in Barranquilla is meant to be one of the best in South America, second to Rio de Janeiro... That sounded like a good reason to go, and the more we researched it and the more we spoke to people along the way, the more…

Martinique to Bonaire – maintenance, kiting and Scuba diving!

Post author:Gavin
Post published:March 7, 2011
Post category:Travel

As the one year anniversary of moving on Squander draws near, I have found myself reflecting a lot on the trip that has been, the lifestyle that we continue to lead and the challenges that face us in crossing the biggest of all oceans - The Pacific. As I start writing this, we are less then 500 miles from Panama - we have an agent organised who will hopefully speed our paperwork through, lend us the necessary 125 foot long, 50mm thick lines that we will use…