Tahiti: Touring with Tracey

Our friends Patsy and Steve Larson from Bainbridge Island (near Seattle) arrived early in the morning of Sept. 1. We thought they’d want to sleep a bit after the long overnight flight from LAX, but we ended up walking along the waterfront and into town to see the market. Patsy was amazed at how much the market had grown from when she used to fly here with Pan Am, with tables covered with every fruit and vegetable imaginable, including guru, taro, sweet potatoes, pota, bananas, pineapples, limes, mangoes, pamplemousse (a sweet tasting grapefruit), star apples, quintettes and ramboutans.

We did all manage to get a nap in and then got caught up on our busy lives. Patsy and Meryl flew together out of Seattle for Pan American and both flew the Tahiti route, but it was Patsy’s first time back in about 40 years. Lot’s of changes during that time. Back in those days the crews had long layovers and would actually go over to Moorea and stay for a few days. What a life they had!

The roulettes are a favorite dinner spot for both tourists and locals.

Steve, Patsy and Meryl patiently waiting for our food.

That night we walked up to the ferry parking area where all the the roulettes (food trucks) set up at night. There are over ten trucks to chose from and we spent awhile wandering from truck to truck checking the menus, finally settling on one that specialized in Chinese food. Since Patsy and Steve lived some distance from us in Seattle, we didn’t get to see them as often as we liked (except for our yearly camping trip with the kids), so it was great to just have time to reminisce and get caught up. Both our daughters went to the same university in California (Ilse for undergrad and Christa for grad) so we had lots in common to talk about.

Our tour guide, the irrepressible Tracey.

Tracey working her magic on one of the President's Guards.

Do we look like tourists or what?

Tracey was a font of information about everything Tahitian.

The next day Meryl had arranged for a tour of the east side of Tahiti with a company called Unique Tahiti (tracey@uniquetahiti.com). Our tour guide, Tracey, was from Brighton, England and was quite a character. She was highly knowledgeable, opinionated, a bit sassy, and incredibly beautiful. She used that beauty to her advantage as we pulled up to the President’s Palace, our first stop, and simply parked in front of the gate and sweet-talked the guard. Tracey was a virtual encyclopedia of local knowledge and would add in little tidbits of gossip and background info that made the tour even more interesting and entertaining.

One of the beautiful wall murals commissioned by the government.

Our hostess, formerly of the Tahara'a Hotel, tells us about life at Maison Hall.

The typewriter upon which Mutiny on the Bounty was written. 

Photos of James Norman Hall's family. 

Charles Nordhoff, a local Tahitian beauty, and James Norman Hall. Life was good.

The current house is a reconstruction of the original, whose property went all the way down to the oceanfront.

The Hall family bedroom with photos of his wife Sara adorning the walls. 

We drove through downtown Papeete and saw the beautiful wall murals painted by local artists and Tracey pointed out various restaurants and other locations. Our next stop a bit down the east coast was the home of James Normal Hall, the American writer who collaborated with Charles Nordhoff to write the Mutiny trilogy: Mutiny on the Bounty, Men Against the Sea, and Pitcairn Island. When we entered the modest house (www.jamesnormanhallhome.pf), we were surprised to learn the hostess who would give us our tour had formerly worked at the front desk of the famous Hotel Tahara’a where the Pan Am crews used to stay. She was so excited to learn Patsy and Meryl were former Pan Am flight attendants and told us the sad story of how the Hotel Tahara’a was eventually bought by the son of the President of Tahiti and slowly deteriorated over the years. It is now sadly nothing more than a ruin tumbling down the hillside near Mahina Bay.

This black sand beach below the Hotel Tahara'a is where Meryl and I spent our honeymoon. It was typically populated by bikini clad Pan Am flight attendants.

The former Queen of the South Pacific, the Hotel Tahara'a, lying in ruins on the hillside.

James Norman Hall's son, Conrad, had a brief fling with Kathryn Ross during the filming of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.

Hall was quite a raconteur, having served in the American, British, and French Armed Services during World War I. He settled in Tahiti in 1924 and married Sarah Winchester, the daughter of a sea captain. He collaborated with Charles Nordhoff, whom he had met in the army, to write over twelve books. After his death in 1951 the house fell into disrepair and his daughter, Nancy, began a campaign to restore the house to its former glory. Hall’s son, Conrad, went on to gain fame as a Hollywood cinematographer, filming classics like Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, American Beauty, and The Road to Perdition.

Tracey seems to know everyone. The lady sitting on the left is the one on the bottom photo on the lighthouse as seen below.

Photos of locals adorn the Point Venus lighthouse as part of a "be friendly to the tourists" campaign.

This wooden horn was used to signal the villages of important events.

We continued our tour to Point Venus, where Captain Cook anchored to view the transit of Venus, which was important at the time in establishing navigational calculations for the British Navy. Near by is Matavai Bay where Captain Bligh first landed and where Fletcher Christian and the mutineers departed from Tahiti. He left many British sailors at the bay who didn’t want to participate in the mutiny (unfortunately they were later tried and many executed by the British authorities) and also took on 18 Tahitians who were forced to accompany the mutineers on their voyage. These Tahitians were mistreated  by the mutineers and sadly killed on Pitcairn Island.

The intrepid travelers.

Probably best not to ask.

Tracey, the Queen of Fun.

Our next stop was the Vaimahuta Falls further down the coast, a beautiful waterfall that tumbles down the hillside into an inviting pool. Next was the blow hole where the ocean waves force air though holes in the rock which rushes out like a giant wind gust…whoosh! 

Steve at the lookout near the blowhole.

Meryl at the blowhole.

We'd never seen this plant before. It's called the Jade Vine or Emerald Creeper.

On the way back we stopped nearby Tracey’s house to see pictures of the three mountainside bungalows that she rents out to tourists. She also made a phone call to an old friend who wholesales pearls, mentioning that Patsy and Meryl were former Pan Am flight attendants. When they later visited the pearl shop, called Magnifica in downtown Papeete, he was effusive with his praise of Pan Am and gave Patsy a great deal on some black pearl ear rings (Meryl had bought a necklace from another wholesaler earlier in the week).

We ended up sharing a pitcher of beer and had lunch at the Oasis Restaurant in Papeete and then wandered back to the boat for some downtime.

Return to Tahiti

Spending the day at LAX waiting for our 11:45 pm departure to Tahiti was anti-climatic at best. We’d had a great summer trip to the US, but it seemed strange that we were heading “home” to our boat in Tahiti. After an 11-hour wait, much of it eating cheese and crackers at United’s Red Carpet Club, we boarded Air France’s night flight to Tahiti. Trying to sleep in a small airplane seat, surrounded by huge Tahitians, is problematic at best, but we tried. Eight hours later, sensing a change in the engine’s pitch, I lifted my window shade to look out over the vast expanse of the azure blue Pacific Ocean with Tahiti bathed in the orange glow of sunrise. This is our fourth trip to Tahiti and I always love the way the tropical smells and heat slowly envelop your body as you walk to the terminal, complete with ukulele players at 5:45 am in the morning.

Our home at the City Marina in Papeete.

The blue yacht in the foreground is Vertigo, owned by Rupert Murdock. The white yacht just ahead is Google's Larry Page's Dragonfly.

We were thrilled to find the boat in great condition and quickly opened all the hatches to get that fresh ocean air circulating in the cabin. As usual we had overstuffed our bags, including our requisite three huge grey duffels with boat parts and supplies. We also had one more duffel coming with our friends Patsy and Steve Larson who would be visiting us in two weeks.

One of our first projects was to fix two chafed lines. Here Meryl splices the top cover of an expensive Dyneema line together. We'll tell you how it works out.

Meryl buying lettuce and bok choy at the Papeete City Market.

The Tahitians love their body oils.

Beautiful flowers that make up the flower crowns the local women wear for special occasions.

This lady looks like she could make that hula skirt really move.

We spent the next week storing all of our US bought supplies in the boat, shopping at the nearby Champion grocery store, and taking long walks along the waterfront promenade at sunset. 

The Tahiti Yacht Club anchorage is just behind the point in the center of the photo. The mountains of Moorea loom in the background.

We then moved the boat about seven miles east to the Tahiti Yacht Club anchorage where we were greeted by old friends on Ednabal, Mezzaluna, and Ole. A well-protected anchorage this close to Papeete is a rarity and we enjoyed the beautiful views and tradewinds blowing through the boat. We had a potluck with the various boats in the anchorage, ate at the nearby roulettes, and walked two blocks to the large Carrefour super store for provisioning. 

Unfortunately we found that our mainstay dingy engine, the 15-hp Yamaha, had once again seized up at the top bearing on the main shaft. This has happened twice before and is now viewed as a design defect in the motor, but none-the-less forced us to hire a cab to take the motor to the local dealer, who promptly informed us that the good news was they had the part in stock, but the bad news was their only mechanic would be in “factory training” for all of next week. So much for having the motor during Patsy and Steve’s visit.

A beautiful picture of Flying Cloud in the Tahiti Yacht Club anchorage taken by Jeff Anderson on Mezzaluna.

We hadn't seen our friends Andrew and Clare on Eye Candy for over eight months. Then they arrived the morning we were leaving to head back to Papeete. At least they anchored close enough to say "G'Day."

Our friend Patsy, who would be visiting us in two weeks, is a fastidious housekeeper, prompting Meryl to clean the boat like it’s never been cleaned in the past. Having guests is always the best incentive for getting the boat clean and making sure everything is shipshape. In our case, we use the guest berth as our garage, and it was covered to the ceiling with everything from our emergency life raft supplies to our inflatable stand-up paddle board and our SCUBA equipment. All this stuff had to find new places to live on a boat already stuffed to the gills with other stuff. Figuring it would be impolite to ask guests to hold the emergency bag in their lap when using the head, we got very creative in finding new homes for our stuff. Once we were done we were amazed how good the boat looked. Maybe we should have guests more often!

Back in the US Again

Our home away from home. It's tough to see but the blue hull just behind us is Rupert Murdoch's yacht, and to the left and out of sight is the Google owner's yacht. They didn't invite us over for tea, however.

The PPJ Rendezvous sailing regatta and party was a full weekend for us and it took a while to recuperate, but we still had a lot of preparation work to finish on the boat before our July 1st departure to the US. 

We finished varnish coat number three (normally we do four coats but time was getting tight), tried to go through the boat to find extraneous items to take back home, and getting the boat ready to be left unattended (in the water) for two months at the marina.

We had become friends with the crew of Huzzah, a Tacoma boat whose skipper I used to race T-Birds against. While Gerry and his wife Jodie are staying for several more months in French Polynesia, Ken and Theresa and Fred and Christine were headed back to Tacoma. The boys had a grand adventure crossing the Pacific Ocean and the couples were able to spend two fun weeks exploring The Society Islands. It was hard to say goodbye to such nice folks.

While it never seems there is enough time to get the boat ready, we somehow got everything stored and our bags packed. At 4:00 am (that’s even earlier than o’dark thirty) on July 1st we caught a cab for the airport and checked into our Air France flight to Los Angles. We had taken this same flight the year before and throughly enjoyed the service and this flight was no different. Within a short time we’d settled into watching six movies, enjoyed the great food and service onboard, and before long we were landing in LA. 

Now the only fly in the ointment was we couldn’t catch a connecting flight to Seattle so we had to spend the night in LA. We got up at 5:00 am the next morning (do you see a trend developing here?) to begin standing by for a flight to Seattle, only to realize (this is how out of touch you get on a cruising sailboat) that it was the 4th of July holiday and every flight was packed. We could have bought a ticket to Seattle for a fairly reasonable price but our years of flying standby told us with Meryl’s seniority we could eventually get on a flight. Oh, how wrong we were. We will spare you with the ugly details but we spent all day running from terminal to terminal trying to get on flights. Sometimes we’d be the very next person to board and full fare passenger would come sprinting down the concourse with one minute left to departure and get on. We finally got on the last flight to San Francisco and checked into a hotel and ended up booking a full fare ticket the next day to Seattle. Sometimes the learning curve is a slow one!

We checked into a nice VRBO (this is the first time we tried them) on Lake Sammamish and had three days of quiet bliss while we did some medical appointments and other chores. We spent the 4th of July with our son and his family attending the Kid’s Parade in downtown Issaquah, a perfect small town celebration in our old home town.

While they are normally jumping all over me, this is a somewhat calm picture of us looking at photos on the iPhone.

Grandma Meryl reading bedtime stories to Brad's kids:  Brody and Bennett.

Brody and Bennet at the Seattle Aquarium. It's hard to explain to them that where we live all those fish are just underneath "our house."

Ashley, Brad, Bennett, and Meryl at Brad's lake.

Brad has done an incredible job turning his 9-acre estate into a kid's playground.

We then stayed about a week at our son’s beautiful house complete with lake and forested walking paths, a perfect environment to raise two energetic little boys.

On July 13th we flew over to Boise, ID and then drove the two hours up to McCall and Payette Lake where our daughter rents a house for two to three weeks each summer. As usual we had a great time stand-up paddle boarding on the lake, walking, taking the kids to various playgrounds, and especially enjoying treats at Ice Cream Alley. 

This house was formerly owned by the General Manager of the San Diego Padres baseball team. It was one of three houses as part of an estate, with this house serving as the "game room" and full of pool tables and such.

Mother and daughter taking a well deserved break. Oh how we love visiting McCall in the summer.

Christa signed Quinn up for a local soccer team. When people asked where the little blondie was from, it was weird to say "Hong Kong."

The main attraction of Payette Lake for the Nash-Webbers is water skiing. Quinn doesn't drive the boat when they are skiing, however, but she'd like to.

Daughter water ski's like her momma used to.

How these two have the energy to make it through a typical Nash-Webber day amazes me.

Quinn helps Christa frost a birthday cake for everyone with summer birthdays.

Christa loves to throw dinner parties and this spread (put together with help from Auntie Melba) was for Luau Night.

Grandma Dottie put on a great puppet show with the help of Quinn and Conner.

Dottie went to school in Hawaii and taught the kids how to hulu.

Nash, Christa and Quinn entered a Friday Night Fun Run at Brundage Mountain. Apparently the apple doesn't fall too far from the tree.

Quinn was running with Christa and Nash until someone told her it was a race and she took off. She's a fast one.

The adults did three laps up and down Brundage Mountain, both running and mountain biking. 

The head of the bike patrol lent Quinn a mountain bike so she could compete in the race. Yes she did wear a helmet.

Waiting for Christa and Nash to finish the race, Meryl helped the kids build a huge Jenga tower.

Riding the chair lift up to the top of Brundage Mountain certainly puts a smile on everyone's face!

The view from the top:  Payette Lake is the bottom two bodies of water . . . it's kind of a big u-shape lake.

Grandma Dottie arranged for horse riding lessons for Quinn. Doesn't this look like "cowgirl country?"

On the day they were scheduled to fly back to Hong Kong, Christa entered the Mile High Mile, a one-mile swim in cold Payette Lake. She got first in her age class.

Christa and her long time friend, Jenny Schoen.

Christa’s mother-in-law, Dottie, came from Boston and regaled everyone with a wonderful puppet show and hula lessons on Polynesian Luau Night. Our two weeks went way too fast and soon we were saying goodbye to everyone and driving back to Seattle. The only unfortunate thing was both of us picked up a worsening bronchitis that had especially me under the weather during most of our stay in McCall. We both ended up checking into Urgent Care once we arrived in Bellevue for diagnosis and treatment. It’s tough out here in the real world.

We were fortunate to house sit for old sailing friends Rod and Maryhelen Johnson who have a beautiful home in Trilogy at Redmond, about 10 miles northeast of Bellevue. It’s a planned community for over 55 year olds with more than 1,000 homes, a club house, pool, and golf course. It was a great experience for us to see how we might like living in a planned community and in the Redmond area in general. We figure we have about one more year on the boat and then we’ll put it up for sale in Australia. In the meanwhile we have to decide where in the US we want to live when we return. Not an easy task.

These three beautiful women, Marne, Patsy, and Meryl, all met when they were Pan Am flight attendants.

Our friends Patsy and Steve Larson hosted us and Bob & Marne McCluskey for dinner at their impeccable Bainbridge Island house.

We spent about three weeks at Trilogy, enjoying time with our grandkids, visiting with old friends, and ordering various supplies via Amazon before our return to Tahiti. Meryl had her 50th high school reunion towards the end of our stay and enjoyed seeing friends for the first time in many years. It seems there’s never enough time, and this year was more difficult since we were sick for the first few weeks and had to compress many activities into our last two weeks.

High school classmates Marilyn Lowry, Meryl, and Anita Snyder.

We went through our typical ritual of unpacking Amazon packages and then repacking everything into our two 50-pound grey duffel bags. We found we had some stuff left over and are hoping our friends Patsy and Steve will bring a duffel when they fly down to visit us at the end of the month. 

We then drove back to Boise to drop our daughter’s car off, prayed that TSA wouldn’t take all the weird stuff like boat wax out of our bags, and boarded the flight to Denver, then another flight to Los Angeles, and finally the 11:45 pm departure for Papeete. It’s funny to think about going back to Tahiti as “going home” but that’s what we talked about on the plane before falling into that weird “I’m so tired I’m going to pass out but really can’t sleep because I’m stuffed in an uncomfortable airline seat for seven hours.” 

And so it goes.