Casa Blanca
It’s raining and I like it
The weather in New Zealand is quite cold at the moment. I really dig it. The wet and cold city makes me feel like I’m back in Finland. This morning I decided to walk to the fish market but ended up to a totally different kind of market. More about that in the near future…
You will respect my authority
“You do know that you are not suppose to take photos of the pages. The library loses millions of dollars every year because people use cameras. You have to use the photocopier over there.”
I was speechless for a while. I looked again the page I was taking a photo of. Then I looked at the big library guard who had manifested out of nowhere.
For a moment there I was about to turn into an active one. Things might start blowing up soon.
I packed my stuff. Walked outside and just started laughing but only from the inside. The boiling feeling in my chest was still there.
Then I realized I didn’t need authorities. I needed a 5 dollar falafel. All was good again.
French Polynesian diaries
Maybe around 6 weeks all around French Polynesia was quite the adventure. So to put the experience in few paragraphs here is how it all more or less went down.
Arriving to Marquesas Island of Fatu Hiva having just suffered some set backs with health was quite the experience. Amazing landscape and friendly people all around. People practicing for the annual dance festivals was quite intense experience. The landscape in Fatu Hiva was spectacular. Then again that was the case in every place.
Next up was Hiva Oa where I just jumped of from the first catamaran and changed to another one of the same manufacturer, just a one step bigger. Oh and the catamaran was missing it’s mast.
We motored to Tuamotus which is an island group consisting of tens of atolls. I always thought that atolls are small places where you can swim across the whole ring. Well it turned out that these atolls where huge and you couldn’t even see the other side. I saw my first world cup football match on an atoll called Ahé. Ghana – Paragua. Epic extra time and penalties!
The idea of stopping at different atolls was to search for waves to surf. We found some but my skills were gone or had never existed the way I though. The South African boys were killing it and I was just sitting on my board and trying to figure out how it all was suppose to work.
After a more than a week in Tuamotus we arrived to Tahiti. Oh man, it all looked so unreal. This crowded island with an actual city on it was something else. They even cleaned the phone booths in the morning. Big yachts and expensive everything was the norm. They even had a mac-store to change my blown up hard drive. My yearly e-reboot was over due. Some stuff was lost but not as much as a year ago in Mexico when unfriendly men mugged me.
Pretty soon after arriving to Tahiti it was my birthday, It also happened to be an epic wave day at the local pass and it’s reef break. I almost got a sweet wave but ended up getting hammered by the waves. Now I know what it feels to be scratching reef while moving high speed underwater and getting sandwiched by a board and big wave. Also it was the solar eclipse and football final so all and all it was a good day.
After so many months living on other peoples boats it was hard to let go of that easy feeling of not having to plan about tomorrow. I practiced independence on a 3 day hike on an island right next to Tahiti called Moorea. Beautiful island where I went walking for 3 days just with my tent and too much stuff.
First night I slept without a permission on someones forrest nearly getting lost there. Next night a beach guard invited me to his house because the beach was apparently dangerous place to sleep. Last night of that trip I slept on some river bank. All beautiful places.
After that I returned to the safety of the catamaran for couple of days to get rid of my flue and after that took all my belongings with me and decided to go somewhere. Trevor the South African baker & star observer recommended a beach break in Papara. It was suppose to have some sort of camping place somewhere. I took a bus, saw a river and a wave and jumped off. After 5 minutes of asking around I found a place called Taharuu Surf Lodge. Too easy.
I could put my tent on their lawn crowded by roosters and chickens. The place was cheap considering Tahiti and the owners where extremely polite. “No problem!” Every night I woke up to the sound of roosters at 1 a.m unless it was raining. During those rainy nights instead I just got soaked because my tent wasn’t really all that waterproof.
After almost a week of surfing I had gotten my confidence back and I could call my surfing surfing again. Sweet. Then it happened, I broke one of my fins on the rocks. Without any spare fins I decided to call it a surf. I went to Papeete to buy a plane ticket to New Zealand.
All this time I had some flyers out where I was trying to find a boat to New Zealand. Literally minutes after paying my flight I checked my email and saw an offer. I cancelled my flight and went to see the boat. I didn’t get convinced and called the airline again. The flight was back on. I got another offer but decided the ignore it.
All and all my hikes in French Polynesia were epic. Short and undemanding hikes which made up in the scenery. The last hike of 40km through Tahiti was by far my favorite. 3 nights sleeping in the rain and getting soaked by the constant rain was an incredible walk. The only tourists I saw where once a day coming with 4WD´s and looking at me and scratching their heads. Hiking in Tahiti and French Polynesia is quite rare. Then again when you look at the average tourists in these islands it’s no surprise.
Last morning was Sunday and there were no busses to be seen. I hitchhiked to the airport and hopped on an airplane.
So that is my Polynesia experience in a nut shell. I hope the photos will give some depth to these words.
Little bit about the photos on the video
Just like this blog post and video my photos are quite raw and unfinished. There isn’t much post production or really tight editing. Tell you the truth I just don’t feel like tweaking with photoshop for ages when abroad.
These photos of French Polynesia aren’t about French Polynesia. They are about everyday life. All the photos have a feeling behind them to which I can always come back to. In that sense I have a photographic memory. Then again all this blabbering is quite pointless since the only moment that matters to me is the moment I press the shutter button.
French Polynesia in 100 photos or 5:27 minutes (No idea why the quality is so bad…)
What did I learn of all this? If you see a bird flying over you in the sea it does NOT automatically mean that land is close by.
Briefly from Tahiti
Staying in Tahiti for further notice. There are waves, mountains and cheap bread.
The past weeks I spend with boys from South Africa. It was a privilege to motor with them around French Polynesia.
Now I hopped of from their boat. After 4 months it’s nice to be facing the future with uncertainty. I do love that feeling and to me that is what traveling is all about, at the moment. The bonus of it all is to meet great people on the way.
I think I´m still on Planet Earth
- 3000 sea miles (Galapagos-French Polynesia)
- blood poisoning in the middle of the Pacific? (red stripes from middle finger to my armpit)
- paradise (Fatu Hiva)
- going to Tahiti with a sailboat without a mast (next)
(I know french lines are the biggest NONO of blogging but I´m in a hurry and this is French Polynesia and NONO is a type of sandfly common in the Marquesas)
That´s what has happened and what is going to happen in the near future.
Sorry, as crazy as it might sound I’m in so much hurry that I can’t write now. Tomorrow I’m changing to a new captain and a boat without a mast. Then we’ll start our “sail” towards Tahiti.
To be continued… I promise. This is getting crazy!
My summer holiday starts today
We´re off to Marqueses tonight. The sail should take around 4 weeks. So that is probably the next time you´ll hear from me.
If you like following a dot on a map ;)
http://www.winlink.org/dotnet/maps/PositionReportsDetail.aspx?callsign=KL2VC
Keep the world in one piece while I´m away. Thanks!
Peace!
My Galapagos in few frames
Lately I´ve been trying to really concentrate on getting the right exposure and also frame my shots more carefully.
My longest lens is fixed 100mm f/2.0 (meaning I don´t have x10 zoom). To get the idea of this lens just extend your arm straigh forward and spread your fingers as far a part as you can. The view you see is the view I see with my longest lens.
To most people Galapagos is known for nature and to some for uncrowded surf. With my 100mm lens I had to use carefull aproach with animals and some imagination framing surfing shots.
I could and maybe even should buy a 100-400mm lens for nature and sports but why do it the easy way? This isn´t so much about what gear I have but more about what can I do with the gear I have.
Sneaking up close to sea iguanas without them running away at some point wasn´t always easy. My nature photography ethics say that if the animal runs away at some point of photo session it´s not cool. These photos live up to that principle. There might be some spit on my lenses from angry iguanas. That is a border-line case in my book…
Oh, no more major post production on this blog, maybe. Cropping has never been my thing.
Sail so far – 31 clicks
This requires patience.
To select these I had to go thru 11 000 photos and delete some to make more space to my hard drive (which is full again).
So I hope you have to patience as well. Thanks!
