Facts from wiki

So here are some facts about Manta rays. They are pelagic which means they can cross open oceans and they do so singly or in groups. They are filter feeders and enjoy huge amounts of zooplankton which they do by opening their mouths wide and swimming. They have cephalic lobes on either side of their heads to funnel the plankton into their mouths, they can roll these lobes open and closed. And they eat an impressive 13% of their body weight in zooplankton each week. They can reach up to 7m ( 23 ft ) from tip to tip of their triangular pectoral fins and they are made of mostly cartilage. Their mating is triggered by the full moon, gestation lasts a year and they give birth to live pups.

Here in the Marqueasas tattoo is incredibly important both on a daily basis in the community and as a history of their ancestors. We met a tattoo artist here who was based in Toulouse, France for many years. He has returned home and we have had the pleasure of watching him at work. Each individual part of the design has a unique meaning. Manta rays feature in Marquesan tattoo culture and they are meant to portray a protector of man and wisdom. And don’t forget the grandma in Moana who very relevant in this community especially given our present location had a manta ray tattoo on her back and her spirit became one when she left this world.

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Up close and personal

The other day we spotted a whole family/flock/armada of manta rays who came to lunch in the bay. They flash their wing tips on the surface and their white bellies are easy to spot. They have counter shading which means they are dark on the top and white underneath so they are camouflaged from the top and the bottom.  We enjoyed their company and swam with them for over an hour. At first I was out there on my own with a few of them and I was awe struck. There is little visibility and they are very close by the time I could spot one. I have to say the sheer size of these graceful giants is incredible! And a little daunting. They were swimming in big spirals, backwards and sometime would bail out at the last minute as they caught sight of a human swimming through the middle of their lunch. Later we were three families of humans out there swimming with about 30 of them.  And they were so tranquil. The kids were so brave because they were swimming with creatures much bigger than they are themselves and there were a few dreams about being swallowed. They did their best to avoid us but also didn’t seem too upset to share space. As we were getting to know each other we got to touch them and some are smooth and others a little bumpy to the touch. They are wonderful animals and we feel so fortunate to have spent some time with them.

Almost everyone sails the same way around the world. Just keep heading towards the setting sun, avoid the rocks and really you can’t go far wrong. The reason for this is fairly simple. Next time you drain water out of the bath you’ll see the as it going down the drain it spirals, clockwise or anti-clockwise depending (in theory) on if you are in the norther hemisphere or southern.

NOTE:  This is complete nonsense in something as small as a bath tub but completely accurate for wind on the something as big as earth.

In the north it goes clockwise, in the south it goes anti-clockwise. So where they meet, at the equator, the wind blows from east to west. The equator is full of sun, fun and rum. The high latitudes are full of cold, rain and pain. We sail the equator. We sail from east to west.

But why not just sail upwind!? 

Boats can’t sail directly into the wind, the best we can do is about 45 degrees from upwind. So going towards the wind means zig-zagging your way roughly where you want. Imagine that you want to drive from New York to LA. Most people would drive more or less in a straight line. If you had to ‘sail upwind’ you would first sail to Honduras (45 degree away from LA) and then tack up towards LA. You can either take lots of small zig-zags or one big one, it really doesn’t make any difference to the distance and time.

So it takes longer, whats the problem?

Yes, if it were just that we’d be OK with it. Clearly we’re not in a rush, if we were we would fly as sailing is a incredibly slow way to travel. Going upwind is uncomfortable. 

It’s windy. It’s always about 5 mph windier than it really is as you make wind by moving towards it. If it is blowing 15knots of wind and you decide to sail into it, it feels like (and sails like) its 20 knots as you are travelling at 5 knots into it. Going downwind in contrast will only feel like 10 knots. What most people don’t understand is that wind is not linear, it is logarithmic, 20 knots of wind is not twice as strong as 10 knots, it is considerably stronger. Wind power is proportional to the third power of the wind velocity.

It is bumpy. Going into the wind normally means going into the waves. When sailing downwind the waves slowly overtake you from the stern, lift you up and rather gently put you down again. Its rather slow as you are going in the same direction as they are, they have to slowly catch you up. Going into the wind if different. You are both charging at each other, colliding at combined speeds. Even with a heavy boat like Itchy Foot there is slamming as the bow falls off the top of the wave into the gap behind it. The boat shakes and slams, rocks and rolls as we plough into every wave, trying to push us back as our sails try to push us forward. You fight your way upwind.

It is tippy. Sails can’t move towards the wind. The best they can do is work a bit like a wing and be pushed sideways from the wind. In the same way that a wing on a plane is lifted up by wind passing over it, the sail of a boat is lifted up by wind passing over it. The sail doesn’t want to go forward it really wants to go sideways. But the boat has a deep keel under the water, the keel doesn’t want to go sideways, it resists. Rather like squeezing soap between your fingers, the boat gets pushed forward. But the force isn’t equal. The sails, which are high up, want to go one way. The keel which is low in the water wants to go the other. As well as being pushed forward the boat also tips over.  The goal is to have just the right amount of tip – about 30 degrees.

Doesn’t sound like much fun?

No. In summary, going upwind is a slow, bumping, tipping, slamming, bouncing, shaking, shuddering, jarring, tiring and noisy experience. Five days of that took it’s toll on our nerves and mood. The only one onboard who didn’t lose their sense of humour was Teo, who was a rockstar on the whole trip.

The reward is that we’re now back in the Marquesas. One of the most beautiful places we’ve ever visited and safely out of reach of cyclones. We’re in good company and looking forward to Christmas.

At the start of December Teo noticed that the month on the wall calendar we made together has the red writing and he got really excited because you know what that means… Christmas (and Santa) comes near the end of the month! This lifestyle allows us to corral Christmas to a single month, there is only Christmas music decorations etc in December. We have an early Christmas present in the form of three lovely families afloat to keep us company. As December progressed the kids got more and more excited and our time was filled with Christmas preparations. Santa hats were made and worn for lots of lovely activities, including a giggle filled afternoon of water sports behind the Calle II dinghy. It was so much fun to waterski again, and in a Santa hat for comic effect! 

We made only a handful Christmas cards this year. We recycled charts we picked up from book swaps and cut out trees and pasted them onto card. We are very proud of how nice they looked. We also made ornaments from coral we spent months collecting, only the heart shaped ones, please! They are simple and I can see us hanging them on our tree for years to come. We sent small parcels home and when we went to the post office we had to gulp at the cost of being so far away.

In our anchorage off the town in Makemo, our very creative, enthusiastic friends on Larki invited everyone over for Christmas craft session complete with Christmas music blaring, cinnamon buns all around and glogg ala Calle II. Each boat organised an ornament for the kids to make and the results were wonderful, especially when they added their own special touches. The afternoon felt like the workshop in the North Pole, with cutting and drilling and gluing and painting and beads and sparkles. One of my favourite memories of this Christmas season is the separate afternoon the ladies escaped and did some crafts on their own with more glogg and cake and giggles on Calle II.

Itchy Foot hosted a jewellery making workshop for the kids. Thank goodness Fi came with a ton of jewellery making things and beads. It was a flurry of excitement and creativity and surprising patience, too. There were moments of “oh no this is backwards” and “now I have to do it over since I dropped the end and beads bounced everywhere!” Every one of the eight kids left with a wrapped present to put under the tree for their mums and even some for dads and sisters. It was a fun afternoon and it was lovely to see the wonderful creations everyone made and it was also a treat to see the kids help each other. And I must say the earrings Teo made for Mia are gorgeous!

Around the 17th of December we sailed from Makemo in the Tuamotus up to Uo Pou in the Marquesas, about six days of bashing into the wind and waves… but more on that another time. When we arrived at Ua Pou on December 22nd we were happy to put our upwind passage behind us and even the rolly anchorage was not going to squash the Christmas spirit. The anchorage was breathtaking in its beauty with high cliffs and crashing waves. The kids were excited to come and watch movies onboard Itchy Foot and the men went on a foraging mission. They went to find a shop for some fresh ingredients for Christmas meals.

There were also Christmas secrets and the kids spent many hours on Larki to prepare a surprise. One afternoon the adults on Itchy Foot made use of the time to decorate and prepare for the big day. We took out the tree that always reminds us of our friends on Sta Vast (oh, how we wish they were still out here cruising with us!) and we hung the tree in a hammock so it wouldn’t tip over when we did. We felt like Santa’s helpers as we wrapped presents and brought out the cards and parcels lovingly delivered to us by hand when Jon’s parents were visiting. We are very pleased to note that for the whole of our Christmas, there was not one visit to a shopping center, HO HO HO!

The day of Christmas Eve was full of cheer- lots of Christmas music, crafts and visiting each other bringing small parcels and goodies. The kids all made each other presents and it was really lovely to see how proud they were to hand them over. Each visiting dinghy were also singing Christmas carols. We had lots of lovely presents to open, especially Teo. A big thank you to family who made a big effort to send parcels with visiting dignitaries. Jon made incredible Christmas Eve dinner of duck and roast vegetables. After our lovely family dinner together on the 24th we joined our lovely friends for dessert on Casablanca. Martin is a very brave man to open his nearly new shiny catamaran to four boisterous families. It was a magical evening with lovely games and delicious desserts and singing and dancing around the tree.

While the boys had been on their foraging quest before Christmas, they met a lovely local man  also named Martin who invited us to Christmas Day Mass at the local church including a lunch buffet afterwards. This was a beautiful, musical and delicious affair. Everyone was wearing their very best outfits and flowers in their hair and there was much singing and drumming. Our host, Martin was ordained into a position in the church and it was reason for much rejoicing. Part of the buffet was pig roasted in the ground and we were invited to watch as they retrieved it. The pit was lined with banana leaves and volcanic rocks and they pulled out basket upon basket of food. Later we ate alongside the congregation and all the dishes were incredible, especially the pork. The baskets they cooked in were beautiful creations, woven specially for this purpose with handles to make the food easier to unpack. The lush countryside of the Marquesas is very good to its people. Especially the fruit that grows here is incredible!  It was a wonderful way to spend Christmas Day. 

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But Christmas wasn’t over yet. There was a wonderful Christmas concert planned by the kids and facilitated by the parents on Larki. Everyone worked very hard and the first part of the performance were solo acts by all the kids. Teo played “Twinkle Twinkle” on the recorder and afterwards said “That was nerve wracking!” And the second part was a collaboration of “T’was the Night Before Christmas” and was wonderful, complete with sugarplums dancing, Dad in his hat, reindeer antlers, coconut hooves, and an awesome St. Nick. And when it got dark there was a little Lucia tog organised by Calle II. To get a feel of the spirit please check out the video Larki made of the festivities, there is a link on our Facebook page.

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After Christmas we moved a remote bay that was less rolly and rang in the new year. Panacea hosted a kick ass party with lots of bubbles and a potluck. Stine and Sonia from Calle II organised a music quiz and there was dancing! We all made it to three hours past cruisers midnight and welcomed 2019. We were probably in the least populated time zone on the planet as when it was midnight in London, it was still 1430 here, you have to love the half hour time zones! It has been an amazing year for us on Itchy Foot, Happy 2019 everyone!