Huge bummer! We fished the entire way between Raiatea and Huahine with our new hand-lines and not even a nibble. We had a little hope when birds started to circle near the Avamoa Pass outside of the main village Fare, but then as we got closer they just sat on top of the water.
We waited two days in Raiatea for better weather and when we left the wind was 10 knots with 3 to 4 feet of waves which seemed to quickly change to 20 knot winds and 6 to 8 feet waves after exiting the Te Avamo’a Pass of Raiatea. Sara maintained her eye on the horizon and somehow kept from projecting her breakfast overboard for the next five hours. The trick so far is to keep in fresh air, eye on the horizon, slowly sip water, slowly nibble on a salt free crackers, and sing favorite songs as loud as possible, while Wade plays DJ.
Poseidon’s Garden has worked very well thus far, but we have started to deal with a couple of obstacles that are starting to get a little annoying. Each time we transit outside of a protected lagoon we move the garden inside the cockpit and behind the dodger because we are still creating a proper wind screen and hanging off of the solar lends no protection from strong winds. The theory behind Poseidon’s Garden is allow the water to slosh inside the tube which circulates air around the roots, which means the garden needs to be able to swing and not be affixed to the boat. Motor sailing into the wind in heavy conditions caused the garden to swing so hard the plants tried to flip over, plus Sara was bumped in the head twice by the garden. Sadly the watermelon, cantaloupe, two zucchini, sweet banana pepper, thyme, rosemary, cilantro, and Thai basil are not sprouting. Even if the plants did sprout within the next month they would not mature before reaching Hawaii agriculture department which requires the removal of all plant life before clearing in the U.S. We took the herbs that were growing well in Poseidon’s Garden and moved them into King Neptune’s Garden. As there were more plants than pots some of the herbs were combined into one pot. For the remainder of the trip we plan to retire Poseidon’s Garden. King Neptune’s Garden is still young, and we don’t have flowers yet but one of the tomato plants is over 12 inches tall.
Cheers,
Wade and Sara
Position at noon: 16 degrees 45.045 minutes South and 151 degrees 6.347 minutes West
