Iles Marquises to Maupihaa, June 22 - Aug 19

With sand stuck to my feet and coconut milk stains on my shirt I watch as H & K prepare the boat for sea, encore une fois. Maupihaa is where we are. For two days we are alone, thinking the atoll deserted. We make a big fire and watch the stars circle our anchor lights as numerous crabs silently crab around us leaving eerie marks in the sand. The day before we leave, we find two families living and working copra at the end of one of the motus. We are here with Mantra Ania a boat from Szczecin, Poland, just like our boat. Mantra Ania is small (6m), with an even smaller, but obviously brave crew, Dawid and Marta. They've sailed from Venezuela and since Tahiti we've been sharing breakfasts and anchorages. But alas our time to navigate that treacherous pass and leave, has come once more.
The last few weeks make me dizzy as I reminisce. My father visiting us with his family and Johnny, my cousin (DJ Mango, as we named him). They are with us from iles Marquises, across the Tuamotus to Papeete, Tahiti. A day after they leave, we meet Marta and Dawid. We also meet Nashachata, another Polish boat sailing to Chile. We celebrate. Then my uncle (Johnny's father) comes with his wife and daughter (DJ Peach). And all of a sudden the RPM's of our lives are cranked up, as my uncle is a man of action and many words. After two large Bora Bora parties, two regattas (Mantra and us), countless spreader jumps and wake boarding wipe outs, my uncle et al. leave us sleep deprived and spent. We leave Bora Bora and head to the nearest island west of us, Maupiti, but finding the pass impossible to cross except with a helicopter we head for Maupihaa, the last island on the Western side of French Polynesia. And that my friends is the last two months in a coconut shell. Somewhere in there is a Miss Ua Pou show (very nice), a night out with our friend Gendarme Daoh, and 3 French soldiers from the engineer corps, Henrik and Dawid's cake baking competition (in a pot, as we have no oven), and Kina putting ink under my skin. I can't say where we are going to next, as it's bad luck, but I will write about it promptly and truthfully, as always. For now, we leave French Polynesia and her beautiful women and mountains and atolls and paperwork. Once more we are three.
Lukasz

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