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4/27/2006 12:30:00 AM
Tahuata
An island about 2 hours from Hiva Oa

Part 3 of 3 - Lawur's Retrospective on the Puddle

Part 3 of 3 - The Puddle Jump from Niki's point of view.

Last but definitely not least, here is Niki's view on crossing the Pacific ... is it a woman's view or just another sailor ... you make your own call. Even I was interested to read this and excited to see how Niki felt a week after we arrived.

NIKI WOW - not meow it is for me - I still cannot grasp the actual thought that we did it!!! We've been here a week and many of the emotions, thoughts and memories have been pushed back by the new impressions of these beautiful islands. So let's try to back up... I am immensely proud of myself and the rest of the crew. I had mentally prepared myself for a long time for this trip by reading a lot, talking with other non-and sailors and I come to find out that it helps me to kind of "worry", "hypothesize" or whatever one wants to call it, about a new situation and then once I am in it doesn't seem to be so bad as I had imagined it (First my glass is half empty and then it is half full... :o)). So I guess that's what happened with the passage. For all these years of preparation and as time grew closer I had butterflies and thought about different scenarios in my head what it would be like, how I would cope with the lack of sleep, how would I cook, what will we do all day etc. and now looking back at it I can only say "If I can do it anybody can do it!"

I was surprised how calm and happy I was. I have to say it helped to have a somewhat routine during the day and know what was happening - as you can see from my report sent during the passage. I only had a few moments where I felt a bit afraid - one of them being our 40 knot gusts during the squall that Robert SO enjoyed, but luckily for me that only lasted about 10 minutes! I gained so much more confidence in Lawur, the waves and some of them were big not huge but a good size, felt "normal" - not that I enjoyed the whole rolling around but I thought for sure the waves out on the big wide ocean would scare me a whole lot more. I do have to say that it was physically exhausting to constantly try to hold on to something, wedge your body in a position to be somewhat stable and often have not much control over your movements at all - you should see the blue bruises up and down my legs.... There really never was a situation that I felt we could not handle, being very secure on our floating home. I have to give a lot of credit for that to my captain, Robert, he did an awesome job in keeping us save and happy! As I have written before I had worried that he would keep himself and the boat much more tightly to their limits. As you all know Robert he is quite a competitive person and having not had a chance to sail Lawur a whole lot in Mexico I thought he would be quite eager to get out there and sail, sail, sail - yet as you read in his report he himself was more mentally exhausted by it all, and therefore not in the condition to "try out" more. I totally trusted his decisions and knew that he was always alert, which is why he was so tired, and aware of what was going on, never upset with me when I woke him for a (mostly) minor sail change or silly question. I had thought we would have a lot more friction on that subject with me being scared and him wanting to sail hard - but we met beautifully in the middle (as so often in our live) and were both content with it.

The boys amazed me beyond believe, they really made the whole trip so much easier for us. Both were able to entertain themselves for a good portion of the day, did not really show a lack of physical need until a few days before landfall and even then were able to control themselves with maybe a fun meant wrestle here or there. They too were never really scared of anything, although they liked me close by during some of the squalls. The two of them got along as well as always and my worries that on this passage a brotherly rivalry would develop were diminished. They cooperated and had quite an interest in things that were going on, learning so much for live that we don't even get to understand and see yet.

One of my personal highlights was that I did go for a swim in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. As so often I first said "no" and then thought to myself - "don't be a chicken, nothing can happen the boys did it, too", so I did it and it was an amazing feeling to overcome that fear. I encourage the boys to always try beyond their capability and often shy away from my own. So I guess this whole trip showed me that I can do so much more than I give myself credit for and now that we are here at the other end of the world in a paradise that I had no idea what it would be like, I am oh so happy I can push myself further. I had to have Lisa pinch me a few times because I could not believe it, specially being in Fatu Hiva. The island has no airstrip or hotel so for "regular" tourists to actually set foot on the grounds is very unlikely. When we walked it I felt so privileged and honored to be there, see the live of such a remote place and proud to have made it there - to our Project Marquesas!

SOME INTERESTING AND SOME LESS SERIOUS STATS FISH CAUGHT - About 66 fish ... you might wonder where this number is coming from ... well simple 1 Skipjack, 5 octopus and about 60 flying fish ... we only ate one of the 66 though despite what Slocum did on his passage ... he actually fried the flying fish.  FOOD EATEN - We eat 6 loafs of bread, 2 jars of Nutella ... the large ones, out of 10 we ate 6 dozen eggs. EMAILS RECEIVED / SENT - We sent an average of 15 emails a day it seems with a total of over 300 for the whole period ... even more amazing is that we received about 460 emails from you guys ... WOW and THANKS!

OK, that's it for a while from Lawur until we have a travel report again ... keep checking on Google Earth because we will keep that going for sure and you can follow our little island hops there. Remember that there won't be any pictures probably until we hit Nuku Hiva or until better internet is to be found.

I thought this trip would be a big accomplishment and it was ... I AM VERY PROUD of our boat Lawur, my swabs Sebastian and Benjamin, my first mate Niki and a little bit also of myself.

Thanks for sticking around an virtually traveling with us,

Robert and crew

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