Outbound Taou...Inbound Hilo!

A pile of projects, as we readied ourselves and our boat for another adventure...

Hunter and Valentine baked baguettes on shore ( cooked over a wood-fire, in an old, steel diesel drum), while
Jon and Kai stowed all our dive gear-which for the four of us is a pretty considerable pile of stuff. Pura Vida is usually the boat in the anchorage with "Sanford and Sons" look, cluttered with wet suits, tanks, paddle boards, surfboards and wet towels and laundry, hanging from her safety lines.
We all dove the boat and scraped her clean of barnacles and I said my final farewell to "Oliver" the giant bumphead wrasse, who lives under us.
Jon disassembled our compressor to stow it away in our shower while I worked in the galley prepping meals in anticipation of the first rough week of offshore weather. This time around, we have our passage-making routine down to a science. I know how many pre-prepared meals will get me through the first week of settling back into our sea-routine and keep tired bellys full without demanding too much from me in the galley. Over the past few days, I dug into our stores and cooked up comfort foods; chicken pot pies and tuna casseroles, chicken chili, beef stews and lots of  muffins, cakes and cookies. Looking at our stores I cant believe how light we are to make such a long voyage. NO fresh food, almost no dairy, practically no simple snacks like potato chips. We are doing it the way it has been done for centuries before...make it from scratch or catch it from the sea. I'm sure we have enough for the three week crossing, plus two more weeks ( in case of emergency) but it will be tight. Jon got our meager water maker running again, so we can once more crank out a gallon and hour if we have to. The thing is thirty years old and we have repaired it five times already-so this is really an emergency only, kind of thing and we will rely on good old fashioned conservation to get us through the next three weeks.
John (our skipper friend from SV Nakia) and our Jon put their Captain heads together about weather and routing, swapping notes and ideas on the passage to Hilo. Nakia will also be sailing for Hilo and even though we will almost certainly, never see each other ( our boat is quite a lot longer than theirs is), its nice to know that we will have friends somewhere out there in all that wide expanse of Blue.
The kids got their sea-berth ready, relinquishing the forward V-berth to make room for easy access to stowed sails.
Jon and I worked like mad getting everything else we could think of ready for this next challenging leg of our adventure.

Last night , we said goodbye to our hosts and it was an emotional farewell for everybody.

Gaston and Valentine were so kind to us and we all became like family.
They made a lovely goodbye dinner for us and Nakia-who they are also very close to as Nakia as been here twice before.
We ate roasted pig and lobster calzones, they gave Jon a sea-urchin spine necklace-which now hangs next to the boar tusk one he was given in the Marquesas.
They  also gave me tons of smoked  parrot fish and Teno and Maiete gave us six lobsters, as well...
so we will continue to eat like kings, in our weeks at sea!

There is so much to say about what we learned and experienced here.

The storm and the boat repair, working for Gaston and Valentine, living off the land and actually living WITH these people for the past month, and of course, diving and snorkeling the amazing coral reef  here, everyday.

It was just an incredible journey for all of us.

As we make the final preparations this morning to head to sea for the next month, I hear Gaston blowing his massive Conch shell from the end of his dock, bidding farewell to Nakia as they drop their mooring lines and head out the pass.

We all run on deck to wave and they shout..."See you at Dairy Queen!" to us as we smile and say silent prayers for their safe passage.

As I write this, Jon is doing his final engine check and we are moments away from heading out to sea.

Once again, we will be on our own out there, for weeks and weeks, on our great mother ocean.

This journey will test our seamanship and navigation even more than the last, because we will be sailing upwind... but its not our first time anymore, and we've now added a little bit of experience to that "Big Bag of Luck" we've been dipping into!

Here's hoping our next post is in fresh winds and fair seas and we are, as Hunter said this morning when she woke up...
"Finally! Heading towards my grandmas, again!".