Hello, friends! Given the recent issues with our gennaker, we have ordered a spinnaker for our journey to New Zealand. We’re now simply killing time until it arrives in Tahiti. Here’s a look into what a day in the life of a liveaboard sailor is like on anchor, while we wait to begin our next adventure… 

I wake up to Ray sitting up in bed. We’re anchored in Moorea, French Polynesia; it’s midnight, and he has felt the boat swing around. There’s hardly any wind, so all the boats around us are pointing in different directions. We’re anchored in ~70ft of water with a 4:1 scope. The anchorages away from the reefs in French Polynesia are deep, and many boats here don’t carry enough chain to anchor responsibly. The boat behind us tried to make it work by anchoring in a small area marked on the charts as 44ft deep— but, if you drag off that spot, the chances of your anchor resetting in the deeper water surrounding it are slim. 

We’re sitting pretty much right on top of our anchor, and their boat looks too close to us. Given the amount of chain we have out, we were concerned we’d collide if we pulled back. I put some clothes on in case we needed to move, then sat in the cockpit, watching them. Their captain is awake, shining a headlamp on our boat, their bow, and then back into their cockpit. We’re close enough to shout, so Ray asks if everything is okay. Have they dragged? They’re French, so there is a language barrier. We called them on the radio and described our position, depth, and scope. They say they don’t think they’ve dragged, but they have 15m of additional chain they can let out, and they planned to move come morning. We agreed and watched from our cockpit as they let the rest of their chain out by hand. Broken/nonexistent windlasses are common here, but it’s scary to think about how much slower they’d be should they have to raise their anchor in an emergency. We stayed up for a while longer to observe how we swung, and so did the other Captain. If the current conditions hold, we would be fine, but in our experience here, things change quickly… The mountains surrounding us act as a funnel, sending gusts through the anchorage amidst even the calmest conditions. Ray set an alarm (in addition to our anchor alarm) that would sound if we began to pull back on our anchor toward them, and we slept in the salon— just in case. 

Ray wakes up first and checks our battery levels before deciding to use the electric kettle or a pot over propane to make coffee. I stumble downstairs to wash my face. Neither of us slept well. It was hot, and we woke up to check our position often. We quietly enjoy our coffee and watch the sun climb over the mountains. It really is beautiful here. 

The boat we were concerned about last night had pulled its anchor and left. There’s still no wind, but the clouds have parted, and it looks like it will be a good solar day, so I pulled out my baking supplies to make a loaf of bread. We’re heading to New Zealand soon, and they have strict rules about what you can and can’t bring into the country. Honey and most seeds are prohibited, so I am trying to use up what I have. I made a multigrain Dave’s Killer Bread-inspired loaf using honey, sesame seeds, sunflower seeds, chia, and pumpkin seeds that turned out to be delicious! We ate some toasted for breakfast with eggs and an apple. 

Immediately after breakfast, I start thinking about lunch and dinner. I get some chicken out of the freezer for later, taking a quick inventory of what we have left and assessing whether or not I need to defrost the freezer before I restock (opening and closing it in this humidity causes it to frost up very quickly). I ask Ray how much longer we’ll be in this anchorage, with easy shore access close to a grocery store. He checks the weather and says we will at least stay the rest of this week. I factor that into my provision planning. Since we just ate the last of our eggs, I put on a pot of yogurt to ferment so it’d be ready to eat for breakfast tomorrow morning. 

We like to get any boat maintenance that needs to be done out of the way in the morning before it gets too hot, so I polish our stainless steel while Ray works on a supplies list for our upcoming refit. Some parts have a long lead time and will need to be ordered in advance, so he is collecting quotes and working out a tentative timeline. After lunch, we decided to head ashore to dispose of our garbage, but when we got there, we saw this: 

As sailors, we try our best to minimize our environmental impact. Part of that is ensuring we don’t overwhelm or take advantage of the resources on these small islands. So, we decided to let our trash rot in the cockpit a while longer—hopefully, the next time we go to shore, the dumpster will have space for our waste.

Suddenly, the anchorage was enveloped by clouds—so much for a good solar day! It rained on and off for the rest of the afternoon. Although the morning sunshine had fooled us, by 3pm we knew we’d need to run the generator. This was our fourth day of cloud coverage, and our batteries were not happy. 

We had burned some diesel to get here, so before running the generator, we’d need to transfer some fuel into our tanks from our jerry jugs. After that, we fired up the generator. In a perfect world, we’d run the watermaker simultaneously, but the runoff from the rainstorm had infiltrated the anchorage, leaving Sabado sitting in a mud puddle. It’d be a while before the water clears up again…  

We sat inside while the generator ran. I took advantage of the air conditioning by exercising and cleaning the interior. Ray worked on a wiring diagram for an upcoming electrical project. The clouds parted just in time for sunset, so we opened a bottle of wine and watched as they turned from grey to orange. I never get tired of watching sunsets from the boat! 

We turned off the generator and turned on some jazz music, cooked dinner at home, and watched an episode of a TV series before heading to bed in hopes of more restful sleep than we had last night…