Makemo is southwest of Raroia, and it was an easy overnight passage to get there. It is an elongated atoll, it is oriented WNW to ESE, and it is shaped somewhat like a dumbbell (narrower in the middle than on the ends.) Somewhat larger, it is about 40 miles long and 10 miles across. There are two passes, and we entered the lagoon through the more southern one, which is actually on the north side of the lagoon, just about 1/4 way up from the southern tip. The pass is called Passe Arikitamiro, and the village of Pouheva is just on the motu on the western side of the pass. Entering the pass was pretty straightforward as we rode the incoming tide again and had a maximum of about 3 kt of current. We elected to stern tie to the wharf at the village, and that turned out to be the most challenging aspect of our transit. This was our first time with this maneuver. We dropped the bow anchor and then backed into the wharf and tossed the dock lines ashore to some guys who came to help us. The problem is that Exodus is so big and fat and has so much windage that we were getting pushed sideways pretty good, since the wind was blowing about 20 kt. With Alex’s help, we were able to get everything secure.
We explored the town almost immediately, and we found it clean and the people friendly. We found the stores pretty easily, including a bakery. Baguettes, again! Although they weren’t as tasty as what we had grown accustomed to in The Marquesas. Right near the wharf was a covered recreation area for the kids including basketball hoops, and there were several kids playing as we wandered past. Tim encouraged the boys to go play, and when they wouldn’t he gave them a little more incentive. He told them if they didn’t go play with the local kids, they couldn’t eat anything we bought in town, including and especially the baguettes. They were stubborn and went and sat on the wharf near the boat. After a little more exploring of the town, we saw the kids again, and Tim talked to them and told them about the boys, and they are welcome to come play down by the boat. The kids quickly accepted this offer and found the boys near the boat. Brenden was going back and forth between the wharf and Exodus by shimming along the dock lines, getting dipped in the water along the way. Of course, this looked fun, so some of the other boys wanted to try it as well. Before long, they were all swimming, jumping off of Exodus, playing catch with our “futbol americain” and generally having a really good time. Tim would throw the football and they would try to catch the football as they jumped off the dock. Eventually, they all went to play soccer, including the Exodus and Lady Carolina boys. When they got back, Brenden commented on how good at soccer they all were.
That evening we were invited to watch the dance practice at a covered area right near the wharf, and so we all went down to watch. The women of the town were practicing their dancing for the upcoming Heiva celebration, and we got to see the instruction and practicing and listen to the fantastic drum playing. It wasn’t a professional dance troop, to be sure, but we had fun watching and talking to people. The only downside was that after the overnight passage I was so tired I could barely keep my eyes open after sitting there for a while. Luckily, that wasn’t our only opportunity to watch them practice.
The next morning when we got up there was a group of younger children on the dock with flowers, and they wanted to “change” them for chocolate. After school, all the kids were back for more playing on Exodus.
After bypassing the opportunities in the Marquesas, Tim decided he wanted to get a tattoo. I was skeptical about finding someone here in Makemo, after all, the Marquesans are very well known for their tattoos, and I had no idea what we could find in The Tuamotus. After asking a few people and getting the same answer from all of them, the guys went to see Beko, and it turns out he’s a real artist. In addition to tattoos, he engraves black pearls with intricate designs. Tim saw his work, and thought, yeah, this is the guy I want to do my tattoo. Would you believe his tattoo “machine” was broken? No tattoo for you. Tim and Steve suggested maybe they could fix it, but Beko had already thrown it out, so he’s no longer in the tattoo business.
Not to be discouraged, the guys then turned their attention to the carved pearls and made some complex trading deals for him to carve some pearls for us. Ok, not too complex, just some alcohol and a few boat items and they had their deals. As a bonus, they got to meet Beko’s brother Victor. Just like when you asked anyone in town about tattoos, they steered you to Beko, if you asked anyone in town about fishing, the only name you heard was Victor. Since that is right up Tim and Steve’s alley, they joined him for spear fishing one day, but the “piece de resistance” was going out fishing with him on his boat. If you haven’t seen it, go check out our youtube video called “Fishing with Victor,” and so not to spoil it too much I’ll just say it involves a harpoon rather than rods and reels. OK, since I spoiled it, I’ll tell just a little more. His boat is a hard bottom skiff, but unlike the Mexican Pangas which are driven by outboard from the back of the boat, just like our dinghy, Victor’s boat is driven from the front. What he does is follow the birds until he finds a Mahi Mahi (Dorado) and then he chases it until it gets tired. Then when he’s close enough he throws a harpoon at it. His success rate was amazing, and they came back with 4 huge Mahi Mahi. The only time he missed occurred because when he went to cock his arm to throw the harpoon the first time, he was interfered with by one of the fishing poles the guys had brought. They had a great time, and when they got back, we invited Victor back to Exodus that evening and he had dinner with us, but I had seasoned up some Wahoo and baked it, and I’m not sure it was his sort of meal. But he drank beer with us, and we all practiced our French, and overall had a very pleasant evening.
The only bad thing about being stern tied to the wharf was the weather. On the one hand, it was comforting to be tied securely as squall after squall passed over. But on the other hand, our orientation was such that the wind would blow dead astern, which means when it rained, the rained blew straight into the cockpit. So, with the cockpit continually wet it put a damper on our pot lucking activities on Exodus. One evening we ventured to the “restaurant” which wasn’t a restaurant the way we tend to think of them, but rather a place they will cook for you, if you make arrangements in advance. Similar to some of the smaller villages we visited in Baja California.
The first few days Lady Carolina was anchored rather than tied to the wharf as we were, but then they came in and parked right beside us. At this point, I guess Tim and Steve decided they needed to up the ante for the kid fun, and they rigged a rope swing on Lady Carolina. This was a huge hit, and even got the attention of the group of teenagers who had been hanging out on the dock but were too cool to come and play. In addition to enjoying the rope swing and eating all of Carolina’s SAO crackers, they also enjoyed Steve’s weight set, and they were pumping iron to our amusement. Well, I guess one rope swing on Lady Carolina just wasn’t good enough, so Tim and Steve attached a Lady Carolina halyard to an Exodus halyard, and then attached a third line to that, and created the rope swing of all rope swings that could be launched from the port stern of Exodus. By late afternoon, we must have had 50 kids on or around our two boats. It was a bit crazy and got away from us a bit, but amazingly nothing got broken or lost, well, except for Lady Carolina’s pulpit, which got a bit bent when a large kid used it as a springboard. A couple times we had to remind them to not stand on the lifelines and not jump on the net, but overall, they are a good group of kids. I spent some time with some of the older ones reading the French for Cruisers book together. They would pick a phrase and ask me something in English and I would try to answer in French. They seem to speak French more often here than in the Marquesas, even when interacting with each other. In the Marquesas, we heard a lot of Marquesan. I’m not exactly sure what the native language here is called. They seem to speak Tahitian, but a couple words they taught us they would say, “in Makemo” indicating it’s a local language, but I’m really not sure.
A military boat pulled up to the dock while we were there, and at first, we were wondering if we would get boarded and searched, but that was not to be. This was a French Navy boat with nothing to do with customs, and while they were there it was if the men all had a day’s leave as they explored the town dressed in shorts with their cameras. They were all so young, and surprisingly spoke very little English, but they seemed to get at least a small kick out of all the local kids playing on our boats.
Once we had planned to leave the village and we had told the children, we ended up staying one more day at the last minute, and I’m so glad we did. When I told the kids we were staying “a demain” (until tomorrow) they were so excited they hugged me, especially the girls who are “in love” with Alex, Brenden, Kyle, and Joel. It’s funny, they communicate this by making a heart shape with their hands. They wrote notes with lots of hearts on them and gave the boys silly band bracelets. They spent the day with me on Exodus helping me chop vegetables and teaching me French. One of the girls would say a phrase in French and then tell me, “repetez.” They told me, in French, that they wanted souvenirs from us because they don’t want to forget us. I told them, “OK I understand,” thinking I would think of some things and give them later. Apparently, what I actually did was give them permission to go to Alex and Brenden’s rooms and pick out what they want. They each came out with two shirts, dirty and smelly I might add, but they didn’t seem to care. I felt so bad I had to stop them because since they’ve been growing the boys don’t actually have that many clothes to spare, especially Alex. Oh, they pleaded with me to let them have shirts, so I dug around in Brenden’s cubby and found some (clean) older, smaller shirts and gave them each one. Another funny thing is when Brenden came back, he asked if I cleaned his room. I guess the girls thought the Legos needed to be tidied up a bit! The next day Carolina was able to dig out a shirt of Kyle’s and gave that to one of the girls too, they were so ecstatic.
Our last morning in town the girls were on the dock bright and early with more love notes for the boys. But even more exciting, Beko brought us our pearls, and they were exquisite. Tim “ordered” one with each of our names on them in addition to several others, and Brenden’s has a tuna on it, so he was happy. Beko also brought Tim and Steve bone carved necklaces, “for the captains.” I admired Tim’s because I had been wanting one like it, but I’m pretty sure that was not in front of Beko, so I’m not exactly sure what motivated his next visit, but he came back with necklaces for me and Carolina. He said with a smile, “for two captains.” The necklaces were gifts, thrown in with the pearls, which was very generous of him.
When we finally pushed away from the dock, after the drama of the anchor windlass, we made our way just a little bit northeast to a secluded anchorage, which was the perfect place to decompress. Brenden was feeling sick with a sore throat, so he was confined to the boat, but the rest of us went to shore in the afternoon to explore a bit. It was pretty windy, and Alex and I had a hell of a paddle to get to the beach, and unfortunately for Alex, he forgot his shoes, so he had to go back and beat upwind a second time.
After a day or two we made our way to the vicinity of the northwest pass. It took four hours in squally weather to get there, and Tim and Steve both spent the entire passage hoisted up in bosun’s chairs near the first spreaders. This was so they could have a higher vantage point to be able to see the coral heads that much better. And of course, they each had a VHF radio in hand, so the bantering never ceased. We had a difficult time finding a spot to anchor, and when we arrived, we actually had to wait for a pretty big squall to pass over us. So, after getting windblown and dumped on, we made our way into a tiny, protected lagoon, and here we stayed just for a couple hours while all the boys, except Brenden, did a pass dive. Brenden was still a little sick, so he remained in quarantine. When they got back from their dive, we all decided to stay the night, so we moved Exodus out of the lagoon and out near where Lady Carolina was anchored, so we would have a bit more swing room.
The next morning Alex woke up sick, and it turned out to be something like strep throat and he even had to take anti-biotics. I teased him that it was mono and kept asking him which of the girls in Makemo he was smooching on. When we raised anchor that afternoon, it was wrapped on a coral head, and Tim had to dive in to clear it. So, with Alex out of commission, Brenden had to step it up and work the anchor windlass, since I was at the helm and Tim was in the water. Brenden did a phenomenal job, and we were unstuck in no time. We took a “shortcut” out of the anchorage, because Tim had dove there and he was confident Exodus could get through, and our pass exit was just as uneventful as all of our other passes. Lady Carolina declined the shortcut route and took the safe, long way around, and their story afterwards was that they had a serious “oh shit!” moment where they only had a foot of water under the keel. But when all was said and done, we were both out safely by 5 pm and on our way to Tahanea.
Gresham Family Exodus 