The final sail out of a cruise seems like a forced celebration.  We had a great time and now it is over.  In the past we have had two or three sea days between the final sail out from San Juan, St. Thomas or Boston to Fort Lauderdale.  On this cruise we have six sea days and seven nights. I try to look at it as the start of a new seven night cruise. 

We know several Sitkans who have sailed their boats to and from the Marquéses.  Our friend Warren Christiansen built Tantalus, his sailing boat, while a law student at the University of Minnesota and sailed it, he told me, down the Mississippi, intending to make a left turn at New Orleans and sail to practice law in Grand Maris Minnesota, on Lake Superior.  Chris joked that he took a wrong turn at New Orleans, sailed through the Panama Canal to the Gallipolis Islands and then down to the Marquéses (a 3,800 mile trip).  He lingered there a while and then sailed through the doldrums to Hawaii (2.300 miles) and on to Sitka (2,000 miles).  The Hawaii – Sitka route was one well used during the Russian occupation.  Often Sitka got produce from Hawaii.  We know several Sitka mariners who made the trip from Sitka to the Marquéses, sometimes directly and sometimes on a circle Pacific sail.  I enjoyed listening to their stories on a cold winter night in the Unitarian Fellowship Hall or at Chris’s place on Kristoff Island.  Those conversations added to my curiosity about the Marquéses fostered by Melville.

While waiting for the tender line to clear we walked around the harbor and looked at some of the shops that served the yachts who had sailed thousands of miles and had thousands of miles yet to sail. As we do.  But we will do it in six days while a sailboat will take an average of 25 days.  April is the best season for favorable winds for sailors heading to California. When we finally got on the tender line, we were entertained by drummers and dancers.

There is a 5 foot tide range in Nuka Hiva and being a day off the full moon we were about at the top of that range.  We arrived at high tide and it was a climb out of the tender to the stationary stone dock.  For a while the crew doubted that I could make the first step pf the makeshift, I don’t know what to call it, staircase/ladder?  But with some help with a boost and some hands helping me up I did make it.  All the doubtfuls on our tender made it.  Getting back on the tide had come in and it was an easy step from the dock to the tender.

Back on the ship we wandered around taking our last pictures of a foreign port for this trip. 

Then we went aft for the sail away party.  I haven’t attended many of these because they are food and drink events but for our last sail out, I enjoyed the bread and cheese and a healthy pour of a very good Shiraz from Australia.  The Main Stage company sang and led dancing as we pulled anchor with the captain’s announcement and the sounding of the horn.  As we danced away a squall came up and swept the deck clear of dancers.

After dinner the party adjourned to the Main Ballroom.  The scheduled entertainers didn’t make the ship.  Their plane was struck by lightning and while they were ok, they missed the boat.  So, we had an ‘80s disco.  I popped in but Suzi and I called it an early night because we would lose sleep as we turned the clocks forward to begin to realign to mainland time.