Ohhhh Makemo

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Lowe has about half a dozen coral cuts that aren’t healing up, so while he takes a couple of dry days he drops me and Ouest off for a long float snorkel from the beach to the boat.

Start off in the shallows.

And slowly work our way back to the boat.

This boat came with a big Mantus M2 anchor. I think I preferred our M1, with its ring over the top, but this seems to be working just about as well. Personally, after a few years with Mantus anchors I would never even consider using anything else. They’ve never dragged, and they always set immediately within the space of one anchor length. The upgrade from our old Bruce and CQR anchors is off the charts. It’s a miracle we never ended up on the beach with our little Bruce anchor on our first cat.

Protecting both the coral and our chain.

I’ll likely be going overboard with these dome pictures for a while. Cheapest fun little camera accessory ever. Here’s an Amazon link to it.

Lowe snapping some pics. He’s much better than me at getting down close to his subjects.

This boat has a bunch of underwater lights, about a third of which seem to work, on occasion.

The longer fish are remoras. Their job is to keep the bottom of the boat clean.

Trying to convince Ouest that Backgammon is the greatest board game of all time. She remains unconvinced, but I’m not going to stop working on her.

This is a typical coral head. These are scattered about every hundred feet or so in every direction for a couple of square miles, at least. Mostly colorful small reef fish, like an aquarium, but every so often I find a Grouper lurking. I’ll spare everyone my bloody fish on a spear pictures, but this is definitely the kind of place you can get your own dinner.

Little treasures.

Pringles promotion? Nope, it’s an Angry Birds Pringles knock-off.

Boats take detours by us to see what is flying around in our rigging. Lowe is like a trapeze artist the way he flies from one side of the boat, through the rigging, over the sailbag, and lands calmly on the other side.

We actually hadn’t used the bread maker since leaving Mexico, assuming that it was a power hog. But one day we plugged it in to have a look at how much it really does use. Turns out, despite the three-hour runtime (there’s a one-hour fast bread, but we don’t have the right kind of yeast), it hardly uses any power at all. We’re back on the fresh bread wagon again.

A bit of windy weather was in the forecast, and two other boats came over and joined us at our east Makemo anchorage while we waited it out. Never did get as bad as we thought it might, but it hasn’t been a bad place to wait. Everyone is antsy to move on, though, regardless. Our stores of fresh fruit and vegetables is a very sad sight right now. We’re going to need to move on soon or die of scurvy.

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13 Comments on “Ohhhh Makemo”

  1. You’ve probably already thought of this, but we used to make alfalfa or mung bean sprouts when we sailed in places with no access to fresh produce.

  2. Your photos just get better and better! Lowe has a great eye and he’s only going to get better and better.

  3. I have always loved all your photos. Especially love the close ups, Lowe! Awesome! Safe travels šŸ˜Š

  4. Are you seeing any lionfish? I love the photos and your lifestyle. I only wish I were 20 years younger.

  5. Always love dropping in on your blogs over the years. The contrast between making your own bread now versus finding pizza yes back is great. Enjoy!

  6. Just returned from Alaska. I learned there that the way the Eskimos avoided scurvy was raw whale blubber (plenty of Vitamin-C there apparently). So, just in case . . . . No need to thank me. šŸ˜‰

  7. When you get to indonesia try and get some ā€œdie da yao jinā€ Chinese medicine. The surfers in indo use it to treat reef cuts. Itā€™s amazing. Itā€™s especially good for drying out the wound and keeping it dry in wet and humid environments.

  8. Long time reader, never commenter here. I am wondering what game is being played in one of the last photos (and whether it is a good one). I am referring to the game board with a world map on it. Zooming in to the picture didnā€™t help! We have a somewhat similar lifestyle to yours and play a lot of board games with our homeschooled kids. Also, thanks for the reminder about backgammon. Iā€™ve never learned it, but always sort of wanted to do so. Cheers and happy sailing!

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