Today we just got back to Taiohae, Nuku Hiva from our big adventure to the island, Eiao (pronounced Ay-EE-OW-oh). We were all very tired after unloading so we stayed on the boat for a bit to rest. Bryce and I watched the movie Footloose on our small portable BluRay player powered by a 12-volt car charger; the player can also take 110/220VAC. After awhile we got bored, since we had seen the movie before, so Bryce and I decided to take the dinghy to shore, to the petit quai (means “little wharf” in French). Mom came with us to drive the dingy back, but she was a very bad helmsman. When she left the wharf, after dropping us off, she bumped into another boat, tied to the wharf, two times before getting the hang of it. There was a bunch of Marquesan people watching. It was embarrassing.
Trent back in Taiohae aboard Kandu, after Eiao, ready to head ashore.
Bryce and I decided to walk to our friend’s house, Raymonde and Sebastien’s, because we were going to eat dinner there later. While walking, Bryce found a coconut tree that was small enough to climb to get a coconut. When he was climbing he pushed down a small branch that was full of dirt, and because I was looking up at him, the dirt fell into my eye. I rubbed my eye to get the dirt out, but instead I scratched my eye. It really hurt, so I was very mad at Bryce.
Bryce climbing coconut tree to bring down “drinking” nuts.
The walk to Raymonde and Sebastien’s house is about a mile and ½, so we were fortunate when other Marquesan friends drove by and gave us a ride in the back of their truck to the house. When we arrived, my eye was still bothering me a lot. Raymonde is a nurse. She rinsed my eye with a bunch of sterile water to try to clear the dirt, but my left eye still hurt a lot. Whenever I closed my sore eye, it felt a little better.
Our dear friend and nurse, Raymonde Ly-Falchetto, living on Nuku Hiva
My parents thought that we might have to go to the emergency, but I really didn’t want to because that evening after dinner, the family planned to go see some Marquesan dancing and I was worried that we wouldn’t be able to go. But after taking a nap, my eye was miraculously healed! We were able to go to watch the dance after all.
The Galapagos Islands and National Park are located on the equator at 0° latitude and approximately 90° longitude. It’s located in the Pacific Ocean about 600 miles west of Ecuador. There are 19 islands in the Galapagos Archipelago. Fray Tomas discovered the islands in March 1535 accidentally because he was headed to Peru but at a certain point, there was no wind, and the ship drifted off course to the archipelago. There were no native people when the islands were first discovered. In the early 1800’s through the early 1900’s, different colonies were established but failed. It wasn’t until the Second World War when the American Air Force built an airport to defend the Panama Canal that more people began to live in the Galapagos. In 1994 it is estimated that 20,000 people populated four of the primary islands: San Cristobal, Santa Cruz, Floreana and Isabela. The islands of the Galapagos are special because of the animals. Charles Darwin made the islands famous because he wrote a book called “The Origin of the Species” published in 1859 based on his travels to the Galapagos in 1835. His famous book was a study of evolution or natural selection based mostly on what he learned studying the finches. The tame animals that make the Galapagos interesting to visit today include: turtles, tortoises, boobies, marine and land iguanas, penguins, flamingos, cormorants, sea lions, and sea horses. I am most interested in the Black Marine Turtles and the Galapagos Penguins.
Black Turtle at Los Tuneles, Isla Isabela (photo by Trent)
There are eight species of marine turtles in the world but only four species have been seen in the Galapagos .The most common turtle is the Black Marine Turtle. The turtles came from Baja California. Only four other turtles have been seen in the Galapagos: the Leatherback, the Olive Ridley, the Hawksbill, and the Green Turtle. I got to see these black turtles and green turtles up close while snorkeling. They swam slowly and gracefully feeding on marine algae. The turtles were much larger than me. I also got to see really cool huge tortoises at the Tortoise Breading Center of Villamil. I learned that when tortoises lay eggs in the wild only 5 to7 live but in the breading center, almost all of the 120 laid eggs survive. The tortoise populations are now replenishing after their numbers were destroyed by pirates and whalers.
Trent & Bryce at the Galapagos Tortoise Breeding Center (photo by Trent)
The black turtle feeds on ulva. Ulva is a sort of algae that comes from the leaves of a red mangrove. Male turtles happen to be smaller than the female black turtles and male turtles also have claws to attach themselves to the female to procreate. Males and females can begin to procreate around the ages of 20 to 25 years of age. The mating season starts when the turtles feel that it is hot outside. The turtles lay eggs in January threw June. The adult’s shell is 84 centimeters long.
Black Turtle with Trent at Los Tuneles, Isla Isabela (photo by Trent)
The females usually lay eggs during the night. She digs a hole for a while till it’s deep enough. She lays about 80 to 120 eggs close to the size of ping-pong balls at the very bottom of the nest, and then she buries them with sand. It takes about 55 days for them to hatch. The babies are soft and about 4 centimeters long. If the temperature is 30°C when the eggs are in their nest, every single egg will be female. But if the temperature is less than 30°C, they will be male. The black turtles’ worst predators are sharks and orcas in the water. Crabs, and the beetle Trox Suberosis prey on the eggs. If the eggs hatch in the day, the baby turtles can’t see and they can’t find the water because the sun is too strong. The adult female turtles tend to lay their eggs at night so that the babies hatch at night.
Drawing by Trent
The Galapagos penguin is related to the Magellan Penguin. The Magellan Penguin comes from Southern Chile. It’s also related to the Penguin of the Falkland Islands near Antarctica. The penguins came to the Galapagos Islands by the Humboldt Current. On the islands there were 13,000 penguins measured in 1982-1983. The penguins swim with their front fins and steer with their back fins. Penguins swim really fast underwater and jump out of the water when they are happy. When they travel on land over rocks, they jump from rock to rock. Before jumping it stretches its neck forward as if studying the terrain.
Galapagos Penguin at Los Tuneles, Isla Isabela (photo by Trent)
During the mating season, the Galapagos penguins preen each other’s heads and also slap themselves gently with the front flippers. They nest in cavities where eggs will be laid three to four days apart. On Fernandina Island, egg laying occurs in September. Incubation lasts for 38 to 40 days. Penguins are very shy animals so they nest in groups. They sleep on land and look for food during the day and return to shore in the late afternoon. In the early morning you can see them between 5 and 7 am. Penguins form a wake behind them just like ducks. In 1982 to 1983 the Galapagos lost 77% of the population, but since 1985 their number has slowly been returning to about 2 to 3000 penguins. Their predators are Red Crabs, Rice Rats, Galapagos Snakes, Short-Eared Owls, and Galapagos Hawks. I got to see many penguins from a distance in my kayak and when I was snorkeling in Los Tuneles, I got a chance to swim up close to 7 penguins, which were sunning themselves on the rocks.
The island we visited was Isabela, the largest in the archipelago. It has five volcanoes and the most northern volcano, Volcan Wolf, erupted while we were visiting on the island. We didn’t feel it or hear it because the lava flow and ashes flew northeast. Puerto Villamil where we were anchored is located on the southeastern corner of the island in Turtle Bay. We got to visit Volcan Sierra Negra. It was incredible to see because it’s the 2nd largest active crater in the world after the crater in Yellowstone Park. The last time Sierra Negra erupted was in 2005.
I thought our stay on Isla Isabela in the Galapagos was super amazing because of all the animals, the great food and the interesting culture: everyone riding bikes, sandy roads, open shops, and friendly people. But I really wish I could have been able to visit a different island too.
I was so excited to go to Mexico. It was the first time for me to travel somewhere outside of the United States. There were a lot of things that happened during our stay in Ensenada, but a few experiences were more special: arriving at the dock, eating at a really nice fish restaurant, seeing the movie Insurgent in a Mexican theater with Spanish subtitles, and most especially, drinking and eating a freshly cut coconut.
Kandu in Ensenada, Mexico
We left San Diego early in the morning on Friday, March 20th to sail down the coast of Baja California to get to the port of Ensenada, Mexico by mid-afternoon. Uncle Bill (Grandpère) and Joe Houska had joined us a day before. It was fun having them aboard since the Kandu crew of four hadn’t had any other passengers aboard after we left Ventura. Dad had already made arrangements for us to dock inside Puerto Ensenada at Cruise Port Village. When we first arrived at the dock, we went to check-in and met Jonathan, the marina manager. We thought he was the Mexican “Tom Cruise,” because he was so handsome and he had nice hair. Once we were done with Jonathan, we finished putting the sailing gear away and got ready to walk into town to look for a spot to eat dinner.
Joe and I walk up to Cruise Port Village Ensenada.
Grandpère knew the city and led us to his favorite seafood restaurant. Once inside “Mariscos Bahia Ensenada,” the host sat us down at a table then went to find an old-fashioned jacket holder to hang our belongings. Everyone hung their jackets, bags and hats on this holder. It was a really neat service the restaurant provided. So now we were looking at the menu. I had no idea what it said so I told my dad what I wanted: fish tacos. It happened to be on the menu. I was the first one to get my food out of everyone: Joe, Bryce, Grandpère, mom and dad. My tacos came with cabbage and salsa. I put both cabbage and salsa all over them and they tasted so good. After I finished my first taco, everybody else got their food. After I finished my second taco, I was really full. Then a little later, everybody else finished too. We walked back to the boat and all went straight to bed.
Our international arrival celebration restaurantDinner for the Kandu crew . . .… with traditional live entertainment!!!
During the next couple of days, my mother, Bryce and I walked past a Mexican movie theater. Several times I studied the panel of movies and saw that Insurgent was playing. Bryce and I knew that Insurgent had just been released in California and we were really happy to discover it was playing in Ensenada. Next to the Insurgent listings we saw “Dub” and “Sub”. “Sub” means the movie will play in English with Spanish subtitles. “Dub” means the movie will play with the actors speaking in Spanish, with either English or no subtitles. It was already 3:00 p.m. in the afternoon. The closest time for us to see the “Sub” version was 4:45 p.m. So we walked around town for an hour and returned in time for the 4:45 showing. Stepping up to the box office attendant, we asked for 4 tickets because dad was now with us. The woman couldn’t speak English so my mom and dad had to struggle in Spanish. We bought our tickets and walked threw the doors of the theater. The temperature was very cool inside. We all visited the bathroom. It smelled terrible, but I think that was just the smell of the unusual soap. We bought some popcorn and walked over to the where the movie was going to play, but a security guard said we had to wait until they said we could go in. I thought that was really different. We waited for 5 minutes. We found our seats, and then the screen lit up. Some of the commercials were in Spanish and some in English. It was interesting to compare the English dialogue with the Spanish words [subtitles]. I was able to catch a couple, understanding more and more words here and there. I look forward to learning more Spanish as we travel in Mexico and the Galapagos.
Sharing a fresh drinking coconut with Bryce in Ensenada
On a day we went to the fish market, we discovered a coconut stand nearby. My dad suggested that we get one to drink. So Bryce and I split a coconut. It cost 50 pesos or about US$3.50. The coconut water was refreshing and lightly sweet. It seemed more real, more natural than the coconut water I had tasted out of a bottle in the states. When we finished drinking it, we handed it back to the man to cut out the meat of the coconut. He had a pokey handle that you stick in the coconut to hold it steady. The man cut the top of the coconut off, but the machete ricocheted off the coconut and hit his hand near the index finger. His finger didn’t get cut off, but it was bleeding a lot. He left immediately to the hospital and his son finished preparing our coconut. The son squeezed a little lime on the meat and wow, was it good. The next day we returned to the coconut stand to see if the man was okay. Antonio had nicked a vein, but the tendons were fine. He showed us that he had fashioned a guard on the pokey handle to make sure that kind of accident wouldn’t happen again. That day, we became friends.
Leaving Ensenada for Islas Cedros, our first overnight passage.On our way south, down Baja coast.
Hanging out in Ensenada was a great experience. I got to meet some interesting Mexican people. I also ate lots of fresh fish tacos, watched an American movie in a big theatre with subtitles, and enjoyed delicious fresh food including eating and drinking super tasty coconuts. I am looking forward to many more adventures.
Trent and Bryce prepared to dinghy off to Oceanside Harbor Beach.
Today, Feb 24, 2015, I had to solve a problem. Early in the morning I decided to motor the dinghy over to Oceanside Harbor Beach to check out the surf because the waves broke on the other side of the quay. Even though we were pretty close to the surf from where our boat was docked, we couldn’t see the waves. So I prepared all the equipment for the dinghy, put on my lifejacket and headed over to see the waves.
Arriving on the other side of the harbor, I sidled up to the dock without trouble and tied the dinghy onto one of the dock cleats, then walked over the quay to the beach to look at the waves. I thought to myself that the waves were just surfable. Satisfied, I returned to set up the dinghy to motor back to the boat. I got everything ready to go, started up the dinghy engine then pushed off the dock. The inflatable started to move forward a little bit, but then the motor just sputtered out. At that point, I was headed straight for the rocks, so I lifted the motor to make sure its propeller wouldn’t hit. Then I pushed off the rocks with my hand, angling back over to the dock so I could see what was wrong.
I couldn’t figure out what was wrong with the motor. I tried starting it over and over again but it still didn’t work. I couldn’t call home because I hadn’t brought my phone. I could walk around the entire harbor, but then I would have had to leave the boat. That’s when I knew what I had to do. I set up the paddles and rowed back to Kandu. The return trip was a bit slower traveling, but only about 15 minutes.
When I returned to the boat, safe and sound, my parents asked what took so long. I explained to my dad the problem. He got into the boat and I watched him turn on the motor the very first time he tried. It was at that point that I remembered I had forgotten to push down the choke once the motor was ignited after pulling the starter chord. It was a good lesson in keeping calm and solving a problem. Next time I take out the dinghy, I will make sure to be a little more prepared.
A couple weeks ago a photographer named Marc Brown came over to talk about my dad’s cameras and recording equipment. He got me really exited about GoPro cameras. The difference between other video cameras and GoPro cameras is that GoPros can go in the water. They’re small and can attach to everything with a mount. After Mr. Brown left, I thought that we could use my dad’s GoPro 3+ and GoPro 2, but my dad didn’t want us to use his GoPro 3+ because he was afraid we might damage it or lose it. So my brother Bryce and I had to share the GoPro 2. I was really mad when he said that, so I decided to buy my own GoPro. My dad did research on GoPros and showed me GoPros I could buy for a price of $200 or less. There was the GoPro Hero for $130 and GoPro 3 white for $200. I wanted to get the $200 one because it’s better than the $130 one. The white is better because it makes it so you can see what the GoPro sees. At this point I’m keeping it a secret from my brother, Bryce, because he would want to get the same thing as me, or better. A couple days later my dad and I were going to go to Cosco to buy my GoPro. When my dad said he would make a deal with me. He said if I give him my $200 he would give me the GoPro 3+ black that he already had. The GoPro3+ black is better than GoPro 3 white. I wasn’t sure if I should accept the deal and, my dad said I didn’t have to take the deal. My dad offered the deal because mom wouldn’t let him buy the GoPro 4 black because it costs $500. After that we went to Costco and the only GoPro there was the GoPro 3+ black and Hero. They cost $350 and $130. Dad said the GoPro 3+ is basically the same as GoPro 4, not the black. But the GoPro 4 can take videos in the dark and faster 4k frame rates. We returned home empty handed. When I went to bed I told dad that I would take his deal. The next day we left Ventura to drive up to Northern California to see Nani and Papa, my grandparents. When we were half way there, I told my brother the deal I had made with dad. He was mad because if he bought a new GoPro, I would still have the better one.
After spending 3 great days at Nani and Papa’s house in Oakland, we went to the Lima’s ranch in Watsonville. Philip, a professional quad-copter video guy that my dad knows, was there to show us how to use our quad-copter drone, the Phantom 1. He put his GoPro on the drone. After a couple hours of flying lessons, Bryce and I started skateboarding down the hill of their driveway. I went to get my GoPro 3+Black, and that was the first time I used my GoPro.
When I got home I really wanted to go to my friend Charlie’s house at Faria Beach. I really was exited to see what kind of GoPro he had. Guess what? I had a better one than him. He had the GoPro Hero only. A couple days later, Charlie and I went into the water with our GoPros and were videotaping all the nice wave barrels at his house. After a little while Charlie went back to his house but I waited for the sunset. A couple minutes later, I was walking back to his house on the beach when the sunset happened. It was beautiful. I took a couple pictures of the sunset and went back to his house.
The next day, Bryce and I were so pumped up with our GoPros we wanted dad to install a plastic mount on our surfboards so we could take really good videos with our GoPros while surfing. One day my dad arrived with a whole bunch of additional equipment for our GoPros. I asked him if I could buy some GoPro accessories. Dad bought me a GoPro storage box so he could have his box back. I said, cool dad, thanks for the box”. The next day he was working on the computer, and he said” Trent do you want to order anything? Bryce asked, “Hey, do I get to order items too?” Dad said, ”Yes”. We got a whole bunch of equipment like Bryce got a bobber, a box Dad’s original GoPro HD (he has the first GoPro too, a standard def one.), and plastic latches. I got aluminum latches, a chest mount, and a helmet.
The worst thing ever happened. I was so excited to try out my new stuff, that when I switched my floaty-back with a regular back cover, I didn’t see that it was a back with holes. I didn’t even know they made them that way. When I took it surfing, I checked it and couldn’t get it to work. When I brought it back to the house, it was full of water. My mom washed it off with freshwater and alcohol, like my dad told her to do. He wasn’t there. He was working on the boat. My dad said I had to wait two days to let it dry. I waited. Two days are long. When I turned it on, it didn’t work. I learned on a YouTube video how to test the batteries with a meter my dad has. Only one battery was charged. The camera came on, but it said, “No SD,” which means it wasn’t seeing the SD card. My dad told me to check the SD card in our computer. It worked, so that meant the GoPro was broken. I was very sad. My dad told me to find a video that shows us how to open it up, and that he’d try to fix it. So I did, but we didn’t have screwdrivers small enough so my dad said, “Get in the car,” and we went to Fry’s. I picked out the mini screwdrivers and we went back to the boat to try and fix the GoPro that night. When my dad opened the back, he showed me the salt that the ocean water made. He said mom didn’t rinse it enough, but now we know how much we have to rinse electronics if they get dunked in saltwater. Dad had a spray called Corrosion X. It’s supposed to eat rust and make electronic stuff work again. The Army uses it. So he put some on a toothbrush and cleaned all the salty parts. It looked new again. We got to see inside the camera. Dad showed me the imager and said nothing can touch it, no dirt, dust, fingerprints, or spray. After three times of taking it apart and cleaning it, we still couldn’t get the SD card reader to work. Everything else worked, but the SD card reader. It was late, so I went to bed. Dad said he would try one last thing, to get the card reader off so he could clean it better. I prayed that he would fix it. I spent all my money on it and I couldn’t buy another one for a long time because we’re leaving the country really soon. The next morning, I asked dad if he fixed it. When he said “No,” I cried. I really loved my GoPro. Now I’ll have to share with Bryce dad’s old GoPro.
Breakfasting at the Ventura Yacht Club the weekend following New Year’s, Trent and Bryce met the Harris brothers, Ryan and Wesley, twins that sailed several years with their parents aboard their catamaran, Gone Native. Meeting young guys who did what they are about to do gave them an opportunity to hear about experiences they could look forward to. Here’s what Bryce and Trent wrote about their experience, meeting Ryan and Wesley Harris:
Ryan and Wesley Harris (photo Dina Pielaet)
Harris Brothers
This past Sunday, January 4th, we happened to meet a family who had a similar experience of what we were about to partake. In the Harris family were two nineteen year-old young men named Wesley and Ryan. My brother and I both had a conversation about their travels, thoughts, and experiences!
The most exciting for me were the surfing stories. On their trip, they started to learn how to surf. Their first day surfing was rough. In the beginning, the waves were moderate size, about 3 ft. Then later the waves picked up to about 10 ft and barreling. The father got a huge chunk of skin cut clean-off by the surfboard fine. He tried putting an antidote on (called second skin). Almost an hour later, he got back in the water and the second skin immediately came off and it started to bleed again. They were worried about attracting sharks.
The second experience that caught my attention was lobster diving. To pick-up a lobster, they were taught to push on the lobster’s back and then pick it up. Wesley and Ryan said that the first few times they tried lobster diving, it was freaky because they would touch the lobster and it would move crazily and it scared them back to the surface. But now after years of practice catching lobsters bare-handed, they love catching lobsters as big as 17” long as if it were no big deal.
Another story was their journey home. They visited schools, gave speeches and shared power-point presentations of what they did during their travels. This sounded really fun to talk in front of students about journeys and places they went to and what they were like
Overall, talking to these young men, boosted my positive energy toward my family’s trip around the world. Also, it was a small heads-up of what could happen during our travels. I thought it was really cool and an extremely interesting and beneficial conversation with the Harris Brothers!
Bryce Rigney
Talking to the Sailor Boys
Last Sunday I met Wesley and Ryan Harris, nineteen-year-old sailors who sailed with their mom and dad. They sailed around the Mediterranean Sea and across the Atlantic Ocean for a total of about five years between the ages of 9 and 14. I asked them what was the longest time they had been at sea without seeing land. They said it took 24 days to cross the Atlantic Ocean. During that crossing one morning while they were sleeping, a huge wave came. They thought it was just another wave, but no, it was a 30-foot wave. This wave crashed over the boat and woke them up. If the catamaran had flipped over they might have died.
During our conversation, Wesley and Ryan also talked about diving and catching lobster. When they were close to land they would free dive 10 feet and catch lobsters freehanded. They said all you have to do is push down on the lobster, then pick it up. They said they did it a lot because they love to eat lobster. They also mentioned that every day they would write in their journal. Now five years later, they sometimes read through their journal entries, which helps them remember everything they did during those five years. The last thing that impressed me about what they said was that when you get back to school after your trip, everybody will think you’re really cool to have sailed around the world. Of course, I haven’t experienced that yet.
I had my last day of school yesterday, Tuesday, December 16, 2014. From now on I will be home schooled or boat schooled. I left on a Tuesday. On Monday, my second to last day, I didn’t feel badly, but at the end of school on my last day, I felt really bad because right when I was leaving, some kids from class gave me notes like, “I will miss you.” Not everybody gave me a note, but everybody said goodbye. Ms. Myers, my English teacher, didn’t get to say goodbye because she was not present on my last day of school. It felt both good and really sad to say goodbye to my teachers and friends. But fortunately I collected a whole bunch of my friends’ phone numbers. I think I’ll miss my music at school because we just got to the good part of learning new music. I already really miss my friends because I might not see them until we are possibly 15 or older. I don’t think I’ll miss the schoolwork. I didn’t like most of the homework.
I have gone to four different schools since starting kindergarten – two schools in Los Angeles and two schools in Ventura. The difference between school in Los Angeles and Ventura is that every one in Ventura talks about the ocean. In LA nobody really talks about surfing or even the water. In Ventura I think the schools are better because in LA, I went to a German school and I had to study extra at Kumon. Maybe it was because the teachers taught in German and I could not understand. In Ventura the lessons were taught in English. I don’t know if LA middle schools are better because I never went to middle school in LA, but I really liked middle school in Ventura. Now I’m going to be boat schooled, and we’ll be in many different cities. I’m excited to be boat schooled by my parents, but I will always remember my days at school, the many things I learned, and especially the teachers and friends I met.
