Living on a boat takes a lot of forethought and preparation — studying weather, planning routes, arranging for provisioning, watering and fueling, making contingency plans — but sometimes it requires the flexibility to adapt quickly to new and unforeseen circumstances. Our plan was to sail back to Tahiti, hand over Aldebaran toKristian and Sabrina (who were in the process of purchasing a new catamaran and moving their family to the Tuamotus), and fly back to the States. Plans changed.
While we were preparing to sail back to Tahiti an opportunity arose: we were asked to crew on a 65ft Morelli & Melvin carbon fiber custom Catamaran from Tahiti to Fiji. After lots of deliberation about the logistics of leaving Aldebaran and difficulties of traveling during a pandemic, we decided to say ‘yes’ to the opportunity to crew on S/Y Gizmo. The experience, we reasoned, would be invaluable and who knows where it could lead. We took our next weather window (which proved to be one that required beating upwind into 30 knot squalls) and sailed to Tahiti, reaching Ta’apuna pass at sunrise.
While our plans were changing, so were Kristian and Sabrina’s. The seller of the catamaran they had under contract in Rangiroa was becoming more and more concerned that inter-island travel would once again be banned. He was adamant that they get to the boat as soon as possible. For them, this meant giving up a month of decompression on Aldebaran between the whirlwind of packing up and moving from the U.S. and when they were scheduled to take possession of their new catamaran. Instead, they spent the next couple of days scrambling to pack their things that had been left on Aldebaran, shuttling them to the cargo ship, and getting last minute plane tickets to Rangiroa. We can’t even imagine the stress that they experienced, but they made it and now they are the owners of the beautiful Fontaine Pajot charter catamaran, Selaví.
Our next step was to sail Aldebaran to the south coast of Tahiti and anchor her in the protected bay of Port Phaëton. We spent a week preparing our boat to sit until our return, hired someone to watch after her while we were away, and set off on our next adventure that would take us 5,000 Nautical Miles across the Pacific.