Salty Podcast #55 | 📢🎙️LIVE from Tahiti ⛵Sailing to French Polynesia! 🌊 - Salty Podcast: Sailing

Episode Transcript
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Capn Tinsley (00:01):
If you clicked on this video because you saw the
words Tahiti and FrenchPolynesia, I get it.
I've been drawn to my nextguest's eye-catching Instagram
post from the Bahamas to thePanama Canal, across the Pacific
and now in Tahiti, frenchPolynesia, and she's been
covering some serious sailingmiles.
I know very little about thisguest, so tonight together we

(00:23):
find out who she is and whatshe's all about.
Let me put up this banner herebecause I need a salad.
If you could, please do me afavor, like, subscribe, share
this video and drop your commentin the live chat on YouTube or
Facebook so we can respond inreal time, including my guest.
So I'm Captain Tinsley of SaltyAbandoned and Island Packet 320

(00:46):
Sailboat, and this is the SaltyPodcast, episode 55.
Please help me.
Welcome straight out of Tahitiat saskiasailing on Instagram,
and her name is Saskia.
So here she comes and there sheis, hi, yeah.
So here she comes and there sheis, hi.

(01:07):
Everything.
I can hear you, I can see you,and can you see and hear me?
Yeah, I can, perfectly.
Ok, great, all right.
Like I said, I don't know muchabout you, so you don't give a
lot of clues on your Instagram.
I'm like Whoa, where is she?

(01:27):
You know, I don't know whereyou started or how big, what's
the name of the boat or anything.

Saskia (01:35):
Well, um, yeah, that's not really intentional, but I
just started.
Well, we've been sailing forthree years, but I only started
my Instagram a year ago when weleft to sail across the Pacific,
and I actually only started itto share where I was and like my
little daily update with, like,my extended family I have a

(01:56):
very big extended family and so,crossing the Pacific, I didn't
want to use a lot of Internet tosend 10 or 15 messages to all
our different both me and myhusband all of our different
family members.
So I thought I'll just telleveryone to go to this Instagram
page and I'll post an updateevery day of where we are and a

(02:16):
little bit about what we'redoing, and then everyone can
just all keep updated in onespot.
So how?

many followers do you have now?
I think like eight thousand,eight or nine thousand.
Oh yeah, 96, 48, veryimpressive uh yeah, it was
literally.

Saskia (02:35):
it was just gonna be for my nana and all my cousins.
But, um, I think at the sametime when I was sailing, uh,
there was a couple of um female,female solo sailors doing some
cool stuff and it kind of got alot of people interested in
sailing and so my daily updatesgot pushed out to a lot of
people.
That I wasn't expecting.
So that's why I don'tintentionally have been

(02:58):
mysterious or anything.
I just started posting for myfamily and now other people have
joined in started posting formy family and now other people
have joined in.

Um, yeah, and that's how we knew exactly where
you were, or, and you didn'thave to give so many clues.

Saskia (03:11):
Yeah, yeah, I could just say kyle, and everyone that was
reading knew that that's myhusband.
We've been married for sixyears, so everyone sort of knew
and then are you solo right nowor is your?

is your?

Saskia (03:21):
husband no, my husband's with me as well um, and uh,
yeah.
So we have been sailing, justthe two of us.
Well, we've been on the boatfor six years and we've been
cruising for three years, justthe two of us, with friends and
family coming on board just fora couple weeks here and there,

(03:42):
um, and actually just two weeksago was the first time we've
ever gotten crew in.
So we have two crew now fromnew zealand as well.
Um, this next little legbecause we're going to be moving
a fair bit between tahiti andand fiji will be moving quite
quickly, for us at least.
So we got crew.
So it's me, my husband and um,michaela and Jacob are our crew.

Okay, so tell me where you're from.
I'm trying to figure out theaccent.

Saskia (04:08):
It's a little confusing.
Well, my accent is confusing.
I'm from Australia.
I grew up in Sydney, moved upto Brisbane and the Gold Coast,
queensland, for work and that'swhere I met my husband my now
husband and he is from America.
He's from Texas originally, Ithought I heard some southern in
there.

I think you might be picking up some some good old
texas I definitely have myin-laws, uh, texan through and
through, so I'm sure it's.

Saskia (04:36):
It's kind of.
And then also I lived inflorida.
We lived in qs for three yearsbefore we left to christmas, so
there's a little bit of all.
All of the south, um right sowhat a great mix.

So where did you, where did you, buy the boat?

Saskia (04:53):
oh, tell us about the boat, tell us what the name of
it is and what kind of yeah sothe name is 42, like the number
um, and she's a 40 foot, janeau,san jose, uh 409 from 2012 okay
and oh, that's the age of theboat.

I mean it was built in 2012, or do you bought
it in 2000?
No, it was built in 2012 wow,okay, and where did you buy it?
In?

Saskia (05:21):
fort lauderdale.

Okay, yeah, wow, and okay, all right, and here's
where you can reach her.
I only found you on Instagram,so, um, yeah, but that's that's
where I found you.
Um, okay, so where did you?
You started from FortLauderdale, and then where did
you go?

Saskia (05:40):
Uh, we well, we yeah.
Uh, we well, we yeah.
We bought the boat in fortlauderdale and we just sailed
down to key west, so it's just ashort, um 200 mile sail.
And then we lived there forthree years and we were running
we ran.

Did you live there ?
Um in key west yeah yeah, well,we started.

Saskia (05:56):
We were just living in the mooring field at first when
we first, okay, got arrived andthen we ended up moving into um
stock island marina which is, Ithink it's just called the Perry
Marina now.

Yes, yes, I've stayed there several times.
Yeah.

Saskia (06:10):
Yeah, we ran our charter out of there for three years,
or just under three years, andwe were doing a sailing and
scuba diving charter on 42 onour boat.
Wow.

Wow OK, wow OK, did you live in?
You didn't live in coconutcoconut row we did live in
coconut row yeah, so we probablyknow some of the same people.
Um, oh, so here's, here's a,here's one that lives in coconut
row, right here, it's mike, anduh, oh, he knows you.

(06:45):
Oh, hi, oh, maybe he knows you,mike.
Well, they just sold everythingin ohio or iowa and then they
on, and then they, um, moved onto an island packet in coconut
row, nice one.

Saskia (07:01):
Um, it's cool to still to hear that's still happening.
Yeah, when we left three yearsago, there was some movements,
some changes.

I'm gonna get rid of it and turn in it to a big
place for yachts yeah, basically, um, which was a bummer and
that's sort of what made us.

Saskia (07:21):
We were planning on going cruising anyway, but, um,
we got a little push a bitearlier than planned, um,
because they sort of shut downpart of our business oh, they
did.

Oh for the.
Was it for the okay?

Saskia (07:34):
because yeah, we were.
We were advertising on airbnband they didn't like that.

So they said ah, okay, we'll go sailing instead.
Yeah anyway.

Saskia (07:45):
Yeah, so we we lived on coconut row for a while.
Um, we were on a boat there.
We're living on a boat therecalled hadley, but we've since
sold that boat.

Um okay, but yeah yeah, well, these, these guys
are early, they're new tosailing, so they're they're
looking for inspiration from you, so that's where we started our
journey.

Saskia (08:08):
Um sure, and yeah, I think the keys are a great place
to start.
So, you know, we always, wealways say it was such a great
place to cut our teeth, like weknew we had sailed and I haven't
sailed my whole life oranything, but neither is my
husband but we've been sailingfor a while but the keys are so
great.
You know it's shallow but youknow you, you get, you know you

(08:29):
get to learn a lot of thingsthat really pay off when you get
.
Cruising um the white, in thewider area, like actually in the
bahamas, we spoke to a lot ofpeople that were unfamiliar with
such shallow waters or littlepasses and little islands, and
they were familiar to us becausewe'd cruise the keys and the
keys have all of those.

So, yeah, it's a great place to start sure and
last week I did a podcast with acouple of my friends that one
lives in key west bite marinaand one lives in um coconut row
at the perry and um we talkedspecifically which I've done a
lot of anchoring and you knowboating and sailing and the keys
.
We talked just about going uhthe different anchorages in the

(09:13):
lower keys.
So you know cause you canreally operate on a budget,
especially if you know how tofix your own boat.

Saskia (09:22):
Absolutely, that's the biggest expense.
Oh, for sure.
We always say that we're alwaysfiguring out a way to do it
ourselves.
It's just how you Are you prettygood at that, yeah, mostly Most
of the time we can doeverything ourselves.
Occasionally it does get to thepoint where we can't.

(09:43):
We had an issue with ouroutboard engine, for example,
and we were out in an islandgroup here in french polynesia
called the two motors, which isso remote, like as remote as it
gets really, um, and then, uh,yeah, we were having an issue
with our outboard and we triedeverything that we, that we

(10:03):
could service, like absolutelyeverything, even down to getting
, um, the fuel injectors out andattaching them to like a
battery and a dive tank to cleanthem, like everything we could.
Wow, and that definitely taughtus even more than we knew about
servicing outboards.
But in the end we couldn't fixit.
So we had to wait until we cameto tahiti to take it to a
dealer and it ended up beingsomething in the very center of

(10:24):
the engine that we couldn't getto.
So most of the time you can,but occasionally you, you can't.

But yeah, really I think it's a handful of times,
if you can do it, if you can doit mostly, boy you saved so much
money so much it's.

Saskia (10:38):
Yeah, we couldn't cruise if we had to pay someone to do
all of our boat work.
It wouldn't happen veryfortunate.

So, um, my friend cheryl, here.
She wants, uh know what broughtyou to america and uh well, I
know that she met her husbandhere, or I think it was him.
Did you meet here?

Saskia (10:56):
I know I met him in australia.
He was living on the gold coast, um at work at a scuba dive
shop there, um diving with mantarays, and we met through mutual
friends, Um, but he introducedme to the world of boats and
diving and well, I I grew up onthe water, but not scuba diving
and not sailing.
So he expanded that a littlebit for me and then we made the

(11:21):
decision to move to Americatogether.

Ah, wow, okay, and so all right, so the Keys, and
then what?

Saskia (11:31):
Then we went to the Bahamas we went to the.
Bahamas for three months.
We cruised there with some ofour friends.
They were on there.
You know, we buddy boated withsome friends the Bahamas for
three months and we just lovedit so much.
The Bahamas is amazing and wejust loved it so much.
The bahamas is, it's amazing,we just loved it beautiful you
know just, I think it foreverhas a place in your heart, um.

(11:54):
And then, after the bahamas, wewent up, um, up the east coast
of the states, and oh, wow youwent north.
Yeah, we went north just for thecyclone season.
We decided to go north.
We had my sister-in-law worksup north in Massachusetts for
summer, so we went up there andspent a bit of time up there and
that was very new sailing to us.

(12:15):
We'd done sort of Keys, florida, bahamas, and suddenly there's
these like regal navy blue boatsand it was all very, very fun.

It's the Mecca up there.

Saskia (12:24):
It's the mothership for sailing we went to we're in
Newport around the boat showtime and we went we've, you know
, we're in Martha's Vineyard andall these places that were like
, oh, we wouldn't be going hereif we didn't sail in ourselves.
Um, but that was, it was reallyinteresting as well.
And then we sailed back southand we actually got to sail
through the Annapolis boat tothe annapolis boat show, which

(12:45):
was really cool to be able to.

You know, dinging up to the boat show yeah um, and
then that is the that was theone in the fall or october or
whatever.

Saskia (12:56):
The largest sailboat show in the world that show yeah
, huge, it was amazing to seejust all of these boats and and
yeah, be able to anchor out thefront of it was so special, one
of definitely one of myhighlights, uh, and then back
down to the bahamas and we didthe bahamas for another, I think
, four months.
And then from the bahamas wesailed down to jamaica, which

(13:18):
was an unexpected stop but analso a highlight.
We loved jamaica.
We went into port antonio,there, um which there, which is
very safe.
You know there are some partsthat are less safe, but Port
Antonio was amazing, especiallyafter the Bahamas the lack of
fresh food there to go toJamaica and just have all of
this abundance.

Oh, is that right.
There's more fresh food inJamaica.

Saskia (13:42):
So much yeah.
And then from Jamaica we wentto panama.
We paused in panama for ninemonths.
We went back to the states anddid some work, saved up the
kitty again and then crossed thecanal uh, last february video,
yeah, yeah, it was great we gotmy dad, my father-in-law and my
sister-in-law as our crew,because you have to have four

(14:04):
people, four crew and yourcaptain, okay, and so, yeah, we
got to have all of our family asour line handlers.
Crossing the canal was amazing.
It was terrifying.
It was one of the scariestthings that I've done on the
boat.

Yeah, I saw a picture or a video of a huge
tanker right in front of you.

Saskia (14:24):
Yeah, it was.
So they pay you up and to gothrough the lock and there was a
big um, what are they called?
Like car, like truck, transportships, and it was.
It was so big and every lockgets just a little bit smaller.
So by the last, the first one,you're, maybe, maybe there's, uh

(14:45):
you know, 100 yards, 300 feetbetween you and the boat and you
think that's so close.
And then by the, by the sixthblock, 30 feet away from this
thing, and it's just straight upin front of you.
It's.
It was not my favorite, but itwas.
You know, these people areprofessionals and they do it
every day, so it sort of runslike a well-oiled machine, right

(15:09):
.

So you really do need four people and a captain.
If you guys want to see thosevideos that they took of going
through the canal there, it ison Instagram.
So Goose here has a.
He has a question.
This is Goose His, his, his.
That's his nickname.
What's the most important pieceof sailing gear you have and

(15:31):
what was the most disappointingand or biggest waste of money?
Those are good questions.

Saskia (15:36):
Oh, that's good.
Um, what did you spend?

money on.
You're like I wish we hadn'tspent money on that.

Saskia (15:42):
Well, the thing you always want to waste money on is
insurance.
I mean, like, if you're goingto have insurance, you want it
to be a waste.
That's like I don't want tohave to claim anything, you know
, um.
But uh, the biggest, the mostimportant piece of sailing gear,
um, I mean for me is my crew,like my, my team, kyle, my

(16:02):
husband's like.
I know that lots of people do itsolo and that is absolutely
cool if you do that, but I thinkif you're cruising with someone
, you have to be able to trustthem completely and know each
other's grooves and in and outsand be able to communicate with
them, whether that's a partneror a friend or you know a crew
that come aboard.

(16:23):
I think if you have someone onthe boat, you have to have
absolute trust and confidenceand great communication with
them.
Um, and then I think if you'recruising solo, you just have
that in yourself.
You know what I mean, right, um?
And with your boat as well, andyou just have to have that
trust with your boat.
I think if you lose that trustand and communication with your,

(16:43):
with your, it doesn't, it allbreaks down.
But the biggest waste of money,oh, I'm sure there's so many.

You'd recommend a water maker.

Saskia (17:00):
Oh, one of the best things we have spent money on
has been our water maker.
Yeah, I think depends where youcruise.
I think if you cruised in theKeys or if you're cruising in
the Bahamas, you absolutely cando it without a watermaker.
I don't know.
I'm sure there's other placesas well, I just haven't cruised
them.

Yeah, the deeper you go into the Caribbean, the
more expensive water is, becauseit becomes rare.

Saskia (17:22):
Yeah, that's the thing.
When because it becomes rare.
Yeah, that's the thing when wewere in Panama.
We were there during dry seasonat first and water was
expensive because they wereeither catching it or making it,
and so water got reallyexpensive.

Like how much Someone said I think Bahamas is
like 50 to 60 cents a gallon.

Saskia (17:46):
Yeah, I think that's the yeah, that that would be the
upper level, somewhere from like20 to 60 cents a gallon in the
bahamas sounds about right.
Something in george?
Well, when we were ingeorgetown at least it was free.

Um and so there's a place there yeah, you
definitely can.

Saskia (18:00):
I think you just have to plan your cruising more around
it, whereas the water makergives us just such freedom to be
able to like we.
We bought a boat to be able togo where we wanted it's.
It's lovely to be able to getthere and then stay there
because we have water.
Um, and also for us, I want tobe comfortable when I'm sailing.
So I like um.
I have a lot of hair, myhusband has a lot of hair.

(18:22):
I like to be able to rinse downafter, after a swim and
everything.
So that was a big expense thatI'm glad that we spent the money
on.
Um, I mean, yeah, there's lotsof things that you hope you
never use, like a life raft, butyeah, I hope that's a waste of
money.

Um, if you don't have, it's gonna be bad.

Saskia (18:47):
Yeah, we paid $100 for docking in the Bahamas once.
That was a waste of money.
That was the biggest waste ofmoney I've ever done in my life,
really.
Yeah, we needed to pick someoneup and they they just said,
okay, we'll just charge you.
It's $100, no matter whatminimum, no matter what size
your boat is.
So it was our dinghy.
It's all a hundred dollars forthe day for the dinghy wow, oh

(19:10):
wow.

Where was that?
Was that in georgetown, or?

Saskia (19:13):
no, it was in nassau and I I'm not going to be able to
remember the name of the marina,but it, um, it was in the city
near ish to the airport and itwas in the city near-ish to the
airport and it was just thesehuge, just super yachts and
charter boats, just not ournormal, we weren't their normal
crowd.

Yeah, I remember going in that harbor and it's a
little intimidating.
They have different rules forthat Nassau Harbor, yeah.
You've got to make certainannouncements that you don't
normally.
You know, and there are somebig boats in there, big ships,
yeah, huge.
And I was scared to go underthose bridges because I don't

(19:55):
remember it, didn't readily saywhat, how tall they were.
It wasn't easy.
So yeah, it's not like herewhere you see it, you know yeah,
it's written everywhere 10times super clearly.

Saskia (20:08):
Yeah yeah so I was calling people on the radio.

What's the height of that?

Saskia (20:14):
and it always looks so close even if it's like it does,
looks like you're just straightthrough it's a little scary.

My husband was like you're gonna be fine.
I'm like it looks close,because I've seen what happens
when people hit a bridge yeahit's not a good day.
It's not a good, very bad day,okay, so you go to where we're.
Oh, you're at the panama canal.
You go through that.
Then what happens?

Saskia (20:43):
I'm gonna bring up a map we, yeah, we um.
We left from from panama, justmaybe a week after we crossed
the canal, and we sailed all theway across the pacific to
french polynesia um look at this.
Look how far I know.
I know, whenever I'm on googlemaps, I I'm like I am in the

(21:07):
middle of nowhere.

Let's find it.
Where is it?
It's right A little furthersouth, is it right here?

Saskia (21:15):
No, a little further south.

Okay.

Saskia (21:18):
Yeah, so we're going to keep going.

It's past Honduras , honduras, okay.

Saskia (21:21):
Past, nicaragua.
Oh, here we go, here we go,there we go.
So we sailed through the PanamaCanal, which is there from
Cologne up in the top, to PanamaCity in the bottom, okay, and
then from there we sailed out towe just did a couple
last-minute provisions there andwe sailed out to Los Perlos,
which is that group of islandsthat you can see just there,

(21:42):
right there, uh-huh, of islandsthat you can see just there,
right there, uh-huh.
And then from there we left andwe sailed all the way to fatu
hiva, in, uh, french polynesia,which was, oh my gosh, so is
this where I talked to you whenyou?
we were talking before was no no, so I, we crossed the, we
crossed the pacific last year,so we crossed um.

(22:04):
Yeah, we crossed from lasperlas all the way to the
marquesas, which, yeah, you aremy hero and then so, if you so,
go up to the right, see whereyou see nuka, hiva, uahuka and
tahawata.
Yes, so that is where we sailedinto after 30 days at sea, and
we arrived.

(22:24):
Wow, actually, you know what itwas nearly a year ago today.
It was like March 25th.
We arrived and if you go just alittle further south than these
islands, see a little, just atouch, see that Fatu Hiva, yeah,
so that's where we sailed into.
It's a place called the Bay ofVirgins at Hanavave, up the

(22:47):
north.

Okay.

Saskia (22:48):
Yeah, that's the first anchorage we went into.
Oh, look at that Okay.

There's a little thing going on here, yeah.

Saskia (22:56):
I don't know if you can pull up any pictures of that
anchorage, but it's tiny, it'svery narrow and then it's just
absolute cliffs.
Yeah, see those cliffs thatjust come up out of the ocean.
Wow, and it's a deep, reallydeep anchorage we anchored.
The first time we anchored wasin a hundred feet of water.

(23:16):
That was the most shallow wecould get in the bay.
And here there's a hundred feet.
It's a hundred because thosecliffs just keep going, just
like it goes all the way down.
And, yeah, so that's the firstplace we dropped anchor.
After 30 days of being at seaand seeing nothing but ocean,

(23:36):
you just see these massivecliffs and rock faces that look
like people's faces.
And this little town is sosweet we went.
That's where we first went fora walk when we got there, and
people will be like, hey, youwant not in english, but they'll
say hey, you want some bananasor some mangoes, or um?
we went to a lady's house therefor lunch and she cooked us

(23:57):
poisson cru, which is like thelocal dish of raw fish, raw tuna
and coconut milk.
Um, and some like wilddelicious.

I love food with coconut milk.

Saskia (24:09):
So yeah, yeah, this this is a.

This looks like a quaint little place here it's
super, super cute.

Saskia (24:16):
I have some some pictures and some videos of that
town because it was amazing.
And, um, yeah, we met this guywho who carves the tikis the
classic tikis out of rocks thatare the volcanic rocks that are
from the beach, and his son islike the dancer and tattoo

(24:36):
artist of the of the town.
And so he was.
He was just like explaining allthe history and I happened to
have my good camera on me and Iwas taking some photos of the
guy's art, because he has a manin Papiete here in Tahiti that
sells his artwork, but he didn'thave any photos.
I was like, cool, take somephotos for you.
And then I'm like you know, Icould send them to my phone.
And then I, and then his he waslike, oh, my son's got

(24:58):
Instagram, I think you can sendthem to him on Instagram.
And and so I did.
And he was like, okay, well,can you take photos of me now in
my in my full, like ceremonialoutfit?
And like I'm not a professionalphotographer by any stretch,
I'm making little Instagramvideos mostly.
So and so he came out had hisfull, the full headdress on and

(25:22):
he's like he's covered intattoos the traditional tattoos
and and standing in this lushgarden and I was just like
snapping photos of this guy,this amazing warrior, in doing a
full warrior poses, and justthinking how did I get here,
like what just happened, how,how many things were this man's

(25:42):
photos and?
And I sent them to him and hewas, like you know, super
grateful and now we've connecteda little bit on socials as well
and so that's kind of cool.
But, yeah, it's such an amazingtown and people don't even
really speak that much Frenchthere.
They just speak Marquesan,which is the.
Did you pick that up, marquesan?
No, unfortunately it's well.

(26:03):
I mean a little bit.
You know, ka'oha is hellobecause it's quite similar.
Basically, the people thatlived there then split hundreds
and hundreds of years ago andwent partially north to Hawaii
and partially south to NewZealand, so it's sort of some of
those words overlap, like haoleand mahalo.
Yeah Ka'oha yeah, similar toaloha um yeah, okay uh, yeah,

(26:29):
there's lots of similarities, sowe picked up a little, but it's
not very widely spoken, so wewere only there for a few weeks,
um, before we moved on.
Unfortunately, and even thethose north islands in the south
marquesan islands speak twodifferent, pretty different
languages.

Wow, and did you go up there?

Saskia (26:47):
Yeah, we went to Heva, Oa, which is the island north.
We actually had a lake.
We discovered that we had aleak in our sail drive on our
boat and we had a leak under thewater.
We discovered about 10 daysinto crossing the Pacific which
was not fun because we reallycouldn't turn back and it was

(27:07):
just a small leak but the oilwas a little bit milky in the
lower unit.
So we ended up doing like eightoil changes across the pacific
and then got hold like on theboat rocking.

Oh it was I was gonna ask you how calm was it.
I saw some video I'm not sureif it was yeah it was not the
pacific crossing of my dreamsyou're supposed to be passive.
That's the whole name, right,but I?

Saskia (27:41):
was prepared for these big long.
You know rude, it was not umwere you okay?

do you ever get?
You got a little.
I think you did mention thatyou do get seasick sometimes.

Saskia (27:56):
I got a little seasick.
Yeah, I don't didn't used to.
It's sort of slowly creeping upon me a little, okay and mainly
.
But um, yeah, for about thelast two weeks of the crossing I
was not terribly seasick.
I, I think I only threw up onceor twice, but just just
uncomfortable, you know, and wehad the kind of queasy.
Yeah, yeah, just didn't reallywant to, I didn't really feel

(28:19):
like eating, I didn't reallyfeel like going downstairs.
It was just sort of like sure.
So, um, yeah, it's well and itwas short, but it was just big
enough to kind of knock the boatover and just knock the wind
out of the sails.
So they would, you know, flapand crack and so throw your seat
and then wouldn't do it for twoor three minutes and then it

(28:42):
would do it again.
You know, two, three, fiveminutes later they were hard to
get comfortable in that yeah,and it was.
It was not repetitive.
If it was just continuously,you'd get, you know, the boat
would get into a groove.
But and no matter how what wetried, we tried to change angles
, we tried to change, you know,everything we could and we just

(29:02):
couldn't get it to be any better.
And we got to the end and wewere like, do it?
Have we forgotten how to sail,or something?

the water and the winds weren't cooperating.

Saskia (29:13):
And then we got to that anchorage and we spoke.
We did.
We just went to Rangaroa.
We love Rangaroa.
I just saw Is that in Tahiti.
It's in French Polynesia.
It's the next group of islandswe went to.

Okay.

Saskia (29:26):
Yeah.

All right, we're going to bring that up.
Thanks, koo.

Saskia (29:30):
Yeah, sorry, but yeah, when we got to the anchorage um
in in, um the marquesas, therewas, I think, 12 other boats
there and every single one waslike we're talking about these
islands right here, right?
Yeah, so the south one is thefirst one.
We got to fatu, hiva, right,and then tahua.
It says tahua, that's where wegot the boat hauled and fixed

(29:52):
the sail drive okay, buteveryone we spoke to I mean nine
out of ten people that seasonthat we spoke to said the same
thing.
They were like where was mypacific crossing that I was
promised, you know, catching thesails for two weeks?
Um, but yeah, we actually yeahit was.
I mean I'm super glad I did it.
I feel really proud.
It was just me and my husband,so you know it was a, it was a

(30:16):
big undertaking for us, but I amso glad I did it and, um, I'm
so happy to go back.

Well, you're going to go another way, right?
Are you going to go all the wayaround?

Saskia (30:26):
Um, probably not all the way around, at least not like
right now.
Okay, um, but yeah, we're onour way to Australia.
That's, you know where I'm fromand where my family is, so
we'll at least pause there for awhile.
Okay, yeah, that's the plan.

Of course, you know Things always change, all
right, so let's show everybodywhere you went after this.

Saskia (30:51):
So we went, yeah, we went from the Marquesas.
Here you zoom out and then it'sjust uh, southwest of here is
another.
Yeah, see those.
Yeah, if you zoom in, just there, right where your mouse is to,
no, so sorry, up to the right alittle, yeah, see those atolls
up on the top of the screen,yeah, okay so that's the two

(31:13):
motus, um, and we sailed intoraroya, which is all the way on
the right hand side of yourscreen right now, those two ones
that are sort of at rightangles to the rest.
Yeah, if you zoom in rightthere, just to the left, right
here, nope, a little bit moreleft, sorry, there's those two

(31:33):
islands.
Yep, the big one that's raroya,that's where we sailed into.
If you, if you've ever heard oflike the contiki story, that's,
uh, you know, like the contikiraft, um, that's, I think it's
takume, I think that's howthat's pronounced, but just to
the south of that, you can't getin that atoll up there.
But the one to the south israria, um, and, yeah, lots of

(31:54):
people might be familiar withthe yeah, tell that.

What is it?
I don't know maybe.

Saskia (32:02):
So it's um, a guy in the 50s, maybe the late 40s or 50s.
He was from um, oh yeah, theabridged version is basically he
decided to.
He had an idea that, um, thepolynesian islands were
populated from south america andso he lots of people at the
time were saying they can't be,because you couldn't get from

(32:24):
south america to polynesia withthe boats at the time.
So he decided to build a boatwith only the designs and the
materials they had at the timeand prove that you could do it,
and basically was a raft, and ittook them like 101 days and
they floated across the pacificand this is where they landed,
without any real, with anynavigation, without any um,

(32:47):
steerage, anything like that,and so they landed on the
windward side of roya and theywere there was people living
there at the time, luckily.
So they were able to getrescued and he proved his point.
Genealogy since now proved thathis theory was correct.

I read something about this years ago, and so
they did do some.
What do they call it?
Radions or whatever?
Dna testing.

Saskia (33:16):
DNA testing, testing basically, I guess charcoal or
something I don't know, how itall works, but um yeah yeah.
So it's a cool story and and,look, I mean, I have read it
plenty before I cruised.
So it was really cool to get togo there, and so we went to
raroya.
Um, another island is calledFakarava.

(33:38):
That's quite a famous one, orit's, yeah, thorhajardal I'm
sure I'm butchering that name.
Where's that one here?
Yeah, makemo, that's actuallyone of the biggest islands.
It's one of the only highschools that's in this whole
area of the biggest islands.
It's one of the only highschools that's in this whole

(33:59):
area.
Um, so everyone, all the kids,fly from the other islands and
go to makemo and basically doboarding school there for three
months at a time so you can getin here inside.

Yes, is this okay, wow?

Saskia (34:09):
yeah, so you have to time it with the tide and okay
um, you know, can the the oceanconditions and stuff.
Um, I've got some videos of whenit is like not at its best and
it's good, you don't even noticeyou.
Just you know it's just flatwater and it's like you're going
through, you know, in betweenany two islands.

(34:30):
But when it the water comes outof there, when the tide's
coming out, it just can really,especially if it's if you've got
waves coming on one way and thetide coming on the other,
they'll the waves will stand upand you can get really
uncomfortable and eventually.
So how is it, once you get inhere, calm, calm, champagne
sailing, like I mean, it dependson the conditions, but if

(34:53):
you've got wind blowing, sort ofif you're on the, if you're on
the windward side and protectedyou, you can be sailing
perfectly in.
You know 15, 20 knots of windand it's big, yeah, they're
really big.
So if the wind's coming fromthe wrong direction and you have
lots of fetch, then it can getchoppy.

(35:13):
But you can also usually getprotection from wind they
wherever it comes from, althoughit's pretty consistent um, in
in that in this part of theworld all right.

So where'd you go after that?

Saskia (35:29):
um, we went to tahanea.
You can see on the left handside of the screen.
That was beautiful.
We saw coconut crabs there and,um, we had it.
Just we swam with manta rays inthat pass on.
You can sort of see on thenorth east side.
Yeah, just there.
Um, there's a manta raycleaning station there.
So we, we swam with them forhours and hours and hours and we

(35:51):
just spent, yeah, we, it wasthe best time we we got to go
scuba diving with them and umhung out with some really cool
other cruisers in that littlenose in those clear, light blue
waters there.

That was so oh, I see um um, they live there
sometimes.

Saskia (36:13):
Uh, they have.
There's a of places that havelittle shacks and they do.
Okay, yeah, they dry andcollect copra, which is, you
know, coconut that they scrapeout of the hull and then it's
pressed for oil so they sell itto boats going past and that's
how a lot of people make theirmoney.
But then they also usually justdo that for a few months a year

(36:33):
, so they're there for a littlewhile and then they'll go back
to wherever their family isTahiti or one of the bigger
islands for a few months.

This is incredible .
This is very picturesque.

Saskia (36:49):
We kept saying this is what postcards were designed
from.
When people say postcards, thisis what they mean were designed
from you know like, when peoplesay postcards, this is what
they mean.
You know, when people think ofparadise, like, these are the
paintings that it's based.
That was based off it was so.
It was.
How long were you here?
Um, well, we're in the twomotus.
Um, we've been in.

(37:09):
In total, we spent um sevenmonths in the two motus.
We just got back from fivemonths there, which was really,
really lovely, and most of thetime we were in uninhabited
atolls just moving slow, andsometimes it was just us, or
sometimes it was just one or twoother boats and you know,

(37:30):
hanging out on the beach,swimming off the back of the
boat, having fires.

Yeah, just you know what if we?

Saskia (37:38):
caught beautiful.
Yeah, just like everything thatwe had really just dreamed of.
We felt so lucky that last lastseason we've had has just been
everything.
Yeah, it was.
It's just been sort of like thereal, a real, I mean a yeah, a
yeah, real highlight it'sbeautiful, and so then you came
here yeah, so well.

(37:59):
We actually came to morea forthree months last year.
We had a bunch of family andfriends visit, so we were in in
rare for three months during thewhale season so we you can swim
with it's one of the onlyplaces you can swim with whales
um, just off your own boat.
There's lots of, there's lotsof laws surrounding you know how
far you have to be.
There's I mean, there's, yeah,there's a lot of um legalities

(38:22):
around, what you can and can'tdo, which is amazing.
Right, you can very, very, verygood, that's, you know, very
happy for that.
But it was amazing to be ableto take the dinghy out and, um,
jump in the water and see thesethese huge humpback whales, um,
day after day after day.
Yeah, it was, that was so.
So it just the first time I, weI saw one.

(38:47):
I just got out of the water andI felt like I was dreaming or
something.
It didn't even didn't even feellike it was, um, yeah,
something that I had got to see.
I felt like I'd just seen amovie or something.

Well, I dove with sharks and I dove with dolphins,
but I've never dove in whateverdive in.

Saskia (39:12):
Gone diving?

Yeah, gone diving with uh whales?
Yeah, I mean, I guess, if I cando it with sharks, I can do
yeah well, you can't.

Saskia (39:23):
Yeah, yeah, it's, they're just so big.
You, I was looking, you, lookat them, and I realized that,
like, that thing's fin is thesize of my dinghy.
Like things I roll is like abasketball, you know, you, just
it's like I think as humanswe're just not like, it just
doesn't compute sometimes thatsomething is that big and it's

(39:46):
floating.
You know, that's bigger than myboat.
The big whales are 60 feet likeyeah, I hear some stories about
people you know running into,running into them, or yeah, yeah
, it's definitely not somethingthat I would like to do ever,
but we, we, yeah, we, we found,we found that during whale

(40:09):
season, we much preferred tosail during the day than
overnight.
It just, yeah, it's just, it'sa bit disconcerting, you know,
just knowing, um, and especiallybecause there's a very distinct
whale season, so it was easierfor us to just choose to sail
during the day and not do toomany overnights um, that makes

(40:30):
sense.

And I I heard, I heard that video that you posted
where you were underwater andyou heard you said what happens
if you're underwater and youhear this sound and I was like
what is that?

Saskia (40:43):
Yeah, that was the day after it had rained it had
rained so hard the next day,sorry, the previous day and then
we went out and the water youknow the top couple meters of
water was really murky.
But we had seen it go so we knewit was nearby and we jumped in
and as it was making the sounds,as we were, you know, it's like
sort of hereish, and we wereswimming, you could feel where

(41:04):
it was by, where it was like thereverberations were hitting you
and then we, and then itstopped for a minute and then we
felt it and it was just rightunderneath us.
Just you could feel it wascoming out right in your chest
and my sternum was, like youcould, like my eyeballs were
vibrating.
This thing was so loud, butit's just, it's not being
aggressive, it's just, um,talking to other whales far away

(41:27):
and so just sort of it justreally slowly came up out of the
water, you know, out of thedepths and to where we could see
it, and just sort of.
And they look at you, they knowthat you're there and you can
see that they're processing that.

You're there, um, and then big old eyeball looking
at you.

Saskia (41:48):
Yeah, I just look at you like I'm so small.
It's funny.
A bunch of family and friendsand everyone, everyone.
We didn't tell anyone of familyand friends and everyone,
everyone.
We didn't tell anyone to dothis, but everyone.
When they just pause and lookat you, every single person just
waves at them.
There's just some sort of humanresponse, like hi.

I'm here, I'm not trying to hurt you.
So Alex from Mississippi sayshave you been around whale
sharks?
And I don't know my sharks.
So what kind of sharks werethose?
I mean, what kind of whaleswere?

Saskia (42:16):
those they were.
These were humpback whales.
I actually haven't even everseen a whale shark.
My husband has a couple oftimes and he it's the highlight
of his diving life Swimming withwhale sharks.
Yeah, but I have not been solucky okay, all right.

So is that in that area of the world?

Saskia (42:38):
I don't um, I think whale sharks can sort of be in
most areas of the world.
Uh, there are areas wherethey're more common.
Um, when we were living in thekeys, actually there was one
down spotted down near the drytortugas, uh, while we were
there but we didn't get to seeit.
But yeah, I think they can bein most places.

(42:59):
Just there's just areas wherethey're a bit more concentrated
at certain times of the year.

Okay, so Alex says we do have them here in the.
I'm on the Gulf of Mexico, I'min Alabama, right next to
Mississippi.
So, okay, good to know.
I need to know that about myown area.
Okay, so you went to, let's,let's bring it know, I need to
know that about my own area.
Okay, so you went to, um, let's, let's bring it up.
I'm trying.
So, uh, okay, so you're here,and then where?

(43:28):
And then were you up?

Saskia (43:30):
here or we're in.
We're in both of those bays.
They're both really beautifulbays Opunahu and then the other
one is Cooks Bay.
They're deep as the other bayshere are.
There's little towns.
That's right next to Papiete,tahiti.
Papiete is the city on Tahitiwhich is the capital of French

(43:55):
Polynesia.
It's quite nearby um and sothere's, you know, there's a lot
, a fair bit, happening in inmoran yeah, that's a really nice
um and yeah then.
So if you just go to the left,if you see hapiti all the way to
the left, it's like h-aapostrophe, a-p-i-t-i down a

(44:17):
different island is it no, no?
it's just a really, reallybeautiful.
It's one of our favorite places.
We've been here and so that'sum, yeah, that's like a really
famous surf break.
It's like a mini um chapel,like the where the olympics was
last year.
Oh, we were there during theolympics.
That's not where the Olympicswas last year.
We were anchored there duringthe Olympics.
That's not where the Olympicswas held, but we were anchored

(44:38):
there during the Olympics, rightin here.
Yeah, see where the reallylight blue water is.
The dark blue is super deep,but yeah, down there, yeah, oh.
I think, if you scroll across,you can see a catamaran just to
the right there.
Yeah, I think you can see acatamaran just to the right.
Yeah, I think you can see acouple boats there.
Yeah, so one of my favoriteways to anchor you just anchor

(45:01):
in super shallow water and hangback in the deep.

It's so special, yeah, okay so how long were you
here?

Saskia (45:13):
We were there.
I think we just jumped around acouple times um.
We spent three months in totalin morea, but we would spend a.
You could only really go therein settled conditions at this
place, so we would go between um, between here and the and the
bays, and then back, and thenone of the other bays and um,
when the surf was good and theconditions were right to sail

(45:34):
around, we'd come back.
But if it gets too windy,because the mountains are very
big in moraya, so the windreally it really whips down.
They had a storm here the otherday that was supposed to be
just um, I think it was supposedto be 20, 25 to 30 knots of
wind and with the mountains theway that this sort of pulls the

(45:55):
wind and pulls it down, theyended up having 60 knot gusts.

So oh, oh wow, a lot more than forecast and you
were on the boat in that, not?

Saskia (46:07):
not there.
No, thank, I'm really glad Iwasn't, but we had friends that
were there.
Um, okay, we were.
We were over in the tumotus,which is where I was when you
contacted me, and those littlelittle atolls, and then we just
have just sailed back to papiete, to tahiti, which is where we
are now in the capital city.
I'm like I'm right next to letme get there am I, on the right

(46:31):
island uh, I don't have yourscreen right now.
Oh, sorry, that's okay, yep, sothat whole thing is Tahiti the
big one, and then you'll seePapiete up the north of the
island.
Yep, so that's the capital ofFrench Polynesia.

(46:54):
Oh, yeah, yeah, so that's thecapital of French Polynesia.

It's a big.

Saskia (46:57):
Oh yeah, yeah, Lots going on there, uh-huh, and so
that, just um, you can seePapiete market at the very South
of the other bottom of yourscreen, yes, and then there's a
Marina just next to that.
That's the Marina that I'm inright now.

And this is it.
Oh, wow, Okay.
So how hard is it to check into?
Where did you check in first?

Saskia (47:24):
To French Polynesia.
Actually, you can check in insome of the islands they have
it's like it's called theGendarmerie.
It's a local police and so youcan.
You just go in to the officethere and you know you have all
of your forms and they have tofill out a little form online as

(47:47):
well and if you've done that,you can go in and they give you
sort of a preliminary check-in.
Um, but it's it.
You used to have to come totahiti to fully check in, but
now, because of we have suchaccess to being online, um, if
you do the forms online and thengo to the gendarmerie in the

(48:07):
small town, then you're allchecked in and um, it has some
hoops to jump through beforehand, but it's really it's been.
It was one of the easiercountries for us and I'm kind of
hoops so you have to havealready got your visa to french
polynesia.
So if you're not, you know, aeuropean citizen, um, then you,

(48:31):
which you know much of theworld's not, then you have to
have gone and gotten your visaat the french, at a french
embassy, before you even come to, before you even leave to get
to french polynesia.
So what most people do whenthey're leaving from panama is
go to the french embassy inpanama and you apply for a a

(48:51):
visa.
Usually people do a long stayvisa, which is a year long visa,
and that has to be approvedbefore you can even leave Panama
.
So it has to be approved.
You go in to the office, youget the stamp in your passport
and then you can leave to sail.
So, and that can take up to sixweeks from applying to actually

(49:11):
getting the visa.

So you make yourself comfortable.

Saskia (49:15):
Yeah, yeah, and that's one thing I think catches a lot
of people up when they'regetting ready to leave.
Last year we spoke to dozens ofpeople who were ready to leave
and just went to the embassy toget their visa and then found
out they had to wait anothermonth or six weeks before they
could even leave panama that'sgood that we covered it here on
the salty podcast.

You got to.
If you're, if you're going toFrench Polynesia from Panama and
you're, you need to be patient.

Saskia (49:40):
Yeah.

Yeah.

Saskia (49:42):
Yeah, so and like you've got to book an appointment and
then you know that you'vesometimes got to wait wait a
couple of weeks for anappointment, so a lot of people
missed.
You know, good, really greatweather windows, or you know,
with delayed, especially if youonly have one season in the
Pacific, if you're making yourway to New Zealand or Australia
for cyclone season, six or eightweeks is a long time to lose.

And just sitting in an anchorage, what's?

Saskia (50:11):
the best time to go across um generally except you
know the general like normaltime is somewhere from like
march to june.
Uh, lots of people leave.
We left at the end of februaryum, we know lots of people that
left in january.
We also know people that leftfar later in the year,
especially from mexico.

(50:32):
People come down later, uh, butgenerally like march april, may
, I think is probably isdefinitely the most common time
um to leave, but there arerallies that leave at that time
as well.
So sometimes if you leave inmarch, it can.
You can be in these remoteplaces with like 40, 50 other
people yeah, big group, which islovely to be social, but

(50:54):
sometimes I think those biggroups coming in it's's like
hang on, hang on.
I'm sailed here to be, you know, everyone thinks that they need
to be, you know, on anotherisland and suddenly there's 150
sailors on that island.

So yeah, Everybody wants to get together and have
events and stuff.
It's just like, oh no, I wantto experience this just with my
husband.

Saskia (51:21):
It's great fun to be able to experience these places
with other cruises and meetpeople from all around the world
, at all different ages andstages, on different boats.
You meet people and make suchgreat friends with people that
you probably wouldn't meet themand make friends with them
Otherwise, um, unless you're outof nowhere together.

Goose has a question.

Saskia (51:42):
Do you like?
Um like put up some money?
Did I lose internet?
Um like put up money in caseyou go?
Oh, am I still live?
Are we are?

we back hold on, let me get my microphone working
again oh, a repatriation bond,I think that is.

Saskia (52:14):
I don think so.
We didn't have to put up money,but you OK, sorry about that,
that's OK.
You do have to have either aflight out or a long stay visa.
So you and then you have tohave what you have to have like

(52:34):
health insurance for the timeyou're here, and I think that's
it.
I think the way out of gettingI you, there's lots of, there's
a few ways out of paying thatbond, and I think one of them is
putting down, uh sorry, sayingthat you have a flight out.
And then I think there's oneother way, but I can't remember

(52:57):
exactly what it is.
Maybe it's just if you onlyhave you either have that's
right, you either have a shortstay visa or you have to have a
flight out okay, return airfarein case you overstay your visa
yeah, I think the return airfareis a funny one.
It's like I I sailed in on myown boat.
Why do you need me to fly outon a plane?
Um, it was really made bysomeone who understands boats

(53:19):
and sailing.
But have your.
Um, yeah, you have to have a.
A flight out doesn't actuallymatter where it's to, it doesn't
have to be home, it doesn'thave to be, it's just a flight
out which is really.
French Polynesia, frenchPolynesia.
Yeah, it's like do you want meto leave my boat here alone,
like, no, no, yeah, but itdoesn't make sense.

And what does that run?
What you know like to theclosest, um well, there's a few
ways that most people do it.

Saskia (53:48):
Either, um, you book a flight.
You just have to have a flightbooked.
You don't have to actually takeit.

I don't know how bad right online you gotta.
Hopefully you can cancel it.

Saskia (53:58):
I mean, lots of there's.
It's not the only country thatdoes that and there's lots of
services now where you pay likea 10 or 15 fee and they book you
a flight, give you a ticket,issue you a ticket.
You really are booking a flight, but they manage the
cancellation on their end.

So they you basically pay them 10 or 15
dollars to book you a flight andthen it will be cancelled and
that's all you'll pay is 10 or15 dollars there's something
similar in the bahamas that I'veseen, like if someone is flying
from here to get on a boat,that can be problematic, because
they think why are you, do younot have a return flight?
Well, I'm leaving on a boat, sosometimes you have to book that

(54:38):
.
You got to trick them with thattoo.
It seems like a racket, doesn'tit?

Saskia (54:43):
you're like I'm trying to do the right thing here and
they will sort of want you to.
You know, do it a bit cheeky,but I think that's.
That's one of the hardest thingsto lie yeah, that's one of the
toughest things about cruising,I think, is that I think prior
to the internet, everyone was abit more accepting.
Prior to cruising with theinternet, everyone was a bit
more accepting of.
You know, you don't always havethe most updated regulations,

(55:06):
or or your, you know it takes awhile for regulations to come
into play, or there was a bitmore leniency, whereas now that
there's everyone has internet,everyone also expects you to
always have.
You know, like, well, we madethis regulation last week and
you should know about it, andyou're like yeah, how
expectations are higher now thatyou need to know what you're

(55:29):
doing yeah, and I mean, like wedo so much research, but also
you can't constantly be checkingfor everywhere.
You go all the all the time forany tiny little update.
So it is a bit, and I mean, aslong as you, if someone, you
know, if someone, if you're toldof some sort of new thing, I
think you just have to remember,like, this isn't my country,
I'm visiting here and I, youknow, you have to accept it with

(55:50):
grace and and know that youknow I'm, I've sailed to this
place to visit it.
It's not, you know, I'm notfrom here, it's not my home.

So you know, I don't need to change everything.

Saskia (56:04):
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
You can just experience it andthat's all good, you can take it
with grace, but it's one of thehardest things is just always
being outside that box.
You know you never fit.
I'm here as a tourist in andout.
I'm here on a cruise ship inand out.
You know I'm here, I'm here ona charter boat in and out.
You're like no, I'm here withmy home and I'm gonna stay a
while, but not too long, andthen I'm gonna move on.

(56:25):
And you know, whether it's likewith food or or buying fuel, or
even just you know um plugs foryour phone and and shore power
plugs, and I mean and sayingthat we haven't really been to a
dock in like a year other thanthis one.
So that's so cool.
Yeah, it's a tricky.
It's a tricky part of cruising,but also kind of what makes it
fun and interesting yeah, andthe people have been pretty.

You have good experience with that, yeah yeah,
yeah, definitely.

Saskia (56:52):
Um, most people, I think in when you're in a big city,
people are always a bit morelikely to just have their
blinders on and go about theirbusiness.
But the second you get out andyou know you speak to people in
small towns or these, theseisolated anchorages.
Um, people are just people andthey're just happy to get to
know someone new and have a chatand share a bit about their

(57:14):
life and learn a bit about yoursand all those things and um,
yeah, I'm actually reallyexcited for our next sort of
season.
As we, as we go on, we've gotsome cool stuff planned with, um
, some of the some of the localpeople in the cook islands in
particular.
But just yeah, yeah.

so let's talk about what your next step is.

Saskia (57:37):
Yeah so in the next few weeks well, in the next week
really we're going to be leavingfrom here, from Papeete, and
headed east, so we're going todo a couple of jumps through
other islands in FrenchPolynesia, like Bora Bora and,

(58:00):
yeah, a little, just a littlefurther north, right here Up
north of that one.
Yeah, if you zoom out a little,bit.

I saw it, I saw it here somewhere.
Here it is.

Saskia (58:10):
Bora Bora, malpidi.
We'll do a few stops there.
Here it is Bora Bora, malpiti.
We'll do a few stops there.
And then, um, you'll probablyhave to zoom out and type it.
The type the next one's incause.
They're very small.
So if you zoom all the way out,um, like, yeah, way out,
there's going to be Atataki, soit's to the east of that.
It's like one of these or oneof these.

Yeah, it's further east, it's still another like
400 miles east of those, yeah.

Saskia (58:41):
So then, yeah that, yeah , that's it this.
I think it's just there thatour I don't know how to say that
word- arutanga arutanga?
Yeah, I think that's it.
Is that atutaki?
Yeah, that's atutaki.
That's the capital of the cookislands.
So that's where we need tocheck in, to the cook islands
okay, that's cook islands.
Okay, looks like there's alittle strip here there is an

(59:02):
airstrip there, yeah, yeah, andthere's a tiny little pass.
You see it just there on theleft of your screen.
This is it.
Yeah, that's a pass.
We've got to take our boatthrough that.

Oh my gosh, I know .

Saskia (59:13):
I'm super keen on it, you can get a boat through there
.
Huh yeah, apparently it's likethree meters deep, but you can
see it's obviously the tide'smoving, right then.

Yeah.

Saskia (59:26):
Wow, they're so boring.

Alex has a question Do you take most of
your food with you or is itreadily available for reasonable
?

Saskia (59:35):
Yeah, Alex has a question Do you take most of
your food with you or is itreadily available for reasonable
?
Yeah, this is, I mean we.
This is sort of a personalthing, I guess, but for us we
absolutely take most of our foodwith us.
When we left Panama, we hadenough provisions for what we
hoped to be a year of cruising.
So we had enough rice, pasta,beans, you know, dried fruit,

(59:56):
dried fruit, nuts, all of thosetypes of things, and then we
would just supplement with freshfish that we caught and you
know, some stuff from themarkets along the way.
Look, you know, just like localproduce, whatever was like in
season, um, because we foundthat exponentially reduces your
food cost, like amazingly so um,and we've, we've done that.

(01:00:19):
When we first left um thestates, we, what we did it?
We were provisioned for sixmonths and then when we left the
states again, we did nine, ninemonths, and then when we left
panama, we did a year provisionfor a year, and it's now been a
year and we've used noteverything but a lot um, and so
now we've just done anotherstock up, because otherwise food
here is food in in papiete islike 200, 250 us dollars for

(01:00:45):
like a grocery bag of food.

Capn Tinsley (01:00:46):
It's just oh we'll eat away last year too, so
quick?

Saskia (01:00:51):
yeah, yeah, absolutely, yeah it's.
You know it's all differentprices, you know, but, um, it's
just so expensive, uh, it's soexpensive on a cruising budget
in particular.
So, yeah, we have my, like, mylittle spreadsheet online on
buzzer, you know, computer with.
You know, like, the amount ofrice per person per day times

(01:01:12):
1.5 and rice and beans and, um,you know, quinoa and all of
those things, and I don't alwaysget all of them, depending on
where we are, it's not alwaysavailable, but I always go
through it whenever I'mprovisioning, as a reminder of
things to look to remember, toget, you know, olive oil vinegar
.
Um, who's the cook?
It goes between us.

(01:01:35):
Actually, my husband loves tocook and he's a very good cook,
so he does cook a fair bit,probably 60 of the time, and
then I cook, yeah, I cook therest.
Um, maybe maybe it's 50, 50,but probably he, probably.

well, it's got to be tough planning meals for when
you take on a couple of morepeople, I mean your food budget
is double.

Saskia (01:01:58):
Well, yes, it has been doubled, but then we also do it
like per person, so it's sort ofpart of the crew.
The way we advertised it waslike you can stay on our boat
and sail around, we'll pay forfuel, um, and obviously food.
And then we set like a a budget,like a certain amount of money

(01:02:20):
per person per day, and then wepull that together and use that
as a kitty to get provisionshere, especially for fresh food
and stuff like that um yeah,otherwise it would just yeah,
double your double break thebank, yeah completely um, but
yeah, stocking up when you can,especially when, when you're in
cheap places, like when we're inthe states, we go to costco and

(01:02:42):
just you know, just to stock upas much as we could.

We did big shops and then in panama was the
cheapest food we've ever seenanywhere in the world and we
just wow, okay, so stock up inpanama, okay, this is where you
get your your french polynesiauh visa, or whatever it is you
said, and you got to stock up onyour food absolutely, and

(01:03:06):
alcohol as well, any alcoholthat you have.

Saskia (01:03:08):
Anyone with alcohol and you wanted to do it in french
polynesia, bring it with you.
It is prohibitively expensive,prohibitively, prohibitively
expensive, yeah, but they alsodon't mind how much you check in
with, so you can bring in asmuch as you want to.

Do you have to grease the palm there?
Do you have to say, well,really, no, it's very French.

Saskia (01:03:31):
Polynesian.
Nobody's going like this,absolutely not.
I think it's because they'repart of the military here to be
a gendarmerie and it's a veryesteemed position in the
community and it absolutely well.
That hasn't been our experience, at least at all.
Yeah, everyone's been very it'sdefinitely in other countries

(01:03:54):
it's felt a little different.
Yeah, yeah, it was, it was.
It's been really nice.
It's been a very um.
Sometimes they're a little bit,uh, you know a little bit that.
You know I mean it's it's aFrench country that is sometimes
a little bit like youdefinitely try to speak French,
yeah.

Okay, yeah, I saw that in St Martin In the
Caribbean.
Yeah, the French side, theFrench side, I say with love yes
, yes, yes, yeah.
Yeah, it was a little differentthan, say, mexico, where you
know we're, we're giving thedive instructors all this cash,

(01:04:37):
you know, and they're likethey're taking it.
My friend Dana, I'll go aheadand say this we were in st Mark
oh, I think I lost you againthere not cool, I think I lost

(01:05:01):
you again there.
Oh, good job.
Are we back?

(01:05:23):
My friend said after we hadbeen in saint martin on the
french side.
She said these people don'tknow how to take our mighty
dollar like the the guys inMexico do.
I mean, they're just nice to usand we're just giving them
money.
You know, they didn't seemreally interested in yeah, no.

Saskia (01:05:46):
I mean, you know it's, yeah, it's just so.
I think it's a bit of adifferent attitude, but it's
been very, very above board, soto speak.
In French Polynesia, othercountries, it's been a little
different.
We refused to pay thenon-official, you know, the
non-receipted payment in Panamaand it took us six weeks to get

(01:06:07):
our cruising permit there, whichwas fine, we weren't in a rush,
so it was all good.
But then other places it's justlike there's just sort of ways
that you can make things gobetter for you and and with
officials, and we found that tobe the best way to do.
It is just like always dressnicely when you go into offices

(01:06:28):
and if that, if it's a countrywhere they come onto your boat,
always have a cold drink forwhoever the official is, because
they're in a full uniform andboots and hot and sweaty.
And if you can say like, hey,would you like a Coca Cola or
Sprite or something you knowCoca Cola is pretty universal
Everyone's like, oh, I'd love acold drink.
And then I think it goes toshow like you're friendly and

(01:06:48):
prepared and thoughtful andyou're not, you know.
You know you're're not justbeing rude and I think also
everyone is in a better mood ifyou have a nice cold drink when
you're hot.
So there's lots of differentways that we've found um, I mean
, not in some places, like you,absolutely, bribes are essential
to get through a place, butwe've found the best way is to,

(01:07:09):
just like always be reallypresentable and really kind and
happy and happy to wait, not bein a rush.

That's that's interesting um to to be always
presentable.
So not in a bathing suit, not,yeah, like when we.

Saskia (01:07:27):
So when, like when, like when you go into an office, if
you have to do anything official, you know if you have to check
into a country or you have toextend a visa or you have to do
anything official, you know ifyou have to check into a country
or you have to extend a visa,or you have to, even, like, if
you have to go into a postoffice to get, like, a paid post
stamp or something like thatWe've found we get just, you get

(01:07:48):
treated a lot better if you're.
You know, like my husbandalways makes sure he wears like
a collared shirt and long pants,and I always wear something
where, like, my shoulders and myknees are covered and my hair's
I've had a shower and my hair's, you know, pulled back, or at
least you know not.
I don't look like I just thisis great advice.

You can hear it right here on the Salty Podcast.
That's great.
That's great info.
That's the kind of stuff peopleneed to know.

Saskia (01:08:11):
You know, yeah, well we've I mean, we've spoken to
lots of people where they were.
They were really grumpy withhow they were treated at a
certain office and they werelike they said they were really
treated disrespectfully and wewere like no, we were like, oh,
we had a completely differentexperience.

What were you?

Saskia (01:08:25):
wearing.
Yeah, I think I was like, well,I just was wearing my boardies
and they made me put a shirt onand it's like you're basically
going into it.
You know you are going into agovernment office there.
You're not just.
You know you're not just goinginto the local fishing store.
It's, and I know it's.
It doesn't come easy to uscruises, because we're we're
always in a, in a swimsuit, oryou know, I I live in a sarong

(01:08:46):
and um, but just to do thoselittle things that show that you
really are like respecting thecountry you're going into or the
person's position, because alot of these people, um,
especially if you're in a small,a small town or a small village
or or something like that, likeit's a very respected position
because it's one of, often oneof the few, government positions

(01:09:07):
or the or a few you know, umcontinuous paid positions as
well, so that it's a you'respeaking to, you know, a
respected person and and I thinkit pays to to dress like you.
You know that.

To show them.
That's great advice.
That'll make a clip from thispodcast.
I do clips and that's that's agreat clip right there, because
that that's the kind of stuffpeople need to know.
Um, so there's there's a lot ofpeople that watch my channel
and my podcast that are dreaminglike.
There's a lot of people thatwatch my channel and my podcast
that are dreaming Like.
There's a lot of veterans thatthat'll watch and maybe not not
live, but in the replay, butthere's also a lot of new people

(01:09:44):
.
How did you, how did you makethis happen?
As far as you know a budget anddid you?

Saskia (01:09:50):
do a you're saving.

And then you, or did you earn it as?

Saskia (01:09:53):
you go yeah, we, I mean really a bit of both.
So we, we had this dream and wedecided, like this is what we
want to do, and so we just save,save, save, save, save, save,
save every penny.
And what really worked for uswas working out what we thought,
what we guesstimated cruisingwould cost per day for us on our

(01:10:17):
boat, with our life style, andwhat did you come up with.
At the time we came up with $50a day, like not necessarily $50
every day, but $50 a day overthe course of the month or the
year, which is less than itcosts.
That is less than it does cost,um.
But I mean that also depends onyour boat, you know, and how

(01:10:39):
much.
How much you need um, you knowhow much um repairs you need and
how much love your boat needsto keep going and where you're
cruising as well.
So we just came up with thatnumber, um, and what.
It wasn't really important thatit was wrong or right, but that
number helped us think.
Every time that we hadsomething that was, say, a
hundred dollars, we were like isthat thing that's a hundred

(01:11:01):
dollars worth two days cruisingto us, um, you know, and that
sort of allowed us to make itsomething that seemed like such
a distant reality actually thisis like a meal in certain places
oh, absolutely, absolutely.
It's in key west, like thingsare expensive, and so, um,

(01:11:21):
that's sort of how we imagine,how we conceptualized saving to
go cruising, because it was sucha far-fetched dream for us when
we first said like, oh, you cango cruising, um.
And then we, we saved.
We ran our boat as a charterbusiness for three years.
We bought our boat out ofcharter so it was a lot cheaper
than a similar boat that hadn'tbeen chartered.

(01:11:44):
And then we chartered it forthree years and we ran two other
boats as Airbnbs, so in theKeys, at the marina, um, and so
people would stay on those andthat was just 100 like kitty
money, like, I mean, the profitfrom that was 100 kitty money.

(01:12:06):
And then, um, and then when wesold those yeah, yeah, freedom
chips, as we call them.
So that was sort of how we gotout.
Our little nest egg was just bychartering.
And for those three years orCOVID was the beginning of it
and then the second two yearsreally we just did not have a

(01:12:27):
single day off.
We worked literally 16 hours aday every day.
We just didn't have a break.
But because every time that wegot know like, oh, hey, we want
to go on this charter.
We were pretty tired but we'dlook at it and be like, oh well,
that's.
You know, that's a weekcruising in one afternoon and a
sunset sail.
So, whatever it was you know, Ican't remember the exact like

(01:12:49):
you know, we came to know like,oh well, a sunset sail is worth
this much cruising time and thisis worth that much, and so it
sounds like you both wereequally motivated oh, it was
like it was all nearly all wethought about and, um, it wasn't
just those two years that wewere planning on cruising, but
that was that was.
That was, you know, the, thefinal push to be able to, to

(01:13:10):
save, to actually to go um, andwe were, and I think the other
thing is like the amount ofstuff we said no to because we
wanted to.
We knew what we wanted to sayyes to, which was cruising.
So we just like, yeah, so oftensomeone you know say like do
you want to go out or do youwant to, you know, do this or do
that?
And we just knew what we wantedto spend our money on.

(01:13:31):
And obviously, every likethings come up like life is
expensive and there's things youcan't say no to spending money
on.
But every time that we couldand it wasn't something we
really wanted, you know, wasn'teven if we really wanted to do
it, but it didn't lead us togoing cruising we had to say no
and there was a lot ofsacrifices.
But, um, now, like when we setoff and since we've set off,

(01:13:55):
we've just been so glad time andtime again that we were like so
one-tracked, like we had ourblinders on.
There was so many amazingthings we could have done, but
we just knew we wanted to gocruising and we were just like
dead ahead to it.
So that's how we, how weactually left to go cruising and
since then, um, I will go home,we'll go home wherever home.

(01:14:17):
We have a home, home in thestates, with my husband's family
, and home in america sorry,home in australia with mine, um,
but we have done um one stintof nine months, we say we went
when we're in panama.
We went back to the states andsaved, um, saved up every penny
again, worked for nine months,saved it up to go to cross the

(01:14:37):
truck, to cross the pacific andwas your boat, just was it on a
mooring ball or something.
It was we.
It was in a marina in um, onthe caribbean side, in bocas del
toro, um, a marina called redfrog marina.
So it was um, and we had somefriends there as well, so they
were looking, looking, sort oflooking at it, making sure it
was all good.
And that was hard, not being onthe boat for nine months and

(01:15:00):
just dreaming of it.
But we did the same thing, we.
We said okay, like every time,every day we get work is another
, you know, another couple ofdays cruising, and it was just
like, just down, go for it, um.
And then last year I went backto Australia and I did um eight
weeks of like a sort of temp jobwhere I was just working like

(01:15:23):
80 hours a week and just whatkind of job did you work, I mean
, um, well, I'm on a boat.
No, actually, it's completelyunrelated.
I'm a paramedic and so, okay, Idon't usually work with
patients though, because I'm ona boat, but I do.
I now do like clinicalgovernance, so I at the time I

(01:15:44):
was a really amazing opportunityfor me to be able to, um, yeah,
keep it all, keep it all goingand also get to go back to
Australia and see my family andwelcome my nephew into the world
, which was amazing.

(01:16:05):
So, yeah, I just I just worked,worked, worked, and then it's
easier to work that hard whenyou know why you're working that
hard.
I think it's easier to workthat hard when you know why
you're working that hard.
I think, and I understand, I'malso incredibly lucky to be able
to have had that experience, toknow what I'm going back to, to
work for and work towards.

(01:16:25):
But, yeah, it's been acombination of working really
hard before we went, making lotsof sacrifices while we're
cruising.
There's lots of things.
We say no to cruising becausewe just it's just not in our
budget, um, but it allows us tokeep sailing, so it's.
And the other thing is thethings that we love is like an
empty beach, um, you know, andamazing ocean life, and like a

(01:16:47):
blue sky, so the things we liketo do aren't particularly
expensive.
Right, Once you get there likewhen we were in the two mo twos
it was.
You know, we just posted up onan uninhabited atoll and, like
there is no shop for 150 milesaround me, like there is no way
to spend a cent.
So even though we'd we'd justbeen in a city where we'd spent

(01:17:11):
a fair bit of money, we justwent out and we literally didn't
spend a single cent for I thinkit was like nearly nearly seven
weeks, six and a half weeksbefore we sent spent a single
dollar and um, just puttingyourself in places like this one
it's, um, it's.
I mean, it's just like it's whatyou find fun.

(01:17:31):
You know, like we, that's whatwe dreamed of is just these open
, open beaches.
And, um, I mean, we're sort ofyeah, you're still sort of
spending the money becauseyou've had to have bought the
food or whatever it is and hadthe boat and everything to get
there, but you're not.
You don't see your cruisingkitty going down in that time,
and that's the thing we love,love being out there anyway.

(01:17:52):
But it's also really nice to belike we're doing this and it's
not actually right now costingme money to be here.
So it's cool to to be able tohave that experience, and
there's places you can do thateverywhere.
We did that in the Bahamas aswell.
Um, there's lots of islands youcan go to and just if you're
stocked up, you know, you canjust post up if that's what you

(01:18:13):
like doing sitting on a beachand swimming in the ocean and
chatting with other cruisers,like Georgetown.

Oh yeah, I mean until hurricane season.

Saskia (01:18:25):
Yes, yeah, we loved Georgetown Chat and chill.
It's like, oh, what a spot.

Everybody talks about it.
I haven't been yet, I haven'ttaken my boat there yet.
But so what is next after?
Are you flying home?

Saskia (01:18:39):
are you going to be like , um well, we'll say end of your
season yeah, so we're about to,um, uh, cyclone season is about
to end here in the pacific, um,in the next couple weeks really
, and it's wrapping up, you knowand so we will set sail
westward now and we'll go to theCook Islands, probably stop in

(01:19:02):
Nui, tonga, and then from TongaI'm actually flying back to
Australia to do some more workfor about another six weeks.
Top up the cruising kitty andthen my husband and our that's
why we decided to get some crewin will sail just on to Fiji,
and then I'll fly back and meetmy husband in Fiji, and then

(01:19:27):
that'll be maybe like July thisyear, and then between July and
November, we'll sail down backtowards Australia.
So we'll sail through Fiji andVanuatu, maybe stop in New
Caledonia, and then, um, sailback, sail to Australia.
I say back.
We haven't didn't start inAustralia, but sail to Australia
.
Um, and the plan is well, we'renot super sure, but I think

(01:19:50):
that we will definitely take umgood breather, a good break in
Australia.
We'll probably, you know, putsome, some roots down for a
little while.
Maybe, I don't know maybe liveon land for a little bit.

But not sell the boat right.

Saskia (01:20:06):
If we can, we would love to not sell the boat.
We would love to keep her so wecan keep cruising on her, even
if it's just a season, at a timeor something.
Yeah, we need to get.
We need to get back to work.
Yeah, you know, life calls.

Oh, you don't see this going on for the next 20
years.

Saskia (01:20:27):
I really hope, if we can .
I would love to be able to keepthe boat and be able to do a
season in Vanuatu, a season onthe Great Barrier Reef, a season
in Fiji.
I would love to keep the boatand be able to do a season in
Vanuatu, a season on the GreatBarrier Reef, a season in Fiji.
I would love to keep doing thatAbsolutely.
I hope that we're able to.
Just, I mean, we always saylike that's the plan.
You just never know how theplan's going to change.
But I don't have a hugeinterest in sailing either

(01:20:50):
around South Africa or throughthe Red Sea.
They're not like, it's notcalling to me and I know that
they're both tough sales, so I'mnot like dying to get that
around the world tick, even asamazing as it is.
And you know the people that doit are phenomenal.
They are.
It's just not calling my name,so I don't need to punish myself

(01:21:13):
.

Yeah, no, no, I don't.
I have no interest in the lower40s yeah, I like the feeling
that warm temperatures exactlyexactly, yeah, so.

Saskia (01:21:26):
I think we'll stay.
I really hope we can staysailing.

Um well, we'll check back with you, um, you
know, after you've maybe gottento Australia and and see what,
if anything's come to mind.
And is there children in thefuture?
Are they going to be littleboat babies?

Saskia (01:21:43):
Yeah, I mean maybe I mean if we're, if we're lucky
and that happens for us, thatwould be super cool, but
probably not on a boat.
I mean, I love family, boatfamilies, families.
I think it's so amazing whenpeople do that well.

The kids are so much well adjusted you don't
want to stick them in schoolsand they just get ruined we're
actually staying with a friendat the moment because they're
she's just at hospital thismorning.

Saskia (01:22:12):
That's why I was a little late sliding in.
She's having a baby yep, shejust had it.
This morning she had her thirdbaby boy.
Congratulations, yeah, they'reum, they're an amazing family
and they have been sailing forthe last, I think, four years as
well.
Okay, and then the kids, um, um, have started school in the

(01:22:34):
marquesas.
That first island group iswhere they went to school for
the first time.
They're a french family, sothey speak french, which is
helpful.
And, um, yeah, the the firstone was was born, I think, in
france, and then the second onein one of the caribbean islands,
and then this third one is here.
So, like international family,super cool kids on a boat, um,

(01:22:56):
but it it's just, uh, I thinkfor us it would probably be not.

Should I interview them?
Should I interview them?

Saskia (01:23:02):
Oh, I bet she would love that, yeah, so.
So the mama their boat's calledmama Beluga.
Um, I'm sure she would be intothat.
She's super, she's got a super.
I just love that whole dynamicof raising kids on a boat and it
just seemed to be better peopleyeah, yeah, you go to

(01:23:23):
georgetown and you see these,these communities of boat kids
just being the coolest kids andthey're planning hikes together
and they're on the radio andthey have amazing radio
etiquette and they can, you knowthey can chat like you know,
normal people.

They're on the radio and they have amazing
radio etiquette and they can,you know they can chat like you
know, normal people they're likekids used to be right like back
in the day when, like when Igrew up in the 70s and 80s, you
went out and you, like you know,you played, you went out and
socialized yeah, they know howto play.

Saskia (01:23:52):
I think they know they just you just have to be able to
entertain yourself on a boat,and so they just do it.
You know.
They just figure out how toentertain themselves I love it.

Yeah, they're driving dinghies around.
I just think it's awesome, okay, well, I I want to touch base
back with you, you know, whenyou get back home and see how it
all, see what the plan is atthat point and, uh, thank you so
much for coming on and tellingus.
You might have some peoplefollowing you, because there's a
lot of people that want to dowhat you're doing.

Saskia (01:24:24):
Yeah, I will be less ambiguous about where I am and
what I'm doing.

Give us a clue, okay.

Saskia (01:24:34):
I'm trying to be a bit better about posting Well.

I mean, I understand you, maybe you want
to be ambiguous sometimesbecause of safety, but I thought
maybe that was it.

Saskia (01:24:45):
A little bit, but mostly I just originally started
posting for family and friends,so I yeah, but yeah, no, I'm
trying to get a little bitbetter because, also, it is like
we're in such amazing placesand we're so grateful and so
lucky to be able to be seeingthem.
I want to be able to share themas well.

It's amazing.
You're an inspiration.
Well, thank you.
I want to make sure I say yourname right, saskia.

Saskia (01:25:08):
Yes.

Yay, I'm Tinsley.
We both have kind of differentnames.
But thank you so much and Iwill touch base back with you
and hopefully have you on hereagain.
I like it when people come onmy repeat people.
Again thank you, and I alwaysend in the same way Thank you,
and Salty Abandoned out Out.

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Salty Podcast #55 | 📢🎙️LIVE from Tahiti ⛵Sailing to French Polynesia! 🌊

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Salty Podcast #55 | 📢🎙️LIVE from Tahiti ⛵Sailing to French Polynesia! 🌊