We are back on the move again an incredible few days on Nanumea, Tuvalu. From the sea it is harder to miss this atoll – the tower of the church, built in the 1930s, stretches high above the coconut tree line. It is no skyscraper but when you are used to coconut trees, coconut trees, and more coconut trees the building definitely stands out. At first we thought it was a lighthouse of some description, however upon closer inspection we realized the missionaries had left their mark. The island of around 600 people is separated into two villages (north of the church and south of the church). Meetings, dances, and sports are held in the center, immediately adjacent the church, and despite the size of the villages there is a buzz about the place. Kids screamed out, “palangi, palangi,” every time we visited the village, wearing huge smiles.

This sense of community ensures that even 280 nautical miles from the capital of Funafuti, (which is 600 nautical miles from Fiji and quite frankly in the middle of nowhere) – life does not really feel primitive or isolated. We wondered exactly this on our trip up from Fiji to Tuvalu. How disconnected do people feel living in a landmass that is separated by so much water? The answer is that they have each other, and for that reason the level of isolation experienced is relatively small. In fact one might feel more isolated alone in a big city, than in this island group surrounded by hundreds of miles of water.

Kivoli, (a lovely guy from Nanumea who we spent time with on the island), recounted a charming story remembering the first time he looked at a map. He said that it was the moment he realized how small Tuvalu was and how far away from everything they were. “Really, Tuvalu is here!” he exclaimed with humour in his voice. It is hard to imagine growing up and not knowing where you are on the map. Similarly, once upon a time the ancient seafarers set off on voyages, and thinking the world was flat, they never knew when they might fall off the edge. Now Confederate is blessed with such things as google imagery and gps, we know and record our latitude and longitude each hour (which right now is around 4 degrees south and incredibly hot). It is hard to figure out how the Polynesians that crossed oceans and settled in these remote Pacific islands managed to navigate. Then again life was different back then, they knew their stars, they looked to the birds to help them find land and the currents filled in the gaps.

Since his early years without maps, Kivoli has traveled the world aboard container boats, training at the Tuvalu maritime school. He had been to more countries than each one of us, after growing up in Nanumea and Nauru. His personality showed this juxtaposition between worldly seafarer and small island upbringing, recounting stories of both fishing knowledge passed down to him from his ancestors, and tales from various ports around the world.

We spent some awesome times with Kivoli, his wife and their grandson. They were extremely hospitable to us always asking us for meals knowing that supplies can be limited on a boat. We dined on fresh fish, chicken curry, chicken black bean, breadfruit chips, pancakes, and so on, at various times in their company.

After three weeks in Tuvalu it was hard to say goodbye. The place gets around 300 tourists per year, yet if it were more accessible we imagine there would be resorts everywhere. Both the lagoons we visited – Funafuti and Nanumea were insanely picturesque, an unbelievable mirage of turquoise goodness. The fish and bird life in Nanumea was better than we have seen anywhere so far. When we went paddle boarding we saw turtles, black tip reef sharks, heaps of fish, stingrays. When we traveled back to the boat at night huge schools of fish surrounded the dinghy jumping out of the water. On our last day, as a gift, we were given one of the 20 yellowfin tuna a local fisherman had caught that morning.

Nanumea has been a highlight – with its high church tower, from the sea it is hard to miss the place, but now that we have left, I fear, we may miss the place.

I think I’ve said earlier that passage making is made up of a series of highs and lows….

The first two photos are of porpoises welcoming us to Nanumea island. We think they must have been porpoises not dolphins because of their size. These not so little guys were playing in the bow wake of the boat and looking up at us through the water. An incredible experience. It is times like this, when the serenity of being out on the water is the clearest. Having these majestic mammals swimming around the boat can only be described as a spiritual experience – where you feel completely connected to everything around you and totally in the moment. After 10 minutes watching I have to admit I folded and had to go inside and get the camera. BUT I’m glad I did so now we can relive the experience.

The other picture is Robin in the middle of the night in full wet weather gear – the first time since we sailed NZ to Tonga. After two days of beautiful sailing conditions, flat seas, and picture perfect skies along came one of our hardest nights with variable winds between 0 and 30 knots. If you know sailing you know that both sets of conditions are nothing special, but if they come in quick succession of each other it becomes a little trickier. At the end of my watch, which was filled with heavy rain showers, a local system came in and the wind jumped up quickly. We had the motor going to make sure we were making headway in light wind, and the main sail was up to help out. Anyway the wind came up so quickly that we didn’t have time to reef the main so I called Robin up on deck and we decided to turn the boat into a “hoave to” position so we weren’t healing so much under the 30 knots of wind and full sail. After a while we managed to reef (reduce) the main sail. In between figuring out the sails we managed to get a rope wrapped around the propeller and the engine stopped working. Of course at the time we didn’t know there was a rope around the propeller and thought it might have been a more serious problem with the engine. Once everything settled down we figured out that the spinnaker sheet (rope) was the culprit, but we would have to deal with it in the morning. So for the rest of the night we battled through 0-30 knot winds that were changing direction every 10 minutes. Fun times. Not much sleep. Of course everything fades into the background when you are happily anchored and looking back on it the experience was almost enjoyable? We were all up most of the night but Confederate handled everything really well and you only grow from such experiences. I feel happy in my sailing as a similar situation in New Zealand before we left would have made me very uncomfortable but this felt easily manageable. Oh yeah and at sunrise Robin managed to get the spinnaker sheet untangled without having to go in the water – bonus. We had an engine again! – which we definitely needed to get through the 20m wide passage, with 3 knots of current, and into Nanumea!

Nanumea is a spectacular lagoon and we are anchored in 6m of completely flat calm water. Now out to explore. Ye ha grandma. Life is gooood. Confederate clear.