Three Masts Under The Sea
Sailing in the 21st century is an adventure no doubt. But every time I use my iPad touch screen to adjust our auto pilot, I shake my head in mockery for all the sailors of centuries past. Navigating through the Society Islands a hundred years ago was a completely different voyage from the one we’re on today.
We’re sailing from Taha’a to the neighboring island of Raiatea like it’s a trip to the grocery store. A short journey that doesn’t require much preparation or thought. With up to date digital charts, satellite connected weather files and an electric winch (we accidentally wrote “wench”, hence the funny comments below) to raise the mainsail…it’s all a snap really. We know what to expect and have little anchor emojis on our charts, so we know where to drop the hook. All of which has come into existence during my lifetime.
It’s incredible. Technology advances us and provides shortcuts to adventures that once took a lifetime to prepare for.
Why is this on my mind? Because we’re on our way to dive a 120-year-old shipwreck and it gets me to thinking about the past vs the present.
Plus, now that I have planted these thoughts in your head too, you’ll get a bigger kick out of this video.
Hop on board as we use our portable air compressor to fill our dive tanks, sink to the sea floor, explore a sunken ship, wander about a boat yard in search of pump for our watermaker and marvel at how we make any water source safe to drink. It’s sailing in the 21st century. Lewis and Clark would be so jelly.
Did you find yourself thinking about what sailing and life in general would have been here in the year 1900? It’s what I was thinking about at 90 feet down. Ok, that and possible sea monsters lurking in the murk.
To be completely honest, I have a hard time imagining this massive 165 foot sailboat inside the lagoon today, much less over one hundred years ago!
The Curiosity Dive Shop
There are so many reasons we love having our own little floating, traveling dive shop aboard s/v Curiosity. Convenience is of course a big one but it goes beyond that. Repairs and maintenance underwater, being able to SCUBA dive in remote locations where dive shops don’t exist and being able to dive on our own schedule are just a few. You’ve already seen where we keep our compressor and a quick version of how we fill our tanks and head out for a dive. So, for my curious diving buddies…I put together this post on our full dive setup: gonewiththewynns.com/diving-from-sailboat
Purifying Sketchy Water
The water we filled up at the dock with was labeled non potable. Meaning it was not purified to drinking water standards. No problem for us! We have an LED UV purification system that turns any water into squeaky clean and safe drinking water. We had no idea at the time just how much of a lifesaver this would be. It’s called an Acuva and we have more information about it here along with a discount code if you are interested: gonewiththewynns.com/product/water-purification
If you want the full scoop on our water storage/purification system aboard s/v Curiosity, we have a post and video dedicated to just the subject: gonewiththewynns.com/boat-life-squeaky-clean-water
Watermaker woes
We love our watermaker and really love that it’s a simple enough system that we can repair it ourselves when things break (because they always do). Some watermakers are far more automated than ours but can only be serviced and repaired by approved service centers. While it’s never fun to have broken bits, knowing we can fix them on our own eases the blow.
We explain which water pump went bad and why here: gonewiththewynns.com/epic-encounters-endless-repairs
Info on our Watermaker and a discount/bonus code: gonewiththewynns.com/product/watermaker
🙏 THANK YOU!
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🎥CAMERA GEAR USED IN THIS VIDEO📷
- All our camera gear: https://www.gonewiththewynns.com/photo-video-gear
🎶AWESOME tunes:
- Source: http://bit.ly/artlist-gwtw
- Artists: Giants and Pilgrims (Intro Music)
- Main Artist: Andrew Applepie
http://andrewapplepie.com
SAILING REPORT
Taha’a to Raiatea, French Polynesia
- Nautical Miles Sailed: 9
- Anchorage: Pte. Tenape
- Date: December 2018
