Around The World In 80 Waves

Mosquitos love me. I don’t know why but they definitely bite me more than almost everybody else.

I was getting savaged through Central America and desperately tried to locate one of these electric tennis racquet things everywhere I went.

The local are so used to it that they don’t bother about the insects and as such there is no market for them, and I had to do without. In Tahiti there certainly is a market for them with the affluent tourists, and I buy one for my travel bag.

You could never win the war with mosquitos, but I can’t tell you how satisfying it is to win a few battles.

I have no qualms in admitting to smiling as I taser each one of the little pests. I hope it hurts them as much as their bites irritate me!

The sound is fantastic:

ZzzzzZZZZzZZZttttttt!

Surfing has been used to advertise aftershave, cars, beer, insurance comparison websites, Hush Puppies, and many more random items that it has absolutely nothing to do with in an attempt to capitalise on it being so ‘cool’. 

However the result of silly adverts like this one is that most surf shops are just another retail outlet touting overpriced garments that will make no difference to your surfing apart from leaving less money in your pocket to get to the beach. There is more than a touch of ‘The Emperor’s New Clothes’ about it all.

Having had to abandon my board in Chile I wasted a whole day trying to locate anywhere that hires them. All the big name brands have shops in Pape’ete but none of them actually appears to cater for surfers. Not one even had information about breaks on the islands.

I am having a shocker locating a vehicle and now wondering if I have been a bit too rash offloading the surfboard in spite of the obscene fees. However I try a different tack and head for the surf breaks to ask around there. At Papara I meet a lovely guy called Poi who has just been surfing with his family, who in turn introduces me to one of the lifeguards at Tea’hupoo, which is Tahiti’s headline wave. 

Eric is a really interesting guy. A real waterman who loves the ocean and has so many tales to tell about kayaking, outrigger canoes, surfing, etc. We get on well and he is kind enough to lend me his wife’s surfboard for a reasonable fee.

Eric’ wife cannot use the board for a while because she is having major surgery to her leg to remove joints and bones before replacing them with artificial implants.

I am more than a bit bionic myself (see attached) so have every sympathy for her and promise to look after her lovely 7’4″ which is really chunky and ideal for me to use.

I had a bit of a chuckle when  I heard that there had been an earthquake in North Wales recently.

It is rather ironic that I am covering almost the entire Pacific rim with it’s associaed seismic activity but have yet to feel so much as a tremor during my holiday, whilst the whole of North Wales is getting woken by a sizeable earthquake. 

I had to forward on this picture that somebody has posted online detailing the devastation left behind by the 3.8 quake.

Very funny!

I’ve been off air for a while due to having been rather busy and a further series of IT woes that I wont bore you with. However I have lots to catch up on, so my apologies for the number of posts coming your way in quick succession.

As ever I will start with the ladies and in particular the local Tahitian women who are stunning. The artist Paul Gaugain moved to Tahiti and was inspired by the local women, painting them many times.

The beautiful ladies here were also responsible for the mutiny on HMS Bounty because the crew did not want to leave after an extended stay in the company of the women on the island. Fletcher Christian and most of the crew took control of the ship and then set Lieutenant William Bligh and the renainder of their shipmates adrift in a small boat.

The story has been made into a movie three times and when Marlon Brando was filming his version in 1965 he too succumbed to the charms of the islands, and bought a thirteen island chain circled by a coral reef, which is known as Tetiaroa. It is located 35 miles from the main island of Tahiti, and in accordance with his will, is in the process of being converted into an eco-tourist venture. http://tetiaroa.pf/ 

Although it is not as common as it used to be, many of the local ladies still follow the tradition of wearing flowers behind their ears, which looks fantastic

However wearing a Tahitian gardenia, also sends a signal to any gentlemen who may be interested. If worn tucked behind the left ear, it means the wearer is taken. If worn tucked behind the right ear, it means the wearer is available. Finally waving the flower behind the head means  they want you to follow! Based on this it would appear that the current Miss Tahiti is available. Any takers?

Without my board I have flown into Tahiti and landed at Pape’ete the biggest town on the island.

It is a wonderful place which is similar in geography to Hawaii, but it seems to have retained more of it’s island charm, despite the years of French influence. (It is technically part of the European Union.) 

The primary industry of the island for many years was the production of pearls which the locals would dive down to the sea bed to prise from oysters.

Pearls are formed inside the shell as a defense mechanism against a potential threat, which can be as simple as a grain of sand. The mollusc creates a pearl sac to seal off the irritation, which then hardens.

Although tourism has probably overtaken it as a revenue generator on the island, there is still a huge operation here in the city, as well as a museum about the history of the jewel here.

I am single so the only pearling I will be doing on the island is likely to be the number of face plants I will be doing as a result of surfing crappy second hand boards thanks to LAN airlines!

I am however going out on the town tonight, and am hoping to meet the sort of girl to whom I could give a pearl necklace to.

Wish me luck!

I’m afraid I have some bad news. My surfboard and I are no longer an item.

Once I had handed all my baggage and surfboard over at the check-in for Chile’s LAN airline I was told that they wanted $180 just to take my surfboard to Tahiti. It is a frankly ridiculous amount for something that weighs 9Kg, and given I only paid $500 for the board there was no point paying to get it to the island (and of course a similar expense to get it off again.) I could buy a brand new board whilst here and then throw it away at the end of my stay and not be much worse off!

When I bought my board I made it clear that we would not be together forever, and for some time now I knew a break up was coming but didn’t want to say anything in case things just worked out.

However I told the staff at the airport to take it off the plane because it was the right thing for me to do. They told me I needed to collect it from the offices downstairs, but I already had my boarding pass and there was no time for me to do anything with it other than just dumping it by a bin, and I didn’t have the heart to do that. Instead I chose to leave it at there office, almost jilting it at the altar, just when we were about to get into something special together here in Tahiti. 

So many cliches apply: It’s not you, it’s me; I’d like to stay friends; We’re just at very different points in our lives right now; I need my space; I’m just not ready for this kind of relationship; You deserve better than me; and I think we should see other people.

Given the option I would have preferred to have handed it over to a local grommet in a Big Wednesday style, ‘Perhaps one day it will be big enough for you to ride yourself,’ but I didn’t even get to say goodbye.

Sometimes a clean break is best though. However I think I am going to have to go out and find an ugly board for a surf to try and numb the pain. At least for a little while.

As for the money grabbing bastards at LAN. A volcano is about to explode in their airspace, which will ground all of their aircraft due to the associated dust cloud. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-22684322

They will lose millions in lost revenue. It couldn’t happen to a nicer bunch, and their frantic work in their offices to remedy that situation will be further impeeded by a 7’10” trip hazard which is going to get in everybody’s way. I intend on indefinitely getting a little pleasure from that situation by continually promising to collect it tomorrow. There’s mud in your eye!

Tahiti was somewhere I had to make time for on my trip, and I am looking forward to the next week there so much.

Heading for the island that is the largest in French Polynesia marks my return to lands of the people who introduced surfing to the world. 

The break of Tea’hupoo (pronounced cho-poo) at the south of Tahiti makes regular appearances in Billabong’s XXL contest, and is also one of the stops on the world championship tour each year.

The pros will be arriving here in August but the swell season has already started. This picture was taken a few weeks ago and the following link will show you more of what the chargers were surfing: http://www.surfline.com/surf-news/teahupoo-returns-round-two_96196/

Not to be outdone I have timed my visit perfectly just as a swell is arriving. (http://magicseaweed.com/Teahupoo-Surf-Report/619/)

Does this mean it will finally be time for my first ever tube ride?

Mind the gap please!

Easter Island was discovered by Europeans in 1772, but had been inhabited by the local Rapa Nui people for more than a thousand years.

It is most famous for its 887 statues called Moai created by the early Rapa Nui people, all of which face out towards the horizon from the island which is nearly 1300 miles from the nearest land.

My flight from Chile, to which the islands belong, is landing here to drop off and pick people up on the way to Tahiti where I will be spending the next week.

It is an overnight flight so sadly like every other ancient monument I have missed so far along my route this means I am not going to get the chance to see any of them.

I am genuinely disappointed by that, because they are fascinating. I first learned of the giant heads in the 2000AD comic story Hewligans’s Haircut back in the late eighties.

I can’t imagine I am going to get another chance to be somewhere so remote again so will have to make do with these pictures I found online. Gutted!

I should also point out that the island is widely regarded as a warning of the cultural and environmental dangers of exploitation to the modern world, because the Rapa Nui people completely cleared the island of trees to produce and move the monuments into place, which nearly resulted in their own extermination.

Given the carbon footprint of my own trip it is probably best I don’t say a great deal more at this time!

I have travelled the length and bredth of the Americas since I started this trip back in December, but the time has come for me to move on.

It also means that I will no longer need to keep butchering the Spanish language that I have learned to some degree as I have moved south from the USA.

There have certainly been plenty of highs as well as a few lows to keep me grounded on the road, but as ever it is time to move on because the planet has so many more waves on offer for me to enjoy along the rest of this trip.

Rather fittingly I saw this road sign next to the pizza place on my last night in Chile.

It translates to The Waves, which is an odd name for a road if you ask me, but the sign was pointing westward towards the east and that is exactly where I am going.

When I moved to London I played 7-a-side football for a team that used white t-shirts as its playing strip, because most people generally have them and we would at least match. (Of course after the laundry incident in Lima I would now clearly have to go in goal if I wanted to play!)

We eventually bought a kit which was supposed to be the third strip of the football team from Chile’s capital city and renamed ourselves Santiago Saints. The new kit worked wonders and you can see us here proudly lifting our bronzo-plastique trophies for being division champions. 

Other than that I really dont have much connection with the city, but wanted to see how good it looked against it’s Andean backdrop while I was in Chile.

I had time on my way to Santiago airport so called in on the modern city and did a bit of sightseeing. 

Not much to report from there but thought some of you might be interested in the concept of ‘Cafe con Piernas’ which are very popular in Santiago.

It translates as ‘Coffee with Legs’ and is exactly what you get. This was one of the more upmarket versions of the shops

However there are also shops where the miniskirt and heels have been replaced with bikini or lingerie clad waitresses, some of whom offer far more than coffee.

I’m not sure Starbucks or Cafe Nero would ever take this theme on though.