Sailing Tahiti to Australia | Leg 1: Tahiti To Mo’orea
by Jana Gamble
After having waited in French Polynesia for two and a half months, we excitedly sailed out of Tahiti and into Mo’orea on Monday, August 24, 2021. We spent several days at an anchorage in Cook’s Bay, followed by a few days at anchorage in Opunohu Bay. We explored the island on a few hikes before heading off to Bora Bora on August 28th.
Mo’orea has become one of our favorite places in the world and we are forever grateful to have met her.
Mo’orea has become one of our favorite places in the world and we are forever grateful to have met her.
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This is Chiharu Shiota’s “The Soul Trembles” exhibition at the Queensland Gallery of Modern Art. It is deeply moving.
After one year and ten days, we were finally reunited with our puppies, 10-year-old Labradoodles, Mackie and Paigie, and 4-year-old Great Dane, Phoebe.
2008 vs. 2022 at the Queensland Museum 💙
We are greatly enjoying regular trips to the Sunshine Coast to visit our family. The Queensland weather continues to be beautiful and allows us to spend time outside every day. The beach is always one of our favorite places, and when you see a creek running into the ocean, you have to build a dam!
This is our neighborhood in Brisbane, about 300 meters from the Brisbane River. After 5 days of sustained heavy rain, areas of Brisbane are under water. The water levels are very close to our house, but if the forecast holds we should be ok.
Ellie & Picasso at the Queensland Art Gallery on a very beautiful rainy day in Brisbane.
A rainy early morning at the iconic Bondi Beach.
Forest bathing in the middle of the city 💚🌴🌳
In the summer of 2020, as COVID was raging through the world, we decided to sell our home in Virginia, move into a 40-foot motorhome named "Thelma," hitch our Jeep "Louise" to her and hit the road.
We had no idea where we were going or how long we'd be traveling. Our kids, Jack, then 16, and Ellie, then 14, were doing school virtually and us parents were working remotely. Mackie, Paigie, and Phoebe had lived their whole lives on our property and we had no idea how they would fare in a "tiny house on wheels" living situation.
We traveled 10,000 miles through 21 states, visited 11 National Parks and spent 3 months over the winter living on the beach in Mexico. It was a trip of a lifetime and we loved it.
In June 2021, we sold Thelma and Louise and bought Hanavave, a 38-foot 2002 Fountaine Pajot catamaran in Tahiti. We decided to relocate our family to Australia, but at the time the only way to get there was by boat.
The puppies had to stay in Washington State and begin the long and cumbersome importation process into Australia. The minimum period is 6 months since the first test and since we had begun the process two months before, we figured that we were saying goodbye for a maximum of four months. It was a very difficult decision, but their caretaker, Colleen, is an amazing lady and we knew that she would take wonderful care of them. Saying goodbye to the puppies was one of the hardest things our family has ever had to do.
Little did we know that it would be a year and ten days before we'd see them again.
Our sailing trip was complicated by the fact that as soon as we arrived in Tahiti, all ports in the South Pacific closed due to the quickly-spreading Delta variant of COVID. This meant that instead of island hopping, we had to make long passages to Australia and there was a lot to be done on Hanavave to prepare her for that journey. We made it to Brisbane in mid-October, but it would take another 8 long months to get the puppies to Australia.
They arrived on June 1, a year to the day we left them.
📷 @jack_gamble_shoots
TRAVEL WITH US!
We are currently sailing the South Pacific to Australia.
Thank you for joining us, have a great day!