Zeke moored on the busy quay at Papeete, where I would leave her behind
The final ocean passage was notable for one good reason: it was the first leg of the whole journey on which I didn't throw up (although I still felt bloody awful for the two-and-a-half days it took to sail from Makemo to Tahiti). I'd chundered from Pahia to Whangarei, hurled from Whangarei to Mangareva, spewed from Mangareva to Amanu and vomited from Amanu to Makemo, but I held it down from Makemo to Tahiti. Despite this, sea legs are still things that happen to other people, and definitely not me.
I finally made the decision to leave Zeke when we were about to head off for Tahiti. Being a kind, considerate person, I told Rob just before we left Makemo that I was considering leaving, and I didn't want to screw him around and leave him short of crew. He said it was a real shame and that I'd been an excellent crewmember, but he was glad I'd told him, and if I really decided to leave, he could probably find crew in Tahiti.
The real reason for my antipathy towards remaining on Zeke was that I'm simply never going to be at home on a boat. As we sailed off to Tahiti I realised that this was perfect sailing: constant, unchanging trade winds aft of the beam, not too much swell and only a little rolling, but I was still totally miserable. I just don't like sailing: I find it uninspiring, boring and a lot of effort for little return. Talking to other yachties it's almost universal that sailors find ocean passages a bore and that it's the landfalls that make yachting worthwhile, but this goes against much of what I've enjoyed about exploration: in Australia and New Zealand the journey was at least as important as the destination, if not more so, and on the way to Papeete I realised that I no longer wanted to travel in a way that reversed this emphasis, stressed me out and made me physically ill.
The other overwhelming reason for disembarking at Papeete was that I'd realised (not for the first time) that I like to travel alone. When you're alone, survival depends on your own actions, and this makes talking French, working out public transport, ordering food and simply managing to exist quite a thrill: however, on a yacht you have a home from home, which removes a lot of the stress and fun of day to day living, there's a plan that isn't really that changeable, and there are always people around on the boat from whom you can't easily get away (and when Laurent and Ron were arguing, that's precisely what I wanted to do). So before I got to Papeete, my mind was made up: it was back to solid ground for me.
Approaching Tahiti was wonderful. I saw my final landfall, I smelt the city of Papeete (Pah-pay-eh-tay) from afar – the first real city smell since Auckland – and the lights glowed as we sailed into the harbour at 2am on Saturday 5th July. We dropped anchor and hit the sack, the elation of impending change quite tiring me out.
The next day was spent trying to squeeze the boat onto the overcrowded quay at Papeete, which we eventually managed to do after discovering that we'd dragged anchor while visiting the information centre in town (a scary experience, when you find the boat's moved considerable distance down the harbour, only being saved by other yachties leaping on board and dropping more chain). I had visions of us being stuck in the middle of the harbour for days, having to keep an anchor watch, but by Saturday afternoon we were tied up at the quay on the end of a line consisting of all kinds of yachts, from mansions to mouse holes. Our neighbours were fun, and I sighed with relief as I realised that I would never have to do another ocean passage. I was a man set free.
