The Tuamotus Diaries #41, Day 79 – August 15th 2016
When I was a kid, on the verge of my pre-teenage years, when dreams are starting to spawn and go wild, I had already been irreversibly infected by the sailing bug. Back then, my mother used to keep my dreaming juices in boil by bringing home, every now and then, a new copy of Brazil’s then only sailing magazine. I can’t recall if my demand for each new edition was endless or whether she managed supply to keep my desire high, but the fact is that I took each new unit with special joy, reading them entirely from cover to back as soon as she produced them, and then reading them over and over again until the new edition would arrive.
One edition that interested me particularly had on its cover a picture taken from the top of a yacht’s mast. It showed the vessel’s front half, with its tan-silverish teak deck contrasting beautifully with the intense blue of the background, which was not the water itself, but the sea bottom, over which the shadow of the yacht was clearly outlined. To be honest, part of my interest stemmed from the fact that I couldn’t find any element of that magazine’s content that related to the cover image. But as I read and re-read it in search of a logical answer, that image ended up getting pretty engraved in my mind. Later on, based on my ongoing readings, I assumed that picture had been taken in the Tuamotus, and quickly thereafter a dream was formed to one day reach that place with my own yacht.
That was at least 30 years ago.
Today, I finally climbed atop Pesto’s mast and, pointing the camera down, framing Pesto’s tan-silverish deck against the intense blue bottom of Fakarava’s south pass, I felt a very strong satisfaction. This intangible image is as solid and gleaming as a trophy to me.
Here is a short video I shot from up there:
And here a few more static images … need I say more?
THANK YOU for watching !!!