7 deadly sins. 7 capital virtues.

15^th April 2024

Atuona, Tahauku Bay, Hiva Oa, Marquises, French Polynesia – Hanamoenoa, Tahuata, Marquises, French Polynesia

There are 7 deadly sins and to balance them there are 7 capital virtues. We’re not very good very good at either the deadly sins or indeed the virtues and have been forced to practice one of the virtues: Patience. With Ruffian broken and our rigging slowly making its way from Australasia to Tahiti we’ve had to be patient.

While waited for our rigging to make its way across the southern hemisphere we fell into a new routine that couldn’t involve sailing, or stressing Ruffian’s mast in any way, but did involve all the usual things that fill our cruising lives.

The Manta Rays seemed totally in tune with our new routine and every day, just as the sun was peeking above the horizon they entered the bay and we entered the water. With gentle sweeps of their wings day after day they flew underneath us taking no heed of our presence with their focus fully on gathering as many krill as they could. We watched entranced as they found pockets of krill and performed loop after loop, sucking these tiny creatures into the huge open mouths. They were clearly well practised in the art of “Gluttony”.

While sins were happening below the water, there were virtues above, and we ticked off the virtue of “Kindness”. After weeks offshore all our bedsheets had turned from a pure white to a dull grey and all had a covering of only what can be described of as slime. As we talked about these ghastly apparitions to ‘Blown Away’ they just told us to bring them over and they’d ‘Chuck them in the machine’. After 100’s of litres of water, many many amps out of their batteries our sheets were returned to their resplendent white and all that slime had been put into the water feeding those Krill. This was an act of kindness that was above and beyond any thing we could expect.

With more and more boats completing their Pacific crossings executing “Temperance” was going to be a problem. There were dinghy drifts to a soundtrack of crashing waves, there were floating cocktails off the back of boats as the sun set and classic sundowners on the roofs of catamarans that were high above the waters surface.

We also found ourselves having to show true “Diligence” in our walking. High above Ruffian stood hills and bluffs that were almost asking to be scaled. The only problem was that between us and them was near impenetrable bush.

Time and again we tried to break our way through and each time we were turned around. Finally, with the exuberance of Brown and Eileen we got through the bush, scrambled up over loose jagged rocks and up into the sunshine. As we climbed up the scarily steep slopes the jagged rocks gave way to marble like soil that transformed each step up to an act of Russian Roulette and we knew that if we fell then the jagged rocks were waiting far below us. Our diligence paid off as we were given a view of the bay, a view of our boats and a view of every we have pushed our way through.

Back on board Ruffian Iain’s “Humility” was about to be test to the max. The watermaker was once again ‘on the blink’ and testing him, so he set out to prove that he was superior to this inanimate object. Slowly o-rings were removed, surfaces polished, membranes cleaned and lip seals replaced. With each disassembly and reassembly the pressures rose a bit and the flow rate improved. Ultimately Iain proclaimed that he was indeed superior to a few bits of plastic, some metal tubes and a couple of pipes. He crowed and crowed at his excellence until Fiona reminded him that he should be practising his humility.

While all this was going on our “Patience” was being tested and we were envious of those who had working masts and were able to sail to new destinations. We knew however that patience was a virtue and after patiently waiting we were very virtuous.