Real boat life and a farm in paradise

This week we explore Tikehau, a remote atoll in French Polynesia, hidden among the tiny coral islands, is a world where life moves in a completely different rhythm. We visit a self-sufficient farm, dive into a lagoon searching for one of the ocean's most graceful creatures, and Leigh and I celebrate our 22 years of marriage in paradise. After all these years, there's still nowhere else I'd rather be. We bought a $15,000 boat made of concrete and sailed away with two little kids and no experience. People thought we were a little bit crazy, they were probably right, but we didn't want to wait so we went. Over a decade and two boats later, we're still out here. This is Sailing Catelpa, welcome aboard. Good morning guys, we pumped up the SUP boards this morning and we're going to go on a little SUP board adventure. It's the first non-windy day in weeks so it's super exciting. Let's go. One of the things I love about living on a boat is being able to jump on a paddleboard and explore places like this. As much as we love capturing these moments it can sometimes be a little bit tricky when you're out in the water and you're trying to film everything yourself. That's actually one of the reasons I was pretty excited to get this Hoverair Aqua. It's a waterproof flying camera designed specifically for life on the water. It's super easy to use, you can land in the water, you can take off from the water and it's all controlled from your arm Whether we're paddle boarding or doing yoga, it's another way to bring you guys along for the adventure. The HoverAir X1 Aqua drone is compact and easy to use, so if you're someone who loves being on the water and wants a different perspective on your adventures, the HoverAir Aqua is definitely worth checking out. I'll leave a link in the description if you want to have a look for yourself. Anyway, let's get back to exploring. What is going on there? She is bubbling. Oh my god, we didn't get new SUP boards for the Pacific. Yeah, when we fly somewhere. What SUP would we get next? Solid, so they don't deflate. Okay. It's open to coconut very neatly. Looks very delicious. We haven't really had, oh no, we have yogurt, but it's getting on to lunchtime. I'm getting a wee bit hungry, so I've got a coconut. Oh my god. This is peak life. We're getting a bit crispy, so it's time to go back to the boat. It's got on our paddle boards and Bella's sinking. Are you going to make it back? We're both on this one now. This one also has a little hole, but it's still solid. That one is a solo-y sausage. Oh! I don't know how to drive with a trailer. Turns out we do have diving gear on the boat. We forgot that someone gave us a BCD and a regulator a really long time ago. And I actually, we knew that we had that, but we didn't know we had like a whole kit. Anyway, turns out we do. So I'm gonna jump in and clean the bottom of the boat and just test it all out today. This lovely boat that's behind us filled up our two tanks that we have because we've been carrying around these tanks that they've been empty. And there's some cool diving gear. I was like. Hinting towards them making me dive in, but we'll see. There's tiger sharks with hammerheads and cool ---- out there, but I don't know if I'll get out there. We do not have a dive computer, so we are missing one thing, and I'm just gonna dive shallow, obviously, clean the boat, the boat, and maybe have a look at the corals that are around the boat. So, go, honey, did I pass the leak test? You did. I cleaned the bottom and had a swim around, checked the anchor, and realised I was sinking quite a bit. But the old BCD ended up breaking and it could no longer hold air. So it was lucky I tested it out before going out into the ocean for a dive. Anchor from our first anchorage in Tikial. We're going to go further into the atoll where it's a bit out of the wind. It's a bit exposed where we are with the wind at the moment. So we are going to go down and there's also a shop. We need some provisions so we're going to go get some. And get into a nicer part of, well, not nicer, but just out of the wind, more protected part of the atoll. It's only about six miles away, so it's only an hour motor. We are going into the wind, it's about 15 knots, I think, how, what's the wind at? 12 knots? 15? And that's what is happening today. It was really beautiful yesterday where we were, because the wind was light. And yeah, we had a really lovely day, but it's picked up a bit today, so we'll go somewhere where it's a bit more protected. We're just dropping the anchor over near town so we're on the other side it's a little bit windy but we're a bit more protected over here. Just one and a half nautical miles out into the middle of the atoll there is a little island and apparently it has a manta ray cleaning station so we're gonna jump in our dinghy go out and see if we can see some mantas today. We didn't have any luck seeing any mantas but we enjoyed the swim. This is a little gecko and we just got him off a coconut tree. Geckos are actually really good to have on your boat because they eat all the other bugs so if you have a problem with cockroaches or flies or anything like that just put a little gecko on board and they sort out all your bugs. Bella's not a fan of geckos so we can't actually have a gecko on board because she'd freak out. No we'd never take it away from its beautiful home. Wasn't Bella really scared? It really lives in paradise you couldn't do that to this one. Can you get it away from me? Sometimes the geckos aren't in a great place but this is in a great place look at it. The main village is called Taharahera, probably not pronounced like that at all, and fishing, coconut harvesting, tourism and pearl farming have traditionally supported life here. Just come over to go to the supermarket. Lee's hobbling because his knees blown up sometimes he gets like a sore knee. He hasn't had it for ages so he's a bit bummed but hopefully it'll only be a couple days it'll be good. You good? Good. This is, where are we? Tiki Owl, a fire truck. I do love these villages, like the atolls are beautiful but when there's villages they have flowers around. A little big fire truck, there is an airport on this atoll, it's quite a big atoll. Pretty built up, there's some diving shops and I think people come here mostly for scuba diving obviously just for the water and the the beauty of the place and and there is a wave here, so it's that time of the year. It's hard to get to. Lee and I were celebrating our 22nd wedding anniversary. 22 years and we've shared so many chapters together. So many places, so many adventures, and probably a few more challenges than we ever imagined when we first started out. We've built a life that has taken us a long way from where it all began and somehow we were celebrating another year together on a tiny beach in the middle of the Pacific. We spent the morning doing very little at all, just the two of us sitting on the beach, drinking fresh coconuts, enjoying the sunshine and taking in where we were. Sometimes when you're constantly moving, exploring and chasing the next adventure, it's easy to forget to stop and appreciate what you already have. And Lee, I feel incredibly lucky to share this life with you. Not just the beautiful places and the adventures, but all the ordinary moments in between as well. After 22 years, I think those little moments are what matters most. And also having my best friend beside me to experience it all with. Love you forever and always. We heard about a self-sufficient farm here that we could buy eggs and some greens. It's called Il d'Eden or Eden Island. We headed over with our mates off Vela. The family that lives here do tours and today they showed us around. So here we have collected all the organic trash that we have like coconut husk, palm, kitchen waste and animal manure to make our own compost and with this compost we have plant multi crops of fruit tree and other garden that you see with no imported soil and fertilizer from outside and show the tourists and people of the island that is still possible to do farming on the island. and also to be self-sufficient on the farming floor. What is that a cherry? And how long were you on the boat? Um... 12 years. Wow. Yeah. So you sailed from Australia to Indonesia? No, we were in Asia for a long time. Asia? You want to try? And then we bought another boat in San Diego. In what place in Asia? Oh, it's really juicy. Mostly Indonesia. It's the same family with all kids. So we have put the black net on the top to cut off the heat from the sun. Make some chicken. I don't know. Hello. Hi baby. Oh, there is honey. Sea water inside by multi-level by evaporation, with sunny day we can start to collect the sea salt. And one building like this with sunny day we can make 50 kilo of sea salt per harvest every five to six weeks. All the products that we have here on the island for self-replication, the overlap of the product we sell out Yeah. You're a bit smelly. Look at that guy. That's a pig. Piggy pig. Oh, you're the mama pig. Hi. Hello. Oh, there's a cute baby one. There's a cute one, Taj. Oh, very cute. Thank you. Thank you. Wow, look at all the bok choy. So here we have our small market, small garden. We have lettuce, Chinese cabbage. Oh, look at all the bok choy. Oh, look at all the bok choy. Oh, look at all the bok choy. Oh, look at all the bok choy. Oh, look at all the bok choy. We have lettuce, Chinese cabbage. Chilli, herbs, basil, chives, spring onion, and all this we have clumped with the compost we've made here on the island. And every time we have a finished harvest, we want crops we have add the compost and we have also plant different plant to make rotation in the garden so in future we're going to have eggplant tomato and cabbage wow so you won't make your market yeah okay Oh, thank you. You sure? You sure? Yeah. It's quite remarkable to see what they've managed to create, growing their own fruit and vegetables, raising animals and collecting rainwater and even producing their own salt in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. We bought eggs, lettuce and herbs and made a yummy salad and pesto pasta for dinner. After all these years sailing the world, I think one of the greatest privileges of this life is still being able to wake up somewhere new, explore a new backyard and do it as a family and I'll never take these days for granted. This is our final day here before our adventure takes us somewhere new. We just pulled anchor from the eastern anchorage in Tikiau and this is our last atoll in the Tuamotus. We're actually heading towards Tahiti today so it's a little bit sad but we've had a lovely lovely time. We actually had we had a good amount of time out here and um yeah but I could stay out here forever I think. It's absolutely beautiful but we have finally It's been a while, we got a buddy boat. We're sailing with another boat today and we're heading towards Tahiti. So we've been hanging out with them, it's been lots of fun. And now we're gonna see somewhere new in French Polynesia. We have never been to Tahiti, so we're very excited. And there is some weather that there's only the window is only today and then there's no window for like at least 10 days. So we're either gonna be stuck out here for another 10 days or we had to head off. Also have a new plan, we may be heading to New Zealand, so we've got to get a move on. Today, we're heading towards Tahiti and our buddy boat's got a 62-foot gunboat, so we're going to see if we can beat them today, and we're going to test Katalpa out and see how well she goes. They also have a head start, they've already got a head start. If they do get there first, I'm calling it the head start. We'll anchor at least an hour before us. No, it wasn't. Well, it was five hours, I reckon. I think it was 15 minutes. Who made those bells? They were pretty great. Pretty great? Everything you expected? Maybe one of my favorite places we've ever sailed. It's pretty special. What about you? Pretty nice. Yeah. I think we all had a lovely time out here. Did you like it, Captain? Too bloody windy for my liking. It's really windy. It is paradise, but, um... I think we all had a lovely time out here. Did you like it, Captain? I think we all had a lovely time out here. Did you like it, Captain? Too bloody windy for my liking. It's really windy. It is paradise, but, um... Obviously, you're in the trade, so we've seen a lot of days around 20 knots, so you've always got to get over to the windward side of the island, so you get protection from the sets that build in these atolls. Apart from that, you do get some glass out days, and it's pretty nice. We didn't have much luck with waves, though, have we? Oh, we did some of the tiger sharks. No. We did some of the tiger sharks. A pretty amazing time here. We could have probably stayed a bit longer, but there was a perfect weather window, and well, we're setting sail. It's only 100 nautical miles away, and... 180. 180. Oh, it's 180. Oh, it's literally an overnighter. Yeah, we should be there tomorrow afternoon. Guys, we're about to put the main sail up. We just came out of the pass, our last pass. And I think there's passes down further. Our last pass for the two winners. So we've got a race today Belle, what's our competition out there, what have we got today? We have a Gunboat 62 vs a Peterson 530. They've got a head start, their mains already up. See you next time!