Mooring off the north west coast of Ra’iatea
Local time: 08252011, 1620/GMT: 08262011, 0320
We sailed from Nuku Hiva to Tahiti on a 47 foot sloop being the only ones aboard except the captain, a 62-year-old Australian. He needed some help with a few projects and proposed to give us board, in addition to taking us to Tahiti, if we would hang out a while there to help him.
When we got to the marina close to Pape’ete on the north coast of Tahiti, they didn’t have a slip available for us so they had us tie up on the VIP dock between the super yachts of the even superer rich. Next to us was a beautiful 50-year-old German schooner, 110 feet, all wood and varnish. On the other side were two sloops that would probably have measured in at about the same length as the schooner, with the height of their single masts significantly exceeding the two master’s main.
The super rich tend to employ decent sized crews that rarely do anything more exciting than clean the boat all day long and get drunk all night long. When the owner is not around—which is the case most of the time—they live a fairly mellow life.
Now, those two super sloops on our port side were one boat away. In between them and us was a vessel that was pretty big, maybe 70 feet, but far away from being a super yacht. A bunch of French people were on it fixing it up. We couldn’t really figure out what their deal was, how many of them there were, or what their plans were, because they stuck to themselves and every attempt on our side to start a conversation was ended rather quickly and awkwardly on their side. But they never did anything wrong and were pleasant and quiet neighbors.
One afternoon, the crew of the super yacht neighboring the French boat started getting drunk rather early and by 9 PM they were trashed. This is when the fun started.
The dude that we had decided was the captain or at least a boss-like figure on the French boat politely asked the captain of the super yacht if it were possible to turn the music down a little. That was too much to ask, apparently, because the other captain started yelling at him instantly. I was on deck blatantly watching the scene. This was better than Hollywood and I was not gonna miss a bit.
The arguments the drunken captain had lined up were undeniable, well thought through, and of great persuasive power. First, he complained about the French people smoking on their boat all day long, forcing his crew to inhale second hand smoke. Obviously a loud-music related argument. Next he went off about the French people sticking to themselves, never trying to socialize with his crew, and not responding to invitations for barbeques, making him, the captain, look like an asshole. An argument that would have made Cato the Elder look like a debating novice had the two been contemporaries. He also didn’t forget to compare the two boats—a super yacht vs. a ‘piece of shit’—which I thought was probably the strongest of his arguments. And finally, he mentioned that one of the French people had once urinated off the bow at night while the owner of the German schooner was present. His concern for other boats’ owners filled my heart with happiness.
The boss-like figure on the French boat responded that they had sick people on board who needed rest and asked if it were possible to maybe turn the music down a little. What a weak come back. I was thoroughly disappointed in him. This show down was not going to last long if he couldn’t come up with anything stronger. This feeble attempt, however, just got the American captain even more agitated, and he kept repeating over and over again his few but strong arguments for why the music was not to be turned down—an ingenious strategy if you ask me—, diligently interrupting any attempt of the Frenchman to explain his request.
Obviously, the exhalation of smoke 20 feet away in an outdoors environment is a horrible deed that must be punished with noise. So the drunken captain had a good point there. More interesting, though, is the fact that he complained about the French people not coming to his barbeque, not eating his food, drinking his drinks. He said that made him look like an asshole. I kind of understood the asshole part as I was listening to him go. He at least seemed to have a pretty accurate self-conception. And finally, someone urinating in front of the owner of another boat was considered a mortal sin as well. Apparently boat owners, especially rich ones, are saints and not to be molested in any way. Except with loud music, maybe, which seems to be acceptable.
At this point the French maybe-captain-boss-dude didn’t even push his request for quiet any longer but just tried to understand the ranting captain’s arguments and calm him down. Soon enough more people showed up on the decks of both boats involved, and other boats nearby. At one point, our captain, came on deck and yelled at the French that he’d had enough of them ‘frogs’ not talking to anyone, and just doing their own thing. How dare they? He was pretty quickly quieted down by a French girl, though, who yelled back that they didn’t appreciate his drunken noisiness in the middle of the night, either, shouting at the top of his lungs.
Our captain blushed and asked me quietly if that was true. I nodded. What did I yell, he asked? Weird imitations of bird cries, I replied. Oh—that thing, he muttered. Must be a regular thing for him, I suppose, even though I didn’t hear him do it the night he was so drunk he forgot the transparent box with his weed on the dock where I found it in the morning in bright sun shine.
Anyhow, it took but a minute for one of the super yacht’s crew members to come by to give our captain the thumbs-up for his support. Apparently they didn’t mind his bird cries as much as the French, even though the night he made them the owner of the German schooner was on board his ship. As opposed to the French, our captain had been out with the drunken crew before, buying them drinks all night, and I guess that’s more important than matters concerning the peace of other boat owners.
The debate between the two boats was soon relocated to the dock, where the drunken captain kept yelling his complaints. At this point the urination issue and the second hand smoke were forgotten—it was all about the barbeque and the French making him look like an asshole for not responding to the invitation. In other words, it was all about vanity.
Another American who had lived in Tahiti for some 20 years and joined the party on the super yacht chimed in, claiming that people like those French ‘destroyed places like this marina’. Everyone would be peaceful and happy if it weren’t for people like them, quietly minding their own business. He asked the French boss-type to ‘have a go’, but they didn’t. Other people intervened, which sucked. I would have liked to see it—partly because I had my money on the American asshole getting a second hole kicked in his ass.
Anyways. The mellower crew members of the super yacht turned off the music and dragged the aggressive ones to a bar. Our captain went with them.
The interesting thing is that I actually want to say the drunken American captain had a little bit of a point. Of course, all his arguments were entirely unrelated to the music and to French crew members being sick. But the way the French were isolating themselves from any social contact with other crews was weird and awkward. Wynne and I knew people on all the nearby boats and had had some superficial but friendly conversation with most everyone we ever saw. Had it been us who felt molested by loud music, we could have talked to people we already knew, addressed them by their names, and asked for some courtesy. It indeed is impolite to simply ignore an invitation without at least excusing oneself and giving a made-up reason.
Apparently the French crew realized that, too, that night, because they were much nicer and more open to us ever after. We found out that they had chartered the boat and were getting it ready to sail it all the way to Chile. The day we left our boat to continue our travels, they saw us at the bus stop with our big backpacks, as they were going by in a rental car, and picked us up to give us a ride.
So, on the one side, there were people who just wanted to stick to themselves in an environment where a tiny bit of openness is required, and on the other hand there were drunken assholes with offended vanity. Maybe it was more of a coincidence that heated debates had not risen before.
Now, what does that tell me about world peace? I don’t know and I decided to not think too much of it. I’ll just take it for what it really was. Good entertainment. Better and cheaper than any Hollywood movie, anyways.
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