to recount up to this point the four bros myself included we've overcome a number of obstacles
our internal gut health has since returned to semi-normal at this point our motion sickness
is pretty well dissipated now we're about as ready as we'll ever be to complete the final
chapter which consists of sampling from our own backyard which is nice oh the one thing
that we hadn't anticipated is that the boat that we'd been using to visit the other two islands
is not available for this particular trip two of the bros are New Zealanders who are only visiting
Moorea for a very short period of time we're in a time crunch we either have to scrap this last
piece of the puzzle which is not really an option or we have to suck it up and take a lesser boat
this lesser boat is you know it's kind of not the most pretty things a bit rusty bit banged
up it's also a bit sinky we figure you know this thing hasn't sunk very often we're probably gonna
be completely fine we're only gonna have the boat out for ten eleven hours tops it's go time
ironically it wasn't until the very end of our last dive that we had an issue we start to drive
away from the dive site all of a sudden the boat engine dies we're on the fore reef and
that means that the waves are actually pushing us into the reef crest if you've been to a coral
reef you know that you're standing on the shore you often see Whitecaps on the reef those are
waves smashing on the crests of the reef the tallest part of the reef this is actually one
of the reasons that we love coral reefs they're these growing rocks that provide these amazing
structural barriers from huge waves that would otherwise be battering coastlines so we're about
to get destroyed by these growing rocks that we love the second we realize this we throw anchor
is it gonna hold is it gonna hold anchor holds and now we're kind of in a weird situation we tried a
lot of different options to get this thing going any sort of MacGyver tactics that any of us had
learned in the field up to this point we gave it a go nothing doing of course we did bring a cell
phone with us for safety reasons but as you can imagine cell phone reception off shore on a tiny
island in the South Pacific, not too good now we play the waiting game we start having serious discussions
at this point about whether we're gonna swim to swim from our current location would be quite a
challenge not only do you have a lot of waves but it's about two miles to shore, about three and a
half kilometers so it's getting later in later probably the only thing worse than swimming for
your life over long distances in the ocean is doing it at night the only shortcut would be to
go over the reef crest with our bodies that's something you necessarily want to do anywhere
especially on this particular stretch of the reef we're on the west side of the island where the
waves happen to be pretty big the biggest on Moorea they're not GOP size waves but they're
big finally we decide we're gonna give it one more shot after about 15 minutes letting the
engine sit if it doesn't start this time we got to start swimming fingers crossed we don't know how
it happened the engine did start yes now we got to move quick we got to pull this anchor up and
if it dies again we're simply in a worse situation because we can get pushed even closer to the crest
and would need to throw the anchor immediately so we're on the ready we pull the anchor up ready to
throw it again engine holds we get out of there not quite dark yet in fact the weather cleared up
a little bit on the way home we're all feeling really awesome we also had the good fortune of
seeing a kite surfer who almost ran into our boat on the way home that's good luck it certainly
hasn't been a completely smooth set of expeditions but we got a lot done and we're all still alive
would I do it again if you asked me today uh yeah sure the best part was when this expedition ended
I still had almost three months left to do field research in French Polynesia the saga continues