“One trip leads to another”. How many times have I heard this adage? A few years ago carried by pleasant trade winds, we sailed through the lagoon of Fakarawa, in French Polynesia on the Sauvage, our friends’ Sophie and Didier’s sailing boat. Those long and peaceful off-grid trips are frine opportunities for talking stories and letting secrets slip. I listen to Didier’s tales of his numerous crossings between the Antarctic and Alaska. “You must have seen it all!” I wonder aloud. “Are there still any inaccessible islands, any virgin waves left?”
“There is one indeed, it is part of the Line Islands and it would definitively warrant a stopover”, replies Didier in his typically impassive voice.
“We never made it there since it’s too far west from our route towards Alaska, but I heard about a French man, a kind of Robinson Crusoe, who has been living there for years, completely self-sufficient.
He even opened a guest house, but he doesn’t get many guests since getting there is almost…impossible. Which is a shame because there’s said to be a great wave in front of his place.” The Fakarawa lagoon shimmers in all sorts of blue under our bow sprit. Afar, the rest of the Tuamotu islands, then the Pacific Ocean blend into a mirage on the horizon, almost making me dizzy. One day, I will knock on this Robinson Crusoe’s door.
