In life, there are books that blow you away and mark your life forever. They don’t have to be great literature. They don’t have to improve your level of culture. But they simply strike a hidden cord in you, of whose very existence you were unaware…
Bernard Moitessier From Metropolitan France to Polynesia
Bernard Moitessier is that sailor who had set off on his first solo voyage around the world, then decided to abandon his journey to go his own way, after he had already successfully completed his round-the-world. He arrived off the coast of South Africa and, as a welcoming fleet prepared to greet the future winner, he informed them of his decision, using a catapult.
He then set sail towards the islands of the Pacific, where, after navigating the globe one and a half times without touching land, he came ashore…in Tahiti.
French Polynesia remained his home waters and, although he sailed away regularly, he always came back.
After his first two-year stay in Papeete, he dropped anchor at the atoll of Ahe. Here he lived as a latter-day Robinson Crusoe, welcoming a few like-minded visitors who shared his thirst for authenticity – such as the singer Antoine and a young journalist, Dominique Charnay, who became his confidant for the last twenty years of his life. He also spent extensive periods on the Polynesian islands of Moorea, Raiatea and Bora Bora.
To try and summarize his life would be mission impossible for a simple reason. Bernard Moitessier was not just a sailor and all that goes with that: free, solitary, avid for adventure and discovery and completely uninterested in material things.
He was also a writer.
The very existence of his books is our good luck, for rare are the sailors in this world who have had his ability to unveil the universe of the sea for us and share it with us with so much sincerity.
Moitessier’s books are an open door to the different dimensions of that other world, where sensations are our guide, where nature reigns supreme and man is a mere pupil.
For all those who plan to live or take a sail in Polynesian islands, his works are already a rich introduction.
Bernard Moitessier died serenely and peacefully on June 16 1984. “Death is natural and life is marvelous”.
Of all his books, we would give pride of place to “La Longue Route” (The Long Way) in which he describes his journey round the world, and to “Tamata and the Alliance” , the memoirs he wrote over six years.
.jpg)
0 commentaire