We left San Francisco on February 10, 2010 with a plan to head south to Mexico and then make the innocently named "puddle jump" to the South Pacific (!!) this spring. From there, who knows?!?!?!? Maybe Fiji? Australia? New Zealand? For now, we're just thrilled to finally be out at sea! 
As you can imagine, after 25 days on a little boat out in the ocean, we were quite ready to get OFF the boat and get our feet on solid ground. So, our first day in Nuku Hiva, Matt put the dinghy together and we went into town to get some dinner. After getting some advice on ATM’s and restaurants from two other cruising guys, we ended up at a little pizza/seafood joint and ordered deux bieres et un pizza grand avec chorizo. As we poured our beers and clicked glasses, we both had the thought that it would be nice to know some toasts. Specifically, some toasts en Francais. Alors, since I’m excited to be parlaying French again, here’s some I came up with. Please forgive any errors in grammar/spelling/conjugation, I am going for rhyme and humor 🙂
Embrassez la voile
Embrassez la mast
Embrassez le bateau
et embrassez mon a**!!
(Kiss the sail, kiss the mast, kiss the boat and kiss my a**!)
Neptune et le roi
de toutes dans la mer,
mais j’ai la victoire
parce que j’ai toutes les bieres!
(Neptune is the king of all that’s in the ocean, but I have the victory because I have all the beer!)
Toutes les personnes qui ont les bateaux sont feux
parce que les bateaux cassent toutes les fois
mon bateau est casse maintenant
et il est la raison que je bois
(All the people who have boats are crazy because boats break all the time. My boat is broken right now, and that is the reason I drink)
Mon bateau casses toutes les jours
et aujourd’hui, il est sous la mer
mais je suis un/e homme/femme heureux,
dans la plage avec mon bière!
(My boat breaks all the time and today, it is under the sea, but I am a happy man/woman on the beach with my beer!)
And despite my total destruction of the beautiful french language, I received a compliment today from the guy with the hamburger truck. He asked if we were Americans and we said yes, and he said, “Your french is very good. You speak very good french, especially for an american.” ha! I’m hoping that our efforts will make us some friends and get us into some adventure 🙂
Karen/Matt, you probably don’t remember me. I met you guys in Summit County back in January ’07 when I was visiting Jeff and you were at a condo with us, Erin/Andrew, Haradon, etc.. Anyway, I really liked this post. Suggestions for good rhyming words to use in the future:
chateau/chapeau
oeuf/boeuf
poulet/billet
Applaudissements,
Keith
*Rires* Merci bien pour cette bonne rigolade!
These are quite some toasts, thanks for the morning laugh. I am sure you’ll make a lot of friends. Frenchs are very appreciative when someone try.
Thanks to you & Matt to share all that experience. I so hope to be there one day.
Cheers
Philippe
SIS!!! Well done! the only french toast I know is the kind you have for breakfast, but I offer up a toast for you — and you can come up with your own translation 🙂
Across the sea we done sailed,
Nary a sight of a squid or a whale.
The beach! Finally! Land!
Now our cracks are all full o’ sand.
Cheers! Time to wash out my tail!
Congrats to both of you!