by steve, on May 8th, 2010 (
Lilith, Marquesas, Renova)
After our brisk overnight sail to Hiva Ona we anchored in the harbour close to Atuona, the main town here. John was already asleep and Helen went below immediately to catch up. I was left to sort out the dinghy and set a stern anchor on my own which I did badly. It was enough to hold us so I did my blog and sorted a few things out before waking John to reset the stern anchor. As soon as that was done we were called over to Papa Joe, a French boat, to let us know we were in the wrong place. Oops. We should have been behind some orange markers.
Helen had woken by now so we up anchored (both of them) and made our way around to the back of the pack of boats here. There were two boats preparing to leave so we had to wait while one of them struggled to removed their stern anchor.
Once we were hooked we quickly went ashore to walk the mile or two into town to clear in. The walk was hot and sweaty but we found the gendarmerie easy enough and cleared in. Just like the French islands in the Caribbean the all import zarpe from the previous port was unnecessary.
We then had a wander around town getting some cash, ice cream, French bread (we ate one there and then) and some very expensive vegetables.
In the library the internet fees were as expensive as the harbour so having lugged our laptops all around in the heat (at least I lugged them) we passed on this.
Back on the boat we ate some left overs with some more bread and crashed out as we were all very tired. In the afternoon I bought an hours worth of internet for over $5 and downloaded my emails as well as sending our boat docs and clearance papers to our agent in Tahiti. At the end of the hour we had my email download was interrupted while downloading message 289 out of 289. Arghhhh. Further attempts to reconnect via the pay for service failed with all error messages in French. I did manage to get into a free open connection but that was incredibly slow.
Around 6pm we went ashore to meet up with Richard and Christie from Lileth and Naomi and John from Renova. We planned to walk into town to watch the dancing and beauty competition. As luck would have it a bus full of drummers and their drums stopped to pick us up. We had to sit on laps to squeeze in but we made it.
Sitting in the audience amongst the locals watching their own annual event was quite a treat. We picked up a vast portion of chicken and chips which was very filling. As the night wore on we saw different dance groups. Some all male, some all female, some kids, some mixed. There were a couple of truly atrocious comedy sketches to fill time. In between we got to see 8 young ladies competing in the beauty competition. We first saw them in traditional outfits, then the beach ware then formal. Not quite Miss World but it was that kind of thing. We didn’t see the winner but we had our own personal favourites.
We came back with the Lileths before the end due to tiredness. As luck would have it we were picked up by someone with a pickup truck. We rode in the back despite it being illegal here. We slept very, very well last night.
One thing we’ve learned is that quite a few of the boats here are awaiting parts from their crossing. It’s a rough ride on boats and even little things need to be fixed. One boats entire set of batteries is screwed which is a nasty situation to be in. We feel relieved our problems allow us to keep moving while waiting for our water make pump.
Today we plan to walk to some nearby petroglyphs. We understand we can pick fruit along the way. We may end up leaving for Tahuata today and perhaps come back here later on when we need to collect our part.
Right now I’m uploading photos very slowly. There’s no chance I’ll get them all up but our crossing photos are done. This is all mainly the pilot whales. No photos of dead flying fish. I don’t need photos to remember these ghastly, stinky creatures.
If I manage to upload more the first place you’ll begin to see them will be on our photos page .