Marquesas

View of TaiohaeWe had originally planned to leave Taiohae today, to spend a few days in Hakatea, also known as Daniel's Bay, but decided to stay an extra day in order to have new acquaintances from a Norwegian sailboat to dinner. Arve Johannson, owner of S/Y Hildring, and his friend Egil Mollekleiv both speak excellent English and seemed like interesting people to get to know. Little did we know how interesting. Arve and his wife...

View of TaiohaeTuesday we finish our "Official Business" of checking into French Polynesia. After missing the "open hours" yesterday, we go to the Post Office first thing in the morning, buy the stamp for 55PF and mail "The Official Letter" to Papeete. It isn't really "first thing" because we have to wait until after a tropical downpour, which here go by the misnomer of "rain showers". We then go back to the Gendarmarie office, and...

Don and ladies picking fruitDon and I head up to the hotel Monday morning at 0800 to meet with Ismael, the bartender. We met Ismael Saturday night, when we ate dinner at the hotel. Marianne, the wife of the chef, who is also the restaurant manager and our waitress for the evening, had made arrangements for Ismael to take us up into the hills to gather fruit of all kinds. She told us that there...

Church is outWe were up by 0630 on Sunday morning, but it didn't seem that early. We had left out clocks on Los Cabos time for our passage and arriving in Nuku Hiva changed them to two and a half hours earlier (a total of 3 ½ hrs. earlier than Seattle, standard time). Church at 0800 was delightful. There are two churches in the village, one Catholic and one Protestant. We went to the Catholic...

Starr at HakahauKaoha Nui from Nuku Hiva,We made landfall on Saturday, March 31, at about 1600. We had increased the rpm of the boat from 1200 to 1300, which increased our boat speed from about 7 knots to 7.5+knots. This enabled us to arrive on Saturday afternoon, instead of after dark, a much more pleasant experience. We wanted to get a good night's rest so we could go to church on Sunday morning. We go...