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American Spirit II - Day 83; On to Fatu Hiva, and Another Green Flash Sunset; Thursday, March 27, 2014



Up at 5:30 AM; breakfast at 7:15 AM. We checked our email after breakfast and I had a response from Martin from the boat Caduceus of Burnham. I had emailed him last night and asked him about the anchorage at Fatu Hiva and if he had any directions to the waterfall there. He gave me excellent information on both accounts, and indicated that the villagers had even hosted a large dinner for them.



At 8:15 AM Joel dropped me off at the dingy dock so I could settle up with our agent; coordinate with Alex his pick up from Hiva Oa by our boat on Saturday, to take him to Nuku Hiva; and to pick up some fresh French bread at the fueling station.



At 9:04 AM we weighed anchor and departed the anchorage en route to Fatu Hiva, 42 miles away. To weigh anchor we had to back down by letting more anchor chain out from our bow anchor, then pull up our stern Fortress anchor; and then pull forward again raising up our bow anchor. We also had to take the motor, oars and dingy anchor out of the dingy as we were going to tow the dingy behind us.



The route to Fatu Hiva is against the trade winds, heading a little east of south for 42 miles. Because we can't use our mainsail, we had to motor the whole way. We used our jib for some of the journey, but then had to roll it up as the wind was on the nose.



The first order of business once we left the anchorage was to empty our boat's holding tank. The next order of business was to turn the water maker on and make a lot of water. Whenever you're in an anchorage, you can't flush anything overboard, so you have to use your boat's holding tank. And because the water in an anchorage is not of the best quality, we don't use the water maker until we get under way again.



At 11:50 AM we ran into a 30 knot rain squall that lasted 10 minutes. Folie a Deux was hit by the squall first and called us just as we were getting hit ourselves, letting us know it was coming. The waves during the trip were 6 to 8 feet, and we had a fair number of waves that covered the forward part of the boat. As a result of that, we found that 2 of our 3 forward hatches were leaking. Hopefully they can be 'fixed.' For the first time since leaving Tampa I actually felt a little queasy. Still functional, just not firing on all cylinders.



At 12:30 PM I picked up Fatu Hiva on the horizon. I could see the faint outline of the mountains of the island. Additionally, its always pretty easy to find an island by looking for the clouds that are over it. Each island has its own weather system, and part of that weather system is a set of clouds over the land mass, easily recognizable from a distance.



The other boats from Hiva Oa that were heading there with us, besides us and Follie a Deux, were Ghost, Saphir and Trillium.



We arrived at Fatu Hiva and were anchored by 5:11 PM. As we did on Hiva Oa, we dropped a bow and a stern anchor. The name of the anchorage is Baie Hanavave. There were four or five other boats from our Rally already there.



The sun set at 5:19 PM, and Joel and Mike saw a Green Flash. I missed it. Dinner at 6:00 PM consisted of spaghetti two ways - butter and garlic sauce for Joel and myself; and tomato paste for Mike; plus French bread and chilled fruit cocktail for dessert.



From 7:00-9:00 PM we watched two more episodes of The Sopranos. While we were doing this, every 10 or 15 minutes as the boat swung a little in the wind, one of our anchors would pull across some rocks under the boat and make a weird, metallic, stretched rubber-band type sound. Not very comforting. Also, as we watch DVD's on the boat we have to have the boat's generator on to power the inverter. That's the primary disadvantage of watching movies on the boat - running the generator to do so.



Mike and Joel hit the sack at 10:00 PM as we're getting up early tomorrow (7:00 AM)to hike up to the waterfall at 8:00 AM before the heat of the day sets in. According to persons who hiked to the falls previously, it will take about 1 1/4 to 1 1/2 hours each way; or 2 1/2 to 3 hours round trip, exclusive of the time we spend at the waterfall. The waterfall on Fatu Hiva is 2,000 feet high; and the third highest waterfall in the world.



Brian Fox

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