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American Spirit II - Day 82; Hot and Sweaty, and Last Full Day in Hiva Oa; Wednesday, March 26, 2014



Rained during the night, 3:00 AM? Joel got up and closed the hatches and put recliners in the cockpit under the dodger to keep them dry. Still very bouncy in the anchorage. By bouncy I mean the bows of the boats in the anchorage are bouncing 18 inches up and down; and rolling back and forth 5 to 10 degrees. The bay or anchorage is .2 of a mile long and .14 mile wide. Called Baie Tahauku. Because we're on the side of the anchorage that the jetty is on, its less rough where we're at than on the other side of the anchorage.



Rained again before breakfast. At 10:45 AM we got a taxi and headed into town to look for propane fittings; and to go to the Paul Gaughin museum. The museum was closed when we got to it, due to it being time for the daily siesta. It was closed from 11:00 AM to 2:00 PM. So we headed to the 'yellow' building and had lunch, waiting for the stores and museum to open at 2:00 PM. Even the post office was closed. I thought the siesta was more of a Mexican thing. However, even in the Galapagos most stores, except for restaurants, closed during the middle of the day. I think the rational is that its just too hot and humid during the middle of the day. More of that later.



At 2:00 PM we entered the Paul Gaugin museum. The price of admission was 600 francs or about $8.00. All the exhibits in the museum were reproductions or copies of his works. Gaughin, who was born and lived in France most of his life, lived from 1848 to 1903; was an Impressionist Painter, and died in Atuona on Hiva Oa. He's buried in a cemetery here. He spent his last years painting on the island. A number of his works were self-portraits. He was a little weird. Besides the museum, we visited his studio and house. Nothing in the museum indicated why he died so young.



We returned back to the boat at 4:10 PM; and ended up shuttling Charlie and Randy from Celebrate around the anchorage. Their boat had just gotten in from the Galapagos, and their dingy was still secured on deck. From around 6:00 PM to 7:30 PM Joel and I went to Follie a Deux to try to get some propane transferred from a large tank to our small tank. We weren't successful. Hopefully in Nuku Hiva we'll have better luck.



Around 8:30 PM a lady started calling out to her boat from the dingy dock. It was eerie. We finally realized that she was the mother on Mojombo, a boat that had just entered Hiva Oa a few hours earlier, also from the Galapagos. She apparently was ill, and was taken to a hospital on the island just a few hours earlier. Either finding nothing wrong with her; or finding her untreatable, she was released. Her husband and two children on the boat could not hear her calls due to the distance to the boat and the howling wind and breaking waves inside of the jetty. A number of the Rally boats were talking about her on our radio net, channel 72. Finally, once we realized who she was and what she wanted, Joel got in our dingy, picked her up at the dingy dock and delivered her across the anchorage to her boat. The dingy dock is a very dicey place to exit and enter a dingy from. There are always waves sloshing about and moving the dingy's tied up there around. At any rate, when Joel put the bow of our dingy on the concrete dingy dock, this lady launched herself from the dock right into the bow section of the dingy. She was fast and apparently highly motivated to get back to her boat.



We had a late dinner, freeze dried Beef Stroganoff, at 9:00 AM; then watched another episode of The Sopranos. Lights out at 11:00 PM.



The reason for the words 'Hot and Sweaty' in the subject line is because the humidity and heat on Hiva Oa are oppressive. Back home you could always retreat into the air conditioning of your home, car, restaurant or business. Not here. Relief only comes after the sun sets, and then, at least in this anchorage, only when the wind funnels down the canyon at the end of the anchorage and out to the boats. Yes, we can always turn on the boat's generator and switch on the air conditioning, but that uses fuel; something we'd prefer not to use unless absolutely necessary. So sweating a lot will be the order of the day for the next 13 months? Who knows. I guess we'll appreciate air conditioning a lot more when we get home.



Brian Fox






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