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Mischief - Yet more Mischief Log 14



Day 28 Tuesday 27 March 2018.

Another fitful night as it was so warm and stuffy down below so up early again to set off at 0845 for the planned rendezvous with the fleet in Nuku Hiva. It was a beautiful day with winds from the east at 12 knots making it a close reach to our destination. Sparkling seas, blue sky, warm breeze, sun shining! It is only around 28 miles and the island was immediately visible on leaving anchor. Ua Pou looks stunning behind us in the bright sunlight with only limited white clouds around the peaks, normally they are covered.

0700 early morning skinny dip. Jumped in and swam around the boat and showered off on the stern swim platform only then to notice that Libeccio, a US catamaran at anchor close to us, had swung to face us and the entire family and crew were sat watching my bare backside and more from their front patio - no big thing I suppose!

Nuku Hiva is the principal island of the Marquesas and the port we are heading towards is Taiohae, the administrative capital and largest town in the Marquesas - I'll bet we still can't get decent wifi! It lies in the open remains of a volcanic crater with the crater walls surrounding the town.

1730 went ashore, wandered along the sea front and found a bar- quite expensive but got us inside with an impending rain storm, and boy did it hammer down! I now realise that this is the start of the rainy season here and if this cloudburst was anything to go by it certainly can rain. We made our way back to the dinghy dock between showers and had chow mein in the bistro bar there; very good too.

Bed by 2100! But up again at 2340 on deck as it was too hot to stay down below. It became a bit of a Keystone Kops farce with Trevor, Jean, Dave and myself up an down the stairs all night getting some air.

Day 29 Wednesday 28 March 2018

0445 On deck again, this time for good so read for an hour or two. Really fancied a swim but since we have arrived we have heard a few stories of sharks swimming around the boats and attacking fish - I've not seen any personally but have no real wish to risk it!

The girls went ashore for a "Ladies Coffee Morning" in the posh hotel along the sea front. I'm sure that if there were to be a men only event there would be an uproar! Apparently the ladies had a little competition as to who had the most remarkable achievement to relate and Jean received the loudest cheer for having been married to Trevor for 42 years!! Truly she is a living Saint! Unfortunately, on the way back from dropping the girls at the dinghy dock Dave got whacked by another dinghy in jest, but Dave didn't see the funny side and told him what he thought! It was a bit awkward for the rest of the day but a beer will no doubt sort it out.

Needing something to do Dave and I went and procured a haircut. Dave came out looking more like Woody the Woodpecker than Woody himself. I asked for a number 2 around the sides and number 3 on top. Elaine the hairdresser (we were on first name terms by now) decided that would be too short and a No 3 and 4 would be more appropriate to which I agreed. She promptly then gave me what looks to all intents and purposes as a No 1 and 2! Very short and Dave in hysterics.

At 1400 we had a welcome meeting sponsored by the local tourist office with dancers performing the island's variant of the Haka followed by a craft fair and local foods, fresh coconuts and fruits after which there was a Skippers briefing for the next leg. It was as it says on the tin, brief! Surprisingly, there was no mention at all about the next ports of call, the Archipal Des Tuamotus, the group of atols covering the size of Europe some three days sail from here, which are a renowned navigational hazardous area as many of the atols are at or below sea level. Oh well….

The evening festivities comprised a meal of, amongst other things, boar wrapped in banana leaves which had been buried underground with a hot rock for 24 hours. All manner of local foods were prepared, especially various different ways of preparing breadfruit, goat and bananas, some of which tasted alright and some didn't. And I thought the boar was overdone but how do you check it under all that charcoal and earth? It was a bit of an odd mixture but it was actually better than it sounds. The evening continued with the last leg prize giving where the usual boats won again and the dance troop then made another appearance and did a set lasting an hour - it was exhausting just to watch let alone be involved. The air was full of sweat and testosterone but well worth it!

We have an excursion booked tomorrow……

Day 30 Thursday 29 March 2018

Ashore for breakfast this morning - egg and bacon omelets absolutely swimming in grease! Tasty but not really very good for you but Dave ignored this fact and just mopped up the grease with a lump of bread and ate it. I was actually awake at 0530 due to an absolute cacophony of noise from the shore as a thousand cockerels greeted the daylight - why so loud this morning I have no idea.

We had a 4x4 booked for 0900 from Kevin at Yacht Services - it was his car; Simple agreement: any damage however caused we would pay for including mechanical! Fair enough. He did mark on a simple map some of the good places to visit and have lunch so off we went with me driving and Dave navigating (there is only one road so if we get lost there will be some far reaching questions asked). The roads are extremely hilly and winding so a 4x4 is essential although the road surfaces are generally concrete, but not entirely, with rocks and debris all over it.

The island scenery is breath-taking with green steep mountains, rocky pinnacles and tree filled valleys. It is tropical rain forest essentially inland and the shades of green are countless. Then there are the beaches, typical South Sea island yellow sand and palm trees, a real contrast.

We had lunch in a lovely restaurant where we met several other parties on guided tours; clearly this was the place to go. The food was really good but far too much of it - we mostly had a mixed fish platter and one between two would have been easily enough. The left overs were collected by the proprietor lady who told us to follow her out to the side of the building where there was a small stream. She dumped the bits into a small pool whereupon out from the banks came these huge eels which started to fight over it with more making their way feverishly upstream, even climbing over stones to get there! Amazing thing to see but as some of these things were as big as your leg you didn't want to fall in!

It turned out that we had been to all the places that the guided tours went, ate in the same restaurant and paid around US$ 33 each whereas the tours were $70 pp so we had a real bargain and the difference paid for the lunch.

We stayed on board in the evening as still pigged out from lunch. Tomorrow we plan to motor the boat a few miles down the coat to visit Daniel's Bay with a few other boats and walk up to the waterfalls there.

Day 31 Friday 30 March 2018

Dave and I went ashore early to pay for the car and get bread before upping anchor and heading off together with Tintamara to Daniel's Bay where other boat crews were congregating to walk up to the waterfalls, a must do event on Nuku Hiva. It is a 2-2.5 hour walk up various gradient rocky and muddy paths to the waterfall with its fresh water pools to swim in. The path is essentially through rain forest and is hot and humid and there are several river crossings to negotiate on the way to make it an interesting outing.

On arrival it was not quite as spectacular as we might have hoped, indeed the waterfall itself had almost as much water falling down it as you might expect from a leaky tap, but the water was cool, if indeed cold, and it was nice to have a swim in the certain knowledge there were no sharks; goodness knows what else there may have been in the water having seen a monster freshwater eel in one of the rivers again as big as my leg!

We had to get back fairly sharpish as we were not intending staying at the anchorage for the night and wanted to get back to Taiohae Bay before dark as we were planning to get fresh provisions for the trip to the Taramotus, and being Easter we would have to be up very early. The Norwegians on Tintamara had lost their 15 year old son who was with us at one point but had hung back to wait for his family then wandered off the path and had got lost. We shouted for him and eventually found him way off course and a little distressed but fine, so I took him all the way back up towards the waterfall again to join the others before running off back down to catch Trevor and Dave - I was sweating like a sweaty thing by the time I got back to them but needed the extra exercise and was happy for my good deed of the day!

Meanwhile back on the boat, Wendy was having a bit of a disaster doing the washing: one of the bed sheets had blown off the washing line and was semi-submerged for ages floating off down the anchorage yet she couldn't rescue it us having the dinghy ashore. On our return we did a grid search of the anchorage but alas it had sunk and was not to be seen; all that was found was a floating peg.

So one sheet down we motored back to our original anchorage and went ashore for dinner in the posh hotel with reportedly good wifi (a real rarity) only to find the wifi was rubbish there too! Very frustrating, so I am still no nearer to downloading the new Barclays app needed to do any banking…..its been two weeks now and no prospect for several weeks to come, before Tahiti. A bit of a problem as end of March I will have some VAT and year end tasks to carry out requiring internet access - no peace for the wicked!

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