Greetings from Yacht Ensemble.
We arrived in Hiva Oa at 7:15am local time and were greeted by a beautiful rainbow over the entrance of the harbour (and the associated squalls ...). It was good to smell land again!
We had decided against the double risks of arriving after dark and motoring through the night on low fuel. In the end we did the last 60nm under sail with winds variable of 4 - 10 knots (at one point the wind vane looked like the second hand of a clock) - while being drenched in tropical downpours - so not the most pleasant of nights sailing.
We arrived in the harbour to find the marina full of World ARC boats. Fortunately - Daniel and Jonas from Gunvor were there to help us with our kedge anchor and we were safely nestled in towards the back of the harbour.
We took the dinghy in and were greeted by Paul and Laurent - the local agent - and we had the arrival formalities over in no time.
We did a quick and basic clean up of the boat and then decided to go into town. We stopped on the way in to say hello to Luna Verde and were invited in to stop for coffee. It turned out it was Wilma's birthday - and the coffee turned into a few wines and several hours of chatting (including some remarkably inspired birthday songs from the crew of Seaquest).
We then stopped off to say hello to Wind Dancer before moving on to the World ARC function including local song and dance put on by the local tourist authority.
We then went for dinner at the Pearl Lodge with Luna Verde, Seaquest, Bronwyn, Dave and Allison.
A long but productive day!
Cheers
Dave & Magali
24Mar2012_1 3082