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Our first sign of land after 23 days, 23 hours at sea. Hiva Oa and the other islands tower out of the ocean, a mass of green jungle and craggy peaks. Not much in the way of coral reefs to worry about here. Even though they lay just 10 degrees or so south of the equator, the water temperature is rather cool. The current brings water up from Antarctica. Not the best water for swimming or snorkeling.
We anchored in bay around the corner from Atuona. Atuona is a long bike ride up the hill and a fast ride down. We posted our bonds and began to explore the island. They had a great fresh water shower that we all enjoyed. One problem was that it rained almost every afternoon so clothes out on the lifelines never dried.
While at anchor in Atuona, we woke up one morning to sound of surfers screaming past the boat. We were anchored more than 100 yards off the beach, but some sort of wave activity started rolling big breakers into the bay. No wind or storm, just swells and waves. The photo below was taken from s/v Jambo. No Worries is in the foreground and Mira Amu is behind us.
We finally got both of our anchors up and anchored right behind the breakwall where we had good protection. You can see in 2 of the photos how some waves did come over the breakwall and started washing boats and barrels down into the water. Many boats that couldn't get their anchors up simply tied a float onto their anchor line and left the anchors while they went out to sea. The waves also destroyed the great dinghy dock.
After Hiva Oa we anchored on Fatu Hiva and Ua Pou. Had fun catching small baitfish and then larger hammerhead sharks. Not sure how wise it was to swim in the murky water with all these little hammerheads around, but we did and didn't see any big hammerheads. Made our first trades with the locals for tapa cloth, bananas, mangoes, breadfruit, cucumbers and pomplemousse. We all loved the pomplemousse (see Tom's bosom.) The dried banana (see Marc's ears) were really tasty. And if you've never had a full stalk of bananas before, be aware that they all seem to ripen at exactly the same time. Sunglasses were great trading items, everyone we met was happy to trade for them.
We did have one incident in Ua Pou. A new Hans Christian anchored off our bow and everyone jumped in the dinghy and went to town. Unfortunately, they only let out 90' of chain in 60' of water. The gentle swell would lift the boat and it would be a foot or so closer to us. Finally, it reached us and we fended it off as is drifted down our side. No harm done, but it was a good lesson about having enough scope on your anchor line. The biggest problem was after the crew showed up again and saw their boat slowly heading for the beach. The guy started pulling up the bow anchor while the gal started the engine. She put it in gear to motor up over the bow anchor. Problem was that they had also set a stern anchor whose rode now fouled the prop. He yelled at her. She yelled at him. He was left alone without any help. Moral of story, keep your mouth shut when angry.
After 'cheaper' beer in Mexico, the Hinano beer here was a shock. Worked out to about $2.40 per bottle. At first I didn't realize that about $.60 of that was deposit, but even so, a far cry from Mexican beer prices. Don't even ask about rum prices.
