By now we had hoped to be among the atolls of the Tuamotus but the weather has been very wet and squally for over a week. As a result we are still sitting in Daniel's Bay on Nuku Hiva waiting for some improvement in conditions before we head off south west towards the scattering of coral reefs and atolls that is also known as The Dangerous Archipelago. The atolls are very low lying with fringing reefs that are hard to see before you are right on top of them. In the days before GPS they were a notoriously dangerous place to make landfall and even today one needs to be extremely cautious throughout the whole area. It was one of these reefs that the famous Gypsy Moth came to grief on, a month or two ago. We are not the only ones waiting to make this move and there are now 15 yachts anchored in here, avidly down-loading and studying the weatherfaxes hoping to see a change for the better.  A couple of the yachts in here have some real salty old sea dogs on board who collectively have spent years in the Pacific and we certainly will not be heading out between the overlapping headlands that protect this bay from the wind and swell before they also decide it is time to make the move.  One of the guys who has spent the last three or four years in this part of the world is even having a little get together this afternoon to talk through the causes and results of this current instability with those of us new to the Pacific.

 

Meanwhile it is not a bad place to be stuck even if we do have to race around and shut the hatches every hour or two to keep the rain out. The bay was actually used as the set for the original American Survivor reality-TV show, although the jungle is not quite as virgin as the producers would have you believe! The bay is named after Daniel, a fascinating old local Polynesian who was born here back in 1927 and who has lived here on the beach ever since. Sadly his small wooden house, complete with goats, chickens, pigs and heavily laden fruit trees was not what was wanted as the backdrop to the show so having discovered he did not have full legal title to the land, they flattened his existing house and moved him across the lagoon to another beach. The "reality" is that it would be almost impossible to even get very hungry around here, let alone starve to death. Every other tree is dripping with fruit and you can hardly walk without tripping over the coco-nuts that litter the ground.

 

To keep us busy while we wait there is wonderful hiking up through the forests and we have been swimming at the foot of an incredible waterfall that comes straight over a huge cliff face from the plateau above and falls 610m (yes....that's about 2000 feet!) into the valley below. Sadly the swimming in the bay is not recommended as the river is carrying a lot of sediment and the murky water is the home to a number of sharks. In clear water this would not really be too much of a problem but when they can't see they have a reputation for taking a mouthful of anything they bump into just to see if it tastes good.

 

Meanwhile trapped on the set of our very own "Survivor" show things are still looking pretty good. No one is currently threatened with eviction and once I have finished typing this I will settle down with a cup of coffee and a slice of Lucy's freshly baked banana bread and use the satellite phone to send this to outside world and to collect any up to date info on the World Cup (and of course Wayne Rooney's foot!).