After spending 2 delightful days and nights in splendid isolation, the time came to up anchor, when another yacht sailed into ‘our’ anchorage.

A quick hop and we were safely anchored (both fore and aft!!) in Tahiohae. This is the administrative centre of the Marquesas. A pretty, yet bland (in my opinion) place.

It has a couple of supermarkets, though nothing as good as Hiva Oa.

The quayside has a nice, recently built development, which houses the permanent fruit and veg market, the tourist info office and arts and crafts shops.

While the selection on fruit and veg is very good, the prices are ridiculous. I know it is only because we are used to paying Central American prices, because when you look at it, you are paying no more than in the UK! But it still hurts, paying the equivalent of  US$1.50 for a single grapefruit. I think it was also made worse when in the previous anchorage we had been given Grapefruit for nothing!

Anyway, enough moaning about the price in paradise.

My knee is giving me considerable trouble, so I am not able to walk far, which is making any sightseeing very difficult. But I for one am feeling Marquesa fatigue and am ready to move onto the Touamotus.

Our friends Tom & Selme, from Ever After, were already here and we quickly caught up with them and headed out for a rare treat……cocktails at the posh resort on the hill. It was happy hour (otherwise we wouldn’t even have considered going) and drinks were half price ( at US$15 a drink they needed to be).

We met another couple of crews up there. It was a lovely evening, the views were beautiful and it was so nice to indulge in a little luxury for once.

The next day, after seeing the grib files (weather maps) Ever After decided to head out to the Touamotus before the wind dropped. As we had left our laundry ashore and also had to get fuel, we stayed put.

Jamie & Lucy off Bamboozle invited us over to their boat for drinks that evening and the conversation got round to the weather. They have been to the Touamotus before and they too had been looking at the weather, but they didn’t like the look of the weather that was due in the islands. It is quite tricky navigating in the islands, lots of reefs and coral heads to avoid and the passes are quite tricky too. They said the last thing you need is high winds, so it was back to the drawing board for us.

We had a lovely evening chatting and drinking and when we got back to Beaujolais, Roger said he’d like to invite them over for a bbq (they too had lived in South Africa) I pointed out that not only did we not have any fresh fish or meat, but no fresh veggies either, so that was that.

The next morning when I was sitting in the saloon, I heard what I thought were big waves slapping against the hull. Wondering where it had come from I went to investigate. All around the boat were big fish jumping and trying to catch the small fish. I shouted to Roger to come take a look, but by the time he came they’d gone. I suggested dropping a line in the water, but as they had gone, he said he wouldn’t bother.

A little while later Roger saw them as they had come back and decided to drop a line in. Within seconds the cry went up ‘fish on’.

I dashed topside to find Roger battleing with a big fish.

I got his gloves and the gaff and we managed to get the fish aboard.

It was a beauty. A 7.5 kg Yellow fin Tuna.

They say the ‘lord will provide’ and he certainly had come up trumps.

 I am still surprised, we are about 100 mts off the beach and the last thing you would expect to see is a school of tuna!

Roger went over to Bamboozle and invited them for the BBQ and we gave them half of the fish (as we still have no fridge/freezer).

Lucy brought over a dish of cous cous and a tomato salad (she too was short on fresh produce).

I made a soup and onion and tomato salad, which we washed down with a couple of boxes or wine (which they had chilled for us).

It was a lovely evening and a smashing meal and we said thanks to the tuna for giving us such a great meal.

It has to be said, that the fish is the highlight of our stay in this bay.

I wished I could have gone to the church and taken photos, as it is supposed to be quite impressive, but I am not able to. Apart from that unless you are used to hiking there is little to do here. Yes we could go diving, but the deal here is that you hire the boat (same as the Galapagos) and you can take up to 5 people. The price is 50% than the Galapagos and as the anchorage is so big, or maybe we aren’t as motivated, but we can’t be bothered to organise a trip.

UPDATE:

Fish 5      Beaujolais 4 (the gap is closing)

Also we sighted Kinky a few days ago as she popped out of the Binnacle to say hello one evening when we were having dinner, so all is well there.

On the blog side, it is highly likely that there won’t be anymore entries for a couple of weeks as internet here is not only scarce, but the cost is nothing short of extortionate.

Having just mortgaged our house to pay for the internet,  I have just paid (are you sitting down?) US$15 for 1hour 50 mins of internet use!!!!!

So what we will do, is the same as when we were crossing from the Galapagos, give short updates with our position, just so people don’t think that the world is flat after all and we have fallen off!!