27/6/09 - 08.55.6S 139.32W as at 18.00 UTC

Flying Cloud
Julian Nichols
Sat 27 Jun 2009 18:27
So after the stresses and strains of entering port last night, we thought we should make time for a quick explore of Ua-Huka this morning. On the Quay there were the signs of activity, and we later discovered that a supply boat was due to arrive. It took us maybe 10 minutes to walk up to and through the main town of Vaipaee, so we then considered what else we could do. Whilst considering, we decided to reward ourselves with the first Hinano beer of the crossing (it may have been 9am local time but it was 18.00 UTC!) and Matt struck up a dialogue with the locals enquiring about horse riding..... As we walked back to the boat, one of the locals with a shiny yellow Landrover stopped to offer us a lift back to the quay - we of course couldn't refuse and soon found ourselves being offered plenty of local hospitality by the two brothers (lots of Hinano beer). And so we made friends with Ronca and Ko-ute in much the same way as i would have imagined Captain Cook did 200 years ago - by agreeing to swap something we had (rum) for something they had (fruit and hospitality).

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We were soon being shown around the island (Ronca, Ko-ute and their father have an Eco Lodge which they have built), picking fruit, and of course were invited to a wedding....

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Ua-Huka is very beautiful, but has only 600 inhabitants.

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We soon persuaded Ko-ute to come sailing with us around to the next bay, Hane, where the wedding reception was being held. He was pretty good with the anchor windlass!

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Hane is a very picturesque bay.

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And of course Hane was where the party shifted gears....

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We met the local mare...

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Oh yes, and i finally went horse riding - no saddle.... no help. I'll let you guess what happened next......

Captain's corner:
After Jules' excellent description of the happenings of the day, what more can I add? Seeing it written down makes it seem like a pretty normal day, but in all honesty, the whole of the events had me feeling like I was Don Quixote, transported into some twisted versoion of the Odysee... Everything went so smoothly, and yet felt like it couldn't possibly continue to function! I strongly suspect that a major reason we were hosted so well was that the brothers were killing time until the (very late) supply ship was ready for them to send 4 goats to Tahiti! It meant that all our activities were done in between alloted spaces of time, broken up by jaunts down to the harbour to see had the ship arrived, and then once it finally had, to check on the unloading process which had to finish before it was loaded... With island time the way it is, it meant that we went on at least half a dozen little excursions, and ended up essentially having completed an entire tour of the island's accessible places. Once they finally got their goats loaded, we had firmly built a friendship with which we only needed the evenings activities to cement! It really was exceptionally fortunate (for us) that the ship was so late, and we managed to meet an incredible amount of interesting people... It's hard to believe that at the end of the revelry, when we returned to the boat completely spent, it was only 6:30 in the evening (it actually took us a few minutes to be certain it wasn't 6:30 am with a late sunrise)... What an amazing day!

Mattman

Attachment: horseride.mov
Description: QuickTime movie

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