We still have not achieved a decent Internet connection so again no photos I am afraid....and this place deserves photographs!

We had a wonderful day out yesterday touring the island of Hiva Oa by hire car with another English couple. We drove to the far end of the island to the village of Pau Mau along hair raising dirt tracks that zig-zagged over the precipitous landscape. To our surprise the higher areas of the island are covered in pine forest and one could be in Scotland on a forestry track. Lower down there is tropical forest with mango trees growing everywhere along with many other fruits we could not identify. Only the windward slopes are more barren and dry, presumably getting less rain and being dried out by the constant wind and salt spray.

The few villages we passed through were delightful. The houses are generally open bungalows with tin roofs but mostly in excellent condition and surrounded by well tended gardens with lawns and fruit trees growing lemons, pamplemouse, oranges, and the inevitable mangoes. The villages are on the coast and have coconut plantations and sheds for drying copra, the flesh of the coconuts, that is still exported in sacks for processing into oil for cooking, cosmetics etc. The people in these villages still seem to be largely self sufficient. The life seems very relaxed.

We met a young man who spoke good English having lived in Hawaii for a year or two. He had just come in by boat with a couple of tourists who had used him as a water taxi back from a village they had walked to. He was also transporting copra in his outrigger canoe (Yamaha powered), and was off for a spot of spear fishing. We asked about the risk of Cigueterra , the toxin that is found increasingly in fish that live on damaged reefs. He said that he had suffered from it a number of times, but then proceeded to describe a dangerous sounding cure. They grate the fruit of a poisonous plant into a coconut and then drink the juice. Apparently this makes you unconscious in minutes but the poison then neutralizes the toxins from the fish and on waking you are better except for a headache that soon goes. However according to the information we have the toxins build up over time and the poisoning becomes worse, so one wonders if the cure will eventually become ineffective and actually cause harm itself. The poison they grate in to the coconut is also used for stunning fish in the sea long enough to catch them...so it must be pretty potent.

We visited an archaeological site at the far end of the island with the biggest "tiki" in Polynesia. These are standing figures representing chiefs from the pre-Christian times when there was still human sacrifice and cannibalism. The figures are set on terraces where buildings apparently stood. However, the most dramatic part is the setting which is in a clearing in the forest beneath a high cliff. There has been little research into the significance of this site and the others like it and there is a suggestion that there may be other sites as yet undiscovered. We also visited a site with petroglyphs, carvings in the face of a giant boulder. They were similar to ones we had seen in Madeira, with geometric patterns of whirls and rings.

The people in the remote villages appear to have a wonderful quality of life. There are football pitches and volley ball courts adjacent to the beaches in the bays that shelter the villages, communal market buildings, pretty churches and everywhere the most abundant fruit and flowers. Chickens and children run everywhere and the occasional tethered cow or pig were in evidence, goats run free over the terrain. They have modern communications with mobile phones and satellite TV. However at the same time they seem to have kept a lot of the best things from their culture, for instance the herbal medicines and the desire for an easy going lifestyle not one based on greed and having more possessions.

We finished off a memorable day by having a first rate meal in a rather swanky restaurant overlooking the bay where we were anchored. Our friends James and Lucy were very good company with interesting tales of building and sailing their speedy catamaran. Their passage from the Galapagos took 14 days as opposed to our 21 and they achieved a number of day's runs of over 250 miles.

We have now moved to the neighbouring island of Tahuata and are anchored in a rather rolly but beautiful bay. The sandy beach is backed by a coconut grove and the sea full of coral swarming with fish. It was a relief to be able to swim after the murky waters of the bay at Atuona, where both sharks and turds warn off the carefree swimmer. The water here is gin clear and the same turquoise that we found in the Caribbean. Tomorrow we shall be off early to see if we can get to Fatu Hiva , the most southerly of these islands and, having no airport or regular ferry, apparently one of the least changed.