The local people, as elsewhere in Polynesia, are very welcoming and laid back. The highlight of our stay was a dance performance at the local fire station where the Huahine Group put on their final performance of the season after winning a number of prizes at the dance festival in Tahiti. There must have been in the region of 200 performers in all including a band of about 30 drummers and percussionists and a smaller number of ukulele players. The sound they produced was magnificent and the dancing simply dazzling.

How the women can all wiggle their bottoms in time with each other and to the music is amazing. About half the performers were men and although they do less bottom wiggling they do some good posturing, similar to the hukka of the NZ rugby team, but without the tongues and with the addition of some fancy footwork, hip and thigh tricks that had the local women and girls cheering and shouting for more. We have some very good video clips of the act but only a few rather poor photos which do not do justice to the atmosphere and the spectacle.

After the performance we chatted to a couple of the band members, one of whom was playing.... a penis, much to the delight of this Australian woman who accompanied us.

We stayed for a couple of nights at Fare, both for this performance but also because there was an excellent supermarket nearby and a laundry. Best of all there was a bar that had a happy hour. Due to the high price of drink in French Polynesia and the strong religious tradition there are extremely few bars in these islands. Those there are tend to be run by Europeans or are part of hotels and are rather expensive. It was nice to be able to meet other cruisers on neutral territory. It can be a little difficult meeting new people, especially non- Brits when all the socialising is on people's boats. As a result we met some very nice Australians, a Texan and his Aussie partner and the crew of Troutbridge a catamaran named after the ship in the Navy Lark (if anyone else is old enough to remember it). This Guernesey based yacht had had to have a lot of work done on a hull in Tahiti after dragging one night in the Tuamotus onto an unforgiving coral reef. They were holed below the waterline but managed to staunch the leak with some underwater epoxy long enough to reach Tahiti.

We visited one other anchorage at the other end of the island surrounded by the crashing surf on the reef a few hundred yards away. Yet another idyllic spot.

Raiatea in the background. This is our next stop where we have booked in to a boat yard to have the bottom of the boat cleaned of its carpet of sea grass and replace it with anti-fouling.