Daniel’s Bay, Niku Hiva 

We’re going to head off for the Tamotus early tomorrow bringing our Marquesa stay to an end. What I thought would just be a very welcome landfall after the long W Pacific leg has been some of the most amazing land I’ve ever seen. They are absolutely breath taking with massive vertical walls, huge water falls and dense vegetation. We walked up to another water fall yesterday. The last 24hrs has been very wet with a lot of rain and waking up in the sunshine this morning the whole amphitheatre of the bay had become a mass of waterfalls. 

We were planning on going back round to the village for a bit more provisioning but a strong E’ly and even bigger sea would mean a pretty horrendous beat. We have plenty of food and water as there is little to none of each in the Tuamotos. 

The highlights here have definitely been the walking and the terrain although we’ve already had loads of good foiling. Spending a week on Tahuata was a joy with great winging out in the channel accessible from the boat. My pump foiling is slowly getting better thanks to Katie towing me up but I’ve still got a lot to learn. It’s bloody difficult. 

On Board the bread has got a lot better. Katie has switched to a Jamie recipe which seems to be delivering a loaf of about double the size to previously with the same amount of flour. The hard bit will be teaching me to do it!

We’re trying to get loads of pics up on instagram as a kind of photo albums of the trip. Link below. 

About 3 - 3.5 days at sea now to get to the Tamotus. They look amazing, sunken atolls that you anchor inside the reef. The issue is that they only have small entrances and so a huge amount of tide has to flow in and out. Flows up to 12knots common! It’ll be like being back on the W coast of Scotland. Makes a real challenge to arrive at the right time after a longish passage. 

We’ve been looking at the rest of the year and trying to do a rough itinerary. We want to stay as flexible as possible but are mindful that we still have a way to go and are an infinite amount of stops. The consensus is that we want to do fewer stops for slightly longer but will see how it pans out. Katie has been offered a fellowship in Tasmania and work looks promising for me so that’s where we’re heading. It’s about 5000 miles, 4000 to the coast of Oz - we’ll probably sign into Oz in Brisbane and then a 1000 miles down the coast to Hobart. Very roughly we’ll aim to be in Cook Islands for August, Tonga for September and then Fiji for October. If anyone fancies coming to see us and doing some legs either in the Pacific or down the E coast of Oz let us know. We’d love to see you.