Back to Autona Hiva Oa
Nickanddenisesailing
Thu 25 May 2017 18:51
We are back in Atuona on Hiva Oa after leaving the comforts of the beautiful bay on Tahuata. We had to come back to check in, see the doctor and get some supplies. Its not the nicest anchorage here. Its pretty rolly, the water is brown and all the boats need to have stern anchors down as there isnt much room. But the mountains around are stunningly beautiful and many of our friends are here so there is lots of help and advice when we need it.
We had a lovely last couple of days on Tahuata (the previous Island we were at), although we have had a lot of rain. This gave us a chance to do lots of inside jobs and clean up the boat a bit. We did some good deck scrubbing in the rain, finally finished cleaning the bottom of the boat and we even managed some laundry. Our new technique is -
- rain starts. Hang laundry out on the rail (this looks funny as on the other boats when it starts raining everyone scrambles around to get clothes in - not put them out).
- leave clothes to rinse. Leave buckets out in the rain to fill
- add laundry detergent to bucket. wash clothes.
- hang soapy clothes back on the rail to rinse.
- leave overnight and hope that you put enough pegs on them so they dont blow away
- sun comes out in the morning and dries your clothes
- volia! Clean (ish) clothes!
We decided to head back to Atuona yesterday. It was a bit of a wild 2 hour ride as the wind and waves were on the nose and there was quite a bit of rain. But we made it back ok, got anchored up and headed into town to check in. Only to find that tomorrow (today) is a public holiday that goes through to Monday and everything will be closed up. So we rushed around, managed to check in and then had to wait 2 hours at the doctors (my toe isnt doing so well so I'm on antibiotics now and a strict pain regime of sliver nitrate and other torturous methods of sorting this bloody thing out). Anyway following that we went to go and get fresh provisions - everything closed (after only having opened at 2-3pm everything closed by 4-5pm). We did manage to find one place with some eggs and some onions - they had sold out of carrots. So that will have to do us for a while for the fresh stuff. We have so much canned stuff that we will be fine for months if needed. I think the two of us will be
pretty
excited about salad in the next few weeks - something I didn't think I would say.
We managed a quick stop at the only restaurant with Internet. Where there is the rudest waitress we have ever come across. We both decided not to stay very long as she was such a bitch that we both couldn't stand it! So we will be on the sat phone for the foreseeable future, no wifi for us we think until we get to Tahiti in a couple of months.
So we are getting into the island life style and thinking 'cant beat em join em' so we will head around the island today and so and check out another nice bay and see out the bad weather there before heading south to Fatu Hiva where there is a beautiful bay and some nice walks.
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