Friday 30th  March:  Fatu Hiva Iles Marquises, South Pacific Ocean 10 27.9S  138 40.2W

Today’s Blog by David (Time zone UTC -9.5 (sic))

Following Richard’s departure we set off on Tuesday lunchtime to go south. Our intention had been to the Island of Motane which is SSE of Atuona harbour, then to wait for the wind to shift to the North as forecast and then sail on down to Fatu Hiva.  When we got out though,  the wind and swell were both very firmly and quite uncomfortably in the SE and even a 15 mile sail to Motane seemed a tall order for us. Tahuhata in the other hand was down wind and suddenly seemed very appealing.

It rains in Paradise

Tahuata got the vote. This time to the Baie Hanatefau. This is on the north end of a bay with the village of Hipatoni at its southern edge,  reportedly a very welcoming village.  We got there late in the day so anchored for the night. We spent the following morning doing jobs and planned to go into the village around 15.00 hours. (We have discovered that the world stops for lunch every day  in Iles Marquises from 12.00-15/15.30 – closed on Sundays).  

The windshift to the north was forecast o be accompanied by some rain – and indeed there was SOME RAIN!

It rained and rained and rained. When it did stop we concluded the ground would have been so wet that it would have been a very messy visit and so the nearest we got was yesterday morning as we “drove by” in the sunlight:

The church was really all that we could see but the landscape is breath taking; hard to capture on a photo though:

We arrive in Fatu Hiva after a very pleasant beam reach (once we had got the right sails up – needed to take down the second headsail)  to more spectacular scenery.

Note the face looking over the harbour. And here is the harbour from shore:

We went ashore here for an hour last night the village is tucked into a narrow valley with precipitous sides which look as if they are set to collapse on to the houses at any moment. Indeed there is a team here from Tahiti engaged in securing some of the rock face. There is a church and a magasin but one which sadly doesn’t sell the normal cruising staples: bread or beer; it was anyway closed by 17.00 when we were ashore. The better shopping we were told by locals queuing for  church at 17.30 on a Thursday was in the next village – eerr which is a 4/5 hour hike over the hills (with spectacular views no doubt). The alternative is to try to approach it by sea into an anchorage with reportedly bad holding.  Hmmmm.. We will see.