Head Office's Relocation Complete

Serendipity
David Caukill
Tue 10 Apr 2012 06:01

Tuesday 8th  April:  Baie D’Anaho, Nuku Hiva, Iles Marquises, South Pacific Ocean 8 49.35S  140 03.85W

Today’s Blog by David  (Time zone UTC -9.5 BST-10.5)

 

Simone arrived Saturday, remarkably, on schedule  at Nuku Hiva having spent 34 hours travelling on three aeroplanes = 24 hours in the air. She was incredibly chipper, considering her ordeal,  her effervescence only dampened by my driving her for 90 minutes towards the boat over the mountains on single track switchback roads  with precipitous drops on one side – generally her side – of the car.  Nonetheless, incredibly, she was up for partying Saturday night and we dined ashore.  We joined the  crews of At Last, Southern Cross, and Zoe at an impromptu barbeque that “Alex” organised.

 

Sunday saw us move round to Baie d’Anaho on the north of Nuku Hiva where we are waiting with Anastasia for fair winds  for the Tuamotos Islands.  You might have seen that most of the World ARC guys are already  there, or on their way there, but they mostly motored much of the journey.  We still hanker to sail and tomorrow, the forecast looks to be turning in our favour to sail there.  We set off after breakfast tomorrow.

 

Meanwhile,  Anaho has proved  a lovely, protected anchorage – a real gem from a sailing point of view. Here we both are tucked in around the corner out of the way of the swell.

 

 

This morning we were visited by a couple of Manta Rays – 2 metres wide – that swam gracefully around the bay for about an hour. That was quite a special moment for us. 

 

The only problem with Baie D’Anaho is that ………eerrr……… nothing happens ashore. So over drinks on Anastasia last night, we hatched a plan to walk to the next bay, Baie D’Hatiheu which the guide book describes as  Robert Louis Stevenson’s  favourite destination.  It was also said to have a good restaurant (but no anchorage to speak of).  We were comforted that Andrea’s book had not, yet, been wrong. It described today’s walk as an exhilarating  45 minute walk over a steep-ish hill, but well worthwhile.  So – 25/30 minutes up and 20/15 minutes down?

 

You might find the idea of this hike something of a surprise, given our experience of the waterfall walk, (I don’t think I mentioned that a walk our information told us would take  2 i/2 hours took us 4i/2 hours – and we woz pretty tired when we finished).   Nonetheless, we decided we were up for it. You might also want to reflect at this point on information that was not at that stage known to us – namely that we needed to climb to the (white) microwave tower in the centre  at the top of this hill:

 

That said, spirits were high. From the beach – looking at the yachts at anchor -  the situation was pretty much picture postcard  stuff:

 

 

 

So, trusting in Andrea’s guide book we set off.    Well it was spectacular………………… It was also pretty steep.

 

Mindful that:

 

·         Simone had only been here 30 hours,

·         we set off just after midday,

·         the temperature was 30+C and

·         the humidity off the scale

 

it is a wonder that – after rather more than 45 minutes – Bob was able to take this photograph of Simone – smiling – by the micro wave dish (Phil and Andrea being the two unfamiliar faces) :

 

 

We trekked down rather quicker than we came up and arrived in the village at around 14.00 (ahem, on Easter Monday) for Bob to discover that there was a restaurant open to serve food ………………….. and BEER!!!   As Americans would say, we had lucked out!  

 

We arrived in the restaurant to see Bob drinking a beer. He seemed  very pleased with himself.  However, when we ordered we were told that Bob was drinking the “………dernier biere du maison – Rein de Plus!”  Hmmmm. Morale not good at this point and  I confess the troops were, to say the least, “desole”!  

 

A certain amount  of giggling wa evident leading to our discovery that Bob had entered into some subterfuge  -  an arrangment with the staff whereby they were to “have some fun with the English”. Hmmmm.   Bob had clearly found a kindred spirit in the restauranteur:  

 

 

 

At this point, I need to digress. The fact is that cross dressing is a common place thing in the Marquesas.  We have seen women who were evidently men - - and men who are quite clearly too beamy to be what the purport to be.  The “waitress” from the pizza restaurant we patronised in Taiohae looked very different with a stubble round her chin when we met it in a supermarket at midday the following day. Some of this has clearly rubbed off on Bob:

 

 

 

 

 

Who knows what tomorrow will bring ………………..