Mangoes are not the only fruit

We had an amazing day yesterday - we motored along the coast in our dinghy with Peter and Heidi aboard and landed at a beautiful little village. The locals were very friendly (they were a bit more reserved at the other 2 islands) and the place is beautiful. We were after some fruit and veg so walked up the road and found a house with pamplemousse (grapefruit) and mango trees growing in a large garden. In Graham's best (terrible) French he asked if we could buy some and was given 8 huge pamplemousse and 6 ripe mangos and they wouldn't take any money (or t-shirts we'd brought for bartering). The dinghy ride back to the boats was interesting – we stopped the engine in the bay to watch dolphins leaping out of the water and then we were soon punching into little waves so all got soaked (in very warm water). We got back to Maunie only to find we'd lost our boat keys! We dinghied back to the village (much quicker with only 2 aboard as the boat would plane at speedboat speeds) and, as we arrived in the anchorage, there was a local fishing boat with 3 men aboard who waved to us, wanting a lift ashore. One of them was the size of a Samoan rugby player so his mates laughed when I obviously looked worried as to whether the dinghy would take his weight but we took him ashore then picked up the other two.

 

Our good deed obviously helped our luck as we found the lost keys in the orchard where we'd loaded our bag with fruit (huge relief all round) and then as we walked back to the landing place one of the fishermen came out from his house with a box of ripe mangoes as thanks for our help. We are now looking for more mango recipes.

 

Returning to Maunie for a second time we had a late lunch then joined a sundowner dinghy raft – crews from all 10 boats in the anchorage rafted up and shared snacks and drinks for a very convivial hour or so. There were 10 nationalities represented but a common purpose that cut through any language barriers. The  camaraderie between cruising boats is great and there's a lot of shared help on hand if it's needed; one Norwegian boat has specialist welding gear aboard so he was helping a German catamaran repair a cracked boom yesterday .

 

We plan to stay here one more day before heading to the Tuamotus Archipelago which consists of dozens of coral atolls (the most famous, for all the wrong reasons, is Muraroa Atoll where the French did their atom bomb tests - we won't be going there!). Only a few are inhabited and the navigation between the atolls is challenging so we're slightly apprehensive about it - it's a 4 day sail from here – but a few boats have just arrived there so we'll hear of their experiences on the radio net.

 

A shopping day-trip aboard Stormvogel

Above: Maunie at anchor and the Dianne and Heidi driving Stormvogel

 

The weather has turned very sunny and hot so we are enjoying our sheltered anchorage, watching the tropical fish feeding around the coral and huge Manta Rays lazily swimming near the boats. It's so lovely that we don't feel a pressing need to rush off anywhere and decided that heading 85 miles up to Nuka Hiva, only to more or less retrace our wake on our way to the Tuamotus Archipelago a couple of days later, doesn't make huge sense. Instead we decided to do a day-sail back to Hiva Oa to buy more food provisions before heading west, so left Maunie at anchor and joined Peter and Heidi on Stormvogel for a lovely sail (a fun beat to windward in the morning and a delightful spinnaker run back in the afternoon).

 

The supply boat that arrived at Hiva Oa on Saturday meant that the supermarket was well stocked so we now  have enough frozen chicken, beef and bacon to augment the tinned supplies. We were a bit disappointed with the fresh veg availability but that's island life for you. Today we plan to dinghy around to a small village about 4 miles from here then there's going to be a 'dinghy raft sundowner party'  in the bay (each anchored boat brings drinks and nibbles to share in a raft of dinghies) so that should be entertaining.

 

 

 

 

Baie Hanamoenoa, Tahuata

Sunset at Tahuata

 

Thankfully it stopped raining yesterday so Peter and Graham managed three dinghy trips with jerry cans so both boats are now refuelled; a labour-intensive process but we were glad that it was completed without injury or spillage. Our timing was good as the supply ship arrived just after they collected the last load and the fuel station closes whilst the ship discharges its cargo.

 

We left Hiva Oa after lunch for a gentle 9 mile sail to the nearby island of Tahuata and the beautiful anchorage in Baie Hanamoenoa where there are about 10 boats anchored. The water is clear so we can see the sandy bottom just 5 metres below us, there is a long sandy beach with palm trees and that's about it – oh, there is no swell, marvellous!

 

After all the fun & games of the last couple of days we plan to relax a bit, clean the boat (the hull bears the tide marks of all the brown water of the harbour) and explore ashore. There are Manta Rays in the bay, apparently, and Graham saw lots of tropical fish when he snorkelled out to check the anchor yesterday. The visual anchor check is a nice comforting thing to do, especially if we leave the boat unattended and this time Graham found that its tip was hooked on to a flat slab of pale-coloured rock which meant that if the wind direction shifted it might well drag. At 5m depth he was able to free-dive down to it and drag it into a nearby patch of sand; he then watched it bury itself when Dianne applied engine power in reverse gear so we're happy that we have a secure spot now.

 

After a couple of days with slow and doubtful wifi in the bay (various attempts at Skype calls ended in failure) we are back to using the sat phone for emails and blog updates for the next few days but we'll try to post the odd photo when we can.

A Hellish Day in Paradise

We know, you're probably thinking that we are having a wonderful time in a Polynesian paradise but today was pretty much a day from hell.

It started with a night of continuous heavy rain which became torrential this morning. Well we've spent enough time in Galloway (SW Scotland) to be able to cope with a wet day and, indeed, turned it to advantage; we blocked up the scupper drains on the deck and opened the water tank filler cap and, within 15 minutes, had the main tank brim full of fresh rainwater. We know when the tank is full because the hand-pump in the galley starts to spew water into the sink -  this is better than our new friends on the New Zealand boat Liberty 6 who say they know the same when their floorboards start floating!

Liberty, by the way, were pretty close to us on the passage from Galapagos and said they really enjoyed the daily banter between Maunie and Stormvogel on the VHF - they tried to call us but we didn't receive their transmissions;they said they felt that they knew us pretty well by the end of the voyage!

Anyway, back to the events of today. The water in the anchorage turned a deep muddy brown and then, at about 10.00am, we had a call from Peter on Stormvogel: "Have you seen what the **** is coming towards us?!!". The little stream at the head of the bay had become a raging torrent and all sorts of debris was flooding into the anchorage, starting with coconuts and little bits of wood. Soon, though, whole trees and bushes were floating towards the anchored boats on an increasingly fast current. Peter came to collect Graham in his dinghy and for the next two hours they, and the crews of several other boats, battled with the elements (still in torrential rain) to try to drag huge rafts of wood and greenery away from the boats.

The water turns brown 

Fighting to clear the log-jam from Stormvogel

Maunie was well placed out of the direct line of attack but Stormvogel at one stage had large logs pressing against her, threatening to drive her onto the nearest boat. Eventually the combined efforts of the crews cleared the mess, which floated out of the harbour but we discovered that Stormvogel's Hydrovane wind-vane steering system (aka Trudi) had been damaged; an hour later Peter and Graham had managed to remove a mangled stainless steel pin to return the rudder to a more normal angle than the 90 degrees to the fore-and-aft that it had adopted. Thank goodness this all happened in daylight as it would have been devastating at night.

As the weather at last began to improve after lunch, we walked into the village (Dianne staying aboard to keep watch and to bake an excellent cake) to find that the chaos of the anchorage was nothing compared to that of the the village centre. The flash flood had brough huge amounts of debris down the river so there were two diggers pulling  boulders and logs from under the blocked bridge and the surrounding buildings had a 1 metre high tideline. We got the impression that this isn't an unusual occurrence here and the locals were stoical in the face of conditions that would make the national news at home.

We returned, laden with provisions from the supermarket, in a 4x4 'taxi' which tackled the rock-strewn roads with gusto and then did a fuel run to refill Stormvogel's tanks before returning, exhausted, to our respective boats. Tomorrow morning, we'll complete a couple more dinghy runs to the fuel station and then get the hell out of here!

Hiva Oa

We had the pleasure of a really lovely day-sail on Tuesday - a mere 45 miles from Fatu Hiva northwards to the larger island of Hiva Oa. The sun shone, we had a nice Force 4 close reach and we enjoyed hand-steering all the way. There was no need to run the engine, except to anchor and the solar panels did a sterling job so we could run the watermaker all the way and arrived with nearly full tanks and nearly full batteries.

The anchorage is protected by a large man-made breakwater but this does little to stop the swell surging in to the fairly shallow waters. All the boats are anchored very close to each other with stern anchors out to try to keep up pointing into the waves so it's not the most restful place and at the moment (and for most of the night) it has been raining really hard but when the sun does break through we are rewarded by stunning views of the hills above.
We've done the long walk into town (about 1500 people live here so it's quite large) to check in with the Gendarme, investigate the relatively well-stocked but very expensive supermarket and get some diesel. Obtaining fuel is a slightly convoluted process involving jerry-cans and dinghy (landing ashore in the waves is a challenge) but the island's only petrol station is on the quay and the fuel is very clean. Yesterday Graham helped Peter fill 120 litres into Stormvogel's tanks which were pretty much empty and the process will continue today once the rain lets up. Meanwhile, two big bags of washing have been taken to the laundry and we've found a source of fresh vegetables so it's great to have some crunch back into our meals as we were getting pretty bored of tinned food!

From here the plan is to move across to a sheltered but uninhabited anchorage about 8 miles away where there is apparently good snorkelling and no swell. After that we'll head further north to the biggest island of Nuka Hiva before heading west to the Tuamutos archipelago and on to Tahiti.

Meanwhile, here are a few more photos from Fatu Hiva

Exploring Fatu Hiva

The memories of the voyage are fading fast after a couple of days of rest and recuperation. We did a brief (and slightly unsteady) walk ashore on our first afternoon then had a better look at the very neat and tidy Hanavave village on Saturday. An enterprising local couple, Jacques and Desiree, had organised a BBQ on the beach so all the crews of the 10 boats at anchor attended; the Mahi Mahi and chicken were delicious though the goat was a little tough (not surprising considering the mountainous terrain they graze). As we returned to the boats we had the biggest downpour imaginable so we can see why the island is so green.

Yesterday we hiked up into the hills with Heidi and Peter, following the river that runs into the head of our bay up to a very dramatic 200ft waterfall where Graham & Peter swam in the very deep plunge pool. For the first time the clouds cleared away from the mountain tops to give us a dramatic view of the rocky crags soaring above us.

The big swell that was forecast a few days ago arrived here yesterday so the waves started rolling into the anchorage. We're anchored in about 12m depth so rolled a fair bit until we deployed our anti-roll SeaBrake (last used in Spain) on the spinnaker pole but at the head of the bay the bottom shelves rapidly towards a little man-made breakwater sheltering the small dinghy harbour and the waves began to break there. Andrew, the skipper of Sirius which arrived the day before, was pitched out of his dinghy and into the water as he went in to collect his crew. Luckily he managed to get back aboard and restart the outboard before he was swept ashore. We're glad to say that the swell has diminished this morning so we'll head ashore again later now that it's safe to do so.

Boats that we've been chatting to on the the radio net are arriving – the NZ yacht Tuatara has just anchored – and one or two have left for the other anchorages. We'll check the forecast today and probably move to Hiva Oa tomorrow (about 45 miles) – there is a bit more in the way of civilisation and we should be able to get some diesel and maybe even find a laundry there. There should be some internet access too, so we'll hope to be able to post a few more photos.

The Anchorage on Fatu Hiva

 

This is our first view of the anchorage in Baie Hanavave – really impressive cliffs and rock formations, with waterfalls tumbling down from the cloud capped mountains above us. There are 10 yachts lying at anchor here, including Stormvogel and ourselves and the water gets deep very quickly so we've worked in close to the southern most cliff to anchor in about 11 metres of water.

 

We're about to go ashore to explore a little but looking back on our voyage we feel that we can be proud to have completed 3067nm in exactly 20 days. The horribly extended motoring of the past 4 days has coloured our views a but the first two weeks were pretty fast. It's been amazing that we've kept within about 4 miles of Stormvogel for the entire passage – our twice-daily chats on the VHF have kept us all sane when times were tough and humour hone through in our conversations even when we were all feeling a bit low. Keeping together proved remarkably easy – we had to make relatively few sail adjustments to keep our speeds the same so the biggest challenge was adjusting our wind vane steering systems to keep the boats on similar headings.

 

So, for the next couple of weeks we can enjoy our exploration of the Marquesas without the fear of 4.00am calls to go on watch – wonderful!!