French Polynesia at Last!

Our first pôrt of call in French Polynesia was the island of Hiva Oa, there are only a couple of villages on the entire island, and with the depth of water here you are limited as to where you can anchor. We had a two mile hike into town in 90 degrees the first day we landed, but after being at sea for 21 days we were just glad to be on firm land. Ted,s leg mysteriously played him up so he choose not to walk into town with us! Now if there had been a bar 200 yards down the road he would have made it.

After 21 days at sea we desperately needed to do some laundry, luckily Nigel and I keep on top of our stuff so we only had a few bits, Ted refuses to do laundry, he saves his for some little lady to do it ashore. Twenty pounds latter he wished he,d done it himself!

The boat was covered in goose barnacles when we got here, and despite the sharks nigel went over the side to clean them off, luckily he only saw one small one but still got out of the water quick incase it,s Dad turned up. We are quite suprised, there isn,t much wildlife here, not many fish or birds, compared to the Galapagos it,s very noticeable.

The people here are very friendly, every where you go you are greeted as though they haven,t seen you for a very long time. The ladies all wear a flower tucked behind their ears, and the guys are covered in the most ornate tattoos. Talking of tattoos lots ,of our friends on other boats are all getting tattoos done here, we have resisted so far! But I guess if you are going to get one done this is the place to do it, it,s where they originated from. Sarah from Norsa has had a really intricute ray done on her hip, I could go with one of them hidden somewhere.

We are now in Nuka Hiva getting our sail repaired, once that is done we will do a couple more islands and then set off for the Tuamotu,s and Tahiti. I feel a bit happier now that the mainsail is being fixed, we had a real crappy sail over with no main and I wasn,t relishing the thought of having to go a thousand miles on the headsail. Still I will be glad to get to Tahiti, we are hoping to get into a hotel for a couple of nights......... a real shower!!!! Last week I resorted to the fishermans shower on the jetty at Hiva Oa, quite surreal as me and this French guy chatted over the wall to each other as he did his laundry and i had a shower.

The internet is too slow here to put photo,s on so I guess you,ll have to wait until Tahiti. Anyhow I,m off to top up my tan! Love to you all!