French Polynesia 2

Nuka Hiva

Nuka Hiva Yacht Services, conveniently situated on the quay at Taiohae Bay, provide a laundry service, WiFi, book exchange, boat repairs and many other services to boaters. We left our laundry with them and went to check in at the Gendarmerie. When we arrive in a port after a week or two at sea we usually need the following: gendarmerie or immigration and customs; bank or ATM; diesel; water; food; laundry; tourist information; WiFi; rubbish disposal. All these were available at Taiohae Bay and we made good use of them.

Jeremy replaced the stuffing in the box that lets sea water on the prop shaft to cool it. No water had been coming through and the prop shaft was very hot, exacerbated by the vibrations. Perhaps the shaft would stop vibrating now?

The entrance to Daniel's Bay.

We weighed anchor on 25^th April and motored 6 miles to Daniel’s Bay. I was surprised that we were the only visiting boat as it’s usually a popular place for yachts to go to take on fresh water from the mountain stream.  The next day we loaded our dinghy with empty water bottles and went round to the adjacent bay, where we had to surf into the fresh water stream, motor into a lagoon and tie to a palm tree. Close by, we found a hose and a tap and started filling our containers.

The river is in the corner on the left of the photo.

We met Koua. Her family owns the land. She spoke good English and told us there was no charge for the water and for walking round the village, but we would have to pay 1000PCF (10USD) to walk to the waterfall. She would make us a meal for 1000PCF each. She was happy with our gift of two cans of Sprite and a can of Coca Cola.

Garden of Eden?

It took two trips in the dinghy for us to fill all the boat’s tanks and all our drinking water bottles. Boats started to arrive in Daniel’s Bay including Andrew in his 39ft Moody called Shelagh. He came on board for sundowners and we had a long chat about the UK, our families and our sailing experiences. Thanks for the cream crackers and cheese. Andrew told us the weather in the Tuamotus was going to be awful for almost a week with near gale force winds and 3-4m swell. We decided to defer our departure and stayed in Daniel’s Bay for a few more nights.

Don't land your dinghy here!

We walked through the forest to Koua’s house the next day. Her husband barbecued some pork and she prepared breadfruit and a salad of grated mango, papaya, pineapple and ginger. Afterwards, we shared a smoothie of mango, pineapple, papaya and banana. We paid for our lunch, but realised we should have taken a gift as well. I gave her a set of coloured pencils which I had in my rucksack, which she said she would give to her nephew.

Daniel's Bay. Can you spot Sal Darago?

On Monday 29^th April, we motored back to Taiohae Bay. There was a very big swell in the entrance to Daniel’s Bay and much less in Taiohae Bay, but enough to make anchoring too near the reef fringed shore too risky. We had to anchor twice and ended up next to a British man, Chris, on his yacht, Sagacious. We learned that the supply boat was coming the next day. We had to wait until 1600 hrs to go ashore and buy provisions for our trip to the Tuamotus.

At 2100 hrs, in the dark, we weighed anchor, negotiated our way past numerous anchored vessels and out to sea. We had reefs in our mainsail and genoa, but made good speed.