Tahuata, Hana Moe Noa Bay

We’ve had a pleasant if not busy stop here in paradise. A white sandy beach, beautiful clear water, some coral, fish, stingrays, and invisible jellyfish! Cathy and I have both got stung while swimming but we have not seen the little buggers.

There were a 6-8 boats here when we arrived and we knew most of them from our travels in the US and Mexico, or via radio nets. Thursday, one of the boats organized a book swap on the beach and we spent the afternoon standing in the water (too hot to stand on the beach) getting to know what each of us were doing. We met a French couple, Patrick and Noel who have been in French Polynesia almost a year now. She grew up on a boat and has been sailing continuously since she was 8 years old. Friday night we all congregated on Arial, a 46 ft Cal sailed by a young couple (Eric and Ivanna) originally from Poland. They are making their way to New Zealand to hopefully immigrate. Eric got out his accordion and another cruiser produced a saxophone and we between listening to Polish war songs, songs from the Solidarity movement, some great blues from the sax, a bit of Beatles, we had a great time. I needed the break. I spent all day Friday removing and patiently cleaning the chain plates for the forward lower shrouds. It’s a job I have been putting off for quite a awhile but during the passage they both started to leak so they had to be looked at. When they built the boat, Westerly thoughtfully buried one half of the chain-plates in a void between two bulkheads. It meant that I had to cut an access hole through the bulkhead to get at the bolts. It all turned out fine and thankfully the chain-plates and attachments were in good condition. By the time the job was complete, it chewed up a day and half. We also realized when we got here that something had hit our wind steering blade. So that came off and was fixed with a little metalwork and epoxy. Oh the things we do in paradise. We’re heading off today a bit further south on this Island (Tahuata) to visit a couple of the villages. We’ll probably spend a day or two there and then work our way back up to the north side of Hiva Oa and then across to Nuku Hiva. We have made plans to be in Papeete Tahiti for the 27/28 of June for a Tahitian welcome or all the cruising boats so we have to be conscious of time. Although that is 2 months away, the days seem to disappear quite fast.

On the radio front, it turns out that the antenna tuner is NOT under warranty so now we have to replace it. I will wait until I can do a bit of research before we decide which one to get. We will arrange for it in Papeete.