Bonjour from Hiva Oa!

NOTE..edit by Dave....THIS IS AN OUT OF DATE ORDER POST THAT GUDS HAD DONE, BUT NEVER GOT POSTED9(suspect internet)..BUT IT HAD SOME GOOD INFORMATION, SO AM POSTING ON HER BEHALF....here goes:

...Wow...we have so much to update you all on!  We finally have (slow) internet access, so hopefully I can post a few decent quality pictures and bring you up to speed on our comings and goings!

Sadly, we had to leave the Bay of Virgins at Fatu Hiva yesterday, but we have been rewarded with a lovely stay at Hiva Oa, our next port of call!  But before I get ahead of myself...


Monday was probably one of the best days we've had so far...pretty much what I imagined a typical day in a cruiser's life to be! :)  We woke up with the silhouette of our friends "Cheeky Monkey" on the horizon.  They had just finished their crossing and were coming in to anchor after completing their crossing.  After "hello's" and a lay of the anchorage, they went off to do their thing, and Garrick and Adrian went into the village to buy more bacon!

While they were there, the kids' friends, Antoine and Paul paddled over to play.  The kids swam behind the boat and soon Garrick and Adrian came dinghying back and whipped up a lovely breakfast of bacon, eggs, sausage and fried bananas! Yum! After breakfast, Dave got in the water, Garrick and Adrian went back to town to take a ride over the mountains to the other village and I took up position on the bean bag on the bow with my book!  Soon one more "boat kid" came over (Lola, from another Lagoon anchored next to us).  She is also French, but her English was also pretty good.  So there we had 5 kids snorkeling, Dave cleaning the hulls and Guds just chilling.  The kids saw fish and a huge Manta Ray!  After a lunch break, the kids got back together again.  More fun on paddle boards, Garrick and Adrian returned from town, and everyone ended up in the water.  It was a lot of fun!

We had been told that it was Liam on "Cheeky Monkey"'s birthday and we had been invited over for a birthday celebration.  Everyone in the anchorage was invited, and in fact, almost everyone came!  There was a fantastic party on Cheeky Monkey and everyone got to meet everyone else!  We had a real United Nations with representatives from New Zealand, South Africa, USA, Germany, France and England!

Tuesday morning dawned with howling wind.  We had gusts of up to 30 knots in the anchorage, but we decided to stick with our plan and head on over to Hiva Oa.  We had to come here to officially check in, and couldn't put it off much longer.  It was very sad to leave our boat friends, Cheeky Monkey and Toomai, since we'd just reconnected, but we had to keep moving.  We will keep in touch with both of them, and have no doubt we'll meet up again.  The sail over to Hiva Oa, while only 45 miles, was not much fun.  The wind was strong, and there were big swells from the side, so it was a rough, rolly ride, but no problem to stick it out for 6 or so hours.  We arrived here at Hiva Oa at about 5:30pm last night.  We'd heard terrible stories about how bad the anchorage was, but we were pleasantly surprised.  I think it was because there were only 7 other boats, here, when usually there can be up to 20!  We were thrilled to see "Mary Ann II", the other boat we were in touch with via SSB during the crossing.  We were anchored and relaxed in no time at all!

We started our day off today with fresh baguettes and then headed into town for our clearing in and provisioning.  We had the most pleasant clearing in procedure we've ever experienced!  After the drama and formalities of Galapagos, this was incredibly laid back and friendly!  The Gendarmerie welcomed us with open arms, big smiles, and lots of stories about cannibals eating little girls (Gaby)!  We are now officially cleared in.  We also provisioned, and have a new supply of fruit, cheese, crackers, canned veggies and such.  It was very expensive, but we are in the middle of nowhere!!

We've also made it up to this wonderful hotel where we are sipping drinks in order to use their wifi signal!  This place is up on the hill overlooking the bay where our boat is anchored.  It is beautiful, and we are enjoying civilization again (even be it with very expensive beer and wine!!).  Tomorrow is Bastille Day (Dave is uploading a video of the celebration on his youtube channel...so search "David Hibberd youtube or Cool Runnings and you should find it) and there is a parade in town at 8:00am which we will definitely go and see.  Then we have planned a tour of the island - apparently there are some great archaeological sites on the other side of the island.  I will hopefully be able to report on that tomorrow!  For now, it's time to end off.  Our thanks again to everyone for all the comments and emails - they definitely keep us going!  Until next time, au revoir from Hiva Oa!