Life is good :)

Hi all...Dave here sipping a beer in the Spectacular Bay of Virgins in Marquesas Island. 

Apparently this is one of the top 3 most spectacular anchorages in the world. The attached

 pic I took this afternoon does not do it any justice!!!!  I also took a video on my phone

 which is pretty cool and does capture much more so will post when we get internet....Maybe 

in a few days.....

Yesterday when we arrived we anchored in record time, put the dinghy in the water and were 

ashore in no time. Everyone was a little off balance walking for the first few minutes.....

it was pretty amazing.

Nineteen days at sea almost to the hour....and finally we had arrived!!!! We wasted no time 

and walked through the beautiful tiny town being greeted by locals. The village consists of

 around 300 people and is lush and tropical beyond description!!!! The mountains rise up 

steeply from the sea and are covered in lush vegetation and Palm trees.....very    very  

beautiful!!!!

We ended up taking a walk to a most spectacular waterfall, together with some folks from 2 

other boats:  a German couple who have a 9 month old son and a 2 year old daughter...now 

that's hard core!!!  The other people were from the boat anchored behind us; the guy was a 

kiwi, his wife from Bulgaria and there was also a German girl (we think the au pair ?), 

and they have a little girl, about 4 or 5 years old.  That's the cool thing about this...

you meet many different people from all over the world!

The waterfall was incredible...probably about 200ft high, falling down a sheer cliff face.

  There is lovely cool pool at the bottom that we all swam in.  We've also come at a great 

time, since July is the month they celebrate Bastille day here in French Polynesia, and the 

villages are all practicing their dances.  Apparently they celebrate all month long.  We've

 had the luxury of watching them practice and as we sit here, we can here the drums from the

  village.

Today we were treated to lunch at a local lady's house.  She prepared chicken, goat 

(yes, goat), rice, Papaya salad and pampelmousse, and bananas- a traditional Marquesian meal.

  She sat with us and ate the meal with us and told us all about life in this tiny village on

 this tropical island in broken English...unfortunately our French is extremely limited!!!  

Pampelmousse is a local fruit that is like a big grapefruit, but a little sweeter.  

Yesterday one of the villagers gave us 2, so we had already had some for breakfast.  It was

 a great experience!!

Then, as we were walking back to the dock to take the dinghy back "home", we saw another 

boat anchoring...and the kids realized it was "Toomai", their French friends from Panama!!

So a happy reunion this afternoon as the kids reconnected.  Paul and Antoine came over to 

our boat and their mom dinghyed over this evening to pick them up! :-)

Tomorrow we expect the arrival of Cheeky Monkey - the  other boat we crossed the Pacific with

.  They left the Galapagos a few days after us and we've been in touch via email.  It will 

be nice to see them again. 

That's about it for now.  I'm off to enjoy the drums from the stern of the boat!

All the best,
Dave and the Cool Runnings crew!

Sent from Iridium Mail & Web.