I've been in Taiohae Bay, Nuka Hiva for a week now, and am finally feeling normal again. It took a few days to recover from the passage. My first nights sleep was a solid 12 hours, after which I woke and felt pretty good. I felt progressively better each day for about three days in a row - it seems to take me a little while to recover from a passage.
Some stats from the passage:
The water temperature rose from 68.9 in Mexico when I left, to 85.1 where I am now.
I burned something like two gallons of diesel getting here. I ran the engine for just over two hours after leaving the marina, and then for just over an hour coming into the anchorage and anchoring. Sweet!
Its rained several of the days that I've been here, which is good and bad. The boat is clean again! There has been enough rain, and hard enough rain, to have cleaned all the decks and canvas. However when it rains I need to close the boat up, and that can make it pretty hot and humid inside… I need to work on rain covers for Luckness so I can leave several of the hatches open when its raining.
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Tuesday morning, the morning after my arrival, I spoke with Kevin from Yacht Services, the Pacific Puddle Jump sub-agent here in the bay, and arranged a time to meet him on shore to start my checkin procedure. I arranged to meet him at 1pm, giving myself a leisurely morning to get ready. I put the dinghy in the water, cleaned up a little, ate and went to shore. Checkin is a breeze. I met with Kevin for 1/2 an hour or so and filled in the paperwork. The Gendarme was closed by then for checkins and Kevin offered to go the next morning to finish my checkin and have me pick it up later at his office. I decided to meet him at the Gendarme then next morning at 7:30am. That process took about 10 minutes. There were no questions, no boat inspection, no questioning the amount of alcohol I had onboard (its cheaper in Mexico) - completely painless.
I've had some time to find out where things are here now. There is a nice cafe on land right at the dinghy dock. They have free wifi which is fantastic. They also have fresh juice of various sorts, pastries while they last in the morning, coffee and some food. It seems to be the yachtie hangout.
When I first pulled into the anchorage there were over 50 boats at anchor. The world ARC boat rally was here and they had a party on shore on wednesday evening. After the party the fleet has been slowly dispersing and there are only 14 sailboats at anchor now, and a few of those are local boats which look like they don't move. This is a huge anchorage and even at the peak, finding a spot to anchor was not a problem at all. I'm really glad I arrived here, rather than Hiva Oa, as I've been able to have stress free nights at anchor - plenty of room around me.
The town has several stores with a variety of food. I haven't timed my arrival at one of the stores with their having eggs yet - I guess they are available sometimes, not always. Vegetables in the stores is in short supply, although there is a fruit/vegetable market here six days a week, with Wednesday and Saturday being larger markets - the market has a good selection of fruit/veg. The prices, outside of the market, are on the high side. Items which have traveled a long way to get here are expensive, which is not surprising. You can buy baguette's for less than a dollar each, and they are fantastic. I haven't seen brown rice here, but provisioning won't be a problem. There is a nice selection and some items I don't recognize and will be trying. One thing I couldn't find in Mexico was sweet chili sauce such as Mae Ploy. Both of the stores here have an equivalent, along with black bean sauce, and so on. Its not a huge selection, but its good.
I will probably leave here on Tuesday or Wednesday to continue my adventure. I plan to spend roughly a month here in the Marquesas, a month in the Tuamotus and then a month in the Society Islands. My visa is only good for 90 days, so I have to travel through these beautiful islands faster than I would have liked.
A few pictures:
Tuesday morning, the morning after my arrival, I spoke with Kevin from Yacht Services, the Pacific Puddle Jump sub-agent here in the bay, and arranged a time to meet him on shore to start my checkin procedure. I arranged to meet him at 1pm, giving myself a leisurely morning to get ready. I put the dinghy in the water, cleaned up a little, ate and went to shore. Checkin is a breeze. I met with Kevin for 1/2 an hour or so and filled in the paperwork. The Gendarme was closed by then for checkins and Kevin offered to go the next morning to finish my checkin and have me pick it up later at his office. I decided to meet him at the Gendarme then next morning at 7:30am. That process took about 10 minutes. There were no questions, no boat inspection, no questioning the amount of alcohol I had onboard (its cheaper in Mexico) - completely painless.
I've had some time to find out where things are here now. There is a nice cafe on land right at the dinghy dock. They have free wifi which is fantastic. They also have fresh juice of various sorts, pastries while they last in the morning, coffee and some food. It seems to be the yachtie hangout.
When I first pulled into the anchorage there were over 50 boats at anchor. The world ARC boat rally was here and they had a party on shore on wednesday evening. After the party the fleet has been slowly dispersing and there are only 14 sailboats at anchor now, and a few of those are local boats which look like they don't move. This is a huge anchorage and even at the peak, finding a spot to anchor was not a problem at all. I'm really glad I arrived here, rather than Hiva Oa, as I've been able to have stress free nights at anchor - plenty of room around me.
The town has several stores with a variety of food. I haven't timed my arrival at one of the stores with their having eggs yet - I guess they are available sometimes, not always. Vegetables in the stores is in short supply, although there is a fruit/vegetable market here six days a week, with Wednesday and Saturday being larger markets - the market has a good selection of fruit/veg. The prices, outside of the market, are on the high side. Items which have traveled a long way to get here are expensive, which is not surprising. You can buy baguette's for less than a dollar each, and they are fantastic. I haven't seen brown rice here, but provisioning won't be a problem. There is a nice selection and some items I don't recognize and will be trying. One thing I couldn't find in Mexico was sweet chili sauce such as Mae Ploy. Both of the stores here have an equivalent, along with black bean sauce, and so on. Its not a huge selection, but its good.
I will probably leave here on Tuesday or Wednesday to continue my adventure. I plan to spend roughly a month here in the Marquesas, a month in the Tuamotus and then a month in the Society Islands. My visa is only good for 90 days, so I have to travel through these beautiful islands faster than I would have liked.
A few pictures:
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| Out there, one morning. |
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| Ua Huka. The first island I saw from the Marquesas |
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| Nuka Hiva! |
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| So happy to see land again! |
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| Part of my welcoming party! |
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| Luckness in Taiohae Bay |
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| s/v Discovery arriving! |
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| The crew of Discovery! |
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| Taiohae Bay, Nuka Hiva |
Congrats! Sitting here, at my desk in Charlotte, N.C., ....so envious....
ReplyDeleteHave a great day today of all days. Hope the sun shines. (joke) What beautiful places and pink clouds. Very small island in a big ocean. You did well to find them xoxoMum
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