Well, the return to civilization is always weird. Where we are there is no appearance of a big town. Yes, we can see houses along the shore and the road runs along the shore also. There is the boatyard, where there is a company who makes aluminum boats, they generate the most noise, which is mostly contained in their building... the grinding and banging on aluminum.

So, we were directed to the dinghy dock at the head of the little bay, which, as it turns out is a community center filled with outrigger canoes, a skate park and a very impressive pump and jump track for bikes... then we walked up the little hill and right in front of us a Carrefour. For those of you who have never shopped in France... this is a huge store. The french call it a Hyper-market. If you mix a huge grocery store, a huge kitchen supply store, a small automotive store, a large wine and beer store, throw in some kids toys, a reasonable athletic store, a pretty good sized electronics store, I am sure I left things out, but I think you get the picture. This is not Walmart. This is all quality French stuff. Of course the selections of bread and cheese is huge. And I was happy to see that they still sell baguettes without a wrapper, giving me flashbacks of being in France and seeing baguettes bungi-corded to bikes and motor-cycles in all kind of weather.

So, I think we spent 5 hours in and around the Carrefour! They had a good little prepared food section, where we purchased a lunch of green beans, broccoli, Zucchini... I guess we were missing green vegetables a bit. Isobel and I let Lara linger over the snail platters and purchased sim cards for the phones... climbed on the little climbing wall down the way and walked toward town to see what was there... gas stations, McDonald's, etc... We finally pulled Lara from the store with a good load of veggies, cheese, as well as some cider, wine, sauccison and baguette to share with our friends from Hibiscus.

Philip and Natelie we last saw in August 2013 in Las Perlas Panama as they sailed for the Galapagos. They then spent 5 months in the Gambier before setting out for the Marquesas... half way there they broke a fore stay and had to motor 800 miles to Tahiti... since then they have been doing a pretty major refit to their boat here. It seems that things are coming together on their various impressive projects...

We had a great night with them catching up on all of our adventures...