Bonjour! We arrived at the archipelago of the Gambier Islands one week ago, and as often happens, we have been busy since our arrival

with all the things that need to be done after a 4,000 nautical mile passage. Evans has had a longish list of boat projects, most of them

pretty minor, which he pretty well finished off yesterday when the wind finally went light enough for us to drop the roller furling jib so he could

tighten the headstay and retune the rig. I finished my list today when we ferried 900 pounds of water in jerry cans (we could have used a

hose but decided to jerry jug rather than back Hawk onto a concrete commercial jetty where the tap is) out to the boat and I did a month's

worth of accumulated laundry. In between boat projects and getting settled in, we've been enjoying getting to know the island a little bit

and taking long walks to get ourselves back in condition after being at sea.



Our passage from Costa Rica took 24 days during which we sailed more than 4,000 nautical miles to make good 3,600. We had expected

headwinds on leaving Costa Rica, but we had expected them to be light enough that we might have to motor and to last for about 500

miles. Instead, they were 15-25 knots dead up our course for more than 1,000 miles, to well beyond the Galapagos. Luckily, until the last

few days both the wind and seas stayed moderate, so though we were heeled over we weren't crashing around too much. We had our

worst day and our worst week ever on Hawk in terms of miles made good, yet Hawk was sailing really well, making 7 knots through the

water 28 degrees off the apparent wind. When we still couldn't get south to where we knew we would find favorable winds, we took a long

tack to the southeast, losing 25 miles 'made good' in 24 hours, sailing under the double-reefed main and the staysail into 25-30 knots of

wind, and at the end of that day we finally found winds from the easterly quarter and could free our sheets and head directly for our landfall.



We found the trade-winds on the 11th day at about 100=B0W, a few degrees north of the equator. From that time on, Hawk sailed between

185 and 200 miles each day, so our average daily miles made good for the second half of the passage were just about double that for the

first half. Hawk was flying along at 8-9 knots 24 hours a day sailing initially on a close reach, then a beam reach, and finally a run. Once the

boat flattened out a bit, it was lovely sailing, and Hawk seemed to be having just as much fun as we were.



We came through the wide, well-marked past on the northwest side of the lagoon, and anchored just inside the pass for the night before

moving to the town anchorage in daylight. We needn't have bothered - the French have placed buoys and lights all through the lagoon,

and we could have safely navigated it in the middle of the night. Coming out on deck the morning after we arrived, I got my first real look at

the Gambier Islands. We were anchored behind the largest of the islands in the lagoon, called Mangareva, off a large peninsula at its

southern end that extended out from the main body of the island to the northwest to create a large, coral studded harbor. The island was

covered with bright green vegetation that ranged from palm trees to some species of pine tree as well as a dozen other types of greenery.

From where we were anchored, we could see four of the other five islands that dot the lagoon. The largest of these lay to the south of us,

and a sailboat lay at anchor in its lee. The water was that vivid blue color midway between royal blue and purple, a rich, vibrant

Technicolor that hardly looked real. We could see right to the bottom through the shimmering blue, where a scattering of coral boulders lay

on a bed of sand. As I pulled up the chain, I watched it lift from the sand thirty-five feet below me, raising a cloud of silt around it, and then I

saw it take up against the anchor and lift first the shank and then the flukes off the bottom.



After a week here, we're starting to get a bit of a feel for this archipelago. The town, Rikitea, is amazingly prosperous. Houses are mostly

concrete block painted in primary colors with corrugated tin roofs and with brightly-colored curtains flapping to the breeze in the open

windows. The two streets that run through the town are both concrete, though at the edge of town the concrete gets pretty potholed and

it's obvious that only in the center of town is there regular maintenance. A variety of trucks, scooters and SUVs made their way along this

street, and it seems as if there is some sort of vehicle parked in front of almost every house. A great deal of building seems to be going on,

and at the main wharf where the supply ships dock, large slings hold gravel that has been imported from Indonesia. The people are smiling,

friendly, well-fed and in good health. Women push babies in strollers down the paved street, and kids ride by on bicycles. It all feels very

first world, yet it also has that indefinable air of the tropics - the smell of luxuriant flowers, the brightly colored plants, the palm trees swaying

to the tradewind breeze.



The town stretches along the shore behind the anchorage, running for more than a mile. Most of the communal buildings are clustered at its

southern end, almost certainly the town center when the town was being developed. The Gendarmarie, the Marie and several small

churches are all to be found in this area, along with a half a dozen one-room shops that have a wide range of merchandise. A large

cathedral with two towers sits on a slight rise at the base of Mt. Duff, the high volcanic spine of the island, readily visible from the

anchorage. Around it, there are several substantial buildings made from stone and mortar. These lovely building are the legacy of the

island's sad and troubled history.



The islands have been inhabited for close to a thousand years, and may have been settled around the time of the Marquesas based on the

similarity between the two languages. Estimates put initial settlement at around 1200 AD, and by the fifteenth century, the islands supported

a population of many thousands of people and actively traded with Pitcairn, the Society Island, the Cook Islands and the Marquesas. But

deforestation and overpopulation lead here, as on Easter Island, to the loss of external trading links and then to civil war, a decline in

population and a slide into cannibalism. Population estimates vary a great deal at the time of European contact, but were likely in the range

of 5,000 to 6,000 inhabitants. While legend has it that English pirate Edward Davis first stumbled upon the island in 1687 (and sealers and

whalers may well have known of it after that), the first recorded European contact occurred in 1797 when Captain Charles Wilson from the

London Missionary Society found the island while taking missionaries and artists to various Polynesian islands aboard the ship HMS Duff

(hence the name of the mountain).



The island was left in relative peace until 1834 when a ship sent by the order of the Sacred Heart in Valparaiso arrived with Father Honor�

Laval aboard. He converted the Mangaraveans when the women of the island intervened to save his life to stop the chief's followers from

killing him. From that point on, he created a little fiefdom in the Gambiers, virtually enslaving the people and forcing them to build

monumental buildings while adhering to a draconian code of laws. He initiated a huge building program that resulted in some 116 coral and

stone buildings, which included churches, chapels, convents, teaching facilities, mills, weaving workshops and bread ovens, as well as

wells and stone roads. This building project literally worked the Mangaraveans to death. By the time Father Laval was recalled to Tahiti, the

population of the islands had fallen by more than 5,000, and it stood at less than 1,500 of which only a few were pure-blooded Polynesians.

In 1988, the archipelago's population stood at just 621. I would guess now that it might be approaching 1,000 people, but I haven't yet

asked anyone. That means the population now is 20 percent or less than what it was when Laval arrived 150 years ago.



The island has continued to have a checkered history with respect to domination by outsiders. When the French nuclear testing was going

on in Mururoa, a few hundred miles to the northwest of here, French military were stationed here, and the nuclear weapons were stored

here before detonation. Evans thinks this may be why the standard of housing on the island is so high, and indeed many of the houses look

like military style boxes, not barracks but a step up from that. The islanders resented the French and believed that the nuclear testing was

poisoning them. The French have carried out soil and air tests of the islands on a regular basis, but they have refused to release the results.

The islanders believe that the attack on Greenpeace's Rainbow Warrior in Auckland was to prevent the ship from coming here to take

independent samples. Yet, as Evans pointed out, it is not difficult to take such samples and send them to a lab, and you would think

someone would have done it by now. In any case, the islanders seem sympathetic to Greenpeace and at odds with the French

administration, though they clearly benefit greatly from all the French subsidies.



For the island is prosperous, as our first impressions indicated. Apparently the base of the economy is the black pearl industry. When we

were entering the anchorage where we are now, we saw several of the pearl shacks on the reef that we have seen in the Tuamotus.

These, however, were far fancier than anything there. One of them is a large house with multiple rooms that looks as if it is in the process of

getting a large addition. There are also several small areas of buoys from which the oysters are growing in the water, like the mussel farms

we have seen the world over though on a smaller scale. We understand that some of the other anchorages that we might have been able

to get into within the lagoon are now covered with pearl farms.



We've had several people trying to trade with us for their black pearls, obviously of inferior quality. They have all been young men

interested only in hard liquor - we believe the island has only beer and wine for sale in the shops and both are quite expensive. The only

liquor we had aboard when we arrived was two-thirds of a bottle of gin that I've been trying to get rid of since San Francisco and a bottle of

good red wine. Just to get rid of the guy who came by the day before yesterday, I finally agreed to trade him the wine and the gin for half his

handful of pearls. But I've never really liked black pearls - they resemble nothing so much as ball bearings as far as I'm concerned. But

maybe someday I'll find some use for them or someone who wants them. In the meantime, we're out of alcohol, which the coconut

telegraph will relay far and wide, so we shouldn't be bothered any more.



We have so far found half a dozen stores along the main road of the town, and I doubt we have yet found them all. We had been to visit

many of the stores late last week, and I was surprised by the variety of things available, especially since the bi-monthly supply ship was due

in at any minute. The ship came on Saturday, and we went shopping yesterday morning. I was able to buy tinned butter, UHT yogurt,

raisins, applesauce, eggs, potatoes and carrots. They had all sorts of other things, from canned goods to cereal, but I'm still stocked up on

most things from Costa Rica. Of course, things are very expensive. I spent $18 for three tins of butter and a dozen eggs. But I can get just

about anything I will need by the time we leave here. Another ship comes in on the 7th of September, so I will stock up then for the trip to

Chile. The only thing I've been disappointed in has been the lack of fresh fruit and vegetables. At least we can make up for that with

canned and freeze dried stuff, but I miss fresh. I ate my last Costa Rican tomato today (it lasted a month - better than I expected), and it

tasted wonderful. No more fresh stuff now for some time.



There are five other boats anchored in the town anchorage with us, and two of those are also on their way to Chile. All but one of the boats

in the lagoon is metal, and three of them are crewed by singlehanders. It's been fun getting to know crews that we will most likely see a

great deal of over the coming months. We're enjoying our time here, knowing that the passage from here to Chile, the last 1,000 miles or so

of which will be in the Southern Ocean, will be a challenging, stormy, cold one.



Enjoy wherever you are now,

Beth and Evans

s/v Hawk