Another day another island
10 August 2011
Catherine
10 August 2011
I think I've used that title before!! We're now in Ua Pou. After a few hours of no wind, we ended up having a lovely 15-20 knots all the way here. A beautiful night's sail with several shooting stars, but it's strange how tired we were this morning after just one night of broken sleep. Another bite on the line, another lure lost - these are obviously tougher fish that in the Caribbean and so we now have our heavy duty hooks ready - these fish have been so close and yet so far. When we arrived in the bay a group of about 20 or so kids were baiting a shark and within a couple of hours, they had landed it and were beating it to death. Lochy and Mia were disgusted by this and went back to their clay animals they are making to raise money for saving animals! I felt a bit queasy too, but then at least they were going to take it back and eat it and that was what I had had planned for the next fish we landed. I don't think I could kill a shark though. Can I just say at this point that we have been informed that these sharks are harmless as they are only 2 metres long and that all the locals are swimming in the bay still, so Mia and Lochy are still going in the water for swim. We were greeted this afternoon by Xavier, a Frenchman who used to teach English here in Ua Pou, until he was hit by a drink driver 15 years ago. Now, he swims everyday and enjoys meeting boats and I think practising his English, so he just swam on over for a chat. I think he was vaguely amused by me offering him a cup of tea, but he accepted anyway!! Tomorrow, Sophie, Junior and I will go for a hike after we have all checked in with the Gendarmes. Here, it doesn't cost anything to check in, unless you are not part of the EU, in which case you have to pay a $1000 bond which is refundable once you leave. Xavier was telling us that the French government heavily subsidise the Marquesians, which is why they all drive brand new Toyota Hilux pick up trucks and pay no tax. PS the superyacht yesterday was called Exumer I think - google it!!