We are sitting here at anchor in a very picturesque bay. Rumor has it the missionaries didn't like the original name so they renamed it. I will leave the two different names here for your own translation. Original was Baie des Verges renamed to Baie des Vierges (French).

Well we left the Isle Tahuata day before yesterday and tried for about three hours to catch a fish. No luck so headed towards Fatu Hiva. We arrived here around 1630 local and set our anchor with a nice firm hold. Unfortunately, there was a boat anchored behind us (they were here first), Just Jane and the gal was JUST JANE. She immediately came to her bow and informed us that she was not comfortable with how close were were to them (30 yards). So undoing our nice firm anchor we moved closer to shore and then it took us three more attempts to finally get a good hook. So as this story goes we were now out of shouting distance from Just Jane so last night around 9pm she calls the boat right behind her, friends of ours on The Rose, and tells them that she thought they were too close and when they set their anchor a couple days ago she thought she would see how it went and hadn't said anything, but now they were concened. The Rose was very nice and went to bed knowing their anchor wasn't going to crawl up under Just Jane. This moring about 0500, The Rose being nice weighed anchor and moved over about 75 yards. Shortly after The Rose got set, Just Jane weighs anchor and leaves. See what happens when you try to be nice to someone who doesn't trust thier own anchoring skills?

We are anchored here with four other friends we have met over the past months. The group excepting John on The Rose and myself went for a day hike yesterday to climb up to a 300 foot waterfall. Just as they were going ashore it started raining and pretty much never stopped all day. They forstalled the waterfall and went shopping. I got the sewing machine out, finished a sun awning for Orcinius and repaired a hoisting strap for John. After John left I pulled out the torn spinnaker and proceeded to make a repair. The tear was about 10 feet long so I figured I wouldn't be able to use the sticky backed nylon sail repair tape and proceeded to clean up the tear, burn the edges so it wouldn't frey and cut a ripstop nylon strip to sew in the gap. That took me the rest of the day but I am satisified with the repair and it should be good enough to get us to Tahiti in a month.

We decided to expand my culinary skills by making pizza for dinner. Sorry Susan, didn't use the no nead recipe, so took one out of a pizza cook book we have. Started the dough and had the pizza in the oven an hour and 30 minutes later. It was a double batch so we made two and have had some for breakfast. The pizza crust turned out great as well as the pizzas. Today will be some more culinary artisan work. Pat on The Rose gave us a packet of Yogurt starter so will give that an attempt and have it chilled on my cerial for breakfast tomorrow. I am going to give the sourdough starter another try later next week. Once I can get all this bacteria growing we can have a feast.

So we are here in this bay waiting for church tomorrow. It is reported that this little community of maybe 150 people (all of Fatu Hiva is 620) have a music session prior to church where they play ekeleles and sing songs so we will attend that and then see how the church session goes. It will probably all be in French or Marquesan so won't understand a thing. After that we will weigh anchor and move about 10 miles around the point for a night then pick up the trades the next morning on our way back Northwest towards Nuku Hiva.

John & Lisa