I'm getting requests for info so let me say: They are fine. They are on the other side of the island where there is no connection (left the crowded harbor once they got checked in and had Nolans finger xrayed, etc. (it's fine)). Tracy said she will blog as soon as she can--rather spotty connection and Tracy isn't keen on struggling with spotty technology.. suffice to say, they are all well and we should get details soon.
Best!
Melinda

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and they are real, clambering along the rocky shoreline, not voices of the sea that have talked to us so many times during the passage. We are here with Gingi and Windancer and Charisma, who have also fled the conditions in the port of entry, Atuona, where Gaugain died. After a dinner cooked with three pots (a luxury) and a peaceful sleep at anchor, we went ashore today. The swell slammed up against the coral encrusted concrete wharf, and I jumped up with its rhythm and landed. Immediately I went down on my hands and knees amid crabs, intensely vertiginous and nauseated with what I guess is mal de tierre, not mal de mar. It settled after 15 minutes to simple imbalance. In front of me was a shower pole with sweet water flowing. Now comes the hard part: how to describe the next three hours without using the words lush, paradise, verdant, neat, or exquisite. We met up with a fisherman and traded for stalks of bananas, grapefruit, and mangos. Then another, Rio, a 36 year old man who was born here, went to carpentry school in Papeete, then returned here, walked with us through the village where most make their living by copra. My French was studied in school thirty-nine years ago and never spoken since, but the neurons start firing, and pretty soon we are talking away in a mix of French and English and Marquesan. Salty and sweating, we are treated to little bits that Rio finds darting off into the bushes or reaching overhead. First limes, then coconut drying in open air platforms, a nut broken open that is unfamiliar, starfruit, something I think might be called soursap in English, cider apples, papaya and water more sweet water. Juices drain down our faces and our hands our sticky and we keep smushing one more intense taste down our throats. We walk slowly along a thin paved path into a valley lined with homes of wood or cement blocks rimmed by every houseplant you have ever grown, painted in vivid colors without restraint, and tended with order. Horses show their faces and even the pigs look like an Impressionist painting rather than regular ol' pigs. The volcanic cliffs are finely lined and daubed with elegant pointillist greenery. Each crew alludes to some heart of darkness part of their passage, but mostly we just walk. Wow.

A Minute Maid OJ bottle appeared and we passed the water around among the group of 13, and continued to dig our tired hands into the white succulent soft fruit and swallow greedily. The best part of land is the water.

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The SSB net we sign in on is pretty much weather business, no chit-chat, but last night a thready, plaintive man's voice came on at the end and asked if there were any other boats with teenagers aboard about to make landfall. He had a 12 and 15 y/o. There was quite the chorus of yeses. During the night we saw dense shields of phosphoresence streaking through the water for the first time. At first we thought they were reflections of lightening or boats or our own lights, but no...we were arriving. Land Ho 15:03UTC. Hiva Oa, French Polynesia. We are going to call it 26 days for now, but subject to recount for the official record once we come back down to land.

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