GHOST

Well after a pretty action packed few weeks we have realised the blog may have been neglected somewhat. Now that we are safely anchored in Manihi in the Tuamotus and the floor is once again at 90 degrees to our feet for any length of time - it's time to rectify.

We arrived in Nuka Hiva at 4am after 21 days at sea. The previous night's sunset over Hiva Oa had been stunning and suitably welcomed us to the Marquises islands in French Polynesia. After anchoring in the bay we all headed to bed for some well earned sleep only to be confronted in the morning with sheer cliffs all around the boat and some rare glimpses of civilisation. Happily JP, a friend from Panama who is sailing single handed across the Pacific, was also in the bay and was soon zooming over to welcome us, give us some tips to the island and offering to head ashore with us. We weren't disappointed as we once again got to stretch our legs and, on JP's advice, walked to a fantastic hotel overlooking the bay. The cokes may have been expensive, but the free dip in the infinity pool was more than worth it (luckily for them Ghost has a watermaker onboard and so this wasn't our first bath for 3 weeks...). We also stocked up on cash - only to discover that French Polynesian money is both enormous and comes in ridiculously oversized denominations from the cash point. So the nearly A4 sized piece of colourful paper we grabbed to go for a beer with was actually $100 USD. That said - maybe we'd need as much as we could carry as we soon found out beers were $7, despite pizzas being only $10. Luckily Ghost is still pretty chock full of beer and food from Panama or evening beers could have become a walletbreaker....

The next few days were spent exploring the town (well that took around 2 hours), checking into customs, getting fuel and hiring a car to explore. The landscape was stunning to say the least. A mixture of towering cliffs, palm studded bays, desert on the Western end and huge pine forests at the higher altitudes. Our second day on the island also brought the first heavy rains they'd had for months - confirming my recently hard earnt reputation as always attracting rain and squalls. A heavy swell also started to roll into the normally calm anchorage. Other boats disappeared behind large rollers and getting to the town and using the dingy dock became a dice with death. We soon found out that the unusual swell had been caused by a 7.8 magnitude earthquake in Vanuatu which, despite not triggering a tsunami, had sent a large swell across most of the South Pacific.

We'd read a lot about the fantastic walks and huge waterfalls in neighbouring bays and so, as usual the Ghost crew had itchy feet to move on. We motored the 7 miles to Daniel's bay and were met with a stunning calm anchorage surrounded by enormous cliffs and lush vegetation. The next morning we were up early to head ashore, braving large surf in the dingy to head up a freshwater river. We soon landed and walked the 1.5 hours to the head of the canyon to check out the waterfall. Fresh fruit, bananas and coconuts hung from the trees and the cliffs closed in and got higher. Unfortunately we missed out on seeing the full force of the waterfall because of the recent dry weather. We also had to hold back Kat from decimating the freshwater prawn population for dinner (we later discovered they were protected and so may not have made a great deal of friends with that one...!)

We returned to the boat earlier in the day than we had anticipated and, keen to see the Tuamotus, headed off that afternoon for yet another 500 mile passage.

Link to more photos see: http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/bradmcmaster1/Marquesas