Wed, June 25
Weather: Sunny with large, fluffy clouds
Meal: Chicken panini and chicken noodle soup
School: Day off from school
Movie: Tru Calling
Other: The girls wanted to check out town, so we threw caution (and their school work) to the wind and jumped in the dinghy. Just as we cast off, Casey yelled, "Tara, a roach!" and pointed in the dinghy next to Tara's leg. The biggest roach we've ever seen was scurrying along the tube of the dinghy. Tara screamed and almost jumped overboard as Sean and I tried to knock it off and into the water. It hit the water about mid-way between the dinghy and Adventure and immediately started swimming toward the dinghy. Sean gunned the engine and as we moved away from it, the roach turned and started swimming toward Adventure. There is no chance that any of us were going to sleep on a boat with a huge roach on it. The girls and I screamed for Sean to turn back and kill the roach. He spun the dinghy around and, as soon as we were closer to the roach, it turned to swim toward us. It was as if it knew which floating object was closer to it, and that's what it swam toward. We screamed some more while Sean whacked the roach with our dinghy's manual bilge pump, which flung the roach in the air, brining it closer to Adventure. It swam under Adventure's swim step, where fish tried nibbled on it. We cheered for the fish, but they were too small to do much damage. The roach resurfaced on the other side of the swim step, where I got another whack at it, flinging it about 6 feet from Adventure. Sean motored toward the roach and it immediately changed it's swimming direction to head for the dinghy. We motored full speed over the roach to chop it with the propeller. It bubbled to the surface, unscathed. We screamed as Sean backed the dinghy over the roach and it latched onto one of the pontoons and climbed back aboard. But this was a fatal mistake. Sean whacked it one final time with the hard-plastic bilge pump. With the firm backing of the dinghy pontoon, rather than the forgiving water, the roach splattered like a bug on a windshield. We drove around the dead, floating roach twice to make sure it was dead. As we headed toward the dock, we wondered what our boating neighbors may have thought if they were watching our battle.

We walked to the gendarmerie and were finally able to check in. We walked around, showing the girls what Sean and I had seen the previous day and then went to lunch at the same place we'd gone before. Tara and I split the poisson cru and Sean and Casey split a not-very-good, $16 cheeseburger. We went to the three grocery stores and bought some groceries in two of them. That evening, Sean went to the boat Ogopogo to see if he could get their Winlink email to work, so we had a girls' movie night and watched Tru Calling for two hours.

Thu, June 26
Weather: Sunny with large, fluffy clouds
Meal: Homemade hamburger, onion, and pepper pizza
School: Full day of school
Movie: Myth Busters
Other: Today Sean went for a hike to find the spot Survivor's tribal council was filmed at. He didn't end up finding it, but did meet a guy that worked on the 30-million-dollar motor yacht that's anchored near us. The guy made a comment about hearing someone who accidentally left VHF on the previous night. Sean confessed that it was us. He told me to put the VHF radio in my backpack and I told him it wasn't a good idea because the talk button could get pressed by the other junk in the backpack. This has happened to us before, but in a more remote area of Mexico. Needless to say, the radio ended up in my backpack, the button got pressed by a water bottle, and the entire anchorage and local boaters got to hear me and Casey discussing how to catch a gecko, me playing like I caught a gecko and then slowly opening my hand to reveal that I hadn't, and how another boat had geckos onboard and had squished one in their door. Tara was on Adventure while this was happening and didn't realize it was us so she turned the radio down. When Casey yelled something funny to me about a gecko and it transmitted more clearly through the radio, Tara realized we were the dorks on the radio. She had hailed us and told us to turn our radio off, but the damage had been done. We just hoped that the other cruisers hadn't heard our entire conversation...which evidently they had.

While Sean was gone, I spent time organizing our many photos of our trip and then backing them up on an external hard drive and on DVDs. I helped the girls with some of their school work and then Tara and I washed some of our clothes on the swim step. Salt water is not an efficient way to wash clothes because it ends up wasting more water getting the salt out. We had 3 jugs of water from the dock that we used and then needed more to finish rinsing the suds out. We headed to the dock to get more water, but found it was low tide when we got there and the hose that had been on the faucet had been removed. There was no way we could fill the 5-gallon jugs and then get them down to the dinghy, 8 or 9 feet below the pier. We went back to Adventure, got our hose, and, as night fell, we returned to the dock. Unfortunately, the local fishermen were all coming in from a day at sea and all three faucets were now being used to wash their boats and clean their fish. We went back to Adventure with no water. 20 minutes later, Sean called on the VHF for us to pick him up at the dock. When we got there, one faucet was available, so we were finally able to get water. I had two buckets of soapy clothes in the dinghy and used the hose to rinse them.

When we got back to Adventure, Casey was in the process of pounding out pizza dough she'd made earlier. We ended up making hamburger meat pizzas with onion, bell pepper, and cheese. We cooked them on the stovetop and they tasted great!

Fri, June 27
Weather: Sunny with large, fluffy clouds
Meal: Poisson cru and pizza
School: Full day of school
Movie: None
Other: My main goal today was to get baguettes. I'd read in my guide book that bread in the town is usually gone by 11am. I was nearly thrown from my bed at 6am because our boat was sideways to the swell and Adventure was rocking back and forth. The swell was extra big today. I made coffee and waited for Sean to wake up. I needed him to come with me because the dinghy dock here sucks. An hour later he woke up, as did the girls. I'd been trying to transfer money from one of my accounts to another, but the internet connection was spotty at best. I called my bank using Skype and, after about 30 minutes of runaround, found out the problem was that they'd put a hold on my account until they could speak with me to verify a new account I'd added to my transfer list. Michael from B'Sheret came by and invited us to Linda's birthday party at the pizza place that night. We told him we were planning on leaving later in the day for another anchorage a few miles away. We finally left Adventure after 10am to go to the dock, which is where we saw other people we knew. I told them I was hurrying to try to get bread and walked away as Sean settled in for a chat. The bakery was a half a mile away and was closed by the time I got there. I went to the store and bought a few items, but they didn't have bread. I walked to another store and bought a few items, but they didn't have bread either. I asked the clerk where I could get bread and she said I could get it only tomorrow. I told her we were leaving today. She spoke to another woman, who went in the back and brought me two loaves of her own bread. She was very nice. I caught up with Sean on my way back to the dock.

We went back to Adventure, grabbed our fuel cans, and headed to the fuel dock.

We packed essentials in a backpack and set out in our dinghy to find the Survivor tribal council location.

Tara dropped us on the other side of the bay on a beach. We walked up the side of the mountain to a hotel that has small bungalows so we could sit by their pool and look out over the village and the bay.

We walked back to the beach and got out our VHF to call the girls to come pick us up. Its batteries were depleted. We walked a mile to the dock, hoping the yacht services office was open so we could use their VHF. I was closed. We walked to the dinghy landing and saw our friends from Ogopogo coming to the dock. They gave us a ride back to Adventure. We changed clothes and went back into town for Linda's birthday dinner at the pizza place. Tara and I split the poisson cru again. I've had it three times now and am still not tired of it.

Sat, June 28
Weather: Sprinkles throughout the day
Meal: Tomato soup, chicken noodle soup, and sandwiches
School: Full day of school except for math
Movie: Tru Calling
Other: We were determined to leave our anchorage today to go to another just a few miles away. The clothes I washed two days before but hadn't hung out to dry until the next morning didn't smell right. I rewashed them, along with Sean's dirty clothes and some towels. We went to the dock to rinse the soapy laundry and to fill our 3 jerry jugs. While I rinsed, Sean went to book an island tour with Jocelyne, a woman we'd met outside the gendarmerie office. She said she'd give us a special price of 5,000 cfp per person.

We went back to Adventure, put our dinghy motor on its mount on the stern, tied the dinghy's harness to the back of Adventure, lashed a few things down, and then started the engine. That's when the downpour started. We turned off the engine, put up our bemini windshield to keep the cockpit dry, and went below to wait for the rain to stop. A half and hour later, with squalls threatening from every angle, we pulled anchor and headed out to sea. We motored trough the large, churned up seas - making water as we went. An hour later, we pulled into an inlet, surrounded by huge cliff walls that lined a Yosemite-like valley that went back far and then disappeared from view around a corner. It was magnificent. The waves abated a bit, but were still formidable. To the left, the cliff wall gave way to a small bay with smooth water. One other sailboat was there, anchored in the middle. We anchored further in, near the sandy beach. I looked 360 degrees around us and saw high mountains, steep cliff walls, and a beach at the foot of a valley ended into a mountain. The sea was no longer visible from this tucked-in bay. It was dead calm. No wind or waves. The water only had about 10 feet of visibility, but was clean.

We anchored in 18 feet of water, with 125 feet of chain out. I reversed to set the anchor. All was well - or so we thought. We'd pulled our dinghy behind us, so we just had to put the engine on it before speeding across the bay to check out the scenery and discover potential snorkeling sites. Then we stopped by the other boat to chat.

We settled in for the night. I went up on deck with a flashlight to see what all the splashing was about. I saw lots of 2 to 3 foot black-tipped reef sharks and other, smaller fish. I wondered where the moms and dads of the juveniles were. Ino had caught a 4 or 5 foot shark as they entered the bay.

At 11:30pm, a squall hit and we awoke to rain and wind. Our anchor was dragged and would not reset. The girls were very helpful and we all pitched to make a winning team, successfully reanchoring in 35-40 knot winds, pelting rain, pitch dark, a sailboat behind us, and submerged coral reefs on either side. Sean will write more detail about this in another blog.

Sun, June 29
Weather: Lots of wind and sprinkles throughout the day
Meal: Free for all
School: Day off from school
Movie: Penny's from Heaven
Other: Ino left the anchorage early in the morning, on their way to the Tuamotu atolls. We were going to get up early to hike to the waterfall and back (an all-day trip), but were too tired and shaken from the anchor dragging incident and then waking up every time another squall blew by us. We decided to all take the day off to relax. About 10am, A boat with a 2-year-old lashed into the cockpit came in. We'd met them the night before at Linda's birthday dinner.

On Adventure, we all laid around, reading books or typing on computers. Sean and I got into the dinghy to see if we wanted to reanchor. We used our hand-held depth finder to check out the area around Adventure and discovered that we had enough depth around her to let out more chain. This would help to ensure that we didn't drag again. We went to Trinelly and had a cup of coffee while we talked with Jason and Fiona and played with Dillon. He is a ball of very cute energy. He was a bit shy until I showed a slight interest in playing, and then it was all over. He entertained me for an hour or two while the other three adults talked. I tried to participate in the conversation, but Dillon demanded my full attention. It's been a long time since I've been around a 2 year old and it was really fun.

After lunch, we piled in the dinghy to go snorkeling, but the water was churning and the wind was strong. We changed plans and headed to the beach, where Casey and I combed the beach for shells and Tara and Sean walked on a trail to see where it led.

Mon, June 30
Weather: Fine, fine clear day
Meal: Soup and grilled cheese
School: Day off from school
Movie: Life with Father
Other: We were going to get up early to hike the 6 miles to the waterfall so we could get back, pack Adventure, and then motor back to Nuku Hiva's largest anchorage before dark. Since we'd dragged our anchor the night before, Sean and I were on alert and woke every time a large gust of wind hit. We ended up sleeping until 9am and then jetting out to do our hike. As we walked through the small village, a dog trotted in front of us as if he were showing us the right way to go. We left the village behind and the dog kept leading us. Jason, Fiona, and Dillon caught up with us on the trail, so we all walked together. When we'd come to a split in the unmarked trail, we'd watch the dog to see which way he went and then followed him. For a little more than two hours we followed the steep canyon, with steep cliffs on both sides - many times hanging over our heads. We heard later that people are injured by rocks falling from above. We had to wade across the river several times. The 6 mile hike was the most beautiful one we've done on our trip. When we got to the falls, Sean immediately jumped into the pool and swam across to the rocks below the fall. The rest of us grabbed a snack first and shared it with our guide dog. As we ate, we threw scraps of food in the water and watched the fresh-water shrimp fight over it. Then, a large, dark-greenish, snake-like shape slithered through the water toward shore. We'd heard that there were two large eels that lived in the waterfall pool, but didn't expect to see them. The both came within a few feet of the shore to see what the action was all about. They were easily four feet long and very thick. We yelled to Sean to swim back to shore while we distracted the eels. I've never seen him swim so fast...

The real brave ones were the girls and me, who swam across the pool after seeing the large eels. Our friends from Trinelly decided not to swim...

We hurried back to Adventure, pulled anchor and headed back to Taiohae. We'd booked a tour of the island for the next day. We motored around the anchorage with our computer on to see where the best internet signal was and then dropped the hook. Since the anchorage was rolly, we threw out the stern anchor too. It didn't set right, so we did it again. This too was a half-hearted effort, but held through the night.

Tue, July 1
Weather: Clear with light sprinkles
Meal: Restaurant
School: Day off from school
Movie: Myth Busters
Other: We met our tour guide, Jocelyne, at the dock at 8:30am and piled into her Landrover. She took us up the steep roads, filled with switchbacks to beautiful views of our anchorage and then to Controller Bay. We reached Taipivai and stopped to tour the local church that contained many beautiful wood carvings. This is the village where Herman Melville spent a month or two and fell in love with a local girl. As we motored on, we stopped at one vista and saw four very high waterfalls in the distance. It was breathtaking. Just before the village called Hatiheu, we stopped at large archeological site called Paeke. It was inhabited in the early 1500's and now consists of many rock platforms that were used for houses, wholes in rocks that were used as jails, tikis, petroglyphs, curved stone tables that were used in the human sacrifices, and giant banyan trees with elaborate root systems above the ground that were used to hold the skulls and bones of sacrificed people. In Hatiheu, we entered a large restaurant and saw one table with 5 place-settings. No other tables were set. Jocelyne had called ahead to book our table. She told us that tomorrow the cruise ship will be in Taiohae (where we are anchored) and that 30 vehicles drive guests to the restaurant we were sitting in for lunch. But today, we were the only patrons in the restaurant. As we walked back to the truck, Jocelyne pointed to a cliff high above us where a missionary had placed a large carved statue of Mary. He did this in 1872 to help convince the warring tribes to stop fighting. It was remarkable that he could have gotten the statue up the cliffs.

On the way back up the road, we stopped at another archeological site called the Kamuihei Ceremonial Center that was similar to the previous site. We loaded in the truck and headed down the road that went to the other side of the island, which looked very different from where we had been. It had dense forests of pine and acacia trees. At the bluff, we stopped to see what Jocelyne said was a beautiful view, but the clouds had rolled in and we were above the. It was an exhausting, but informative tour. The entire island is truly beautiful. On our way back to the dock, Jocelyne stopped at the grocery store that makes bread and told me to put my order in so that they'd save some for me the next day. This must be the system for those of us who can't get to town by 7am when there is still bread left...