OK, all! I thought most of this had already been posted as I wrote it around April 17th. Cristy said there hadn't been anything posted since the the 7th or so of April. Sorry for being so late in posting!

NUKA HIVA
Well, so far everything is just as beautiful as we'd hoped it would be! It stays about 85 F with probably 75-80% humidity. It's rained everyday we've been here in the Marquesas except today. It's winded tho but we're tucked up into an anchorage called Hanga Haa, or Controllers Bay on the Island of Nuka Hiva. We arrived here April 16th after leaving Ua Poa. We've been to 4 Islands so far and all of them have their own unique beauty. All of them are green and lush with Banana trees and Coconut trees, mangos, pamplemousse (compare to our grapefruit only very much milder and sweet). The specialty seems to be what they call Bread Fruit. It is a green fruit that grows on trees with small bumps all over them. All the Islanders will tell you they are absolutely delicious when fried, boiled or baked or how ever you should want to cook them. We have to admit, we haven't found them quite as delicious as they are advertised;^) They taste like a mushy potato to us and are "ok " if fried. But we just can't get the Islanders big "to do" about them. Must be us! Anyway, there's lime trees everywhere and wild tiny peppers you can pick as you walk along the way which are very hot. The bread here is very cheap, although it's like a french bread rather than our loafs we are use to. It is subsidized by the French Government and you can find it most everywhere. Meats are another story. As we have a freezer full still, we aren't worried and you can get goat meat (yuk!!) and, of course, there's always fish. Fresh yellow fin Tuna is a big dish here and is delicious. We went to a restaurant on Oa Pou at a little village called Hakahetau Bay where we had a grilled tuna with rice and green beans with a sauce over it. It was wonderful. There was a little 18 month old boy Paulie fell in love with and reminded us of all our grandbabies back home;>( we miss so much!! We came over to Taiohae Bay, which is the main town of Nuka Hiva, yesterday as we need to check in and fuel up to get ready to go on over to the Tuamotus atolls after we leave here. It's about a 3 ½ day/night trip and we aren't sure if there's fuel available there. We still have plenty, but want to make sure. And we'll stock up on available vegetables, etc. We plan to spend about a month on the Tuamotu Atolls and then work our way on towards Tahiti. The Tuamotus are known for their blue waters and tropical fish and beauty for snorkeling and diving. So we are excited to finally get to go there.

After arriving at Nuka Hiva we anchored out with about 18-19 other boats. The anchorage was the swelliest anchorage we've ever been in to, barring The Kitchens in Sea of Cortez! We bounced and rolled so much we could have used our new stabilizers if we'd been traveling at any speed at all! Which of course we weren't. But we had our flopper-stoppers out and they helped, but not as much as we'd have liked! We met several other crusiers we'd met at Hiva Oa and Fata Hiva, again. Plus a lot of new cruisers that were just arriving at the Marquesas Islands. We had to wait for about 9 days at Nuka Hiva for the fuel/supply boat to come in and deliver fuel (rocking & rolling away). They were running low and we could have taken on fuel, but it would have been without the fuel exempt bond which about doubles the price which was about $4.30/gal. And the fuel docks were being re-done and it was a nightmare to get in to fuel as they only had 1 dock to tie Storm Haven up to and it was a hugh cement dock with only our fenders to fend us off of the cement dock and rolly waves and currents that were so scary! We got fueled up (not as much as we wanted as the current was going out and we didn't want to take any more time) and only got a couple of "boo boos " (she now has a slightly loose rail on the starboard front side and a couple of scratches) on SH! The dock was so high we had to get on top of the pilot house to get off onto the dock and then back onto SH. And then you had to time it so the boat was close enough to jump (UMP, Janey, UMP!) and not get crushed against the dock or fall into the water. After all of this, we felt really lucky to get away from that dock without any more damage to SH (or US) than that.

Anyway, from the fuel dock we left and went to another anchorage a little ways down from Taiohae, called Hakatea or "Daniels' Bay" after a couple that lived there for over 60 yrs. It's also one of the places (along with Controllers Bay) that the show "survival" filmed the Marquesas show. That was interesting! The most famous thing about "Daniels Bay", as we called it, was that there was a waterfall that is, supposedly, the third tallest waterfall in the world. Don & I, along with our friends, Jason & Karen from s/v 'YOLO' and Moreena from s/v 'Kailani", (both catamarans! So many cats are cruising here) all trecked up to the pond at the bottom of the falls. It was an awesome hike and took us 3 hrs (should have been 2 ½ but we stopped to pick fresh Mangos and other wild fruits along the way to munch on). It rained almost all of the way up and back but was a cool rain and wasn't too hard. We "did rain" and felt like we were in a tropical rain forest without the snakes and bugs (except no-see-ums & 'squitors)! We also had to forge 5 creeks running fairly hard, one of which was waist deep on Paulie)!! It was so much fun! The falls were beautiful from a distance and we took a bunch of pictures I hope will post to show you. Of course, pictures never quite get the beauty of landscapes. Anyway, the next day or two we stayed at 'Daniels' Bay' to wait for a weather window to cross over to the Tuamotu Atolls which would take us about 3 ½ days and nights. The others, being sailboats and needing wind, went ahead of our "stink boat" power boat. Power boats want no wind but good currents for the speed where sailboats like 20 kts or so to push them along. We had a great passage with no hard winds and small (3-6' but far apart) Pacific Ocean swells running with us. Getting into the atoll tale will be up and coming! Don didn't sleep for almost the whole 3 days we traveled to the Tuamotus as he was so worried about getting into the lagoons.