Sailing the Pacific

29 June 2024 | Huahine Island
22 June 2024 | Moorea
21 June 2024 | Moorea, Cook Bay
09 June 2024 | Fakarava South Pass
05 June 2024 | Tahanea Atoll
28 May 2024 | Makemo Atoll, East
23 May 2024 | Makemo Atoll
17 May 2024 | Controllers Bay, Nuku,Hiva
08 May 2024 | Anaho Bay
29 April 2024 | Taiohae Bay
21 April 2024 | Controllers Bay, Nuku,Hiva
15 April 2024 | Tahuata Island, Hanatefau Bay
09 April 2024 | Hiva Oa, Atuona Bay
08 April 2024 | 100 miles Northeast of Hiva Oa
07 April 2024 | 235 NM ENE of Hiva Oa
06 April 2024 | 380 miles Northeast of Hiva Oa
05 April 2024 | South Pacific
04 April 2024 | South Pacific
03 April 2024 | South Pacific

Fatu Hiva and Nuku Hiva islands

21 April 2024 | Controllers Bay, Nuku,Hiva
Kirk Groehnert | Mostly cloudy
From Tahuata Island, we went to the southern most island of Fatu Hiva. This is a famously beautiful island, particularly the Hanavave bay anchorage. It was a very beautiful anchorage with steep rugged mountains surrounding a small bay with a small village at the center of it. Of course, it was crowded with boats too!

These little villages are kind of simple and have there own little charm. There is infrastructure which I assume comes as a benefit of being part of France. They have paved roads, water, electricity and telephone which is not always the case in Latin America. Always very clean too - People sweeping up bits of leaves and trash (if any) as they walk. This is a rare sight anywhere.

The smaller villages don't really have any marked store fronts or restaurants, however, but we are finding that various people do different skills within the village. For example, there was no restaurant but there were two different people that would cook a meal for us with enough people (about six) and a day notice to prepare. We didn't have the required minimum to set something like that up but maybe we will in another anchorage. It might be fun to do that and I have feeling there might be one or two less goats or chickens wandering around the island if we did!

We did do a short hike into the Hanavave Village and met several locals who are all so nice, offering us fruit and helping us find our way.

After spending about 3 nights there, we decided to head north to Nuku Hiva which is the most populated island although still far less than anything like Hawaii - around 3,000 people here.

We just arrived here this morning after an overnight 130 mile trip. The bay we pulled into has no other boats and is well protected. There are only some locals here and road leading to other villages. We will travel around this island before setting sail for the Tuamotus Island chain, about 500 miles away and 4 days travel.
Comments
Vessel Name: Crystal Seas
Vessel Make/Model: Taswell 43
Hailing Port: Lewes, DE
Crew: Kirk and Crystal
About:
We met in 2014 and have a common love of exploring the world. Both of us have traveled quite a lot but vacations don't really give the opportunity to get to know a place and the people. That's why we thought it would be better to sell everything and live on a boat! And that's what we did... [...]
Extra:
We live this lifestyle not because we are adrenaline junkies wanting to climb mountains or some other extreme activities. Surely there are people like that in this sport and we have nothing against that. It's just not us and it's not what motivates us to deal with the compromises, uncomfortable [...]
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