Footnotes from Water Music

After a glorious stop in the Marquesas, we left this morning for the 500Nm run down to the Tuamotos islands, where we plan to stay for a couple of weeks. Our initial landfall will be Manihi - partly because it is the closest and secondly it appears to have a relatively easy pass to get through to get inside the reef. From what we can see it is about 30yds wide and just about deep enough - so long as we arrive away from Low Water and avoid ragiing currents. We shall see how the currents compare to Scilla & Charybdis in Messina.

After leaving Tahuata, we headed back up to two remote bays in Hiva Oa. At the first we went swimming in the fresh water "Hollywood Pool" after a gentle walk up a dried riverbed and through lemon groves. Leaving there our second port of call was to check out William's Yacht Club, some 10 miles further north. The welcome was as warm as could ever be expected and we reported that our respective clubs in UK would all hear of the welcome. Whilst we declined William's generous offer of a drink the nibbles were selectively eaten - including a frozen potato chip enjoyed by the skipper. William sent us on our way, loaded down with Pamplemousse, red bananas and quite a few cockroaches. He would take no payment for anything - but was very interested to see what drugs and alcohol we might have....The fruit was quickly eaten - the cockroaches are taking slightly longer to deal with.

Our next port of call was Ua Pou - some 60 miles North of Hiva Oa and so we set off in the early hours of the morning to arrive in this delightful village for early afternoon. Whilst there we were pointed to Jerome, an ex Marine from the French army, who is married to a marquesan lady and runs a tour service. That provided us with a great tour round the island by car, a really nice dinner and somewhere that Gabrielle could spend the night in what she considered to be semi-comfortable. we spent a couple of days in this spectacular island - high hills around us and outrigger training in the bay for the local lads.

On leaving Ua Pou, we headed North to Nuka Hiva, where we would meet up with friends on Dream Catcher and Maple - who had crossed from Galapagos with us. We had what was called a dinghy party - it seems you get into your dinghy, with enough drink to keep you quiet, tie up to other dinghies and drift around until the booze runs out. Seemed quite strange - but a good party. that was followed by dinner on Dream Catcher. the following day we motored round to our favourite bay in the Marquesas (Baie D'Anaho). It felt like we had entered into some Canadian convention as there were suddenly 10 Canadian boats all anchored in the small bay. Lots of sandy beaches, small restaurant ashore, coral and loads of small black fin sharks swimming harmlessly around. A couple of awe-inspiring walks and we were ready to head to the main town to restock before the next part of the journey. Caught a small tuna en route - so the OB is able to bring out his sushi skills.

Not a huge selection in the shops - even though the supply ship has only just been. I think we are going to have to get more used to this as we get into the Atolls of the Tuamotos

And so on our way again. We have 20 knots of wind coming from the port quarter and so are trundling along at 7.5knots (n the right direction). Other than the occasional wave, the seas are gentle - but we know that the next lurch will be right when we are cooking supper! At this pace we should arrive at sometime on Friday afternoon. Skipper is struggling to work out tides in UTC, Local times, moon rising and setting times - so is hedging his bets to the point of complete obscurity on the best time to arrive....