Our last day here I wanted to climb up the hill and look down at Yelo. We started early and got my rusty knees going alright. It's a pleasant walk thru the upper houses with their gardens and fruit trees loaded with stuff that hardly anybody eats . I haven't seen a local person eating a mango Maybe they do it , but they always tell me ,if they pick them up, it's for the pigs. We keep on walking and at the end of the village the paved road becomes a dirt road but easy to climb. We chat and collect fruits as we go ..UNTIL : I see this big bull on a long rope in the middle of the road. No way to sneak by him. The side of the road is either steep down or up with rocks or dense bush. Daniela says he is ok , she walked passed him last week and he didn't move . Ok , i think, I better take out my telescopic Decathlon walking sticks , just in case. I start walking and then : the clear sign that I know from Spanish bullfights : he starts getting his front legs ready for a charge. He is breathing heavy and the dirt flies back... Oh well, and I forgot my red cape ....shit. It's time to re-treat and as we walk down a bid, a car picks us up and confirms that even here in peaceful Polynesia it's not a good sign what the bull did . We pass by him and he doesn't even notice us once we are in the car. The guys go up the hill and feed their goats. We go along and as usual get into a funny conversation about the local police man, (his uncle) . We sit in the back of his pick up and that's NOT allowed here anymore . An 80 $ fine he got : " What? from your own uncle ? That can't be ." "Well yes , he is only doing his job." " So he took the 8000 Francs from you? " No man, he didn't . He gave me a ticket and that I had to pay to the government"!!

" I find that pretty tuff from your own uncle". He laughed and said, it wasn't the first time he got caught . "Oh ,so you got caught a couple of times hu? " More like 8 or 9 times....hi hi hi hi . "He HAD to fine me"!!! We all laugh ...they are funny. Always ready for a good story.

They let us to pick their tropical black "apples", giant grapefruits and limes as much as we could carry. We help them feed the goats with leaves and copra meal and made it down to the village and got off the back of the truck just before we passed the gendarmes house. More stories continued on Yelo as he is also a fisherman and giggled at my stupid lures. No wonder I never catch anything. Saturday we want to leave for Fatu Hiva. A small island that we visited in 2001. I am curious to see if and how it changed. From 2001 I remember that it has a nice waterfall with a pool underneath that was full of fresh water shrimps. I am sure they are gone by now. The fisherman go offshore to a bank and brought tons of fish for the village and us ...he didn't want any money from me . I also talked to a family that explained me why they decided not to sell booze at this village. The sight of women beating each other up in public was embarrassing to them .The fights weren't even about anything, they just can't handle alcohol. I also joined a group of sailors for a "authentic"" Marquesan dinner with wild boar that turned out to be wild dog!! And the other unpleasant memory from 2001 was the local Gendarme: He noticed that I was the only yachty that spoke French. He demanded that I slip a bottle of Rum into his car at the beach or else he would notify the police that I was there "illegal" . All yachts stop in Fatu Hiva because it's the first island from Panama. But it has no clearance office. You would have to sail to Hiva Oa first, do the paper work and then sail back against the wind. Nobody does that and if ever the French patrol boats come you would be fined. So I did exactly what he said: packed a bottle in a plastic bag , so nobody would see it and placed it under his front seat. In 2001 a liter of the cheapest rum was ONE US $ in Panama. So he got one of those, the bastard. And later on I heard that a young Dutch sailor wanted to finance his trip with 200 bottles of rum from Panama. The local price was about 35$. He started selling them with a hefty profit. But when the whole town is drunk, word gets out fast and he got busted. I think they even took is boat. I still have some rum but I would never sell or trade with the locals. The way they drink is frightening and they can't handle it very well.