We had arrived at Hiva Oa on Wednesday afternoon and planned to rent a car on Friday, so we thought we’d skip checking in on Thursday and do it Friday while we had the car. Our friends on Carina who we were sharing the car with decided to check in Thursday anyway so we stopped in the office of the Gendarme and he told us we were 20 minutes too late and we should come back Monday. Turns out Friday was another holiday. So on Monday we got up at 5:20 to be ashore by 6:00 to arrive at the Gendarme when they opened at 7:00. It’s a lovely walk around the bay early in the morning before the sun is high and hot.
And indeed he opened at 7:00, checked us and one other boat in, then promptly closed at 7:45. By 9:30 there were probably 10 other boats waiting to check in and he still hadn’t reopened. And the office only accepts people for checkin until 11:00. He finally reopened at 10:00. We were all checked in ok, but the boat in front of us in the bay who was sitting on top of our anchor was in the big pile up at the office so we couldn’t leave anyway. After much wrestling with our respective stern anchors we were both on our way late yesterday afternoon.
We came across a short channel to the 
island of Tahuata and pulled into a lovely little deserted bay that was not listed in the cruising guides but Brit & Axel had stayed in and told us about. There were some copra drying sheds ashore and we would guess it’s only used during copra season. So after a week in a dirty harbor we were happy to hop in and took a swim that would make our European friends proud. Of course you know what happens when you’re the only boat in an empty bay. Suddenly there are three other boats headed directly towards us, including a local boat from the village around the point. I jumped into the shower and Rob ended up trading 3 ice cold beers for some papayas and bananas.
So I’ll stop whining about the prices in French Polynesia soon. I promise. But one more story first. Rob found a nice new long hose for the shower in Hiva Oa so he put it on yesterday morning. I wasn’t in the shower more than 3 minutes when the hose blew at one end. Rob was shocked because he had paid 5 times the price that he had for the cheap one in Ecuador that lasted months. And sadly that’s today’s lesson for us – even though it’s expensive it can still be cheap.
Our drive around Hiva Oa with Leslie & Phillip on Friday was lovely, BTW. Rob has some great pictures and we’ll get them uploaded when we get to Nuku Hiva probably late next week. We found an ancient ceremonial on the far side of the island with some very cool carved stone tikis. It was a lovely day.
Teresa
