Hakahetau , Ua Pou - Marquesas

We just left the nicest little village yet. It was a beautiful bay on the island of Ua Pou. We've heard about the Marquesan hospitality and we've finally gotten to experience it ourselves. We got up early the other day to make the 60 mile trek between the islands. We spent our first night in a really pretty anchorage but lots of bugs and no way to go ashore (Vaiehu Bay). We pulled up anchor yesterday and made the hour long trip to Hakahetau Bay. Before we went ashore, we dinghied over to the other boat in the anchorage, White Wizzard, who we've seen several times but never met. They told us about a restaurant and a trail up to a waterfall. Seeing as I've been cooking three meals for a month now and waterfalls are really the only thing on my list to do here, I was excited to hear about both. After we made the fairly easy landing at the concrete quay and walked into town, it started to rain. That's the one thing I'm pretty surprised about (although I don't know why)...all the rain. It's great for our water tanks, but we're beginning to get waterlogged. We were looking for a store and found it by guessing that the house with the propane tanks in the garage might have other goods for sale too. Once again I was surprised by the prices when our can of coke, bag of skittles, heads of garlic and can of corned beef (totally Andy's idea) cost us $20. But we've been saving lots of money by the lack of stores and restaurants anyway, so who cares, right?

While in the store we saw a big French guy with no shoes buying lots of food. We guessed this must be the chef at the restaurant, so we asked if we could join our friends tonight for dinner. He asked if we wanted meat or fish and then gave directions to his house/the restaurant.

Off we went on our search for the waterfall. The first few signs were easy to follow... After about a mile and half, Jake threatened to shut down. Poor guy is never going to trust us again..."we're almost there... really! we're almost there!" Finally we saw a little path off the road and decided to walk down it to dip our feet in the water. Turns out, this was the trail to the waterfall. We were rewarded with a beautiful scene of water cascading down the side of the mountain and a fairly large pool of water at the bottom to swim in. Jake and Andy swam for a while (I didn't bring my bathing suit) and just before the mosquitos carried us off, we headed back (in much better spirits).

It was raining on our way to dinner and we were surprised when the chef pulled up in his truck to give us all a ride. Turns out it was a good thing because I don't think we would have ever found his house. Dinner turned out to be a very pleasant evening getting to know our new Belgium friends and much to my surprise, it only cost us about $78 (and that included a bottle of wine!).

Before we left, we asked the chef, Peter if he could help us find some breadfruit. I've eaten some and am dying to try cooking it myself. He told us to come back at 10:00 this morning. Again we were met with a ride from his wife. After sitting down and having a soda and chit chatting with Andy about the Navy (He was in the French Navy), he presented us with three breadfruits and a bag of limes and mangoes. We paid him for some pamplemousses that he got from another fellow and gave his young child some toys that Jake was finally willing to part with. We had also printed out a picture we took last night and he seemed to really enjoy this as he promptly hung it up on his dining room wall. He gave us a ride back to our dinghy and helped us load it as we promised to visit again some day.

Now we're on our way to Nuku Hiva in some very angry seas. We just have the jib out in about 25 knots of wind and the seas are coming right at us. It's only about 25 miles so we won't have to endure it too long. Once we get there, we'll have internet...which brings me to my latest issue...

Our keyboard on our Mac is toast. The middle row (ASDF, etc) doesn't work. That's the computer we use to access the internet. without the middle row, we can't even type in our passwords to get to anything. We have an HP that we use for navigation and sailmail only. Our security software is not up to date so we never use it when connecting to the internet. I think we're going to have to bite the bullet and update it first thing when we connect. I don't see us getting another computer any time soon. All this to say, it might take longer than planned to get the pictures up... but they're coming, I promise.

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