It's Raining, it's pouring....

We're still here in Nuku Hiva. We're planning on getting fuel this afternoon, hitting the market tomorrow morning, then heading to Daniel's bay about 5 miles away. We stocked up yesterday on groceries and spent almost $300 on probably $80 worth of food. But in the whole scheme of things, we're still way under budget for April so I'm trying not to look at the individual spends (like $40 for a 12 pack of beer).

It's hard to describe our mood here without sounding unappreciative or negative. We like it here (meaning, We wouldn't go back to Mexico or change our path), but we're ready to move on. The anchorage here is rolly and it rains all the time.  The water is murkey and too rough to swim in, much less dive in.  I'm having trouble getting laundry done because every time you hang it up to dry, it rains. It never dries so it smells sour and you have to start all over again. They do have a laundry service here but it hasn't been open for days (holiday) and today everyone dropped off their clothes so it would take at least two, maybe three days...and we want to leave tomorrow (and it costs about $10 a load and you can guess I have more than one or two loads - more like 5 or 6). So I'm going to try again today...  If I'm being totally honest, I could probably admit to being a little homesick too... I miss my family and I haven't seen some of my closest friends in VA in 2 years... I'll get over it, I always do... but it's not all the rain's fault.
We clearly could have taken advantage of more things here, like tours, but due to our interests (or lack of interest) and our budget, we've decided to spend the time and money in the Tuamotos and/or Society islands (or on a new computer since ours is slowly dying).

With that said, we didn't sit on the boat the ENTIRE time we were here. We had many cocktail hours (I still think the cruisers here are great) and spent some time exploring the town by foot...here are some pictures from our walk about(s).

I've always love cemetaries...this one seems to be a bit abandoned.



The Catholic Church here...it's more like a compound, but it's really beautiful.



The inside of the church.  Try as I did, I couldn't get a picture without
that woman's backside in it.  She had a lot of flowers to water.



The carvings in the church were unbelievable and I think they were done by locals.  This was half of the front door.
(A guy was mopping in the opening of the other half...didn't make for a good picture)



Jake and I enjoyed watching these women fish.  Every time a wave would come,
they would run back and try not to get knocked down.  I think they were catching
bait fish.



One of the many stone carvings over looking the water.  I think these are
technically Tikis??