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We approached the Marina Taina and saw over 100 sailboats anchored to mooring buoys on both sides of the inside of the passage through the lagoon. While my first thought was to find a place to anchor, our first plan of action here was to fill up our fuel tanks since we had not done this since leaving California almost two months ago. This was the first fuel dock we could safely pull our boat up to and the first one where I had my duty free paperwork. While there was a ferry sized fuel dock in Nuku Hiva, it was in rough water with a massive dock much taller than our boat. This fuel dock was the perfect size for our boat and I also had the proper paperwork for duty free fuel. We arrived just after 1pm which was when they were supposed to reopen after lunch. Nobody however arrived until around 1:30pm. It was a long process to get our paperwork done and it took us about an hour to fill up the two tanks on our boat. We hate to pull the fuel trigger full throttle due to a problem when we first got the boat and had a friend trying to fuel us up. As a result we fill up the tanks rather slowly. We added 154.78 litres to our port tank and 127.78 litres to our starboard tank. This cost about $320 instead of about $550 which I would have to pay if I did not have our duty free letter. After an exhausting hour we finally headed out in search of a mooring buoy. As we looked for a mooring buoy way off in the distance we noticed a few boats anchored a little closer to the dingy dock. After checking some things out we decided to anchor for free instead of tie on to a buoy.

Following our anchoring job I wanted to scout out the neighbourhood. One of the largest and most economical grocery stores (Carrefour) was only a 10 minute walk away in one direction, in the opposite direction was a McDonalds and a church building for us to visit on Sunday. There was also the only 24 hour convenience store on the entire island. The only big challenge I ran into was my naieve thought that I could high tail it from our boat to the dingy dock. Just before we reached the dingy dock Alyssa yelled out, “It’s shallow here” as I felt the coral scrape under our boat and the engine prop grind along the coral below us. With the engine now off we used the paddles in our boat to push ourselves off of the coral reef we were now perched on. This coral reef is just under the water and adjacent to the dingy dock. I had to warn the others on our boat not to take the direct route to the dingy dock but rather follow the line of sailboats and then take a right angle approach to the dingy dock. Fortunately the dingy was OK but it does make a different sound when I motor along in the water now.
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At 13/06/2013 5:30 PM (utc) our position was 17°32.38’S 149°34.19’W