Land Ho! Hiva Oa, Marquesas, French Polynesia

 After a very long day we finally arrived at Hiva Oa, in the Marquesas Islands! Because we had not be turning our clocks back at all during our trip we needed to turn them back 2.5 hours today. It means we had a long day and dinner was much later than normal. What really dragged the day along however was the fact that although there was a strong wind, because it was coming from directly behind us, we drifted along rather slowly. Perhaps it seemed slower than normal because although we averaged 5 knots which is a descent speed, we spotted land around 10am and did not reach our anchorage location until almost 5pm. When one drifts along in the open ocean for days on end at 5 knots you know you are moving but don’t have any landmarks to gauge your speed. When there is an island, slowly approaching and then you slowly follow the coastline until you reach your anchorage 15 miles up the coast it seems to take forever. Finally with 2 miles to go, we got so impatient and fired up the engines to motor the last little bit. We wanted to have plenty of time to set our anchor before the sun set. If we did not anchor before sunset we would have to stay out on the open water until the morning as it is not a good idea to pull into any harbour at nighttime. When we arrived we were a bit nervous with the number of vessels already anchored. Until now we tend to give ourselves lots of swinging room on our anchor and the boats looked like they were very tight together. But there was no turning back. Night was coming on and this is one of only 3 places to clear customs in the Marquesas Islands.

After a quick dinner the kids were all anxious to put their feet on solid ground again and so we took the dingy to shore for a walk around. We are supposed to check in with the local police to finalize our paperwork to stay in French Polynesia but they are not open late and so we postponed that to tomorrow. Once on shore however we started walking towards the main city which is about a 50 minute walk along the coast. As we were walking someone was passing by and I asked them a few questions including where the church was that we wanted to attend on Sunday. He told me that his sister was part of the same congregation and made a call on his cell phone right then. He then told me that they were having a meeting at the church and that if we wanted someone could pick us up. We accepted the offer and spent the next 15 minutes waiting for someone to pick us up. Sure enough someone arrived with their truck. In true Marquesian style the kids hopped into the bench seats in the back of the covered truck, slid the board closed that acted as a tailgate. I on the other hand slid into the passenger seat after Robert untied the rope that was strung from the door to the stick shift that was holding the door closed.

The drive was only about 5 minutes and it was rather dark outside so we could not see much but when we arrived at the small meetinghouse there were 15 other local residents of the church gathered around at the end of their meeting. They set up some chairs at the front of the room and for the next 45 minutes we introduced ourselves and heard about life on the islands. It was a great feeling to come to a new island and instantly make some new acquaintances and learn about and from them. The old ladies in the group took a liking to Teyauna and were ready to adopt our little 5 year old.

We received a ride back to our boat, found our dingy right where we left it and motored back to our boat for the night. It was a simple little evening but just the first of many little glimpses that we hope to have of life in the South Pacific Islands.

8:30 pm Marquesas Time (11 pm PST),  Lat: 09° 48.264′ S, Long: 139° 01.963′ W … Current Location