Day 223, Year 1: Nor’easterly Winds and Rain, Rain, Rain
Date: Sunday, May 28, 2006
Weather: Rain All Night and All Day
Location: Hakatau Bay, Ua Pou Island (pronounced wapoo), Marquesas
Whoa! We are having New England weather out here. Nor’easterly winds, squalls with 35 knot winds, and rain, rain, and more rain. We hear that New England had a stellar Memorial Day weekend, at least down on the Cape. But it is about time, as I know you have had more than your share of rain in the past few weeks. Well, we are finally getting our share of rain. Hopefully it will only last another day or so, and we will be back to those endless sunny days.
Because of the rain and the high winds, we stayed on the boat all day. In this anchorage the boats at the front and the back all have out stern anchors. Those of us in the middle with only one anchor out all dragged our anchors a bit during the height of the squall today, so we spent a fair amount of time moving and getting resettled. Other than that, it was a quiet, rainy day. I baked bread, read a little, and prepared dinner for our guests Graham and Lynn from Minaret. They are a great couple and we really enjoy getting together with them. We talked some about where we will be going next. Since they have done all of this once before in the 1980’s, they are a little more knowledgeable about local sailing conditions. Graham suggested that we should go to the north side of Nuka Hiva next and work our way back around to the south, instead of going to the south side and then going to the north. We will have to look at all of this on a chart tomorrow morning and make our final decision, but it sounds to me like we will be taking off for Nuka Hika tomorrow afternoon or on Tuesday morning. There are great anchorages on Nuka Hiva and some of the most interesting archaeological sites. We have only a little more than a week before we have to leave the Marquesas for the Tuomotus, so we have to carefully choose our landing sites. More about that tomorrow.
