Day 215, Year 1: Lazy Day in the Marquesas
Date: Saturday, May 20, 2006
Weather: Beautiful Warm Days with Cool Evenings—No Change
Location: Hanomoenoa Anchorage, Tahuata Island, Marquesas
Another lazy day in paradise. The anchorage here grows on you quickly. It still is not the most beautiful place we have been, but it is certainly beautiful and peaceful. We started our morning by making whole wheat dried blueberry pancakes with maple syrup for breakfast. And then Tom from Quantum Leap came to visit. Almost as soon as he left, Graham from Minaret came to visit and to tell us that he would be moving on today. Graham is a Seven Seas Cruising Association Commodore and writes articles on a fairly regular basis for Blue Water Sailing. He also writes for New Zealand publications and makes enough money this way to buy the new computers and camera gear that he needs to support the writing habit. We have only talked with Graham and his wife Lynn a few times since first meeting them in Fatu Hiva, but they are definitely folks that we would enjoy getting to know better. They have been cruising since the early 1980’s when they first sailed around the world with their young children. Their kids are now grown and Graham said this morning that he figures they have a good 10 years of cruising still in them.
After the morning visits, we headed out to go snorkeling. We stopped by Aqua Magic to say hello and then did a circumnavigation of the anchorage to decide where we would like to snorkel. The weather changed overnight and the anchorage is now getting a pretty decent swell from the south. Unfortunately for our snorkeling plans, this swell was causing quite a bit of turbulence in the waters of the anchorage which resulted in cloudy water. Between yesterday’s snorkel and today’s, we did see a few fish that are new to us. Our problem is identifying what we are seeing. We only have one book that covers reef fish around the world and we are just learning how to use it. Today I saw something that I think was a Moorish Idol. Yesterday I saw a Big Long-Nosed Butterfly fish. Both of these were new sightings for us. We also saw other fish that we still can’t identify, but we will keep working at this.
We spent the late afternoon with Mark reading and me researching and writing my “Marquesas Cruising Notes” that will guide us as we head further north in these islands. We had sundowners on Aqua Magic and made plans to visit Vaiata, the bay just south of here, with them tomorrow. It is about two miles south and if the weather permits we will both go in our dinghies rather than pull up anchor and take our sailboats. We then hope to head north to Hiva Oa and anchor there tomorrow night. We received an e-mail from Windcastle this evening and they are there. We hope to meet up with them tomorrow night and then officially check into French Polynesia in the town of Atuona on Monday morning.
Life out here is tough, but someone’s got to endure it.
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| 060520 Day 215 Marquesas, Tahuata–Hanamoenoa Anchorage |
