Day 229, Year 1: Getting Ready for the Passage to the Tuamotus
Date: Saturday, June 3, 2006
Weather: Rainy Day with Intermittent Sunshine
Location: Taiohae Bay, Nuka Hiva Island, Marquesas
We won’t be leaving the Marquesas until Tuesday morning, but since this is a three-day weekend here, the last shopping had to be done today. We were up at 4:15 am and on the dock by 4:30 for the early Saturday morning market. We picked up Sylvie on Windcastle on our way in and we all arrived eager to learn about Saturday morning market. We were able to get fresh lettuce, green peppers, greenish tomatoes that we hope will ripen slowly, super long green beans, zucchini, cucumbers, Dakon radishes, cabbage, pineapple, bananas, and the most fantastic fresh tuna we have seen at a market on this trip so far. The local bakery also had the wonderful looking pastries-chocolate filled croissants, chocolate éclairs, fruit-filled pastries of all kinds. It was phenomenal and almost made getting up at 4:15 an okay thing. We visited with friends, returned Sylvie to Windcastle (with a little mishap where she fell in the water but was safely retrieved), and returned to the boat and packed away all of our goodies. We actually tried to go back to sleep, but that just didn’t happen. So Mark contacted Stillpoint and Procyon and went to the fuel dock with their jerry cans, as well as ours, to get fuel as we had prearranged. Mark made a second trip to get fuel for us and for Aqua Magic and Gdansk. We have a duty-free certificate since we have gone through an agent and we can sometimes help friends by getting duty-free fuel for them as well.
Once Mark finished with the fuel runs, it was time for us to head to town. We had hoped to go straight to the grocery store, but by the time we got here, it was closed until mid-afternoon. We walked around town with Candice and Ed, revisited the Catholic Church, and stopped to have a cold drink at a local restaurant. We saw Jaimie and Lucy from Savoir Livre who had walked and then caught a ride here from the Comptroller’s Bay to the East. It was great to see them. The time passed quickly and we went to the store to buy our supplies and returned to Windbird. We actually made another trip to the dock late in the day to rinse a laundry and take showers using the dock water.
Tonight we went to a local dinner with some music and dancing entertainment. It was so very different from what we saw last week in Ua Pou. It appears that the dancing style on each island is very different, but we did have a great time. Tomorrow we will head to the bay just east of here-Comptroller’s Bay. Windcastle, Stillpoint, and Procyon will be heading out with us so we should have great company as we explore our last Marquesan anchorage.
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| 060603 Day 229 Marquesas, Nuka Hiva–Provisioning, Traditional Dancing |
