{"id":1342,"date":"2017-05-01T02:02:37","date_gmt":"2017-05-01T02:02:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/svslowflight.com\/?p=1342"},"modified":"2017-05-14T02:23:59","modified_gmt":"2017-05-14T02:23:59","slug":"the-island-of-hiva-oa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/svslowflight.com\/index.php\/2017\/05\/01\/the-island-of-hiva-oa\/","title":{"rendered":"The Island of Hiva Oa"},"content":{"rendered":"

Town of Atuona<\/u><\/p>\n

We arrived in Atuona, Hiva Oa on a rainy Sunday\u2026.March 23rd <\/sup>at 8:30am local Marquesan time.\u00a0 Our crossing took us 22 days and 4 hours and we only motored about 100 hours.\u00a0 For some boats 100 hours is a lot but because our diesel capacity and of course after making sure we had enough diesel to get us through a week or so just in case there was none on the island, we turned on the \u201csteal sails\u201d only when we our GPS speed was under 2.5 knots.\u00a0 After we set anchor in the bay, we hung out on the boat all day (all the governmental offices were closed on Sunday) and rested up.<\/p>\n

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Slow Flight is front and center with 80 feet of chain out. Let’s just saw we usually have at least 100 to 120 feet of chain but there was no room in this anchorage…it was so crowded.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The next morning we made arrangements to meet our agent who we hired as part of the Pacific Puddle Jump to assist us in checking into the country.\u00a0 Our dinghy landing was quite interesting\u2026.there is no beach to speak of and no \u201cdock\u201d either, just a platform with a hole through it to tie your rope around.\u00a0 Though at high tide it is no problem getting in and out of the dinghy but at low tide it\u2019s a big jump or climb and you have to watch out not to hit your head under the platform while the dinghy swings with the waves.\u00a0 Did I mention it was still raining?<\/p>\n

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The Gendarmerie…is essentially like the port captain in the states.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Trevor in line to check in..we take off our shoes apparently the tile is not fun to clean.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

After most of the formalities were taken care of next was the bank, internet, and check out the stores (stores are called Magasin) to provision and to check out town.<\/p>\n

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Trevor at the ATM<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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No way…cool whip?<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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It’s true..the French love thoer wine…it is everywhere!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Trying new beverages…this was a sparkly peach beverage…cost $2.50 usd<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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We bought yellow fin tuna on the side of the road…it ended up to be $2.00 a pond…amazing!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Had to have a celebratory local beer. This is the what is served everywhere.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Internet is SLOW! We heard of the Pearl Resort and for $35 usd\/3500 CPF we could have use of thier pool, lunch included, and internet…with noone else utlizing it which helped speed things up…a bit.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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My fancy lunch at the Pearl Resort of cocunt prwans and fancy sparkling water….<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Ummm pizza!!!! and a good wine..love this place : )<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Town is about a 45 minute walk from the anchorage and mostly we hitchhiked to town or picked up a \u201ctaxi\u201d (locals who drive around to pick up tourists like us for about 200 CFP one way which is about $2usd).<\/p>\n

We had some laundry done (sheets, towels only) and paid $36 usd which is about $4\/kilo.\u00a0 It was well worth it to me\u2026.I tried to do 1 load (which equates to 1 Home Depot bucket) of laundry for 3 days straight and it got all funky smelling and I couldn\u2019t get it dry for the life of me.<\/p>\n

We met another boat and we helped each other get diesel\u2026.100 gallons, 5 trips to and from the station with jerry jugs, it was still raining so we had to fashion a cover over the deck fill so that water wouldn\u2019t get into the tanks\u2026.Are we having fun yet : )<\/p>\n

We needed to leave Atuona to make water because as we are learning, the anchorages all seem to have a stream\/river running into the bay which makes for brown water\u2026not good for filters or for any kind of water activity.\u00a0 We have learned to make water underway.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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Paul Gauguin museum…all the paintings were replicas but it was still was cool.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Trevor looking interested<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Paul Guaguin’s house…as we were told<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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My favorite painting at the museum.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

North side of the Hiva Oa-Hanamenu Bay<\/u><\/p>\n

We finally hooked up with our friends on SV Fandango (Captain Ian, Elizabeth and her boyfriend Brad) who we met in La Cruz Mexico on the north side of the Hiva Oa.\u00a0 It was great to see familiar faces and celebrate our crossing.<\/p>\n

On the north side there was actually some sun so I could get some more much needed laundry done.\u00a0 We had Fandango over for dinner and had fresh yellowfin tuna seared with rice.<\/p>\n

We went snorkeling (FINALLY) and saw these beautiful goats roaming the mountain side on our way back to the boats.\u00a0 GOAT TV we thought.\u00a0 These goats were half brown and half black with beautiful brown markings around the eyes. Not an hour later we hear a gun shot echo though the valley.\u00a0 I look to my right (I was in the cockpit) and saw a goat fall about 150 feet off a cliff into the water.\u00a0 There were 2 guys on the mountain side, 1 with a gun and the other staged to keep the goats in 1 direction, and a third guy in a boat who was acting as a scout.\u00a0 We watched them for a good hour.\u00a0 When the rest of the goats got away the boat picked up the guy with the gun and drove by our boat to show us their catch.<\/p>\n

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These guys were super proud and happy!. We gave them a thumbs up. Some may think it’s not cool but this is the way they do it here. When in Rome : )<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

North side of the Hiva Oa<\/u>-Hanaiapa Bay<\/p>\n

SV Fandango leading the way, we hopped to another bay about 9 miles.\u00a0 We headed into \u201ctown\u201d to take a peek at what was around.\u00a0 We traded make up for pomlemouse (basically grapefruit but bigger), and was summoned by a guy named William to come to his \u201cYacht Club\u201d.\u00a0 He offered us \u201clemonade and bananas (the ants on the bananas were so think I was surprised it wasn\u2019t carried away) but we graciously accepted.\u00a0 William showed us his notebooks of all the cruisers who stopped by his place..dating as far back as 2013.\u00a0 It was IMPRESSIVE!<\/p>\n

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Our sail in the bay, SV Fandango on the left<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Star fruit tree<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Brad,Ian, Trevor, and Liz with a bag of pomlemousse (similar to grapefriut)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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The entrance to William’s Yacht club..aka his house<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Captain Ian, William, and Captain Trevor<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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All of us looking through Williams books of passing cruisers.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Town of Atuona We arrived in Atuona, Hiva Oa on a rainy Sunday\u2026.March 23rd at 8:30am local Marquesan time.\u00a0 Our[…]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1342","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-french-polynesia"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7iVSN-lE","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/svslowflight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1342","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/svslowflight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/svslowflight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/svslowflight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/svslowflight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1342"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/svslowflight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1342\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1378,"href":"https:\/\/svslowflight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1342\/revisions\/1378"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/svslowflight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1342"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/svslowflight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1342"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/svslowflight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1342"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}