Arrival

On May 4, in the early afternoon, we made landfall at Atuona, Hiva Oa, Marquesas, French Polynesia, after 21 days at sea.

The anchorage at Atuona was quite crowded when we arrived, and we nervously anchored bow and stern in the small space available. We were visited by friends from El Regalo who let us know that the gendarmerie only checked boats in in the mornings, so we were free to stay aboard the first night, which was just fine by us.

The following morning, our friends on A Cappella and William Piquette had arrived, and we chatted briefly. We went into town to check in, and discovered from the crew of Piquette that the gendarme had closed at 9 am. We wandered around town, and ran into the crew of A Cappella. We did some grocery shopping, including buying hot fresh baguettes, and had a lunch out with A Cappella. Everything is more expensive than we are accustomed to, but the selection is much better. There are many products in the stores from France, which is a welcome change for us.

We finally managed to check in the following morning, after being moved off our anchorage by the crew of the barge. We reanchored outside the breakwater, where the conditions were even more rolly, then rowed into shore. We got to the gendarmerie on time, and had a very easy check in. We bought some more groceries, had a chow mein sandwich and then headed out to hopefully find a calmer, quieter anchorage on another island.