1 September - The Land that Time Forgot

0600 position 23-52S 147-41W. At anchor off of Rairua Town, Raivavae
Lagoon

Had an excellent full night's sleep last night, the first in two weeks.
Awoke and had a great breakfast of oatmeal and coffee and then set off to
run the check in gauntlet. The two gendarmes on duty spoke english about
as well as we spoke french, but all four of us tried very hard to be
patient and polite and after about an hour we were done and everybody was
happy. It took a while because nobody checks in to French Polynesia in
Raivavae. In fact, they get very few cruisers here. We heard that we are
the sixth boat to visit in 2014, and all had entered French Polynesia
elsewhere. So the gendarmes were completely unfamiliar with the check in
process and had to consult their SOP manual. Slow, but all's well that
ends well.

After checking in we returned to Moku pe'a and I attacked the fixit list
winning battles with both the mast head light and stern light. The first
was the bulb and the second was just a bad contact between the bulb and
its socket. I did a rig check while up the mast. All looked good except
some stitching at the head of the jib. I'll drop it in the next few days
and stitch it up by hand.

We had planned a trip out to the motu on the fringing reef across from our
anchorage this afternoon, but this morning's sunny weather turned to
clouds this afternoon and it didn't look like fun. Instead we went for a
hike, found the road that bisects the island, and hiked to the high pass
in the middle hoping for some vistas to take photos. The hike was great
exercise for our atrophied leg muscles and the scenery was excellent, but
trees blocked the views from the top so we didn't get our photos.

Matt commented to me last night that he was struck by how quiet it is in
Raivavae. Moku pe'a is very noisy at sea. The wind in the rigging, the
water moving past the hull, the creaking of the joinery as the hull works
and flexes, the sound of the autopilot activating, the constant whir and
rattle of the wind generator - it is loud. And loud noises wear on us.
I'm pretty good at tuning it out, but Matt hasn't been aboard as long and
the noise, the wind generator noise in particular, grates on him.

Get off the boat anywhere and it is quieter, but it is remarkably more
quiet on Raivavae. There is nothing happening here. This is the land
that time forgot. Articles I've read say that it is like Bora Bora was
fifty
years ago. Try pre WW2. There is an airport, but there don't seem to be
any visitors. The only haole we've seen is the Gendarme. We've only
found 2 B&Bs, but both looked empty. No hotels, no restaurants, no
tourist attractions. The two art galleries we saw while circling the
island were closed. There was about 6 hours of action after the steamer
arrived with the distribution of the products it brought, but by mid
afternoon life on Raivavae was back to normal. Quiet. No traffic, no
industry, no music, just the whisper of breeze through the ironwood trees.
Even the dogs are well behaved. I haven't heard one bark yet.

The people appear to be remarkably happy and friendly. Everybody waves
and shouts greetings to each other as they pass on the road. Men shake
our hands and look in our eyes when they say hello to us. Folks want to
talk with us to see what we are about. This is not a tourist town.