Anchor Drills

0800 Position 9-21S 140-06W. At anchor in Hakahetau Bay, Ua Pou.

The boys had great success at the farmers market yesterday morning returning with baguettes, papaya, mango, carrots, onions, cabbage and tomatoes. There was no lettuce to be had because it has been so rainy in the islands. I kidded them about elbowing old ladies out of the way and they said the opposite occurred. Apparently the elderly ladies of Nuku Hiva feel like they own the market and just shoo the haole tourists out of the way.

We decided to head west to Daniel's Bay for the day and hike to the waterfall. It is only five miles down the coast, but the bay is totally landlocked and a perfectly smooth anchorage. We got down there at about 8AM, dropped the hook, put up the awning, got in the dinghy, and headed for the waterfall. There were two other boats anchored in the bay so we spun by them first to say hello. One told us that the locals had formed a hui and now charged cruisers $10/person to walk up the valley to the waterfall. That seemed kind of like extortion to us. We wouldn't be walking on any of the local's private land. So we decided that we didn't need to see the waterfall, went back to the boat, hoisted the dinghy aboard, took down the awning, hoisted the anchor, and took off for Ua Pou twenty five miles to the south.

It was a wet and bumpy sail with the wind forward of the beam blowing close to twenty knots at times. We arrived at Ua Pou's main town of Hakahau at 1PM. There we found the Aranui, the interisland cruise/cargo ship tied to the pier and four other cruising boats at anchor. The other boats filled up the inner harbor forcing us out into the roadstead where we anchored for about ten minutes before deciding it was too rough. Up came the anchor again and we were off for the leeward side of the island.

We poked into a number of bays looking for a good spot to anchor. Hakahetau looked good, but there were already a couple of catamarans there. We proceeded down the coast as far as Vaiehu Bay before turning around. On the way down we passed a point that had a lot of current running. It had all the characteristics of a good fishing spot. We hadn't been trolling because we were tired of loosing lures, but I decided to toss a line in for fun as we passed the point on the way back. Two minutes after putting the line in the water a huge fish hit the lure. The hand line was tied to the backstay and I thought the fish would take the mast down. Fortunately the hook did not set, but the lure has a nice new scar on it.

We tried anchoring in Haakuti Bay where there was a nice little village, but it must have been a river rock bottom because we couldn't get the anchor to set. So in it came and we headed back to Hakahetau where we anchored outside of the catamarans at about 4PM.

After getting the boat put to bed for the fourth and final time of the day, we dinghied ashore to do some exploring. This is a magical little spot with surreal rock formations in the village and five huge volcano core spires in the mountains behind the village. The boys are ashore this morning making a final attempt to find lettuce before we head off to the Tuamotus.

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