Commodore
March 21, 2023

Tuesday 21 March – We made it!

We landed up having the engines on all night as the wind had died and we were keen to get in by midday otherwise we would have to wait for the next day to check in with immigration. Rowan woke me up at 7:30am with tea and the good news that we were getting close to Hiva Oa which was clearly visible. It was boiling hot already and we all landed up sitting in the shade on the trampoline absorbing the dramatic landscape we were passing. The last 12 miles are always the slowest, it seems so close but still takes two hours. So thrilling to be arriving without any significant damage and everyone in pretty good shape. We finally entered the amazing bay of Atuona, no wonder Gauguin made it his home in French Polynesia, and Jaques Brel (which I did not know!). The town is in a basin of the mountains, with one particularly high peak which is covered in clouds most of the time, reminding us of Table Mountain in Cape Town.

Our official time for crossing the finish line was 9:20am. Rowan went into town to sign us in with the Arc yellow shirt, Philip who is from the Canary islands, he is very friendly and organised, he seems to be able to speak loads of European languages which must be a huge advantage. One of the Arc boats asked if they could borrow our 3 fuel containers, they had accumulated 4 others, so we asked to use them all after them. We were allowed on land to refuel so we all boarded Jeldi Jeldi, and with 7 fuel containers, we formed a human chain getting fuel back and forth from the petrol station. We did the whole process twice, managing to get 280 litres, so we have at least half our tanks full. Poor Megan has a splitting headache and a heat rash, she is drinking plenty so she is not dehydrated, she was very tired, so we let her sleep during the second fuel run. But at 2pm she had to join us, as we all had to be back at the Arc office, where Phil gave us a lift in his vehicle up to town to the gendarmerie who officially stamp us in. There were local ladies welcoming us next to the Arc hut, with a necklace of seeds and pieces of fruit to eat. They also had lovely woven baskets with mangoes and grapefruit for sale. The girls and I were so taken with the enormous mangoes we bought 10!

Once stamped in we were free to roam the very quaint and prosperous town, much more developed than we were expecting and very smart. We went to Gauguin’s house which happened to be opposite the gendarmerie. A lovely spot no wonder he wanted to live here. The exhibition had copies of a lot of his art work from French Polynesia and loads of self portraits. Hannah read that he was not well liked in the community at the time.

The village green has two long Tiki buildings and Han and I after successfully drawing money at the very smart ATM, managed to find the craft market. We browsed around there finally finding Nevil and Megan but had lost Rowan, we finally decided to head to the hotel where we had planned to have sunset drinks and supper. Only two restaurants on the island and the other is a pizza place with terrible pizzas according to Nevil who has been here before, on his last World Arc trip. Finally got hold of Rowan who had dashed back to the boat, he thought it looked like rain, and in our mad dash to meet our pick up at 2pm we had not finished decanting the fuel, and had left the caps off. Disastrous if water got into the fuel tanks!

We finally managed to get a lift with a Parisian young lad who came here three years ago and fell in love with the place so has never left. He now runs tours over the island and is a taxis in his spare time. The hotel is perched up high and has a gorgeous outlook over the bay. Han jumped into the pool and was quickly kicked out by management! Plus we couldn’t have sunset drinks in glasses at the pool, which was a bit disappointing. We had a good meal, they managed to rustle up some veggie food for the girls, and our first few drinks after nothing for 3 weeks went straight to my head! We were all pretty exhausted and Megan is definitely not herself, so we were glad to be heading back to the boat shortly after 8pm. There were a few Arc boats there, but the majority definitely had more stamina than us. Irish Hamish invited all the young to a party on their boat Salt, as the owner and his young wife and 4 year old daughter were all staying at the hotel for a couple of nights. Nevil was the only one up for that, and set off in Jeldi Jeldi to join them while we all collapsed into bed.