Atuona - Hiva Oa

We motored up wind for about 2 hours to go around the corner of Tahuata to the main bay on Hiva Oa. There is always a wind blowing thru the channel, and today was no exception, about 25 knots on the nose the whole way. The bay we left had 30 to 35 with gusts to 40 knots to day so we out just in time.

This is one of the oficial immigration and customs entry points for the Marquesas. We found the agent's representative that we had e-mailed and met in Zihuatanejo today. She did not have our papers ready so we will meet her again tomorrow to check into the country.

We anchored with help from our friends on "Bold Spirit" from Port Orchard, Wa. They have been here a week waiting on auto pilot parts. Our parts are indeed now in Tahiti and will be shipped to us as soon as we tell them which harbor to ship them to.

We were hitch-hiking to town to meet the agent, walking down the road in the light rain, when Trinda slipped in the mud on the pavement. And, SPLAT, fell on her but in the mud. OOPS, so there was a side trail down to the shore next to the lagoon, so she strips down to bra and panties and does some laundry right there on the beach. No one was around, so it was OK I guess. We walked back up to the road and a few minutes later a pickup stopped and gave us a ride in the back the 3 miles to the town of
Atuona. Shortly after we started up in the pickup, Trinda's hat blew off in the road. Of course, the driver didn't see or stop, so she is down one more!

We got stir-fry from a van parked under a tree. Donnie and Trinda had pork and veggies. I had beef in oyster sauce. It was all good. We found a bank machine and got some Polynesian Francs, I thought 8000 would do, but it cost 1800 for lunch. I recalculated and tried for 30,000. I think that may be almost $250.

We went on to find a grocery store. We got some chicken breasts, pork chops, cabbage, butter and crackers for about 4000cfp. They have butter in a tin can, like beans? We haven't tried it yet, but intend to soon. We kept buying things in Mexico, to try, and then not trying them till it was too late to get more when they turned out good. So we are going to try the butter tonight, so we can get nm0ore tomorrow if we like it.

We ate the last 2 of the eggs from Zihuatanejo today. That's 5 weeks for eggs on the counter! Only one floated and was thrown away last week.