Landfall at last in the beautiful island of Fatu-Iva.

Fatu-Iva looks just like the lost world, tropical forest, mist covered mountain peaks, all that is missing are dinosaurs. We went ashore by dinghy in the village of Hanavave. It took a while to get our land legs back after 26 days at sea, it felt as though the land was moving. We were met by the local policeman who wanted to see our passports and asked if we had any rum. William and I walked up to the local waterfall. It was quite a challenging walk, having walked no further than the end of the boat for nearly a month. The waterfall is very beautiful, about 300 feet high and well worth the effort. In the meantime Nancy and Jim had been making friends with the local people who were very keen to trade. Nancy exchanged some perfume, a DVD and 2 knives for bananas, fish and bread.

On Wednesday we sailed to Hiva Oa and checked in at the gendarmerie in the town of Atuona, a two mile walk from the anchorage. The anchorage is small and was very crowded, all the boats had bow and stern anchors. The town had a number of shops but not a great selection of fresh produce, there was low speed Internet at the post office. Beer at the local restaurant was very expensive, $6 for a bottle of Heineken. No getting drunk here! The town had been home to the French artist Gauguin, who died in 1903 and is buried in the cemetery, overlooking the bay.

On Friday we hauled up or anchors and sailed to the nearby island of Tahuata, anchoring in Hana Moe Noa bay, which is uninhabited and has a beautiful palm tree lined golden sandy beach. The water is clear and blue. We had the fun job of scraping off a large collection of goose barnacles from the hull. We were told they would drop off when we stopped moving but ours are hanging on. We washed our sheets and hung them out to dry on a line rigged along the length of the deck. It was very windy and one of Nancy's blew away. William jumped in the dinghy and chased it across the bay, rescuing it just before it sank.

Monday night we sailed 84 miles to Nuku Hiva, anchoring in Baie de Taihae, a nice large anchorage, with a dinghy dock. Jim and Nancy went on the Internet, while William and I walked to the local tiki garden, where there are a number of traditional Polynesian stone statues.