The Mothership Has Landed

Well, that's one way to get to know your boat...

and your spouse...

and yourself.

(The kids we already pretty much had figured out.)

We made landfall just before sunset today, dropping the hook from this still new-to-us boat in Baie Hanavavae, Fatu Hiva, the southernmost of the Marqeusas Islands. We're anchored in 30 meters of water since the shallow area is already chockers with boats - here we go again with the over-subscribed tropical anchorages!

It is very beautiful here.

Very, very beautiful.

Elias wants to go ashore tomorrow and put up a sign advertising the fact that we are interested in obtaining drinking coconuts.

My only wish for tomorrow is to find him some kids to play with - a four-year-old gets a little stale after three weeks with just a baby and his parents for company.

Much more about the passage once we're in a spot with real internet access. For now, just the numbers - San Diego to the Marquesas in 21 days, in spite of a few poor routing decisions that extended the passage. During that time we laid down a GPS track 3,039 miles long, which included nearly a thousand miles of going to windward at the end. We're very happy with how the barky sailed.

We also re-discovered just how hard it can be to sail passages with a one-year-old. Some days were very tough, though there was only one day so tough that I heard Alisa say that she wanted off the boat.

But the rough patches are already fading, the magical bits are taking on their true size in our memory, and we're both very glad to be back in the Marquesas.