Tahuata

After we'd been socializing on Fatu Hiva and Hiva Oa for a while, we decided that it was time to go to an anchorage with neither town nor village to regroup a bit.  Some Kiwis we met told us about the anchorage at Hananoemoa, on the northern end of Tahuata.  Broad sandy beach, they said.  Clear water. No swell.  We went the next day.  And the reports turned out to be accurate:

(It looks like we had the place to ourselves, but there were actually between four and fifteen other boats there throughout our stay.)

We ended up staying for a week while I worked on edits to the book.

Elias went swimming every day we were there, usually two or three times a day.  He swam off the jupe, he went skin diving with his goggles and flippers, and he played in the surf.

 Throwing a coconut up in the air in the surf is a lot of fun until, inevitably, it lands on your head.

We saw manta rays nearly every day.  If you get in the middle of the patch of plankton that they are feeding on, they will circle back to you over and over, giving you great looks.

If you have to do boat jobs, you might as well do them in your budgie smuggler!

One day we finally got our act together to get all four of us to the beach at once - and Eric slept for the whole time.  Alisa selflessly held him so that Elias and I could play in the surf.

The leeward coast of Tahuata.  We anchored off a village under these cliffs, hoping to get water.  But the trades were billowing over the island in such a way that they were gusting strongly onshore in the anchorage.  We didn't like it, and the book was ready to send back to the editor in Australia anyway.  So we bid a fond farewell to Tahuata and returned to the crowded anchorage of Atuona, on Hiva Oa, in search of water and internet.

The end.