Journal Entry - June 5, 2005 Nuku Hiva, So What’s Here?

Author: Pam

On Sunday we were eager to go to shore again to explore, however we didn’t get off the boat until about 3:00. There were still a few chores to do, including rigging up our huge rain catcher. It seems to rain at least four times a day, we are hoping to start filling our tanks. Our friend Sparky gave us the rain catcher in Zihautanejo. It is a funnel ten feet across made of turquoise parachute material. We still need to work out some details with keeping the hose attached to the funnel and the hose in the tank, but if we can make all of that work it should catch significant rain when it pours. Right now the wind causes it to turn into a huge inverted umbrella, it is quite a site on the bow of Tournesol.

We knew there is nothing open on Sunday, in the islands it is frowned upon to do any work at all. We decided it was a good day to hike around and see what we could find. It is very difficult to distinguish the businesses from the houses or something that doesn’t even look inhabited. Most of the businesses don’t have a sign, so you really need to find out where and what things are. For us in particular, we don’t want to approach someone’s home. However, other people we have talked to so far are having the same problem finding out what is here. The island is small, the population is 2500 people. There is a small airport, three stores that sell some groceries (almost nothing fresh), one hardware store, a hospital, two small hotels, three restaurants (two of them are associated with the hotels), two places you can connect to the internet, one place that will do your laundry (no self service), and one mechanic. There is no dentist, he apparently recently left because there was no vet for his dog.

As we walked around on Sunday the island had the feeling everyone was relaxing and enjoying their day. We observed at least four games of bacci ball, lots of kids playing in the surf and many people hanging out on the beach. There was almost no traffic, but all of the vehicles we saw where 4-wheel drive, we saw only one car.

We hiked up one road looking for the hardware store, we never found it. We turned around when we reached the area where the river runs across the road, hence one of the needs for 4-wheel drive. The roads are a combination of dirt and concrete, it gets quite muddy when it rains.

We ended up at the hotel and met up with Sally and Don. They were staying at the hotel and asked if we would like to take a shower. Well, after 32 days if someone offers you the use of a shower, you hesitate politely and then accept with gratitude. It was such an unexpected treat and talk about really feeling human again. We had dinner with Sally and Don and then headed back to the dinghy dock in the dark. No problem, there is only one road that winds along by the water. After a while Scott asked, “do you remember that wall?” No and nor do I remember that fence. Meanwhile it had started to rain, our second shower of the evening. After a few moments of hesitation we determined we were going the right way and found our dinghy no problem. We are looking forward to coming back to shore tomorrow to explore on a weekday.