ARRIVED Nuku Hiva – Raynad Celebrates!
Latitude 8-55.13S Longitude: 140-06.01W
We dropped anchor last night, immediately put up some sun shades and called our onshore support service on the VHF. Somehow he mis-communicated the time zone here resulting in John and I setting our alarm to get up at 5:30am to be onshore by 6:30, only to find out that it was in fact 5:00AM – a weird 1.5 hr time difference. Yes they use a time zone that is 30 mins off any other. Nonetheless, we checked in no problem and even got to watch the local fishermen clean their tuna catches and chumming the waste right off the edge of the dock to a school of waiting sharks! Good thing neither of us fell in while trying to land the dingy and climb up a slippy 6ft ladder!?!? A large cruise ship came into the bay this morning and our crew support guy,
Kevin offered us two empty spots on his tour. So, we jumped ship and went roaming around the island in a convoy of 3 Toyota pickups with AC:) 
This island is amazing! We wound across the country on exceedingly steep, narrow roads through small villages and around super dramatic peaks and valleys,….very unique. It was a lovely day and a nice change from boating:)
Raynad Anchored Hakaui -Kings Valley 
We just dropped our anchor in Hakaui, King’s Valley and it is spectacular with huge black cliffs on three sides and a sandy beach at the top. Tomorrow we will hike up the valley to a waterfall that’s 350meter high, about 15km rtn hike. No Internet while we explore around the island, but we do have winlink (we hope!)
We are out of the main town now navigating around the island of Nuku Hiva. We went hiking yesterday up the Hakaui Valley of the Kings to a spectacular waterfall. The rivers we had to cross were full of muddy water and unfortunately because of all the heavy rain, there had been a big rock slide which prevented us from getting up to the pool beneath the waterfall, so no magic tropical swimming this time. It was very, very slippy and muddy but a good long hike all the same.
The densely vegetated cliffs soar almost straight up for 800+ meters making it almost unworldly in beauty and mystic. Lots of bugs here, mosquitoes, black & white biting flies, every time we forded through a river we had to reapply the repellent. It was quite the jungle hiking experience! We finished up the trip by eating a traditional Marquisan meal with a local family. Stocked with tuna, papaya, banana, starfruit, grapefruit and limes….we’re off to the west side of the island and will hopefully get away from some of the wind and swell of our current rocky-rolling anchorage. We have yet to sleep in a still boat since we left the dock in San Diego. Most of the bays here are fairly exposed and open to a sometimes very substantial swell. 
June 11, 2016 Raynad anchored Baie Haahopu
We are in a lovely, very small bay on the west side of the island and out of the swell- at last- yeah!!!!! There is a dirt road from here going up the hillside to the airport (15 miles) which we explored for about 5 miles, then ended up meeting a truck of locals and getting a ride back to the dock. There is an old dock here from when they used to get the airport people here and then boat them around to the main town. Now there is a concrete road across the island. So, we have it almost all to ourselves, no houses and a small sandy beach, clear water….more what we traveled the distances for. 
We’re still at the bay on the western side of the island. It’s called the desert section and we are enjoying the lack of rain and drier air. Even did 3 loads of washing yesterday (sheets and towels included:) We’ll stay here tonight again and then move around to the north end. I know we’ll get rain up there, but it’s supposed to be very pretty and also a calm bay. We’re sort of postponing going back to town and the rocky-rolling anchorage. No real hurry if we don’t need the Internet as we need to hang around here until Jodie arrives on July 1st.
We decided to stay in this bay again last night, it’s so lovely and quiet here compared to over in town. Another boat came in yesterday afternoon, but we’ve kept to ourselves. John and I went scuba diving yesterday for only about 25 min and a shallow dive, but it was good to use our new equipment and lovely to view the underwater world. We saw some nice coral and tropical fish, nothing too special. This morning though after I did my 50min run ashore, we saw a Manta Ray! Right from our boat and it sort of swam around and under us. It was absolutely magical – they are such graceful fish. Now we’ll take down our shade tree and move on around the top of the island, maybe trying our luck at fishing on the way:)
June 15, 2016 – Baie D’Anaho on north side of Nuku Hiva (08:49.35S / 140:03.87W)
We just finished coffee and a wonderful breakfast of local watermelon:) Yesterday we took off hiking along the beach and around the bay where we found a pretty established footpath so we followed it up and over the hillsides coming out to a beautiful vista over the next bay and the northeast end of the island.
Continuing on downhill we discovered a gorgeous farm valley where a family is working industriously to produce watermelons, cucumbers, tomatoes along with the usual papaya, limes and bananas. We scored 2 watermelon (not cheap, but rather exotic here,) some very nice cucumbers and a kilo of fabulous limes. The woman had been harvesting the ripe produce and getting it ready to transport to market which is a big undertaking as they have to load it onto horses and take it across the mountains to the town a couple of bays over where they can connect to the road and then drive it to town. This bay has no road either so the path continues up and over another ridge of mountains. Limes grown here are sold to Bora Bora for the resorts there!
We have two other boats here and one is a couple from Estonia whom we had them over last night – they are on a round the world voyage. We’ll take off and hike again today, probably back over to that valley, but maybe over to the neighboring bay and village. We have already visited there when we went on that first road trip. It’s very pretty, but I don’t think that hike is as nice as what we did yesterday.
Today was Manta Ray day!! First after coffee we hiked over the hills to the farm in the other bay and bought some more limes (3 kg), a watermelon and cucumbers. The limes are beautiful, fresh off the trees and smell wonderful – plus are great for tuna. Then on our way back to the boat I spotted a Manta Ray – kind of a small one (only 5ft across or so) but lovely and in very shallow water so we got a really good look. Then later in the day after doing a bunch of projects and getting super hot and sweaty, we decided to go over and snorkel a new area where the reef drops off and WOW these two huge Manta Rays came up out of the depths and swam around within inches of John. It looked like some surrealistic ballet with the two black and white Mantas and John in his wee black swimsuit:) They startled us both at first, but then stayed around and just swam these huge circles that always returned to where John was while they scooped up water to catch the plankton and diatoms. John was so close he could literally see the processing of the water in their huge mouths! I was close too and occasionally they would swim toward me, but mostly they just stayed with John – it was absolutely amazing to watch!
June 24m 216 Haahopu Bay Nuku Hiva – Anchored for Sunset
We’re back in the quiet anchorage on the west side of the island which is supposed to be the “desert” side, but we’ve had two big rainfalls, so it’s not quite what we’d expected, although much better than town. I got a good long run in yesterday and will go out again tomorrow morning, although I think they’ll be a fair amount of mud and puddles to negotiate on the dirt road.
YES! I definitely missed my ability to go running, biking, swimming, or just moving anywhere off the boat on that 23 day sail. I have a 20+ minute exercise routine that I tried to keep up at least some of every day and added some other things to it depending on the boat motion. Nearly every morning I do the same routine and then try to run 3-4 times per week when I can, or at least take some hikes with John. It’s been great to have the ability at this anchorage to get out and run. It was super muddy after the rains yesterday and I came upon a herd of wild horses who were blocking the road and not keen to let me pass, so had to turn around a bit early. Exciting to see them, they were lovely. I also saw a wild boar up in the bushes. John and I saw a stingray and a large turtle while snorkeling yesterday, which was pretty cool. Mostly this isn’t a great swimming/snorkeling bay, but it’s very private and we like that, plus we get the sunsets:)
JODIE ARRIVES ON RAYNAD in the MARQUESAS!!
Jodie is here safely on Raynad after touring the island in a rental car. She is tired but contented. The moist island tropical air has helped her cold a little. We will possibly set out for a quiet little anchorage tomorrow – the one we are in is rolly-polly and that makes Jodie a little sick.
It’s our 34th today. Still behind every other sibling so bringing up the rear. But the bigger triumph is that we are all still married to the original. 5 out of 5 is pretty good. Some would think this reflects good judgment, good morals, good skills in conflict resolution and that we are shinning examples to those who failed. But it is more likely that we share the Scott’s approach to marriage – first enunciated by my old nurse Louise (the only nurse I have ever know that went to ‘Assertiveness Training’ – I didn’t see a certificate but to all appearances, she had it mastered). Louise was not intrinsically pleasing to the eye and her Scots husband was shriveled by years of domination. She said about her marriage ‘Auch – but he is TOO CHEAP to divorce me !’ So maybe we have the answer .
We’re having a great time with Jodie. We left right after I spoke with you on Saturday and came around to the west bay. Yesterday, our anniversary started miserably rainy with a rocking rolling boat:( super bummer – BUT the sun did break out mid day so Jodie and I went to shore for a walk and ended up running – me for about 4 miles and Jodie for about 8, then swam around and back to the boat, followed by shower, double happy hour and an evening under the stars with steak and wine. A super day after all and a great anniversary. This morning early we took Jodie to shore with the bicycle so she could ride and John and I walked for about 2 hrs. She got in a nice long ride, came back totally muddy, so a big project to get the bike all cleaned up. It’s a nice calm day, with good visibility in the water and no rocking-rolling. We’ll head back south tomorrow and take Jodie into the King’s Valley so she can hike up toward the waterfall and take in the dramatic scenery there.
July 7, 2017
Baie Hakaotu on Ua Pou Island – 9:23.84S / 140:07.71W
We just dropped anchor after a great sail across the water from Nuku Hiva to Ua Pou. We’re on the western side of a very medievally dramatic island with towering rock spires demurely brushed by clouds. The water is so clear, we can see 10 meters down to our anchor! Lovely and we’ll be able to catch the sunset:)
Raynad anchored Hakatao to give Jodie a run (9:26.70S / 140.05.4W)
We left our scenic anchorage to try and get Jodie to a place where she can land and run on the dirt road system that goes around this island! We’re planning a night passage to Tahuata Island about 70 miles from here. It’s so hot going during the day, we thought that it’d actually be easier to travel at night:) We shall see. The island of Ua Pou has several stunning spires and cliffs both on top of the mountain and at points around the coastline. It’s hauntingly beautiful.
Jodie is doing well and having fun, although she’s still working on her sea-legs. She and I toured around part of the coastline near our bay this morning and found a nice spot for us to go back and snorkel with John. The water is so refreshing and we saw some nice developing coral and schools of fish.
We anchored around the corner from Hakatao because the area in front of the town was not large enough or safe for our boat. John just left to take Jodie over in the dingy.
July 14, 2017 Hanamoenoa Bay, Tahuata Island ( 09-45.86S/ 139-08.42W)
We are in the southern group of Marquesas Islands in a lovely bay on Tahuata Island. Jodie is with us and still working on getting her sea legs – the rocky anchorages have not helped. So far we’ve managed to find some land opportunities for her to mostly run, but also bike a bit, and of course she swims whenever the location allows that. It’s so special to have her with us.
We made a successful passage the other night from Nuka Hiva to Hiva Oa and into a safe anchorage and a very lazy day. Yesterday we had planned to go for another bay on the north end of Hiva Oa, but the weather was very windy from the NE and we were getting a lot of waves, so we headed south to this island and into a lovely clear water bay with a sandy beach. Still a bit of rocking, but much better than yesterday! Jodie does get seasick and it’s been a challenge for her, I’m sure that you can sympathize. At least Jodie can swim here, so she’s happy about that – the last bay was very muddy and had sharks!! Although we did get a nice hike up the valley and were able to buy some papaya. The bunch of bananas we’ve had hanging on the back of the boat are starting to all get too ripe, so banana bread will be one of today’s projects. We’ve been eating lots and lots of vege/fruit stuff to try and eat up all the fresh provisions we bought before they spoil. Healthy, but also a lot of work chopping and preparing. Jodie has fixed a couple of meals – it’s nice to have another cook on board:)
7/17/2017
Atuona, Hiva Oa (09-48.23S / 139-01.93W
We ended up staying in Hiva Oa through Sunday so that Jodie could get a long bike ride in and I’d also hoped to do more Internet. We woke up to rain, but went out all the same and Jodie ended up having a great 4 hour ride around and about the hilly island. There are some spectacular views and this time she took her phone so she got some photos. I ran into town (about 2 miles from the anchorage) and bought a few more fresh supplies and hoped to do some Internet, but all day we could not get any connections…so no more Skype. Not sure if the whole system was down or if the provider was just overloaded on a Sunday. We sailed around in the late afternoon down to our current anchorage where we are nestled in a cove surrounded by super steep and rugged terrain. There are 4 other boats in here including a superyacht…so no solitude. The other end of this bay has a small village that we’ll go visit, the water is very clear so we’ll do some snorkeling and then we plan to leave and make our passage to Raroia Atoll, a trip of about 415 miles, so 3 nights. By leaving at night, the passage is cooler and we’ll hopefully arrive at a good time to transit the pass and make our way across the lagoon to a good anchorage. Jodie is very excited about getting to the atolls:)
Our refrigeration expansion valve is bust and the freezer is rapidly thawing – we are currently on our way sailing back to NukaHiva to have the part flown in from Papeete and have access to the equipment John needs to complete the repair (we hope?!?!) In the meantime, we had steak for dinner and a medley of frozen veges- busy trying to consume maximum food before it spoils. With any luck I’ll be able to put at least some of it into a borrowed freezer and save our lovely special foods hauled all the way from San Diego and the tuna we’ve frozen from here.
We are spoiled with this complex boat.
SV Raynad headed back to Nuka Hiva
We are nearly there after a long night passage. Jodie is doing much better now with her sea legs and came in handy as a 3rd watch person:) Still the ride was bumpy and swingy, so not much sleep for anyone. I’m keen to arrive, get the refrigeration up and running again and take off for the wee atolls:)