Landfall on Nuku Hiva

The bay of Atuona is south facing and it was a lovely midday sail coming down the east side of the island- until a cell signal from the island kicked in, the time of day jumped back 2.5 hours, and it turned into a lovely morning sail. We gave up the watch schedule, the extra hours will be appreciated. I never caught that first scent of tierra firma that I’ve heard can be so stunning even though there was another island upwind of us. Just the sight of the islands was stunning, they punctuated the seascape with the familiarity of a forgotten friend’s return. Lush green foliage flowed off of red and brown cliffs, some had sharp peaks like crashing waves. We gybed once and had a straight shot into the bay.

As soon as the sea state calmed down a bit I went up in the previously full of the sea sail locker where the windlass also lives. One of the large terminals had been flexed back and forth by whatever was floating near it so many times that a thick copper connector had broken between the crimp and the hole for the fastener. We could let the anchor free fall and not use the windlass but I am fond of control so I thought I’d at least try to get it working. I found a short piece of a thick copper strip that had been part of an antenna embedded in the hull and cut a hole in one end, wrapped the other end tightly around the large wire end, and then wrapped it all up tightly with tape and it worked! Add another fix to the list.

Sails down, motor running, and stunned by seeing other boats, people, and the scenery we chose a place to drop the hook and get accustomed to the surreal surroundings. No one would ever call this bay calm, waves larger than the average on Puget Sound roll through and their loud crashes on the rocks are the background noise to them slapping the hull. Gavin made some grog and we celebrated landfall with it and a swim, perfect.

After a bit of clean up of the boat and ourselves we got the dinghy and outboard together, engine started on the first pull. The dinghy area is a cement wall with ladders going into the waves that rise and fall. If you time your step off the dinghy well there’s only a few rungs up. Standing on solid ground was a trip. My legs and eyes told me it was moving, rocking back and forth and up and down, but it was just my body swaying all around as if the next wave was going to tip me over again. Our group slowly walked through a few vendors and along the waterfront with a stray dog as company towards the only open restaurant (it’s Sunday) on the opposite side of the bay. Up a little hill to the hotel we sat by the little pool with some tropical drinks until it was time to move into the restaurant where we were the only ones eating at the time. Fancy table settings seemed other worldly and we enjoyed the delicious meal and desserts thoroughly. Walked and dinghied back to the boat and we all crashed quickly. What a trip. 

The next few days the crew found some adventures to go on, Leo has gone exploring by foot and motor bike and Gavin and Ryan spent 3 days of diving. The pizza restaurant had some rooms above for rent and they all decided to grab beds that didn’t rock and roll. Tempting… but we’re choosing to rock and roll while we get used to our surroundings and get things cleaned up and start working on that fix it list.

We’re so grateful to Leo, Gavin, and Ryan for sailing with us here. Cheers to them and their amazing collective knowledge, humor, and patience. From Seattle, we logged 4754 miles with a max speed of 17.8 knots, cheers to Rocket Science too for carrying us here safely.