In war, nothing is as good or as bad as it at first seems (von Clauswiz, probably).
And the same is true of sailing. We achieved everthing we needed during our pit-stop back in Nuku Hiva. We had manged to load 500 litres (that's half a tonne in case anyone's interested) of water into our tanks back in Tahuata, where there was a tap handily next to the jetty. That meant 4 dinghy loads, using the empty water bottles we had accumulated en-route. But we needed fuel and food, too. So a quick hop to Hiva Oa and into the very crowded anchorage (where on earth do all these boats come from?), and we were in time to deliver our laundry to Sandra for collection the next afternoon. Food and fuel went expensively OK, though the Skipper had not expected such a big fuel bill (88 litres). But the Gendarmarie insisted on everyone presenting themselves at their office, whilst the re-photocopied our passports and our entry form, both of which they had stamped and issued and photocopied a fortnight ago! But we were ready to go at 5pm local time, and Sandra arrived promptly with our, again expensively, clean clothes. The skipper had done a recce (old habits die hard) in the dinghy, and hoped that he'd spotted all the stern and mooring lines that might impede our exit. He even went to the extent of retrieving on board a loose buoy and mooring line to keep it out of the way. Then the fun and games started. A large Amereican catamaran, which we had seen dragging in Fatu Hiva only the day before and now parked up to our stern, almost landed on top of us during the night. And he'd laid his main anchor chain neatly over our stern anchor, as I had predicted. But Will gave a mighty heave from the dinghy, and miracurously we wriggled our little danforth free. Dinghy onto the foredeck and wiped down - it had already started to grow barnacles and was very slimy - before upping anchor by hand, because we'd discovered that the main bearings on the winch have fallen apart!. Except for forgetting that we had the spare line on board, this went surprisingly well, with Will and the Skipper heaving mightily from the foredeck. But the loose buoy (by then forgotten) managed to bend a stanchion beyond repair before it was released, and we have not been able to find Norfy's glasses since.
So we are on our way to the Tuamotus with no anchor winch for the lagoons, a blind crewman and damaged guard-rails! But hopefully we can get the bits for the winch, Norfy has a spare pair of glasses and stanchions can surely be bent back or replaced.
All well after a night of variable but slightly light winds.
Best wishes,
James, Chris and Will
Yacht Cleone
At Sea
10.27S 140.06W
First, retrieve the kedge