Fatu Hiva

After 3 weeks at sea any island would've looked magnificen to us but Fatu Hiva was especially gorgeous.  We've been to the low lying San Blas islands with their palm trees and pearl white sands, the Galapagos, a volcanic wonderland, even Bonaire a desert island, but we've never been to the French Polynesian islands.  Lush hills rose steeply on all sides of the bay full of clear deep blue water, valleys full of waving ferns and gurgling mountain streams met us on our hikes.

We spent days taking hikes, swimming and playing with friends, in addition to Remi De; Moana Roa, Camanante and Field Trip soon arrived and we became fast friends with a new boat named Voahangy, already friends with Remi De.  

We spent a day tubing and playing in the water by a small bay with a beach of water-rounded stones Remi De discovered.  On the beach there is a small creek of ice cold fresh water that trickles through the stone to the sea, we propped a dead palm branch up to catch the water and make a spout for it. Soon we had a tap to wash our hands and clean shells we found, we also used coconut shells as cups and filled them at the tap then dumped them over ourselves for showers.  

We tried building shelters out of palm  fronds but that didn't work out so we played house on a large flat rock that we found, we wove palm fronds into beds for ourselves and delt out jobs around the "household" for everyone, for example, Cleo smashed and cut cocnuts for meals, Jade cleaned up after the ladies of the house [who were Remi from Remi De and Anne from Voahangy], Cara from Moana Roa was the bodygaurd and I tended the fire and collected the water for meals and showers.  We ate ceviche and crackers on the smooth stones for lunch and had coconut for dessert, I ate so much cocnut it's gonna last me a life time.

We tubed all the way back from the small bay and took a few turns around in it before getting dropped off so we could get ready for the welcoming feast we were all attending that night.  I showered and dressed then got in the dinghy with everybody else, we're now sailing with my uncle who joined us in the Galapagos.  At land we all gathered in a warehouse where the locals had set up a gigantic feast for us.  On the table were all different kinds of delicacies ranging from chicken and rice to pickled bananas.  As we ate musicians filed in and started playing a kind of loud musiisic in the native language.   After a while dancers came in and lined up, one woman announced them and they began dancing they did a lot of difficult looking moves, then the woman came up again and explained what the moves meant.  We stayed there late into the night, watching the performances and plaing tag when we got bored,finally we dragged ourselves away to head back home but we all agreed it was really fun.