Position: 10 degrees, 28 minutes South; 138 degrees, 40 minutes West

Making landfall into the full moon with the sun setting behind us. Beautiful!

Bay of Virgins

We left Hiva Oa this morning at 0600 for the 40-some mile passage South to Fatu Hiva. The sail was very relaxing, mostly wind in the 8-10 knot range, which meant boat speed around 4-5 knots most of the day. We timed it just right as we arrived at the Bay of Virgins in Fatu Hiva just about sunset. As we turned the corner into the bay, we were stunned. A more dramatic place is hard to imagine. Volcanic spires rising out of the ocean hundreds of feet line the jagged ridgeline. Jungle, waterfalls, palm trees. Everything you imagine but can’t quite believe true. A little village is tucked into a valley at the head of the bay. We will do some browsing through the village tomorrow (they are known for their wood carving and traditional paper making (tapa) and we’ll take a hike up to the waterfall purported to be 200 feet tall. On the timing part: This bay is very deep and shallows quickly at the very end. The other boats here were anchored such that on the first pass I tried to anchor just behind the last row. This put us in almost 70 feet of water. I made a “rookie” mistake of dropping the anchor anyway and then letting out all 210 feet of chain on board. This only left a three to one scope at best, on a downsloping bottom. No bueno. So as the sun was setting we rushed to crank all the chain back aboard so we could move to a spot closer to shore. It was going to be tight. Once the sun sets it goes dark very quickly and you can’t anchor in such small difficult spots as we have here, at night. If the hook’s not set before dark, you have no choice but to go out and heave to offshore for the night and try again in the morning. We’ve already seen one boat in the last week who had to do exactly that. Anyway, people were rooting for us (in a nice way) to get the anchor up and moved. On our second try, we went for a very aggressive position just a boat length off our friends on Orcinius who were gracious enough to wave and tell us to feel free to anchor there. Got the anchor on the bottom in 36 feet, 150 feet of chain down, backed Charisma up, felt/heard the anchor chattering down a rock bottom then it grabbed. We reversed hard to check it and it held. We breathed a sigh of relief as I looked back at Ann and saw that I couldn’t see her as it just literally turned into night. Just made it. Some of the other boats had arranged it with one of the townsfolk to have Polynesian dinner at their house. They called on the VHF and invited us and we gladly accepted, too tired from the day’s sailing to really want to cook dinner. Had a great dinner at the house with all the usual great Polynesian food; poission cru, fish, chicken, cooked bananas, papaya slaw salad, breadfruit and more. Great time. Now we’re tired and going to sleep. More tomorrow.