After what I would describe as an exhausting 25 days at sea, land was finally in sight. I’ve told myself repeatedly throughout the trip that it will all be worthwhile, and I was prepared to be blown away by what I was going to experience. Bob and Louis were just hoping for rain, to wash all the salt off Daisy, as she was literally caked in it. As we approached the Bay, we could see dark clouds laying heavily over the peaks, it looked very grey and ominious, the Island was shrouded by thick cloud.  As we got closer I could imagine how beautiful it would look in sunshine.  It was very green, a beautiful emerald green, with the appearance of a movie set from King Kong.
The scent of the Island was thick with Jasmine and Frangipan it was a heady perfume that invaded our senses. After 25 days at sea with only salt air to breathe, I found it intoxicating.
I was so proud of Daisy for getting us through the passage and here safely. Oyster’s are the best. I should have felt euphoric upon our arrival, but I was still exhausted having not slept well the night before. There were only two other boats in the bay, in front of the breakwater. We dropped anchor and immediately started to roll from side to side, “Oh not again” I said to myself, I had just about had enough of rolling about in the waves to last me a lifetime. However, it was what it was, and I just had to make the best of it.
Rain, Rain And More Rain…
It’s the last day of the rainy season here in the Marquises, and “Oh Boy” does Mother Nature ever want us to know it’s rainy season. The heavens opened and down came the most torrential rain I’ve seen in a long time. Louis had the great idea of using the rain storm to clean the decks, so both Bob and Louis got the sponges and brushes out and proceeded to scrub the decks. While I was hoping for sunshine and clear skies it was lovely to finally have Daisy clean and salt free again.
The next task, once the rain had stopped was to get the dinghy down, not an easy feat in a swell, when the boat’s rolling around and jumping up and down as if trying to leap from the water. Having managed to launch the dinghy without incident, they then attempted to get the dinghy motor on, deciding to use the emergency motor rather than our very heavy, Honda 4 stroke. Our emergency motor is much smaller and easier to handle, but even that proved impossible to safely attach. The swell was so bad, the dinghy was rising right above the toe rail and then falling under the hull. Bob was bouncing around in the dinghy while Louis was on deck holding the motor waiting for a calm moment to pass it over to Bob. Whoops-a-Daisy (our dinghy’s name) was rising and falling with the swell so violently that her sides were covered in the red anti-fowling from Daisy’s hull. I felt as if I was on the edge of having a nervous breakdown watching the two of them struggle for 45 minutes before finally accepting the obvious, it wasn’t going to happen! There was just no way to safely get the engine off the boat and into the dinghy without risking seriously injury to Bob, Louis or for that matter Daisy…
The conclusion: We were unable to get off Daisy and go ashore to check in, so Bob called them on the radio to say we would do our check in at Nuku Hiva.
That night I barely slept, between the violent rocking and rolling and the waves slamming the stern, sounding like a train crash every 10 seconds, I finally got up feeling like Medusa, I was angry, exhausted, frustrated and had a blinding headache to boot. There was little argument that we had to get out of there, despite us all really wanting to explore the beautiful Island, it simply wasn’t going to happen this trip. So having prepared once again for sail, we set off at just before 6pm, deciding to sail through the night and arrive at Nuku Hiva the next morning.