Thursday 28th April

We are finding it hard to drag ourselves away from Anaho Bay, it is calm, peaceful and secure, we are tempted to stay forever.

It has good snorkelling, stunning scenery and a great beach, there has never been more than four boats anchored and most of them are our friends. What more could we want? Well, food, rubbish disposal, a telephone and Internet signal etc….. We can’t put off our departure much longer.

The beach is edged by a reef, so you have to take the dingy in via a pass marked by buoys. The reef is too shallow for swimming but the mile long arch of sand makes for a great walk. As you stroll along the views are fantastic in all directions, out to sea are the yachts gently swaying at anchor in the turquoise water, inland, towering above you, are the striking rugged mountains and through the trees the criss-cross of palm tree trunks and the bright colours of the hibiscus flowers. Coconuts, shells and bits of coral are strewn over the soft sand, large tree roots block your path and small crabs scatter in front of your footsteps.

  
The village is just a smattering of houses, the ubiquitous Catholic church and a building with some construction going on that was apparently once a restaurant. We can’t imagine there ever being enough people to make it worth while, there are only two ways into the bay, by sea via the pass to the beach and a rough track across the hills to the next bay about two miles away.

We have been taking advantage of the calm water to catch up on some jobs. We have scrubbed the waterline, the hull coolers for the refrigeration systems and all the water inlets, again, the green weed grows faster than we can scrape it off. All the raw water filters have been checked, they filter the sea water that is used to cool the fresh water that runs through the pumps, we have six, one for each air conditioning unit, one for the water maker and one each for the generator and engine. We have cleaned the lazerette and its contents and hoovered through below decks and Rick has fashioned a wind scoop for our cabin hatch from the clew of the ripped cruising shute. 

 

 
We have also found plenty of time to relax and read and have discovered a really good snorkelling spot. It takes a while to find a patch of sand amongst the coral to drop the dingy anchor, as you carefully weave between the coral heads that protrude almost to the surface, but once you do the dingy holds fast. The heads are covered in a white coral that make them look much like they have been topped with thick icing, in fact it is rather like swimming through Disney’s idea of a winter wonderland with mountains, spires and turrets covered in snow. There are plenty of fish too, unfortunately I have yet to get a Pacific Fish Field Guide so they are all very pretty but new to us and so as yet mostly unidentified.

  
There are, of course, a few draw backs to paradise, along with the fast growing hull weed, the Marquesas if full of biting insects. We are plagued by a large bright yellow wasp, everybody is getting stung. One got inside Rick’s T shirt yesterday giving him a particularly painful sting on his stomach and on the finger he used to swoosh it away. I am covered from head to toe in small itchy bites either from the billions of ants or the tiny No-No midges that fill the air and the sand on the beach.

Still, I think we can bear the pain and stay just one more day.