Secret Anchorage, Tahuata

April 9-11, 2014

It’s only a “secret” because it’s not in the guidebooks. So, we didn’t have much company in the anchorage. We met a Marquesan family on shore and had a potluck with them. They were extremely hospitable, and we all enjoyed ourselves

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Logbook – April 9, 2014 (Atuona to Tahuata)

Passage Log Highlights

• 1243 Engines on
• 1255 Depart
• 1520 Arrive Tahuata Island

Daily Notes

• 09 deg 53.6 S, 139 deg 04.93 W – Secret Bay
• Boys to shore on surfboards
• T – a little spearfishing. Giant rays and sharks
• French bread pizza on Lady Carolina

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Logbook – April 10, 2014 (Tahuata)

Daily Notes

• Back to school
• T – spearfish all afternoon
• Boys – surfboards to the beach

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Logbook – April 11, 2014 (Tahuata)

Daily Notes

• Marquesan potluck
• Meat party on Exodus

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Email to family and friends dated April 12, 2014

Subject: Ile Tahuata

We left Atuona a couple days ago and we’ve been at a “secret anchorage,” meaning one that isn’t in the guidebook, on the island of Tahuata.  When we were still in Atuona, Tim and Steve befriended a local guy who took them to fish and to get fruit and they came back with bags of coconuts, mangos, and bananas.  Then he came back to Exodus and cook pork and breadfruit for us and our friends.  He also left us with a whole side of meat (lamb, we think), so… yesterday Tim and Steve went to shore here to ask some locals if we could make a pit on their beach to cook our meat, and they welcomed us to use their BBQ, and we ended up having a big Marquesan potluck with the extended family staying at the beach.  There were 5 kids, all in the same age range as our boys, and they all played on the surfboards together.  Brenden has a harder time with the language barrier… Alex said he just told the other boys, “Don’t say, just do.”  We learned that boiled bananas are quite good, and that coconut milk goes on everything.  We grilled up some of the fish Tim caught, but I spiced it up a little too much for their liking.  They were polite and tried our food too… my cucumber salad (made with banana vinegar) wasn’t such a big hit, but they seemed to like my banana bread.  They were a really nice family, and one of the women spoke very good English, so we were able to talk and learn a lot about them and how they cook.

Today we aren’t going back to Hiva Oa, but to an anchorage on the Northern side.  We are all out of baguettes and there’s a little village there, so hopefully we can replenish.

Love and miss you all,

-D.

P.S.  Just a reminder for everyone…  This email is coming via HF radio, and that means VERY low bandwidth.  Remember 96k modems?  So, it is important that correspondence using this email is necessary and not too large.  So, please don’t forward anything to us, don’t send us any attachments, and anything that can wait until the next time we have internet access please send to our regular email accounts.  We love you all and we want to use this email to stay in touch, but we also use it for the very important task of downloading weather.

OK, all that said,  we LOVE hearing from you.  Short text emails download quickly, so please don’t let my little lecture above keep you from dropping us a note every now and then letting us know what’s going on with you too.  We really do like staying connected with what’s going on back home, so please say hi once in awhile.  Especially Andrew.  🙂 

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At 4/12/2014 4:12 PM (utc) our position was 09°53.62’S 139°04.91’W