Daniels Bay
Questionable Logic
Ewan Briggs
Fri 19 Jun 2009 08:44
Position: 8 56.7S
140 09.9W
After a few days
recovering in Taiohae Bay, we've moved a few miles west to another anchorage -
Daniels Bay. This one is also spectacular - if anything more so with huge steep
green mountains rising straight out of the sea pretty much all around
us.
We got here early
afternoon, had a quick swim and then got to sorting out a few bits and pieces on
the boat - mostly cleaning. Jem and Tuck went on a mission in the tender
(leaving Ewan with his toothbrush and HCl to attack the rust stains) to find
water (the water in Taiohae bay isn't
good for drinking). Despite having to battle through breaking waves and
negotiating shark infested water they came back successful. As the sun was going
down we noticed several black tip sharks swimming around the boat (note our
earlier swim...). I got a good view of them from the top of the mast. Up there
again to sort out the anchor light (which must have known I was coming since it
started working when I was about a couple of metres away). I've also brought
down the wind instruments to sort out the data cable
connections.
The following morning we did the walk up to a waterfall
(one of the tallest in the world). Again the scenery was absolutely stunning -
huge sheer faces to the west, nice shady paths and the odd stream crossing to
cool down. On the way we came across a plastic bag containing bright yellow
hard hats. We decided not to bother, but found later that everyone else we saw
on the walk had opted for the extra 'protection'. There were some pretty comedy
scenes of folk swimming across the pools and clambering over the rocks to get to
the falls in their various swimwear and bright shiny hard
hats.
Once we'd got to the waterfall Tuck spotted a huge
killer mouse which forced us all to tightly zip up our bags to keep our
sandwiches safe. Then we had to dive over/swim past the dangerous prawns with
really long pincers to get to the waterfall. Really great to swim in the cold
fresh water having been hot and salty most of the time for the previous three
weeks.
On the way back down we stopped off at the village by
the beach and bought some fruit - bananas, pamplemouse and starfruit and with a
few trips back and forth in the tender filled up the water
tanks.
Next mission was back to Taiohae bay for the night to
get up super early for the saturday morning market which starts at 5 and is
pretty much done and dusted by 6. We bought veggies, pastries and tuna, and were
back in bed by 5.45 - these Marquesians are just a bit
nuts.
Next stop, Ua
Po.