Yesterday, after our cup of coffee, we took the tender and went on land.

First we said hello to to Nora & Hacko and that we will come back later. Hacko gave us a good advice for docking our tender.

Docking the tender was not easy in the swell rolling in but we got it done with a bit of patience.

We took the dirt road towards the village. The first house was very simple. A wooden structure with a steep roof of corrugated sheet metal. The side walls partially closed with branches and leaves from a coconut tree.

At soon as we came closer, a friendly man waved is to come to him. We followed his non-verbal invitation. He disappeared in the house and came out with a notebook. When I saw the notebook in his hands, I was sure it was Jean-Yves with his collection of memos from sailors who visited Hanaiapa. It turned I out I was right. I learned about him in The Marquesas Compendium from SV Soggy Paws (http://svsoggypaws.com/files/#frpoly). Also other sailor mentioned him. He is a very nice person and enjoys collecting notes from sailors coming into the Baie Hanaiapa.

One was in Japanese written by a lady called Naoko (直子) and he asked us for a translation. It was written with very nice words about the very friendly Jean-Yves and how he spoiled Naoko and her family.

We kept sitting with him watching the waves rolling in and enjoying the sunset. It was a very warm feeling atmosphere in which we wrote our notes in Jean-Yves book.

Then 2 other men came. One of them a retired employee of Pape’ete airport who speaks fluent English. Although I love to derust my French it made the conversation a bit easier.

We learned that in 2000 a tsunami wiped out Jean-Yves’ house and he built the current house thereafter.

We were also shown the black faces rock at the NW corner of the bay’s exit. The right edge of the rock looks like a well balanced male face. From further west, about the position of MaRe there is a female face supposed to be seen. We are curious for that.

When we wanted to leave, Jean-Yves gave us a bag of shaddocks and banana. What a wonderful present.

We left, when there was still enough daylight, because we expected that it might not be easy to get back into our tender. It turned out that it really was not that easy. However, we made it.

Next we had a stop over at SV Anixi, to talk with our friends Nora & Hacko and listen to their experiences and impressions and also shared our sail from Omoa, Fatu-Hiva to here.

Hanaiapa seems to be a very nice place. As it has a very strong mobile phone network with at least a 4G internet connection, we will stay here a few days and I will do an IT work.