It is my second visit to Hanavave on Fatu-Hiva and it was a accompanied with a nice surprise.

Already while approaching the Bay of Penises/Virgins I saw a very familiar boat name on the AIS screen. “Anixi”. I follow them on IG since about 2018 when they sailed from Spain to Sardegna and like their special routing and way of traveling. And now after 6 years, we finally met face-to-face in one of the most beautiful bays in French Polynesia. We had a long talk yesterday…

Today OBM and I went on land. She wanted to see the village and meet people.

She likes it here The steep mountainside allover the island covered with green and interrupted with mainly black stripes of volcanic rocks. I’m between the mountain does there are very low hanging clouds. OBM also was surprised about the moving white dots on the steepest area of the steep slopes. White wild goats enjoying the grasses and plants growing there.

We finally started walking through the main street of the village, which only has 2 streets. One of them leads up into the mountains and continues to Omoa, the second and much bigger settlement on Fatu-Hiva about 10 NM by boat or 15 km to walk further south.

We bumped pretty soon into Christian, a local guy who invited already Shigeo and me for a dinner. That time we needed to reject it. Today will go for it.

We walked on, and OBM got the chance to see the local super market, and hardware store. All in room of 5 m x 3m. The lady in the shop welcome Iraq us friendly and recognized me. Simply a nice atmosphere for buying some cookies and a piece of soap made in Polynesia. A piece of soap, without any wrapping around. No need for paper and or plastic.

At the end of main part of the village we crossed the about 5 m wide stream on stones until I saw that there is even a better way by simply wading through the water, which reached a the deepest spot just my knees.

We ended up on the 2nd street of the village and walked down towards the harbor. A friendly elderly lady came out of one of the houses and started talking to us. I needed all my remaining French to follow and reply. She appreciated my efforts.

Thereafter 2 kids came towards us and asked if we want to have some shaddocks. I wondered a bit but then we followed them. It turned out that their mother or aunt make tapas. Makiko bought one. Then we were told that their mother makes dried bananas and we got some to taste. It looked and tasted completely different to what I knew as dried bananas. Simply am excellent taste. We but bought dried bananas, which is wrapped and looks like an European sausage.

When we left, the rain started and caught us fully. Also we sat for a while under the roof covered bench at the harbor, It didn’t want to stop. Finally we just jumped out tender and drove back to MaRe. We could get more then we were.