Day 82: Hiva Oa, Marquesas – 28/03/10

I wake up with a hangover, annoyed with myself for mixing my drinks.  It was all Matt’s fault – just wait until I see him!  Mike has other things on his mind; the generator, water maker and stern anchor.

Jared offers to dive for our anchor again as he has to look for theirs too.  We are anchored next to them and the two boats are swinging around in different directions (and were all night) but luckily we are just far enough away for it not to be a problem.

Many of the boats have to move in the morning as a large supplies ship comes in to the anchorage.  At least this might mean that the supermarkets have more fresh goods tomorrow.  Watching this huge ship enter the narrow anchorage in between all the boats is quite entertaining.

I start to clean the inside of the boat as penance for having a hangover but there are lots of jobs I can’t do as I am loathe to waste water.  There are no facilities for filling the tank up with a hose – you have to do it with jerry cans from a tap on land and bring it back to the boat in the dinghy.  We watch the kids from Ronja do this time and time again.  Where are you Victoria?  This is why one has children!

Mike starts to dismantle the generator cover but then stops as he knows he doesn’t have time to do a proper job today.

In the afternoon, diving for his own anchor, Jared finds ours.  Hurray!  Now all we have to do is reattach the line to the chain and we discover that this is easier said than done.  Tom helps Mike heave a load of the chain into the dinghy so that he can put the shackle on then realises that he has no wire to attach to prevent the screw coming undone again (which is obviously what happened last time) so he comes back to the boat, and this time I am dragged out to help pull some of the chain up again and hold it in place while Mike puts the wire on.  It is bloody heavy.  Neither of us know how we are going to get all the chain up again when we leave.  Still, we are secure for now, no longer swinging around at anchor, and will worry about that when we come to it.

When we get back to the boat I have a good look at the hulls and steps.  The hulls are plastered with tiny, dead flying fish, fish scales and there is a growth of green algae around the stern at the water line and all over the steps.  Mike lifts the swim ladder and even finds three scuttling black crabs, obviously stowaways from the Galapagos.  I decide to do some scrubbing.  We tie the dinghy to the side of the boat and off I go.  However, it is now quite rough and the dinghy is constantly slapping against the side of the boat - I have to keep jerking my hand out to stop it being crushed.

Photo:  Sprawled across the dinghy, scrubbing Jeannius

After half an hour of vigorous scrubbing and scraping, I have done a very good job ……. to about an eighth of the boat!  I am absolutely knackered.  Mike makes a cup of tea and I crawl out of the dinghy.  The rest can wait for a calmer day.

We comfort ourselves with curry and TV and tuck ourselves into bed early with ibuprofen.  I hope we are both OK tomorrow.