Someone organized pizza night at a local restaurant and despite the rain showers about 20 hardy cruisers went out Friday night for Marquesan pizza and Tahitian beer. Unlike most places boaters gather there’s no bar in town, and even if there were, you can’t drink $7 beers without breaking the budget. Still, it was fun to catch up and I’m pretty sure everyone made it home in the dark in one piece.
Tim from Liberty Call showed us the town and we walked all the way around the giant bay to the other side to see the small museum. The collection was gathered by Rose, who came here 40 years ago to do research for a master’s degree and stayed. She and her husband, now deceased, ran a hotel and restaurant that was for many years a cruisers hangout until the town built the dinghy dock on the opposite side of the bay. Now everyone gathers at Henri’s on the waterfront for free internet and what passes for cheap food.
Saturday was a series of outrigger races. The course was out in the open ocean but we did see some of the entries zip past us on the way to the starting line. Hours later when they finished they were greeted by a line of girls in red dresses. We thought maybe they would do some traditional dancing to greet the competitors but their cheers looked like the Marquesan version of “Good job!” and “Awesome!” accompanied by enthusiastic drumming.
There seems so be a lot happening around town and we keep our eyes and ears open. We also ordered a new feed pump head from Tahiti to get our watermaker up and running. We need two, but at 2-1/2 times the US price we’re going with one for the moment and we’ll just hope that in the next few months someone will visit us and bring boat parts. For now, we’ll stay put and wait for the pump to arrive.
