Day - 18 - Land Ho! and Arrival Nuku Hiva, Marquesas

Sylvia monitoring the kite

(TC)

With the wind speeds remaining low throughout the night, 6-8 knots TWS, and our need to keep the daily mileage up (in the 150 nm range) in order to reach the barn the quickest, we motorsailed most of the last night and into the next morning. When the wind finally filled in, we shut down the engine and sailed. Mind you, we worship our Yanmar engine all the benefit it provides, however, the return of the "sailing silence" was blissful.

By late morning, the distance to go was less than 100 nm (72 actually); another exciting milestone reached. After a discussion considering whether to push hard and get to anchorage at dusk or slow down, spend another night at sea, and arrive in the early morning, we elected to "race the sunset" to the finish line. The wind continued to blow from a good angle (broad to beam) and with good pressure (12-17 TWS), so this tempted us to deploy our most powerful sail, the spinnaker. We took the bait and deployed "the kite", knowing it had the highest speed potential of any of our options.

It's a bit of a process to get the giant sail deployed - more lines, blocks, connections, communications, coordination, etc. , but with the need to correct a minor twist in the sail before hoisting, up it went, off the sprit, unsocked, into full-pull mode. The boat took off and sailed reassuringly FAST through the early- and then mid-afternoons.

About the time we were marveling at the power of the kite zipping us along, Sylvia shouted "Land Ho!". And just like magic, there it was - a faint, dark lump of an island to our southern side. "Wow - how about that?!". It's always a euphoric moment to spot an expected landfall after many days or weeks of seeing only the ocean and the sky, and the video-game-appearance of our electronic navigation screens in which we place so much trust. I'm continually impressed with the utility, accuracy, and reliability of the GPS system and technology, both on the satellites side and on the receiver side. Outstanding! We are close!

From its bearing, I knew the spotted island was not our destination island, Nuku Hiva, but one nearby (Ua Huka ). We raced on, with s/v SCOOTS keeping close tabs just a few miles behind us. We had an exhilarating 4 hrs run running under the spinnaker, getting in lots of mini-surfs in the medium-sized following swells. In the distance off the bow, Nuku Hiva started to take form under a pile of clouds as we closed in. It soon became early evening and the wind softened, so we doused the spinnaker and put her in her lair for another long hibernation.

The sun was dropping fast so we motorsailed toward the dark shadowy, looming mass. As we got near it, the jagged island form came into focus - vivid green carpets of jungle, steep hillsides, tall cliffs dropping into the sea, whispy clouds hovering close to the slopes. As dusk turned to darkness (2000 hrs, local), we turned into the Baie Taohaie, and dim lights from onshore and from anchored boats twinkled. We picked up the 2 red flashing range lights which guided our way deep into the bay. We selected our anchoring spot between the 50-odd vessels present while the moon started to shine brightly above the steep ring of peaks that comprise this ancient volcano. It took about another hour to re-assemble our anchor system out from its ocean-passage-storage location and deploy it in 43' of mud/sand.

Anchor down! Finally, we have arrived!

And within an hour, so did our pals on SCOOTS.

What a great feeling of relief and elation.

After a good sleep in the calm and safe clutches of the anchorage, the legendary beauty of this tropical paradise became clear as morning dawned.