Our arrival in the Marquesas was highly anticipated, long awaited and very glorious. As the sun started to rise, we saw the towering mountain-esque islands and un-ominous clouds dotting the horizon. Quite frankly, it was astounding and ultimately relieving to finally reach land.

However, Hiva Oa was not. Hiva Oa was stressful and agro and just bad. The anchorage required stern anchoring. Stern anchoring is basically the evilest type of boat action. You not only have to anchoring front on, but then you need to shove the boat into reverse and hope to God it doesn’t hit anything. Then you throw the stern anchor haphazardly off the stern and pray again that it stays.

We did this until it stuck. Sometimes is sticks straight away, and other times it just doesn’t. So it’s very much a guessing game and a stressing game. Not only was the anchorage terrible, but the people. In everything we read, we were told that the islanders were warm and welcoming. The Hiva Oans were, but the cranky Parisians that inhabited the island were just plain rude. They never, never, wanted to help you and it took soooooooo long to get anything done.

We also got to go the a museum about Paul Gauguin, a famous painter and artist who lived in the early 1900’s and late 1800’s. He lived in Hiva Oa for a while, and he was ~kinda~ liked. (More or less tolerated by its inhabitants.) He painted over 10 paintings while he was in the Pacific islands, most of which ended back in France.

We couldn’t leave Hiva Oa fast enough. But, out visas took a while to be processed so ultimately, we spent about 10 days there.