we are at Tahuata

Well we finally got ourselves checked in!! what a bloody pain in the ass that was!! On Friday we arrived at the island Hiva Oa town of Atuona, where we are supposed to check in with the gendarmerie. need bond or plane ticket out of French Polynesia first. (unless you are from Europe) so off we go to the bank, both of our visa cards and bank cards won't work in the bank ( bank card works at the ATM, but can not get out 473840 French Franks, yes folks that is $6500 cnd) so we phone our bank, nothing
wrong with our visas , we try again... still no go.... come back at 1:30pm ( we started this at 8am) no go again, so we wait until Monday. try again, no go.... try to by plane tickets at Air Tahiti, in Hiva Oa, but they only fly in French Polynesia, must go to Tahiti to get ticket to Canada... so off we go back to our boat decide to leave with out checking in here, then our friends on Dorothy Marie offer to put it on their visa and we will pay them (their visa card worked on the Friday for them)
so off we go Tuesday am ( 7am and yes we did the same on Monday and its an 1 hr hike to town from the boat each way- we are getting in shape and have tons of blisters!!. and boy can we sweat ! it's hot here.) get to the bank wait in line ( don't mind each time we've done this cause its an air conditioned bank!! nice and cool) try ours again, no go..... try Dorothy Maries and .......... NO GO!! boy we all were suprised. a few other boats same problem,, then our friends from Malachi offer the same
so we stand in line again and YES it works!! 1 hr later after I signed 30 pieces of paper. ( 6 per person, don't really know why so many) we are done at the bank, Steve already went to the post office to get our stamps for the 60 day extension then the we hear the gendarmerie decides to close its office at 9am to go work out but will open for one fellow at 11:30am then close til the following am. well that was enough for me............ I sat at the locked gates of the gendarmerie until they openned
up for the fellow . she then asks if we could come back tomorrow. Well I started to cry saying no we have been here since Friday trying to check in ... She felt so bad she let us in but no one else. But we are checked in!!! I forgot to mention the gendarmerie office decided to close early on Friday (9:15am-she had to pick lup her kid from preschool and they opened at 8am) and then didn't open at all on Monday. appears they have no real schedule even those it says mon -fri. All of us boaters where
just shaking our heads. what an experience.
Everything except baquettes (french bread) is expensive!! Dorothy Marie bought 2 6 packs of beer and 2 2litres of diet coke and guess how much American? yes of course $57.00 can you believe that!! we are all taking a calculator with us to figure out how much everything is in Cdn . and only buy what we absolutely need or is a decent price. internet is $27 for 3hrs and you have to buy 3hrs min. so we skipped that.

so we have arrived to the Island Tahuata in Baie Vaitahu with all of our buddies - must be 15 boats here. lots of kids and we will be swimming tomorrow . nice sandy beach, clear water , can see the bottom and its 35 ft deep!!
until tomorrow......
and now we are in paradise!

Dionne