Heading for the Ua Pou cultural festival 10 Dec 19

Having determined that both engines were happy to propulse JollyDogs at high speed for the one hour journey between Taiohae Bay and Controller Bay at Nuku Hiva, our version of a "limited maintenance test flight", the next task was to find out if we could remember how to sail our girl.

 Tuesday crack 'o dawn we popped out like a piece of toast and motored out of Controller Bay before sunrise, pointing our bow towards Ua Puo.  The seas were flat and the sky was sunny, and soon Isabel observed that a bit of a breeze was upon us, so up went the main and out came the jib.  In no time we were sailing 6 to 7 knots in a 10 knot beam breeze and out went the fishing lures.  We made the nearly 30 mile run in a bit over 5 hour; would have been the perfect day if we'd hooked up a nice fish.  Still, there's nothing like a great sail on a beautiful day.  Into Hakahetau Bay we motored and set our anchor near our Canadians friends on SV Maple.

Darryl arrived a few minutes later in their dinghy offering to assist us in setting our stern anchor.  As this festival is expected to attract a bunch of cruising boats to a very small bay, the only way to squeeze everyone in is to set stern anchors to limit swinging.  We can count on the fingers of 1 hand how many times we've used a stern anchor, and it's quite a palaver to extract the gear from the bow locker and get everything set up.  That said, with Darryl's help and a couple of tries to get a good set the deed was done and we were snug as a bug in a rug.  Most all the boats around us had stern anchors deployed, and as new ones arrived that went through the fire drill.  But there's always an exception.  Some blowhard who acts too self-important, thinks they own the anchorage and "can't be bothered".  Now there's a phrase I truly hate. 

It's an unfortunate observation that many of the French sailors in French Polynesia, not the local French Polynesians but French nationals who sailed their boats over from France, exhibit a serious lack of manners and a general sense of arrogance.  We've got some great French friends, but the joke has always been that France is a beautiful country, the only thing wrong with it's full of French people.

I'm sure they probably think the same of Americans, as observing Americans on holiday in foreign countries can at times be an excruciating experience.

 Anyway, this particular boat has swung awfully close to us, almost to the point of danger, and if we get any closer there will be words.  JollyDogs is our home.  Our personal safety and security are a top priority.  Perhaps the best way to begin the conversation is to dinghy over and offer to help him with his stern anchor?

 There were times in Mexico when other boats thought we anchored too close, or when we thought the same.  We usually talked about it over the VHF radio or with a personal visit via dinghy, and generally worked things out with smiles on our faces.  Sometimes we elected to move just to accommodate nervous nellies.  Sometimes you realize you simply don't want a particular boat as a neighbor, and there is this one boat that we will always refer to as "asshole".