Days 98 - 102 Wandering around the islands

Chris - Well Paul threw the blog entry over this morning for a hike, but I thought since I saw a post office that I would at least let you know that we are well and having a great time. I am typing on a French keyboard and have little time so bare with me. We have had no internet connection for the last 5 days as we have been busy on shore and the towns have been VERY small...like 50 people on the whole island or in the vicinity if where we dock. When we get back to the States we will have to update you on each island. For a very board overview I would say that many of the islands have more conviences than you would think. They all have some sort of cars and trucks and we never see an old one. They are usually new or newer and are nice pick ups or small or medium SUVs. We were told that it was bacause France heqvily subsudizes these islands and pays like 37 percent the cost of the cars. They pay for very little and live off their handicrafts, exported products like coconuts and fruit and the cost of living is like nothing. Usually an older son would go to Tahiti or somewhere to work for a few years and send the money home and after a few years he will return to help manage their resources at home having financed his family until his son goes off for a few years. France pays for almost everything. In the last two days we have seen the most quaint islands with very little population and really only a little market and post office for a town. Those islands have been green and lush with a beautiful variety of flowers. Yesterday we were on an island that had about 2,000 wild horses and we spent some time swimming in the warm ocean. We have seen many tiki statues and learned all about the native cultures. We are in Taiohae, Nuku Hiva now and it is actually the commercial center for the islands and thus has a computer. Tomorrow a day at sea and on Thursday we are at the largest atoll to swim. If I knew I was going to write I would have had the notes of what islands we have visited recently but we will have to do that lazter when we can share the fabulous sights with you.

In general the sunsets have been magnificent and the bays where we pull into incrediably beautiful. The only other tourist we have seen are three couples who have been sailing around the world on personal sailboats that would be anchored at a bay where we would be visiting and we would see them walking in the village. Now a little about life on board the container ship. It is fasinating to watch them load and unload supplies. They do not have a lot of containers on board but usually anything from crates to cars to cattle that they are bring to the islands. They unload onto platform boats that we have onboard and then take them into shore. Many times we are way too big to dock and all operations are done on a variety of boats that we carry with us. We have a deep sea fishing boat, two whaleboats that seat about 60 passengers that they ferry us to shore in, a number of smaller whaleboats that they take us sometimes but usually cargo and about 3 huge flatbed boats that they use to ferry cargo, just to name a few. Our routine is to spend the day ashorer doing all the activities they have designed for us and then return to the ship in late afternoon. Paul usually does the daily uphill hikes that range from 10 miles to 3 kilometers. I went once on a 6 kilometer one that was not the hardest but it was really steep for me. I settle for swimming everyday with Nancy in the pool onboard and sometimes in the ocean. After dinner we usually play cards all evening but lqst night was special as it was Polynesan night. They had dinner out by the pool that they had decorated and then they had a kind of talent night for passengers and the crew with lots of Polynesan dancing. They have their own small band made up of crew members that played until 1 am. It was a very entertaining night and it was no surprise that the crew was WAYYYY more talented than the passengers. Well sorry to have rambled on with different topics but we can not write often and I did want to share some of the sights and activites we have done. More when we get stateside and we can show you some of our pictures. We are great and really enjoying the Barretts. Happy Birthday Stephan on Thursday if we can not communicate with you on Thursday!!!!!