Today was scheduled to be Hiva Oa, the next substantially sized island along from Futa Hiva. We'd arrived by the time we woke up, but while we were still in bed they announced that the swell (about 2m) was too substantial to disembark to the tenders. It's been coming from the South East the whole trip, and Atuona, the main town, is unprotected from that direction (while yesterday we were in the lee of Futa Hiva).
So there was some headscratching and aborted plans, then a decision to head to Nuku Hiva, where we'd be going tomorrow anyway. This left us with most of a day to kill. We went up to the Yacht Club to have breakfast and read, then went and found the whirlpool on the bow deck.
Naturally at lunch we ate and drank too much, which led to us sleeping through much of the afternoon. By the time we woke we'd reached Taiohae Bay. So we were tendered ashore and at 5.30 there was a dancing demonstration - much as you'd expect, it seemed a fairly good one. There was some of the dreaded audience participation, but owing to the preponderance of Americans on board there were plenty of volunteers.
We made it back to the ship - despite being in a sheltered bay there was quite a swell and it was slow going, getting people from the tender to the ship, and the tenders and the lifeboats, so enclosed and tending to be humid when you're stuck in them for a while. Anyway, we had the usual nice dinner and then there was dessert and music on deck, which was very pleasant.
