Passage from Hiva Oa to Manihi, Tuamotu

Mid april we arrived on the Marquesas, that is on the Hiva Oa. Because of Easter hollidays we had to wait a bit until we could clear in, but when the Gendarmeri finally opened, it was a pleasure! No more corrupt Port Captains, on more greedy agents or allmighty Officers of any kind. The french gendarme behind the counter was efficent, friendly, polite and smiling. Thus it took us less than 15 minutes to have the paperworks done, with no fees of any kind.
We explored the region close by the harbour, which was in walking distance. The artists Paul Gauguin and Jaques Brel ended their lives here and we visited their graves. On an other ancient graveyard we found a historic tiki. Those tikis have some common roots with the statues on the Easter Island, which we missed, by choosing this route over the Pacific Ocean.
The hills of Hiva Oa are covered by a tropical forrrest. Lots of trees carry a heavy burdon of exotic fruits, one of them beeing the huge mangotree. The delicious fruits cover many a roadside.
But we did not stay long. In a familiar matter Rainer will possibly have to fly back to Europe before time and we would like to be on the Tuamotu Archipel by that time. So we left Hiva Oa only four days after our arrival, at first only for Tahuata, a smal island just a few miles to the south, for some snorkeling. But then, less than 24 hours later we left again. This time for the Tuamous, some 500 miles further to the west.