From s/v Circadia

We have arrived! Got in yesterday (April 13 at around 3:30 pm, almost exactly 21 days after leaving Cabo). We had very good winds for the last two days, which pushed us through the last leg (a good thing as we had only emergency fuel left). It is a strange feeling after so many days of being at sea to see land emerge on the horizon. Farlyn saw it first--a blue shadow which could almost have been a dark cloud. I had been expecting to smell the land before seeing it, but the winds were blowing from the sea. Only once we were in port did the full aroma hit us: soil, fresh water, decaying fruit, and flowers. The harbour is tiny and is crammed with boats. It is interesting to talk to the others here--you can only get here via a long passage--not your usual cross section of boaters. Mostly people, like us, sail in, drop an anchor and look pretty dazed for the first couple of days. We all felt weak as kittens on our first walk into town yesterday. Atuona is a pretty little town of plantation style houses on streets lined with hisbiscus, mango, frangipani. It still seems strange to hear Polynesians speaking French--though they speak their own language, which sounds similiar to Hawaiian (though I'm sure is very different). Other observations, the streets are very clean and the offices are very bureaucratic. We waited an hour in the bank, in something that did not in any way resemble a line. Then I went to the post office to use the internet, and there were all the people who had been in the bank (waiting to pay bills, or whatever they do in the post office).  We will likely be here a few days, doing boat repairs, re-provisioning and just generally relaxing.
bonne nuit,
Alison