The Aranui Experience – Picnic at Hanamenu

Happy New Year.
I hope everyone had a great Christmas and that 2011 will be peaceful and prosperous.
The weather on Raro around Christmas was good apart from a few showers but I can’t say the same for the New Year. We’ve had lots of heavy rain. There haven’t been as many campers on the beach as in previous years. The Nikao social centre area used to be full of families complete with tents, mattresses, barbecues and even TVs but this year people mostly seemed to come down for the day.
There’s a very large camp of SDA Pathfinders going on at the moment with over 900 campers from around the Pacific in a huge campsite at Papa’aroa school. The kids had fine weather for all their activities last week. The last couple of days have been wet but looking at the satellite photo for this area of the Pacific it looks as though sunny weather is on the way.
This video is another from the Marquesas trip on the Aranui 3, still on the island of Hiva Oa at a picnic in a very small settlement called Hanamenu.
I’ve almost finished one about Punanga Nui market but I’ve been busy slashing and burning recently – getting the garden into shape with weed-eater, chainsaw and hedge clippers as well as water-blasting the deck, so it’s all looking less like a jungle and more like a garden. The trick now will be to keep it that way but in a tropical island paradise things grow fast. Looks as though my New Year resolution is ready made!