May 8, 2018. The day greeted us with a heavy downpour. It was nice to get our boat washed of the salt crystals we accumulated during the crossing. However, our 45 min trek into town for mass at 8 am was a wet one. We did not see many boaters heading to shore unlike us. We and the crew on Banyan were the only crazy Catholics getting up at 7:30am and dinghying to shore in the heavy rain.

Despite the rain, the island was beautiful with its lush green shrubs, trees with fragrant bright flowers. The girls quickly resumed their foraging and picking up oddities on the ground. I was happy to see that oddities were mostly tropical flowers.

We entered the church after peeling off our wet rain coats and wiping our muddy feet. As anticipated, the mass started off with its wonderful Polynesian vocals sung in rounds: first by a female singer, men in chorus, and finally the women’s chorus.

I decided to record the singing on my phone. The mass was conducted mainly in Marquesan with the final notice announcements in French. We didn’t not comprehend either but since the Catholic mass is universal, we knew the order of mass.