Heiva Festival

On Sunday night we took a break from our boat projects to enjoy the Heiva festival, an annual celebration of Polynesian culture and dance. There is a large, sold-out amphitheater downtown where the events take place, but some friends gave us a great tip that there is as an encore show the following night at the fairgrounds for the local community to enjoy. As the fairgrounds were but a ten minute dinghy ride from the anchorage, we decided to give it a shot and were not disappointed. We saw two dance troops and two choral groups. The dancers had some of the more incredible costumes I've ever seen—lots of woven foliage, mother of pearl accents—and we were sitting close enough (on the floor, the place was packed!) to smell their jasmine headdresses.