Day 107 Tattoos

Dance competition
Andy has two tattoos that he got when he served in the Peace Corps in Samoa. On his arm he has a traditional Samoan design of parallel lines and on his calf is a Maori design from Australia. I guess once you get one, you crave more so he has been researching since the Marquises and found that the Marquesan artists have a unique and pleasing style. After hearing about the art, Mark and I got talked into joining him. We almost got one in Manihi where we really liked the work of a Tuamotu artist but the restriction of not being able to go into salt water for a week after the application convinced us to wait as we did not want to be excluded from swimming during that part of the trip. Because we have a 5 day passage in front of us from Bora Bora to Rarotonga this restriction would not affect us so Andy began searching again and found a Marquesan tattoo artist on Southern Bora Bora.
We moved the boat to an anchorage in front of Bloody Mary's, dinghied to shore and walked a mile South to Fati Motuehitu Tattoos.
Fati has been doing tattoos for 20 years since he was 14 years old. He works 8 hours a day and in the three hours we were there, he turned away three couples who showed up at the door. The next time he had free was in a week.
Everything was of almost surgical quality so we felt safe to proceed. Fati had many books of past designs or would do whatever his client wanted. Much of his work contains Marquisan symbols of marine animals and various gods. I chose a dolphin and a turtle (the navigator) and the tattoo took about 45 minutes. There was no real discomfort but I am sure it could be painful on certain parts of the body. Mine is on my shoulder.
Andy chose two tikis representing his parents and Mark got a really cool wave that could represent both surfing and sailing. His also contains an M and a K for his family.
In the afternoon we moved the boat back to the Yacht Club and in the evening took a taxi into town with the crew from Liahona. Each year there is a French Polynesia dance competition held in Bora Bora for two weeks and tonight was the first night. The town is very small but has a tiny stadium with a soccer field where the competition is held. All the local dignitaries were there along with judges from various islands. Over the next 3 hours, two groups performed songs and dances with musical accompaniment. There was a lot of spirited drumming and the dancers did not disappoint. There was a lot of amazing hip shaking as well as precision moves that look like the hand motions of Hawaiian hula. All in all, it was very entertaining and well worth attending.
As a bonus for the evening, we met a family from Australia aboard Eaio whom we had last seen in Rangiroa. They have daughters of Kurt and Andy's ages and next to the stadium there was a disco that opened after the performance. Dancing followed by dancing ended the evening.