Our last newsletter left us at landfall 0500 on Saturday, April 15 (the delay in getting this to you was a lack of an available internet connection). The first thing one notices after two weeks at sea when you approach land is the wonderful smell of flowers, fauna, and (for lack of a better description) dirt We both looked at each other about 2 miles out and said simultaneously that the smell reminded us of our local nursery and the top soil we buy there for our garden. The Marquesas are the youngest island group in French Polynesia, hence the extreme topography and lack of coral Think Hawaii on a much smaller scale and on steroids; very spectacular vistas.
Our first anchorage was Baie Tahauku on Hiva Oa where we dropped the hook behind the breakwater and put out a stern anchor to keep us aligned with the incoming swells and to keep from swinging into the many other boats in this crowded little harbor. When Kurt was here 20 years ago there was no breakwater, quay, fuel station with minimart and at most six boats. Each island has public works improvements like this harbor as the French tried to buy favor with the territories given the political opposition to nuclear testing in the Tuamotus from 1966 until 1995. Instead of creating a harbor to accommodate both supply ship and cruisers, the harbor they created squeezes 18 boats in a tight space. The row closest to the beach has to worry about being in the surf line. Additionally, despite entering paradise there would be no swimming here as the bay is muddied by river runoff which limits visibility. The bay is also a hammerhead shark breading ground. Only some crazy Frenchmen on one boat braved the water to clean their hull. At cocktail hour an exciting pastime would be to sit on the deck with some friends and watch the water get churned up by the feeding sharks.
The Monday following Easter Sunday was an official holiday making it a four day weekend for the natives with everything closed. Surprisingly, they are quick to bad mouth the missionaries who, history shows, brought diseases that took the island population of the Marquesas alone from 18,000 in 1842 to 2,000 by 1926. Not to miss an opportunity, we teamed up with another couple and went on an all day Land Rover tour of the island including archeological sites which date back to 1000BC. Much of the trip was on a dirt road carved into the side of a hill. At the turnaround point, we enjoyed a beach barbeque of breadfruit and chicken. Breadfruit, you might recall, was the plant that Captain Bligh form the Bounty hoped to bring back to England to replace the potato. As the story goes, drinking water went to the plants and not the men and Marlon Brando/Mel Gibson mutinied. As recent participants in breadfruit consumption, we both agree that it would take close to starvation for us to substitute this starch for potatoes in our diets. It is cooked over charcoals with the skin on and peeled to serve. Think smoke flavored rutabagas. Our driver, Sabina, a local Marquesan, loaded us with fruits, even at her own peril. With no fear of heights she would climb barefoot 30 feet up a mango tree hanging over the side of a cliff to toss us the un-bruised fruit. She also wielded a mean machete, hacking at banana trees until the whole 20 foot tall plant was felled and yielded its single stalk of bananas. Sabina was also a wealth of local knowledge and folklore. When Katie asked her if adventurous folks climbed to island’s 4,000 foot peak, she explained that such a journey is not advised. The peak was used as a boundary between tribes and a common practice was to dig pits large enough to capture enemies entering their territory. Once in the pit, you became a source of protein. (Cannibalism was practiced until about 100 years ago). The pits still exist but are now even more dangerous with the growth of vegetation hiding their locations.
The next two days included a painless check in with the gendarme in the main town of Atouana and a visit to Gauguin’s grave. On the fifth day of our arrival, we weighed anchor and motored over to the neighboring island of Tahuata anchoring at Baie Hanamoenoa. Rated by Eric Hiscock as one of the three most beautiful anchorages in Polynesia it lived up to its reputation. We dropped the hook in 30 feet off a white sand beach in a nice calm bay in the lee of the island. The water visibility had to be 100 feet plus. The early morning and evening feedings of the resident reef shark did not deter us from enjoying several snorkeling adventures and using the calm anchorage to scrub the hull.
After six days of chores, socializing and much deserved relaxation we left the protection of the bay for a boisterous eight hour upwind sail in 20 knots to Fatu Hiva. Our destination was Baie des Vierges (Bay of Virgins). The locals claim that it was originally named Bay des Verges, (Bay of Penises), but that the missionaries changed the spelling. The original name was associated with the numerous phallic rock formations.
We spent the next day on a marathon hike, first climbing 1,500 feet up to a vista then bushwhacking to see the 200 foot waterfall. In all we hiked about six miles and the next day we could barely move. One side effect of gaining sea legs is the loss of land legs. Kurt also incurred a spider bite which over the next two days grew to the size of a dime with a purplish hue. Some spider venom is thought to create enzymes that will continue to digest your flesh if unchecked. We had read that heat will neutralize enzymes so after two days of treatment with our trusty Itchzapper (itchzapper.com) infected area started to heal. Although the Itchzapper was painful in this application it was less so than using a soldering iron which would be our next option.
At Penis Bay we were also greeted by Kiwis, Barney and Pat of ‘Rustyberg’ who stopped by the boat to ask if Doris and Dennis were on board (prior owners of ‘Interlude’). It seems that they had all meet seven years ago in the South Pacific when Doris, Dennis and Neil were in the midst of their circumnavigation. Barney and Pat were on a slower plan and are on their way back to New Zealand after a 7 year circumnavigation. Once again, we realized that we adopted a boat with a history and there is not an anchorage that we go into where someone doesn’t recognize her outright or from the Dashews’ Offshore Cruising Encyclopedia.
On Sunday, May 4 we sailed back to Hiva Oa to check out with the gendarme and get some fruits and veggies. On Monday we motored back to Hanamoenoa Bay to spend one night. To our surprise we were anchored next to Lin and Larry Pardey who had just made a 30 day passage from Chile after rounding Cape Horn. For those of you not as familiar with sailing, they are in the top ten of living legends. Their 28 foot sloop ‘Taleisan’ has no engine, no water maker, no electricity, no outboard for the dinghy, no radio, no life raft, no EPIRB, no GPS, in short, nothing that requires energy.. Even their head is a bucket. It is a beautiful wooden boat which has taken them, as of this writing, to within 50 miles of their second circumnavigation. Only spending one night next to them, we promised to hook up further down the way.
The next day we sailed over to Ua Huka in search of local wood carvings. Our search for carvings turned into a search for a safe place to anchor. All three anchorages mentioned in our guide are south facing and with a sizable south swell running the bays were a little scary for us especially for going ashore. We ended up anchoring behind two small islands Tevava and Motukeokeo, which provided just enough of a break in the swell for us to anchor in Baie Haavie. After one night we headed over to Baie Hakatoa on Ua Pou. After securing the boat with a bow and stern anchor behind the sea wall we took a short dinghy ride to collect information on where we could find any wood carvings. Unfortunately, the large supply ship had came the day before and the artisians had shipped their carvings to Papeete. It looked like we were destined to leave the Marquesas without our obligatory carved tiki. We were able to see some of the best examples of native wood carving at the church and got to hear the choir practicing as well. The pulpit in the shape of a ship’s bow was unique and the large goatskin drum outside must be used to call a meeting.
After two nights at Hakatoa we motored around the corner to Baie Hakahetua. A snorkel swim was rewarded with 50 feet of visibility and many scallops lining the coral shelf. Katie, always thinking with her stomach wanted to go back to the boat, don the hooka and gather up a tasty dinner. Kurt pointed out with freezers full of chicken we should leave them for the locals.
The next day, Friday, May 8, we motored to Nuka Hiva and bow and stern anchored in Taiohae Baie with 38 other boats, many of which were friends that we had not seen since Mexico. A walk around town was highlighted by a visit to Rose’s museum of Marquesan artifacts. Most items were 500 to 1500 years old including clubs, neck breakers, ceremonial chief’s staffs with human hair and necklaces made up of hundreds of dolphin teeth.
We decided to top off our fuel tanks in Taiohe as fuel would not be available again until Tahiti. The wind and swells were down and the large commercial concrete wharf looked manageable. We had arranged though our agent Tahiti Ocean to get the diesel duty free as a yacht in transit. We estimated 800 liters for our order (pretty much the minimum for duty free) and took on 662 out of over 900 with the balance going into jerry jugs for two other boats: Bill from Dragon’s Lair was on board to work the nozzle as Kurt worked the valves below and Katie manned the gear shift and throttle to try to counter the surge. With a bow anchor down we stern tied to the wharf and our transom would go from being 8 feet away from the concrete wall to 1 foot in a matter of seconds. Additionally, the hose only extends 35 feet from the wharf and with our fuel fill amidships we needed every inch of hose to reach it. We all got a laugh out of the irony of having Larry Pardey (engine-free Talesin) watch us as entertainment while we took on our fossil fuel. Special thanks also go to Dennis on Island Nomad who helped out onshore. It was a good reminder of the camaraderie we have as a cruising community and we all saved 35%.
After fueling up we headed over to Daniel’s Bay for a quiet night at anchor with four other boats as company. This bay has been famous in the cruising community for its severe topography and local resident Daniel but was recently immortalized on TV show; Survivor, Marquesas. After a good night’s sleep we went ashore with Bill and Gayle from Dragon’s Lair for a four hour hike into the valley back to the third highest waterfall in the world, some 1,000 feet. Upon beaching our dinghy slightly up the river we were greeted by Daniel himself, 84 years old and still going strong. We brought him a tee-shirt and a picture our boat and after our hike we glued the photos in his guest book and wrote a short note of thanks for allowing us to hike in the valley. Equally entertaining was perusing previous guest books dating back to 1980 with inscriptions, drawings, poems and photos from hundreds of different boats that have visited the bay. The hike to the waterfall mostly tracked an ancient Polynesian stone roadway of about ten feet across that connected many prehistoric dwelling sites. As we made the gradual ascent towards the waterfall, including forging the river at numerous points, we were treated with beautiful lush green vegetation and a cooling mist that dropped the air temperature by about 20 degrees. At the base of the waterfall we took a swim in the pool and for the first time since California actually felt a chill. To top off the perfect cruising day, that night Bill and Gayle treated us to barbequed chicken and margaritas made from scratch on their boat.
We took off the next day for a 50 mile motor around the northwest corner of the island for Anaho Bay, considered one of the most sheltered bays within the Marquesas. Living up to its reputation the bay was so calm that we had false hope the following day of motoring out of the bay, around the point and into the neighboring bay to have lunch at a highly recommended French restaurant. Once again, the power of thousands of miles of fetch came into force with 15 foot swells straight on the noise overpowering our 11 foot dinghy. After a quick retreat back to the anchorage and already soaking wet from the aborted effort we snorkeled one of the few coral reefs in the Marquesas. Poor visibility of 10 feet was more than offset by spectacular mushroom head coral rising up some 10 feet from the sandy bottom unlike any we have ever seen in over a hundred snorkel trips in the Carribean.
The following day we motored around the NE cape of Nuku Hiva with 20 knots and the same 15 foot swells right on the nose around the east side of the island back to Taiohe Baie. Along the way we spotted the island’s famous pigmy orcas that live along the eastern coast. They looked like fat dolphins without the snout. We goal was to get back to the bay by Friday to catch the early morning farmer’s market on Saturday: the only place for the next six weeks we would find fresh vegetables. The grocery stores do not stock fresh veggies and if you have to buy a can of veggies it will cost about $4.00. (In general, prices for most goods in the Marquesas are 2-3 times what you would pay in the states). Since Katie retired from being a stock broker we had forgotten what it was like to set an alarm for 3:30 in the morning but on Saturday we were up and ashore at 0400 for the buying frenzy and loaded up on a months worth of greens. As a treat for missing our French dinner out, we bought three live lobsters for $34. We went out for pizza the following night which was only the second time in three months that we had not eaten on a boat (ours or a friend’s). We made the right decision to try to buy 9 months worth of food in Mexico and bring it with us as a modest meal, in one of the 10 anchorages one would likely visit, will run about $40.00 for two and honestly not as god as what we cruisers can make on board.
Monday, May 19 we departed the Marquesas for the Tuamotos, the next island group about 500 nonstop miles away. We have already heard glowing reports from some of the other boats that were ahead of or schedule and look forward to our further exploration of French Polynesia.