Date First Posted: April 22, 2006
Log Entry Start Date - April 7, 2006
Log Entry End Date - April 22, 2006
Location Covered - Cruising the Marquesas, French Polynesia
Present Location: Taiohae, Nuku Hiva, Marquesas
Latitude: 8 Deg. 54.9 S Longitude: 140 Deg. 05.9 W
Weather: Partly cloudy, 90 Deg F. (Finally it has stopped raining after 2 days)
Distance covered since last entry: 110 nautical miles
Total distance traveled since departure from Antigua: 5599 nautical miles
Commentary:
Our
first landfall in the Marquesas was the island of Fatu Hiva, the
southeastern most inhabited island in a group of a half dozen significant
islands. These islands are relatively young with 3-4,000 foot volcanic
peaks that have very sharp ridges and deep valleys. Being young, they don’t
have coral reefs around them, and the water is deep nearly to the shore.
Unlike some other tropical islands where the heights are lower, these
islands capture a lot of rain as moist air rises over them, and as a result,
they are generally covered in countless shades of green from grass, bushes,
palm trees and in places thick tropical rain forest.
The origin of the indigenous people is somewhat controversial. Most scientists believe Polynesians came from Indonesia and Malaysia after sailing east across the Pacific from island to island. Thor Heyerdahl, a Norwegian adventurer and researcher, came to live on Fatu Hiva in the 1930’s for a year with his young wife, and what he saw and learned made him propose the theory that the Marquesans were populated by people from South America, the same as once lived on Easter Island. We read his book about his year in the Marquesas as we were approaching Fatu Hiva. His theories were partly based on the large stone statues (Tikis) found here that were very similar to those on Easter Island, and those found in the Andes, but that were unlike anything that was from Asia. His arguments seem compelling and we aren’t sure what to believe. In any case, his book was a great source of history and gave us lots of ideas of what to visit. We learned that before “white men” came to the islands, there may have been 200,000 or more people living in the area. Due to disease, wars, and the cultural changes brought by explorers and missionaries, now there is only a small fraction of that number. For instance, Fatu Hiva only has two major villages, with maybe less than 1000 total inhabitants.
Heyerdahl
claimed that Fatu Hiva was the most beautiful island of them all, and most
everyone agrees. Our anchorage at the Bay of Hanavave, also known as
the Bay of Virgins, looks into the folds
of mountain ridges that are covered in lush foliage, with spires of basalt
rock shooting up around the bay. The mountain peaks are usually
covered in clouds.
The
village has a small breakwall in the harbor and wharf that allows barges to
land with supplies brought every month by ship. When Heyerdahl lived here,
there wasn’t any protection, and just landing a small boat was treacherous.
When we landed, we had help from the young local dockhands tying up our dinghy.
On shore, there was a soccer field, small clinic, school, church, and a
general store (about 15 feet x 10 feet). You really couldn’t buy anything,
and in fact this was one of the few places where they had no interest in
taking US dollars. Even in the stores on the larger islands, the shopping
selection was limited. For instance, later when we were on Ua Pou, the only
cereal they had was Fruit Loops. They were interested in trading for
different items, and besides selling copra (dried coconut); their only
source of money was selling wood carvings.
Although the
village was small and lacking in commercial activity, the roads (two) were paved to the edge of the village, there was electricity, a
phone booth near the harbor, and amazingly, everyone had a satellite TV
dish. There weren’t any resorts, restaurants, gas stations, or other shops
for the two hundred or so people, who seemed very happy with their
lifestyle. This woman cut open some fresh coconuts for us to drink
while looking at some of her husband's wood carvings.
The
major attraction for visitors is to hike to a waterfall inland from the
village, and in spite of lots of rain earlier in the day, we made the hike
with friends on the boat Blackbird and a new family we met on Artic Fox.
Blackbird’s crew are all Norwegian, and we had met them first in Ecuador and
then in the Galapagos. They were interested in walking in the footsteps of
Heyerdahl. Artic Fox’s crew included Tim, Cynthia and their 11 year old
son, Cameron, who was the same age as Jennifer when we first sailed the
Pacific.
The
first hour of the hike was relatively easy as the paved road turned into a
steep, dirt road. After that, however, we were following a path up the side
of the mountain that was either hopping from small boulder to boulder, or
climbing over tree trunks and branches. At times, we were actually climbing
using our hands to help us up the path, and twice we had to cross streams,
either wading through the rushing water, or trying to jump from rock to
rock.
We've
seen tropical rainforests in many places around the world, but this one on
Fatu Hiva had some of the largest trees we had seen along with some very
dense foliage. This picture shows Jennifer standing inside an old tree
along the side of our trail.
We
were thankful that no one fell and got seriously hurt, especially since the
trail was so wet and muddy from earlier rains, but being careful, we all
finally got to the waterfall, and it was amazing. Dropping about 200 feet
straight down a sheer rock cliff into a deep pool, the view of the waterfall
was worth the hike.
The
water in the pool was cool, but we all went swimming and swam directly under
the falling water. There was a lot of water flow from the rain earlier in
the day, and we were lucky that it didn’t rain during our hike back. Fatu
Hiva and especially where we were, is exceptionally green due to being the
rainiest island in the Marquesas. The upside to this was that our boat was
well washed of salt from our long passage; the downside was that we had to
keep the plastic windows installed around our cockpit most of the time, and
we frequently had to close up all of our hatches, and always at night.
The anchorage at Fatu Hiva is small and the water is deep making it hard to anchor, and crowded when more than a few boats are visiting. We had about ten boats with us, and the wind coming down through the valley gusted to 30 knots at times, causing boats to swing close to each other. The night before we left, Tortilla Flat, a boat we had passed the first day leaving the Galapagos, was just arriving. In the dark they tried to anchor off to one side of us, but were having problems with their engine and their anchor windlass failed, making it nearly impossible to bring up their anchor and change their position. Just as we were entertaining our friends on Blackbird, Tortilla Flat swung right into us, and for the next hour we tried to help them anchor at a safe distance. We eventually gave up, and instead had them come right up alongside of us and using rubber bumpers between us, they tied up to us for the night. Even though it was then nearly midnight, we had them join us and Blackbird for our “farewell” party with Blackbird. We are finding more cases where the degrees of separation between people are small. Tortilla Flat was previously owned by a friend of ours from the Expo '98 rally.
The next morning as we tried to leave, our engine wouldn’t start. George on Tortilla Flat helped take the starter off and troubleshoot the problem, and in the end, the problem was our bank of two engine start batteries. They had run very low on water and didn’t have enough charge. We used our house batteries to get the engine started, and after adding water to the engine batteries, they appear OK. We were surprised they were so low on water, but had only been watching the level in the house batteries.
Due
to our delayed start, we once again were anchoring just as sunset fell
on Hiva Oa, the second largest and second most populated island in the
Marquesas. Anthem had arrived earlier and was able to help us set a stern
anchor in the bay at Atuona, the major “town”. Hiva Oa is another world
compared to Fatu Hiva. A small freighter was docked and dozens of pickup
trucks were coming and going in the port to unload the cargo. After a mile
or so walk into town, we visited the Gendarmerie, where we had the local
police stamp our passports, give us our visas, and complete our French
Polynesian paperwork. For most cruisers not from the European
Community, you need to have either an airplane ticket home or post a bond
that guarantees that you can afford to leave. Because we are flying
home for a few months, we had tickets and were OK, but our friends on Anthem
had to pay for bonds of nearly $5000. They get the money back when
they leave, but lose a fair amount on the exchange rates and finance charges
if they pay for the bond with a credit card.
On
the tourist council bulletin board in the harbor, we saw a notice from Marie
Jo, who does laundry and arranges tours. She was a great find for us,
as she picked us up in town when we were stranded in an afternoon downpour
with all of our purchases. She did 7 loads of laundry, and had her
husband take us on a day tour to the far side of the island. Next to
Atuona with maybe 1000 or so people, there aren’t many other villages.
One, however, is Puamau, on the northeast corner of the island. We had
read about Puamau in Heyerdahl's book as it is the most significant
archeological site in the Marquesas. It has the largest and most stone
Tikis, as well as stone platforms used as religious sites (ma’raes) and
house foundations (paepaes).
The
picture above shows several Tikis on top of a ma'rae. We were told
that at least one of the Tikis was a reproduction, with the original in a
museum in Germany. The picture at right shows a paepae. Tikis
are the stone or wood representation of their gods.
When the missionaries came, many of the Tikis were destroyed, so we don't know for sure how many were really authentic.
When
Heyerdahl visited, it took him a day or so on horseback to travel over the
central mountain range and down to Puamau from Atuona. For us, the 8
or 10 miles as the crow flies, was “only” a 30 mile, 2-1/2 hour adventure
(each way) in a pickup truck over roads that at time were barely drivable in
spite of being in the process of being “widened” by construction crews. We
had the crew on Great Sensations join us for the trip, and two of us had to
sit in the back of the pickup on mattresses for the ride. That would
have been fine if the roads weren’t so rough and it didn’t pour down rain
for an hour on the way to Puamau. It was funny when on occasion our
drivers put on their seat belts just as we started to enter a town to avoid
a ticket, while at the same time we had people sitting or standing in the
bed of the pickup truck.
The
archeological site dated back centuries. Some of the stone
foundations were perhaps from the 1300’s and the largest Tiki was a carving
of a chief from maybe the 1600 or 1700’s. Our guide spoke good
English, but didn’t give us much in the way of descriptions, and we relied
up on a signboard near where we parked to learn about this site. We
later had a lunch at a home next to the tomb of the last queen of the area,
dating to the 1800’s.
When
we visited Hiva Oa in 1997, we had dinner at a small resort on the hill
overlooking the harbor. We decided to go back and have lunch this
time, so we could get a better view during the daylight. They picked
us up and after meeting the manager we mentioned we had been at the resort 9
years before. He explained that where we had been then was a place
just down the hill, and where we were now, was only 8 years old.
Called the Hanakee Pearl Cottages Resort,
it was part of a chain of nearly a dozen deluxe resorts throughout French
Polynesia including a place in the Tuamotus we had visited before. We will
make a point of visiting the others if we are nearby. Even though the
resort’s 14 villas were fully booked, we had the place nearly to ourselves,
with a great lunch, and great view from the infinity pool outside the main
building. The manager gave us a lot of brochures on the chain of resorts
and invited us back to spend the day by the pool and use their Internet
connection. So, we returned to upload our website updates, check our
email, and enjoy a swim in the pool after another great lunch. Not that our
meals on board left anything to be desired, but a couple of meals eating out
are a nice treat after three weeks onboard, especially when prepared by a
good French chef.
We
then set off to Ua Pou, the third most populated island in the Marquesas,
and the one with the most dramatic mountain peaks and skyline. It is a
72 mile passage, which requires leaving at dawn in order to get in again
just as the sun sets. This seems to be a habit of ours. We had
planned our arrival so that we could spend Easter Sunday on the island.
Our landfall at Ua Pou was again just at sunset, in the bay at Hakahau, the third largest “town” in the Marquesas. The harbor has a stone breakwall that provided shelter for the 7 other boats that were there with us, including 3 French Canadians from Montreal. It also has a large concrete wharf for the interisland freighters. At first we didn’t recognize the harbor from our last visit until we realized that we had been thinking of a different harbor, and that we really had been here before as well.
We
went ashore to check in at the gendarmerie and found that besides a few
grocery stores there wasn’t much to see in the town. Gendarmes are the
French national police and have stations on the major islands. It was
interesting that the local police were usually native Marquesans and of
Polynesian descent, while many of the gendarmes were relatively young
Europeans on assignment from mainland France. They seemed to enjoy
their posting, getting to wear shorts and sandals to work everyday, and
living in nice apartments on the grounds of their stations. Checking
in and out of every island is time consuming, but keeps us in shape as we
walk from the harbor to wherever the gendarmerie is located.
In the town, we
did see the stone foundation for either a large paepae or marae, and we
visited the Eglise St. Etienne (church of St. Stephen) shown in the pictures
below.
It
had elaborate wood carvings of Mary and St. Stephen as well as a carved
pulpit like the bow of a boat with a net as the base. It was being
decorated for Easter. The “missionaire” (what they referred to as the
priest), was scheduled to celebrate mass on Saturday evening, but wasn’t
going to be attending on Easter Sunday. Instead he was going to be at
the church at Hakahetau, a town/bay about 4 miles around the coast. We
decided to complete our clearance with the gendarme and then move the boat
down to Hakahetau so we could go to Easter services there, even though we
don’t speak either Marquesan or very much French.
Hakahetau is a rolly anchorage without the benefit of a breakwall, and we set a stern anchor to reduce the rolling from the swell. It does have the most spectacular views of the mountain spires for which Ua Pou is famous. There are a half dozen sharp peaks that look like rocket ships or the spires of a church that can be seen from the bay, and they were the most memorable view we had from our last visit. They are solid rock going up thousands of feet without vegetation. We were told once they were the lava plugs from ancient volcanoes after the outside of the volcano had eroded away. The beach is steep with black gravel that maybe accentuates the crash of the swells.
The swell was
so severe, it pulled out our stern anchor twice, and we had a hard time
sleeping. Just the same, we were up early for Easter services at the
church. Landing the dinghy was very difficult with the surge and swell.
The local church, built out of stone, was filled with the local villagers,
and we listened to the service given in French and Marquesan. There was a
lot of enthusiastic singing, with men and women singing different parts in
harmony. Perhaps all the church members are part of their choir. A bit to
our surprise, one of the lay leaders for the service went up to Nancy and
asked if we were aboard the sailboat Encore he had seen in the harbor, and
if it was the same Encore that had visited 9 years before. He was Etienne,
a former mayor and longtime schoolteacher that we had met during our visit
in 1997. We told him we were the same family, but this was a new boat. He
invited us to join the church staff and some villagers for a potluck dinner
that noon.
Etienne
is one of the few people on the island that speaks English, and although he
is now retired, he is well known throughout the island and in sailing guides
to these islands. After lunch, we went to his “new” house that
overlooks the bay. He used to live right on the shore where we would land
our dinghy. The house is shipped in pieces from France and assembled on
site, and his was one of the first of its kind on the island.
This is a picture of Etienne with his daughter Bellona giving Jennifer a flower made out of tapa cloth, which is made out of the bark of a mulberry tree.
He
didn’t have a lot of furniture and the “kitchen” /”dining room” was outside
under a thatched roof. Here we are signing his guest book (for the
second time in 9 years) at his dining room table while his wife Yvonne and
grandson Brian look on. He was perhaps one of the “richest” men on the
island, having a home like his and a relatively new truck, in spite of
living a somewhat simple/outdoor lifestyle.
Just
the same, the view from his property of the bay would fetch a million
dollars anywhere in the USA.
He took us back to the harbor where we pulled up Encore’s anchor and headed back to Hakahau, where the harbor was calmer.
In
the Marquesas, there is no excuse for anyone going hungry (and you don't see
too many thin people) since there is fruit hanging from nearly every tree.
There is an amazing variety of fruit, many that we had never seen or eaten
before. In Etienne's yard, he had bananas, limes, guava, papaya,
vanilla beans, nonis, and this strange prickly fruit called a corrosole.
We had some ice cream flavored with this fruit at a restaurant one evening.
The next day, Etienne took us and our friends on Siorse K, one of the Blue Water Rally boats, on a tour of part of the island. Again we rode over pretty rough roads, with a couple of us in the back of his truck, and saw beautiful views of the island and coastline. On the way, we saw a herd of wild horses grazing on a hill overlooking the ocean. We are really looking forward to the roads in Michigan that we used to complain about.
Near his
village, we hiked up a short path to a waterfall that had only been
discovered a few years ago. A much easier and shorter trip than the one on
Fatu Hiva; we enjoyed the view and exercise. Later, we continued on to a
few other villages, and stopped at the last bay on the southwest side of the
island to see the seas breaking over the lava rocks. Before heading back to
his house and then to our boat, we ate a chicken and rice lunch being served
at the volleyball tournament being held in this village. Etienne just
happens to be the president of the volleyball league on the island.
Etienne has had a busy life. In addition to being a teacher for 35 years, briefly as mayor he traveled to a conference in France and saw Paris and other cities. When we last saw him, he was translating the Bible from one dialect of Marquesan to another. He has been greeting sailors for years, and his guest book has entries of many of our sailing friends from the Rally, as well as other cruisers we've met around the world.
In addition to soccer being very popular, there is competition between villages with their outrigger canoes, rowed by 6 or more young men. Each harbor has racks with brightly painted boats, and we’ve seen them practice with a motor boat nearby as a chase boat. The boats are modern designs out of fiberglass, but we can imagine them from hundreds of years ago.
It was great to
renew our friendship with Etienne and coincidentally that same night have a
bon voyage dinner with three boats from the Blue Water Rally. The boats,
Siorse K, Stella, and Goldeneye, had all stopped in Hakahau before heading
for the Tuamotus, and were leaving the next morning. We were leaving for
Nuku Hiva, and the odds are we won’t run into them again as their rally moves
faster through the Pacific than we will.
The villages and towns don’t seem to have grown much or changed visibly since our visit 9 years ago, but there does seem to be more SUV’s and pickup trucks on the roads and next to the homes. And everywhere, we see satellite TV dishes and cell phone towers. We have to admit that 9 years ago, at home not only didn’t we have satellite TV, we hadn’t even signed up for cable TV, and we had one cell phone compared to one per family member today. In the past, most Marquesans lived off the fish they caught, fruit they collected, and selling copra (dried coconut) for the money they needed for store bought food and supplies. We were told that today, some Marquesans think that collecting and drying copra is too much work, and rely more on French welfare, while others have begun to get relatively wealthy from the cash crop of "nonis".
A
noni is a pretty ugly green fruit that looks somewhat like a potato with
eyes, and grows on trees. Apparently some time ago, people began to
take the fermented juice from nonis and use it to make beverages that
supposedly are a miracle rejuvenator, and other related products. A
company in Salt Lake City, in the USA pays about 25 cents a pound for the
ripened fruit and arranges regular pickups from these islands. Both
Etienne on Ua Pou, and our guide on Hiva Oa had planted noni trees to make
money this way.
This
is a picture of a trash barrel used for letting the noni's ferment. We
were told that the beverage is quite unpleasant to drink, and the fruit
itself has a bad odor. In spite of this, we saw the beverage listed on
a menu at a Hiva Oa snack bar. It was ten times the price of the other
beverages, and it is rare for anyone from the Marquesas to actually drink
it. Jennifer and Nancy opted for freshly opened coconuts.
Our final
island in the Marquesas is Nuku Hiva, a short day sail from Ua Pou. We
arrived with bright sunshine to the town of Taiohae, the largest town in the
Marquesas and administrative capital. This bay is a deep indentation
on the south side of Nuku Hiva with steep mountains all around. It is
the open side of an ancient volcano's caldera.
The Marquesas,
unlike the San Blas Islands of Panama, or even Los Roques of Venezuela, are
far from being third world, especially places like Taiohae. As a
department (state) of France similar to Hawaii in the USA, they have all the conveniences of home, if not
just a bit more limited supply, with good communications, local schools,
medical care, and at most a frequent ship delivery away from anything they
might need. We walked to an exhibition being held at a local trade
school where young people learn traditional skills like wood and stone
carving as well as mechanics and restaurant services. On the path we
walked by horses while the satellite dish for telephone communications was
in the background.
One of the biggest problems for Marquesans, especially on the smaller islands, is the exodus of their young people to Papeete in Tahiti during and after high school, when they realize that there aren’t many challenging or high paying jobs available back in their local village. In addition, the prices of imported food and household goods are very high, and France spends a lot of money supporting these islands. One good attribute, however, is that on these islands, everyone knows everyone else, and it sounds like the crime rate is nearly zero.
Nearly
every native Marquesan has one or more tattoos. Tattooing is common
throughout the Pacific, but perhaps at its peak here in the Marquesas.
Each island has unique designs and an expert could tell you where someone
came from based on their tattoos. Women usually have tattoos on their
backs, arms and legs, while men sometimes have tattoos covering all of their
body. The Canadian owner of Carpe Diem, one of the most elegant
sailboats we've seen, showed off the tattoo he had on his arm, for which he
paid about $80. He said it was a classical design of a turtle and turtle
god, with a Nuku Hiva style border and motif. As probably a successful
retired businessman, he no longer cared what friends back home would think,
and was intrigued by the fact that his grown children would be shocked that
he got a tattoo. He said the process was very antiseptic, performed by
the son of the local instructor of traditional arts on the island. The
picture at right is of the tattoo artist on Nuku Hiva in his studio.
We
enjoy meeting fellow cruisers as well as local folks while we are traveling.
Learning where they were from and where they've sailed, or more about the
local island can be fascinating. While we were in Nuku Hiva, we met
Georg and Ute, a Swiss and German couple on the boat Miami. Georg had
organized one of the morning radio nets that we checked in with on the way
to the Marquesas, and this was the first time we met them in person.
They met each other while working in Hong Kong, and Georg bought his all
aluminum boat, Miami, in Phuket, Thailand. This was his first boat,
and her first experience in offshore sailing. After cruising the
Indian ocean, they sailed to South Africa and across to Brazil, before going
to the Caribbean and out into the Pacific. He spoke six languages and
had lived outside of Switzerland for many years.
We went into dinner with Georg and Ute, as well as Eddie, a young German crew member aboard New Horizons (seated at left), and joined Anne and Moeti as they were eating with some friends. Anne (third from left) is French and owns the Yacht Services business and gift shop on the wharf. Moeti, the local Marquesan to the right of Anne, is her boyfriend, and helps in the business. I asked Moeti what it was like when the Survivor TV series was being filmed on Nuku Hiva. He said there were about 300 in the TV production crew and the original 16 contestants that stayed on the island for two months. The site where the contestants stayed was at Daniel's Bay, about 3 miles from town, although filming took place at many spots around the island. Moeti managed a crew of 12 locals that kept boats from wandering into view during the filming. We were always amused when this series was shown, as they implied the location was so remote and desolate, when in fact it was only a short boat or helicopter ride to the largest town in the Marquesas.
As we were
anchoring at Nuku Hiva, we noticed that our anchor windlass (used for
hauling up the anchor) was wobbly due to worn out bearings. It would
probably be OK until we reach Tahiti, but to be safe, we started our search for replacement
parts. The model we had was no longer in production, and after calling two
distributors in the USA and the US headquarters, we ran out of luck finding
anyone with the original replacement parts. We tried having a yacht agent
in Tahiti try to find the parts, but with no luck as well. After several
days, Moeti was finally able to find some substitute parts at a company in
Tahiti, and we waited several days for them to arrive.
Waiting here is not the
worst place in the world, although we’ve had several days of pretty
frequent rainstorms. The rain has caused a lot of mud to be washed
into the bays around the island. The bay at Taiohae where we were was
completely brown at times. There were many more waterfalls visible.
The picture at left of the Nuku Hiva coast shows some of these waterfalls.
After the parts arrived, we found we couldn't get the old bearings off, so we'll wait until Tahiti to have a mechanic help us. By the way, if it sounds like we've had a lot of equipment failures, we are really doing pretty well. Since leaving Antigua, we've sailed the equivalent of what most people do in the course of five to ten years. And in comparison, nearly all the boats around us have had as many or more equipment failures. We know of three boats that have had their engines fail completely, many with severely ripped sails, a few with broken water makers and some with broken electric generators. Our friends on Tzigane have had almost all of these problems, plus more, as well as medical problems. We also know of two boats where people have had severe back problems, one of which had to be flown by helicopter part way to Tahiti for treatment. The picture above was taken by Eddie, while accompanying the owner of the boat New Horizons on the helicopter. So, overall, we're happy we've had minor, solvable mechanical problems, and medically we've only had a couple of bad colds with sore throats.
On
Sunday, we went to a small church that we think was Protestant, and once
again enjoyed the singing and warm reception we received. Everyone in
the church goes through and then joins a receiving line after the service.
Only one of the women we met spoke English. The night before, the
Protestant church had put on a party for the town in an open walled building
and tent on the waterfront. They had food and a band playing a variety
of western and local music. There were hundreds of people still there
when we walked by late in the evening.
We had been to the Catholic church during our visit in 1997, and Jennifer took some new pictures of the wood statues of Peter and Moses by the entrance. You can see the detail of the fish in the net at the side of Peter.
We
are now getting ready to leave for the atolls in the Tuamotus. Atolls
are
the coral reefs that were around an island that has later eroded away or
sunk. Each atoll has many small islets called motus, in a ring that can be
many miles in diameter. The islets are usually only a few feet above sea
level, and very narrow. The Tuamotus are pretty remote and except for a few
resorts, we’re not expecting to find Internet connections. As a result,
we’re posting this log entry from the yacht services office/gift shop on the wharf in
Taiohae, and may not have another posting until we reach Tahiti.
Go to Log 2006 Index
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