We are anchored in Hakahau Bay on Ua Pou island - the 5th and last of the Marquesas Islands that we will visit. The harbour is quite large, but only a small portion is protected from the prevailing swell by a breakwater. We are crowded into this somewhat protected area with 8 other yachts, hailing mostly from France and the UK. We are all anchored bow and stern so we won't bash into each other and so that we face into the swell, which still manages to work its way in here around the breakwater.
The 25 mile crossing from Nuku Hiva was a pleasant sail with 8-12 knots on or just forward of the beam for most of the voyage. We lounged in the cockpit enjoying the ride with one reef in the main and the wind vane steering. However as we approached the harbour, the wind came more and more in front of us and we were set to the west by a current and heavy swell. The last mile was an agonizing motor into heavy swells reflecting off the cliffs at the harbour mouth. I foolishly elected to bring down the main and and the motion while trying to flake and tie the sail down almost threw me from the coach roof.
In the three days we have been here, we have met a few of the local characters including an ex-Australian who has been married to 2 Marquesan wives over the last few decades. Keith can carry on a very effective 'conversation' without the other party even opening their mouth.
We also met Xavier, a retired Frenchman who has lived here for 10 years and swims leisurely around the anchorage chatting with the boaters each day. Finally we chatted with Jerome, whom our friend Randall on Mure had told us about. Jerome - ex French military - runs a pension, offers guided hikes, and serves meals and drinks in his restaurant. The pension commands a fine view of the town and harbour and we enjoyed this view and lovely cold juices while catching up on emails and calls. The mountains behind the anchorage are remarkable for their sudden appearance from relatively low land as well as their steepness and concave shape. They poke out of the nearby hills like spear blades, often shrouded in banners of cloud.
We have been laying in provisions here for our 3-4 weeks in the coral atolls of the Tuomotus, where fruit other than coconuts is rare and veggies non-existent. We have had little success here, despite recent information stating that this town is the best place to provision. Not true anymore I'm afraid. Prices were high for the few veggies we found - $6+ a kilo for tomatoes and $5 for a bunch of green beans. We did find plenty of fruit today and stocked up on the local sweet grapefruit that we found in a school yard as well as citrons (limes) given to us by a friendly Marquesan woman. We also picked a nice breadfruit from a public tree. We have been making breadfruit chips (french fries) from this volleyball sized fruit - frying slices in olive oil and spices.
We also located a stalk of green bananas, which a local carver agreed to drop off at the wharf later in the day. In the meantime he showed us his very creative work - full of traditional Marquesan motifs but with a more imaginative rendition than much of the art we have seen. Rani bought a carved paddle and I have my eyes on a substantial tiki, though where it will fit in the boat - heaven only knows!
We plan to leave for the Tuomotus tomorrow, but this may change if we stay for the dance on Saturday night or I end up buying the tiki, which still needs finishing.
Friday, May 18, 2012
Tuesday, May 15, 2012
Garden of Eden, Garden of Death
The valley that runs from Hakaui into the mountains that enclose French Polynesia's tallest waterfall is a veritable paradise - a spring fed river, groves of bananas, coconut palms, and all manner of fruit trees. A well made stone road runs for a kilometer along the river, lined by hedges of colourfully leaved plants.
The people we met in this valley were very friendly. The first house that we came to after fording a two foot deep river sells fruit to the cruisers who come here mostly during the months when cyclones are not a possibility. Two Marquesan men and a woman invited us over and gave us samples of their fruits - they sell bananas by the stalk, breadfruit, star fruit, passion fruit, and papayas. Having not brought money, we chatted with them for a while and then told them we would come back the next day.
The road passed by a few modest homes before plunging into the rain forest, which is aptly named as it rained here for much of our walk. In the forest were the pai pai home sites of the thousands of Marquesans who lived here before they were decimated in the 19th century by the diseases of foreigners. Now only a handful of families lives here with more coming from nearby Taiohae on their vacations.
We crossed the river several times, each time having to wade up toour knees on slippery and sharp stones. After more than an hour of following the muddy trail, we came to a look-out from which the waterfall at the head of the valley could be seen. A French couple was resting there and the woman warned us in broken English against going beyond the point where the valley closes in, due to danger of rock falls made worse by the recent rain. She also told us that the missionaries were responsible for building the trail we had been following and pointed out a side 'hidden valley' in which women, the old, and children were said to have hidden in times of war.
At the bottom of the hill, we reached the point where crumbling thousand foot spires hem in the valley. The trail from this point criss-crosses a turbulent stream several times and, so high and near are the cliffs, that it is difficult to see the sky. During one river crossing, I tried to stay dry shod but slipped while jumping to the last rock and badly knocked a shin, tearing the skin in several places. Any sort of open wound here is a serious matter due to ease of infection, but we decided to press on and clean things up when we returned to Ladybug. At this same crossing, Rani had just finished wading across when we spotted a 3 foot long eel swimming inches from where she had just stepped. A few hundred feet further we found the bag of hard hats that someone has donated to make hiking through the gorge safer. We each donned a hat and proceeded to the pool below the falls.
The pool was muddy with run-off, but we stripped to our bathing suits and waded in, as the heavens opened yet again. We swam across this first pool and clambered over some rocks into a second pool lying beneath the falls. Only the last 100 feet of waterfall was visible from the second pool, but the velocity of the water attested to its descent from the heights. The mist made it almost impossible to open our eyes as we swam toward the falls. Another cruising family was just returning from a swim and they told us of a shelf behind the falls where we could rest after we swam under the cataract. I could not persuade Rani to join me, so I dived under and swam beneath the pounding water, coming up in a narrow gap beside the rock wall. It was difficult to breathe in this small space and I did not linger.
On our return, a handsome cinnamon coloured dog that had followed the other cruisers to the falls 'adopted' us, trotting happily along between Rani and me for the entire return trip. I wonder how many cruisers this attractive fellow has guided to and from the falls?
On a sobering note, we learned that only a few weeks ago on this trail a woman from one of the cruising boats had been struck on the head by a falling coconut. When this sort of thing happens in cartoons we laugh, but a ripe coconut can weigh 4 or 5 pounds. Anyone who has heard the WHUMPH when one of these hits the ground nearby can understand how important it is to try to avoid walking under coconut palms, especially in any sort of a wind. After the accident, the woman was driven to the beach by one of the Marquesans we had talked to earlier and evacuated to the hospital at Taiohae where she died the next day. Another Marquesan told us that he has cut down the palm tree that caused the cruiser's death as well several others near the trail, but there are still dozens if not hundreds of palm trees that one passes under on the hike to the falls.
The people we met in this valley were very friendly. The first house that we came to after fording a two foot deep river sells fruit to the cruisers who come here mostly during the months when cyclones are not a possibility. Two Marquesan men and a woman invited us over and gave us samples of their fruits - they sell bananas by the stalk, breadfruit, star fruit, passion fruit, and papayas. Having not brought money, we chatted with them for a while and then told them we would come back the next day.
The road passed by a few modest homes before plunging into the rain forest, which is aptly named as it rained here for much of our walk. In the forest were the pai pai home sites of the thousands of Marquesans who lived here before they were decimated in the 19th century by the diseases of foreigners. Now only a handful of families lives here with more coming from nearby Taiohae on their vacations.
We crossed the river several times, each time having to wade up toour knees on slippery and sharp stones. After more than an hour of following the muddy trail, we came to a look-out from which the waterfall at the head of the valley could be seen. A French couple was resting there and the woman warned us in broken English against going beyond the point where the valley closes in, due to danger of rock falls made worse by the recent rain. She also told us that the missionaries were responsible for building the trail we had been following and pointed out a side 'hidden valley' in which women, the old, and children were said to have hidden in times of war.
At the bottom of the hill, we reached the point where crumbling thousand foot spires hem in the valley. The trail from this point criss-crosses a turbulent stream several times and, so high and near are the cliffs, that it is difficult to see the sky. During one river crossing, I tried to stay dry shod but slipped while jumping to the last rock and badly knocked a shin, tearing the skin in several places. Any sort of open wound here is a serious matter due to ease of infection, but we decided to press on and clean things up when we returned to Ladybug. At this same crossing, Rani had just finished wading across when we spotted a 3 foot long eel swimming inches from where she had just stepped. A few hundred feet further we found the bag of hard hats that someone has donated to make hiking through the gorge safer. We each donned a hat and proceeded to the pool below the falls.
The pool was muddy with run-off, but we stripped to our bathing suits and waded in, as the heavens opened yet again. We swam across this first pool and clambered over some rocks into a second pool lying beneath the falls. Only the last 100 feet of waterfall was visible from the second pool, but the velocity of the water attested to its descent from the heights. The mist made it almost impossible to open our eyes as we swam toward the falls. Another cruising family was just returning from a swim and they told us of a shelf behind the falls where we could rest after we swam under the cataract. I could not persuade Rani to join me, so I dived under and swam beneath the pounding water, coming up in a narrow gap beside the rock wall. It was difficult to breathe in this small space and I did not linger.
On our return, a handsome cinnamon coloured dog that had followed the other cruisers to the falls 'adopted' us, trotting happily along between Rani and me for the entire return trip. I wonder how many cruisers this attractive fellow has guided to and from the falls?
On a sobering note, we learned that only a few weeks ago on this trail a woman from one of the cruising boats had been struck on the head by a falling coconut. When this sort of thing happens in cartoons we laugh, but a ripe coconut can weigh 4 or 5 pounds. Anyone who has heard the WHUMPH when one of these hits the ground nearby can understand how important it is to try to avoid walking under coconut palms, especially in any sort of a wind. After the accident, the woman was driven to the beach by one of the Marquesans we had talked to earlier and evacuated to the hospital at Taiohae where she died the next day. Another Marquesan told us that he has cut down the palm tree that caused the cruiser's death as well several others near the trail, but there are still dozens if not hundreds of palm trees that one passes under on the hike to the falls.
Saturday, May 12, 2012
Life is an adventure in Taiohae Bay
A southerly swell rolls in to Taiohae Bay at certain times of the year and this was clearly one of those times. No-one who has lived only on land can understand how truly irritating it is to have your home continuously tipped from side to side and fore and aft, sometimes to an angle of 25 or 30 degrees. I get irritable after a few hours of this and we stayed in this bay for 4 days and nights! Poor Rani. Making meals, eating, and even sleeping are all adventures in this environment.
The reason we were there, along with 30 to 40 other yachts is that this is the largest town in the Marquesas and the only place where one can buy duty free diesel at about $1.20 Canadian a liter. It is also a place where vegetables can sometimes be found - although the best appear at 5 am on Saturday morning and are snatched up and gone by 6 am! Finally, one can access the internet via wifi and a satellite link - sort of and sometimes...
We refilled one propane bottle here with butane. To save the $5 charge at Yacht Services, we (foolishly in retrospect) hoofed our empty tank up the hill towards a white building to which we had been directed. We got lost, of course, and a very kind French lady originally from Toulouse, drove us to the building, only to find it closed. We left the tank with a friendly Marquesan mechanic and returned the next day to meet with Kevin - an American who married a local and runs a woodworking shop and does butane refills. He uses a gravity feed system that required us to leave our cylinder there for the day, while liguid butane dribbled into it. 400 CPF (about $4 US dollars) per kilo - and the small tank took 5.5 kilos using his method (more full than it has ever been in Mexico I believe). He later delivered the tank to the dinghy dock during a deluge - inches of rain in two hours - strapped to the back of his motorcycle. When we came back to our dinghy, we found it filled to the gunwales with muddy run-off. I was badly scraped down one side from where it had been bashed by a dozen other dinghies against the rough barnacled concrete. The local kids were amused by my attempts to bail it dry without sinking it and ending up in the water myself. Refilling a propane/butane tank can also be an adventure.
We also refilled our diesel tank using jerry jugs and towing our dinghy behind Chapter II's inflatable as a sort of fuel barge. To do this, you motor over to a seawall with a ladder and rings set in it that forms the end of the main cargo pier. The swell was so bad that one of us stayed in the dinghy to fend off the sea wall, while the other two scrambled up a ladder and bucket brigaded the empty cans onto the dock far above. To make things more interesting, the giant hawsers that secured a large cargo vessel to this pier were rising and falling immediately above the ladder, making timing critical. We then walked to the fuel station, which serves all the local vehicles for a town of 2500, and waited in line to fill our 6 containers. Next, we lugged them back to the pier, ducking under the cargo ship lines as they rose on the swell, caught a rope tossed from the waiting dinghy and, tying this to each can, lowered the cans to the man in the dinghy. Mike who was in the dinghy had no easy job as he had to catch and stow each gyrating can in the 'fuel barge' tender while fending his own dinghy off the barnacle encrusted seawall as it rose and fell in 5 foot swells. We then returned to the mother ships and filled our tannks, repeating the entire procedure so that we both had extra fuel for our 4 weeks in the Tuamotus. Refuelling is also an adventure here.
Even shopping for groceries is not the simple act it is in a typical small town in Canada or the US. The Marquesans are not great consumers of vegetables and we chased rumours of fresh produce all over town. After 3 days of shopping, interspersed with social visits and boat tasks, we managed to procure a few cauliflower heads (very small), 8 eggplants, 3 taro, 3 sweet potatoes, 2 cabbages, a squash, and a couple of kilos of carrots. Most of these are locally grown, the carrots being shipped in from Tahiti. We supplemented this with some canned green beans and carrots. We hope to obtain lots of fresh fruit in Ua Pou, where we will sail in a few days.
We are currently anchored in the next bay over from Taiohae (known as Daniel's Bay and also the site of the 2002 season of survivor, I believe). This is much more well protected and hence relatively swell-free and is surrounded by rugged peaks and gentle valleys. There is a hike to a 1000 foot waterfall - the tallest in these islands - which we plan to undertake tomorrow. Our friends from Chapter 2 and Sockdolager are here and we will have them over in a few hours for home-made chili and an evening of music.
The reason we were there, along with 30 to 40 other yachts is that this is the largest town in the Marquesas and the only place where one can buy duty free diesel at about $1.20 Canadian a liter. It is also a place where vegetables can sometimes be found - although the best appear at 5 am on Saturday morning and are snatched up and gone by 6 am! Finally, one can access the internet via wifi and a satellite link - sort of and sometimes...
We refilled one propane bottle here with butane. To save the $5 charge at Yacht Services, we (foolishly in retrospect) hoofed our empty tank up the hill towards a white building to which we had been directed. We got lost, of course, and a very kind French lady originally from Toulouse, drove us to the building, only to find it closed. We left the tank with a friendly Marquesan mechanic and returned the next day to meet with Kevin - an American who married a local and runs a woodworking shop and does butane refills. He uses a gravity feed system that required us to leave our cylinder there for the day, while liguid butane dribbled into it. 400 CPF (about $4 US dollars) per kilo - and the small tank took 5.5 kilos using his method (more full than it has ever been in Mexico I believe). He later delivered the tank to the dinghy dock during a deluge - inches of rain in two hours - strapped to the back of his motorcycle. When we came back to our dinghy, we found it filled to the gunwales with muddy run-off. I was badly scraped down one side from where it had been bashed by a dozen other dinghies against the rough barnacled concrete. The local kids were amused by my attempts to bail it dry without sinking it and ending up in the water myself. Refilling a propane/butane tank can also be an adventure.
We also refilled our diesel tank using jerry jugs and towing our dinghy behind Chapter II's inflatable as a sort of fuel barge. To do this, you motor over to a seawall with a ladder and rings set in it that forms the end of the main cargo pier. The swell was so bad that one of us stayed in the dinghy to fend off the sea wall, while the other two scrambled up a ladder and bucket brigaded the empty cans onto the dock far above. To make things more interesting, the giant hawsers that secured a large cargo vessel to this pier were rising and falling immediately above the ladder, making timing critical. We then walked to the fuel station, which serves all the local vehicles for a town of 2500, and waited in line to fill our 6 containers. Next, we lugged them back to the pier, ducking under the cargo ship lines as they rose on the swell, caught a rope tossed from the waiting dinghy and, tying this to each can, lowered the cans to the man in the dinghy. Mike who was in the dinghy had no easy job as he had to catch and stow each gyrating can in the 'fuel barge' tender while fending his own dinghy off the barnacle encrusted seawall as it rose and fell in 5 foot swells. We then returned to the mother ships and filled our tannks, repeating the entire procedure so that we both had extra fuel for our 4 weeks in the Tuamotus. Refuelling is also an adventure here.
Even shopping for groceries is not the simple act it is in a typical small town in Canada or the US. The Marquesans are not great consumers of vegetables and we chased rumours of fresh produce all over town. After 3 days of shopping, interspersed with social visits and boat tasks, we managed to procure a few cauliflower heads (very small), 8 eggplants, 3 taro, 3 sweet potatoes, 2 cabbages, a squash, and a couple of kilos of carrots. Most of these are locally grown, the carrots being shipped in from Tahiti. We supplemented this with some canned green beans and carrots. We hope to obtain lots of fresh fruit in Ua Pou, where we will sail in a few days.
We are currently anchored in the next bay over from Taiohae (known as Daniel's Bay and also the site of the 2002 season of survivor, I believe). This is much more well protected and hence relatively swell-free and is surrounded by rugged peaks and gentle valleys. There is a hike to a 1000 foot waterfall - the tallest in these islands - which we plan to undertake tomorrow. Our friends from Chapter 2 and Sockdolager are here and we will have them over in a few hours for home-made chili and an evening of music.
Photos from Tahuata
These pictures really go with text in earlier posts related to our stay in Tahuata island...
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| Hino at his bachelor pad in Vaitahu |
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| Pan bread rolls - we bake these on the stove top in a heavy frying pan. |
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| Can you spot our dinghy? |
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| Church in Vaitahu |
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| Stained glass window in church |
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| Pamplemousse in the village |
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| Small pirogues |
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| Carved post at one of the stores |
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| Larger pirogue |
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| Artisans at Hapatoni |
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| Bone carvings |
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| Lovely octopus necklace |
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| Bone tiki (2 sided) |
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| Hapatoni church |
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| Raised stone road at Hapatoni |
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| Hapatoni Bay |
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| Chris avec une vache |
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| Papaya off the tree |
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| Giant leaves dwarf Rani |
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| Ken Burns prepares a drinking nut for us - removing the husk against his knee - do not try this at home! |
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| A friend of Hino prepares mango salad |
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| Pakalolo's pîglets - pakalolo is the local term for marijuana... |
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| Hapatoni artisan |
Photos from Fatu Hiva
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| Ladybug at Hanavave Bay |
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| St. Michel's Catholic Church - Hanavave |
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| Copra drying rack |
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| Petroglyph near falls |
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| Rani at Vai'e'enui falls |
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| Enjoying a cold beer at the falls |
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| Chris & Mike gather bananas |
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| Chris, Mike, and Karen hiking near the falls |
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| Vai'e'enui Falls - Chris, Mike, and Karen (from 'Chapter Two') |
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| Hanavave village scene |
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| Woman beating bark to make tapa cloth |
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| Tiki at Hanavave dinghy dock |
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| Shrine above Hanavave |
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| Hanavave village overlook |
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| View over Hanavave Harbour |
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| 6 inch centipede |
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| Petroglyph we saw in a field on our hike |
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| Picnic site for Aranui cruisers on road from Hanavave to Omoa |
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| Sprouting coconuts |
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| Hiking near Omoa valley - rain in distance |
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| Ripe bananas - ready to eat |
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| Small but delicious (the bananas, that is) |
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| Children with freshly caught octopus |
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| Roller furler failure - fixed with string & grease for now |
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| Madeleine and Rani in Madeleine`s garden - the peppers were extremely hot! |
Sunday, May 6, 2012
Sleepless in Anaho
The wind is sweeping down from the mist shrouded hills and dark clouds obscure a swollen moon, telling us to shut the hatches, for rain is on its way. It is 2 am and Rani cannot sleep because her no-no bites are itching. She has collected close to 200 bites from two separate beach visits - one on Hiva Oa and one here. The downside to paradise is that poor Rani has a strong reaction to the poison these tiny insects inject and on day one and two comes out in penny-sized welts. On day three they turn into little volcanos and it takes great willpower and antihistamines to prevent her from scratching the hellish itch. They take about a week to pass.
Yesterday we hiked along the bay toward a mile long beach that we had passed on our trip around the island from Taipivai. Again, Nicky and Dennis from 'Knotty Lady' made the trip with us on this hike that our friends on Buena Vista had recommended. Once again, the hike followed a horse trail, this time passing the farm we had learned of the day before. We hoped to obtain some fresh veggies on our way back and headed directly to the beach.
After skirting Anaho bay along a series of white sand beaches, the trail plunged inland over a small rise and descended into rain forest. The farm was visible as a clearing on the right with plastic-mulched fields of melons and stands of various fruit trees. Soon after, we emerged from the woods onto a level plain covered in close-cropped grass and bush. Nicky, who is from the east coast of Scotland, remarked that the scenery looked just like home. Grey weather, an absence of palm trees in the immediate vicinity, and the rain squalls sweeping in from the east, no doubt added to this illusion. The sandy plain could quite easily have been made into a golf course and we were thankful for its remote location that has probably saved it from this fate.
We walked the beach looking for washed up treasure (we had told Dennis of the glass ball fishing floats that used to be washed up all over the Pacific and he was determined to find one). Later, I set up a sand bowling alley using empty coconut shells for balls and plastic bottles for pins. We took turns at this game - one point for the small bottles in front and two for the larger ones behind - before swimming in the surf.
During our swim the rain began. When we came out of the sea as it ended, the no-nos descended en masse. As Rani danced and struck at them, I tried to help her with liberal slaps and applications of DEET, but she still suffered another 50 or 60 bites to add to her 120+ existing ones. We fled the beach to higher land where the no-nos do not seem to live. On the way back, we stopped in at the farm, but finding no one there had to content ourselves with a self-guided tour. The produce at this time of year consisted mainly of melons and cucumbers.
Today I talked Rani into a snorkel on the reef. The calmer weather and reduced turbulence has improved visibility in the bay markedly in just two days. This reef is made up of coral formations like none we have seen. The corals form encrustations that look exactly like the funguses one sees on dead tree trunks in the Pacific Northwest, only larger. Some of these fans reach two and three feet across and in many places are built into conical humps that look for all the world like human-sized toadstools. Coloured mainly in shades of cream and beige, they have occasional sections of interleaved coral in green (perhaps the green is from an algae coating?)
The fish here are more diverse and colourful than those we saw in Mexico. Unfortunately, we do not have a local fish guide book yet, but look forward to finding something in Taiohae later this week. In addition to fish that are of similar forms to those in the Sea of Cortez - striped Sargent Majors, Butterfly fish, Moorish Idols, and Parrot fish, we saw some that have two little feelers, which they used to scan the bottom for food. These came in a variety of colours and ranged in size from a few inches to well over a foot. Rani also spotted two varieties of what she initially thought were sea snakes, but we were later told were most likely eel.
As we approached open water at the end of a point, two giant mantas swam past giving Rani a real scare (the first I knew of them was when Rani violently grabbed my arm!). These were much larger than the ones we had seen last week - at least 6 to 7 feet in wing span. One of them had lovely patterns on its back and their mouth openings were well over a foot across.
Last night we rowed ashore for a Marquesan meal put on by the owner of a pension located just back from the beach. He is related to Karim, whom we had met a couple of days ago, as well as to all the families on that side of the beach (6 homesteads). 'Chapter 2' and 'Knotty Lady' joined us for the meal that consisted of breadfruit, octopus, chicken, rice, and poisson cru.
The breadfruit was baked over a coconut husk fire (they burn the brown nuts split in two with meat attached) and the meat then extracted from the burned skin. The octopus is from the reef. Karim hunted for this at low tide, looking for little piles of rock that the octopus uses to cover the entrance to his cave. The Octopus was cooked in coconut milk (tenderize by pounding, scrape the skin off on a rock, boil twice for twenty minutes each time, changing water in between, then add coconut milk and bring back to boil, turn off and let marinate). I have never had such tender an octopus - absolutely none of the expected rubbery texture. The poisson cru was made by marinating in the local citrons (limes) a small white-fleshed fish from the reef, adding cucumber as a garnish. The chicken was fresh from their yard. Everything in the meal was gathered locally or grown on the farm we had passed a mile down the beach.
The Marquesans, like the Mexicans, do not seem to have developed a vegetarian cuisine (vegetables are actually fairly hard to find here, while fruit is plentiful), so Rani had to get by on potatoes and green beans, with water melon from the farm for desert.
Yesterday we hiked along the bay toward a mile long beach that we had passed on our trip around the island from Taipivai. Again, Nicky and Dennis from 'Knotty Lady' made the trip with us on this hike that our friends on Buena Vista had recommended. Once again, the hike followed a horse trail, this time passing the farm we had learned of the day before. We hoped to obtain some fresh veggies on our way back and headed directly to the beach.
After skirting Anaho bay along a series of white sand beaches, the trail plunged inland over a small rise and descended into rain forest. The farm was visible as a clearing on the right with plastic-mulched fields of melons and stands of various fruit trees. Soon after, we emerged from the woods onto a level plain covered in close-cropped grass and bush. Nicky, who is from the east coast of Scotland, remarked that the scenery looked just like home. Grey weather, an absence of palm trees in the immediate vicinity, and the rain squalls sweeping in from the east, no doubt added to this illusion. The sandy plain could quite easily have been made into a golf course and we were thankful for its remote location that has probably saved it from this fate.
We walked the beach looking for washed up treasure (we had told Dennis of the glass ball fishing floats that used to be washed up all over the Pacific and he was determined to find one). Later, I set up a sand bowling alley using empty coconut shells for balls and plastic bottles for pins. We took turns at this game - one point for the small bottles in front and two for the larger ones behind - before swimming in the surf.
During our swim the rain began. When we came out of the sea as it ended, the no-nos descended en masse. As Rani danced and struck at them, I tried to help her with liberal slaps and applications of DEET, but she still suffered another 50 or 60 bites to add to her 120+ existing ones. We fled the beach to higher land where the no-nos do not seem to live. On the way back, we stopped in at the farm, but finding no one there had to content ourselves with a self-guided tour. The produce at this time of year consisted mainly of melons and cucumbers.
Today I talked Rani into a snorkel on the reef. The calmer weather and reduced turbulence has improved visibility in the bay markedly in just two days. This reef is made up of coral formations like none we have seen. The corals form encrustations that look exactly like the funguses one sees on dead tree trunks in the Pacific Northwest, only larger. Some of these fans reach two and three feet across and in many places are built into conical humps that look for all the world like human-sized toadstools. Coloured mainly in shades of cream and beige, they have occasional sections of interleaved coral in green (perhaps the green is from an algae coating?)
The fish here are more diverse and colourful than those we saw in Mexico. Unfortunately, we do not have a local fish guide book yet, but look forward to finding something in Taiohae later this week. In addition to fish that are of similar forms to those in the Sea of Cortez - striped Sargent Majors, Butterfly fish, Moorish Idols, and Parrot fish, we saw some that have two little feelers, which they used to scan the bottom for food. These came in a variety of colours and ranged in size from a few inches to well over a foot. Rani also spotted two varieties of what she initially thought were sea snakes, but we were later told were most likely eel.
As we approached open water at the end of a point, two giant mantas swam past giving Rani a real scare (the first I knew of them was when Rani violently grabbed my arm!). These were much larger than the ones we had seen last week - at least 6 to 7 feet in wing span. One of them had lovely patterns on its back and their mouth openings were well over a foot across.
Last night we rowed ashore for a Marquesan meal put on by the owner of a pension located just back from the beach. He is related to Karim, whom we had met a couple of days ago, as well as to all the families on that side of the beach (6 homesteads). 'Chapter 2' and 'Knotty Lady' joined us for the meal that consisted of breadfruit, octopus, chicken, rice, and poisson cru.
The breadfruit was baked over a coconut husk fire (they burn the brown nuts split in two with meat attached) and the meat then extracted from the burned skin. The octopus is from the reef. Karim hunted for this at low tide, looking for little piles of rock that the octopus uses to cover the entrance to his cave. The Octopus was cooked in coconut milk (tenderize by pounding, scrape the skin off on a rock, boil twice for twenty minutes each time, changing water in between, then add coconut milk and bring back to boil, turn off and let marinate). I have never had such tender an octopus - absolutely none of the expected rubbery texture. The poisson cru was made by marinating in the local citrons (limes) a small white-fleshed fish from the reef, adding cucumber as a garnish. The chicken was fresh from their yard. Everything in the meal was gathered locally or grown on the farm we had passed a mile down the beach.
The Marquesans, like the Mexicans, do not seem to have developed a vegetarian cuisine (vegetables are actually fairly hard to find here, while fruit is plentiful), so Rani had to get by on potatoes and green beans, with water melon from the farm for desert.
Friday, May 4, 2012
Anaho Bay
On the north side of Nuku Hiva lies a large bay rimmed by white sand and sheltered under verdant hills that rise to grey and forbidding mountains. There is no road to Anaho bay - only a horse track that slices back and forth seven times before it crests and drops into the valley to the west running, into the town of Hatiheu (pronounced Hat-ee-hay-oo). The anchorage is well sheltered from easterly swell and one of our guides describes it as the best in French Polynesia.
Yesterday we hiked the trail to Hatiheu with an Australian/Scotch couple off a 40 foot Hunter sailboat named 'Knotty Lady'. Landing on the beach at Anaho bay, we walked along a trail that passed through what we later learned is a Catholic camp for underprivileged children. We met some workers who were weed-whacking the grass (a popular past-time in the Marquesas) and a local man named Karim, who speaks excellent English.
Karim is part Hawaiian, part Marquesan and part Tahitian. A member of a society that perpetuates the art of ocean voyaging and navigating without instruments (i.e., no compass or GPS). Karim showed us a tattoo of an ocean voyaging canoe (one of several on his leg) and explained that each island group had its own specialized designs. He has built a number of such canoes. Karim lives on the bay on what was his grandmother's land in a 'Swiss Family Robinson' style house built up in the coconut trees. He told us about the Catholic camp and pointed out the small pension and cottages owned by his cousin that occupied the remainder of this end of the bay. Bidding Karim 'Bonne Journee' we followed his directions to the trail to Hatiheu.
The trail was well built, designed to carry regular horse and mule traffic and buttressed by head-sized stones, taken I suspect from nearby pai pais. At the saddle, we stopped before descending into the next valley on a rocky ridge with a commanding view back over the bay. As we descended, the trail was muddy in places and seemed less well maintained. However about half way down we were in for what has become a regular treat for us - fresh fruit. Dozens of small mangoes in various stages of ripeness littered the trail where they had fallen from a huge mango tree.
As we came off the trail onto the concrete road that runs through the village, a woman leading 4 mules laden with melons and other fruit passed us. She told us that the fruit was from a farm on the other side of Anaho bay and would be taken by truck into Taiohae for the Saturday market.
The town of Hatiheu is modest - a strip of bungalows along a raised beach-front road. Its claim to fame are the archeological sites, dating from around 1600 to 1700, that lie just outside the town on the road to Taiohae. We hiked another kilometer or so to the first site, which consisted of extensive stone platforms around a grassy field - a 'tohua' - about half as long as a soccer pitch. There were a few tikis here including a macabre one depicting a warrior raising a mace in one hand while stretching back a baby's neck in the other. I am not sure, but this might have referred to the practice of infanticide, which was used for population control in parts of Polynesia. Another tiki depicted a turtle on top of a prone man who was in turn on top of another man, in a very suggestive attitude.
The second site we came to about another kilometer along the road was even larger, with huge banyan trees growing from massive stone platforms. Here the restorers had rebuilt shelters on the pai pai, to show in part how the site would have looked. There were so many platforms, pathways, and cooking pits that it felt like we were in a city of stone. Only part of the site had been excavated but this took us more than half an hour to walk around and contained in addition to the platforms and dwellings, pictographs depicting turtles and mahi mahi (dolphin fish).
Back in town we bought drinks and junk food from the astonishingly expensive corner store (e.g., $5 for a bottle of sprite - $10 for a large bag of Doritos). We supplemented this with a couple of pamplemousse from the church yard and Marquesan (Indian) almonds, which had fallen from the tree under which we were eating our lunch. The almonds contained a hard shell surrounded by a soft red pulp. They were not easy to break open, but Rani asked a local girl how to do this. She placed the shell on edge and deftly cracked it with one or two blows form a stone.
On the return trip, we passed the workers from the Catholic camp, returning to their homes in town by horseback. It was nearly dark when we reached our boats and we finished off the day by inviting our hiking friends to share a lentil curry that had been maturing while we were gone.
Yesterday we hiked the trail to Hatiheu with an Australian/Scotch couple off a 40 foot Hunter sailboat named 'Knotty Lady'. Landing on the beach at Anaho bay, we walked along a trail that passed through what we later learned is a Catholic camp for underprivileged children. We met some workers who were weed-whacking the grass (a popular past-time in the Marquesas) and a local man named Karim, who speaks excellent English.
Karim is part Hawaiian, part Marquesan and part Tahitian. A member of a society that perpetuates the art of ocean voyaging and navigating without instruments (i.e., no compass or GPS). Karim showed us a tattoo of an ocean voyaging canoe (one of several on his leg) and explained that each island group had its own specialized designs. He has built a number of such canoes. Karim lives on the bay on what was his grandmother's land in a 'Swiss Family Robinson' style house built up in the coconut trees. He told us about the Catholic camp and pointed out the small pension and cottages owned by his cousin that occupied the remainder of this end of the bay. Bidding Karim 'Bonne Journee' we followed his directions to the trail to Hatiheu.
The trail was well built, designed to carry regular horse and mule traffic and buttressed by head-sized stones, taken I suspect from nearby pai pais. At the saddle, we stopped before descending into the next valley on a rocky ridge with a commanding view back over the bay. As we descended, the trail was muddy in places and seemed less well maintained. However about half way down we were in for what has become a regular treat for us - fresh fruit. Dozens of small mangoes in various stages of ripeness littered the trail where they had fallen from a huge mango tree.
As we came off the trail onto the concrete road that runs through the village, a woman leading 4 mules laden with melons and other fruit passed us. She told us that the fruit was from a farm on the other side of Anaho bay and would be taken by truck into Taiohae for the Saturday market.
The town of Hatiheu is modest - a strip of bungalows along a raised beach-front road. Its claim to fame are the archeological sites, dating from around 1600 to 1700, that lie just outside the town on the road to Taiohae. We hiked another kilometer or so to the first site, which consisted of extensive stone platforms around a grassy field - a 'tohua' - about half as long as a soccer pitch. There were a few tikis here including a macabre one depicting a warrior raising a mace in one hand while stretching back a baby's neck in the other. I am not sure, but this might have referred to the practice of infanticide, which was used for population control in parts of Polynesia. Another tiki depicted a turtle on top of a prone man who was in turn on top of another man, in a very suggestive attitude.
The second site we came to about another kilometer along the road was even larger, with huge banyan trees growing from massive stone platforms. Here the restorers had rebuilt shelters on the pai pai, to show in part how the site would have looked. There were so many platforms, pathways, and cooking pits that it felt like we were in a city of stone. Only part of the site had been excavated but this took us more than half an hour to walk around and contained in addition to the platforms and dwellings, pictographs depicting turtles and mahi mahi (dolphin fish).
Back in town we bought drinks and junk food from the astonishingly expensive corner store (e.g., $5 for a bottle of sprite - $10 for a large bag of Doritos). We supplemented this with a couple of pamplemousse from the church yard and Marquesan (Indian) almonds, which had fallen from the tree under which we were eating our lunch. The almonds contained a hard shell surrounded by a soft red pulp. They were not easy to break open, but Rani asked a local girl how to do this. She placed the shell on edge and deftly cracked it with one or two blows form a stone.
On the return trip, we passed the workers from the Catholic camp, returning to their homes in town by horseback. It was nearly dark when we reached our boats and we finished off the day by inviting our hiking friends to share a lentil curry that had been maturing while we were gone.
Thursday, May 3, 2012
Nuku Hiva
We sailed from Hiva Oa to Nuku Hiva overnight. Once clear of the influence of Hiva Oa, whose mountains generate their own wind and weather, we were once again in easterly trade winds and swell. The winds were light and we sailed between a beam and broad reach with full sail for most of the passage. Rani spotted a cruise ship en route to Nuku Hiva on her late night watch and a pod of dolphins greeted us as we approached Controller Bay. We dropped anchor amongst eight yachts off the valley (Taipae Vae) where Herman Melville spent some months as a young man, after jumping ship in the next bay over.
We have Melville's book 'Typee' on board and Rani had read it on the passage, so we were interested to see the setting for this and to visit some of the sites that Melville describes so vividly. It was the 1840's when Melville arrived here and eight French men o' war lay in the next bay with orders to take possession of these islands for France. Melville and a companion, weary of an extended whaling voyage left their vessel while on shore leave and fled across mountains and valleys to the valley of the Typee where they spent months living with the natives they found there.
The valley we found was the most fertile and pastoral of all those we have seen in the islands. A broad river enters the bay and is navigable to small boats at high tide to some distance from the sea. Along the river, on either side are plantations, small wooden bungalows with corrugated metal roofs and generous verandas, and a vegetable farm, which supplied us with fresh tomatoes and delicious cauliflower. Several homes were built on the Pai Pai (stone platforms) Melville would have seen as the base of the native homes.
With Mike and Karen from 'Chapter 2', we hiked into the hills above the valley to an ancient ceremonial site. Following a muddy horse trail, we arrived at a large clearing with two large Pai Pais and a dozen mostly intact tikis, which had escaped the destructive censorship of Catholic missionaries. One of the tikis was the spitting image of a 'South Park' cartoon character with its squat fat body and round grinning head set directly on the heavy stone shoulders.
Rani led us further up the hill to what she hoped would be a look-off. Instead we found another Pai Pai buried deep in the woods on the edge of a copra plantation. We had glimpses up the valley to a 700 foot waterfall, but the trail only led to the copra plantation. Incidentally we have been told that the gathering of copra (which is dried coconut meat used, for example, in making cosmetics and oil) is subsidized by the government. One family we talked to said that they receive about $300 for a wheel barrow load of this, the production of which takes a skilled worker little more than an hour. The family would go to their plantation and gather and process a barrow load or two whenever they needed some money.
The next day we walked the road to a neighboring village through some of the most beautiful scenery I have ever seen. The winding road ran along our bay and then over a ridge on which was a concrete cistern that supplied the village from a stream in the hills. As we descended into the valley, we passed coconut and banana plantations, pistache trees, and orchards of mangos. Orderly homes with colourfuul hedges and yards full of fruit trees lined each side of the road. We saw stone pai pais, overgrown with lichens, in every yard, testimony to the fact that this had been a village site for hundreds of years. Most of the houses were now built on separate foundations or on concrete posts, but a few still rested directly on their pai pai.
The road meandered past a little wooden church and then curved sinuously around a stream that spilled into the ocean at a large and sheltered bay. A horse grazing on the sward beside the stream completed this bucolic picture. We lunched on the sand beach under a shady tree, watching Polynesian children playing in the surf. It was May 1 - a holiday in France and its dependencies, and there were several families at the beach, picnic'ing and barbecuing.
That night a large easterly swell began to roll into the anchorage - a low pressure system over the Tuomotus had been causing unsettled weather. We pulled up the anchor and motored and sailed 20 miles to Anaho Bay on the north side of the islands, where we will spend a few days hiking and visiting archeological sites and a nearby village.
We have Melville's book 'Typee' on board and Rani had read it on the passage, so we were interested to see the setting for this and to visit some of the sites that Melville describes so vividly. It was the 1840's when Melville arrived here and eight French men o' war lay in the next bay with orders to take possession of these islands for France. Melville and a companion, weary of an extended whaling voyage left their vessel while on shore leave and fled across mountains and valleys to the valley of the Typee where they spent months living with the natives they found there.
The valley we found was the most fertile and pastoral of all those we have seen in the islands. A broad river enters the bay and is navigable to small boats at high tide to some distance from the sea. Along the river, on either side are plantations, small wooden bungalows with corrugated metal roofs and generous verandas, and a vegetable farm, which supplied us with fresh tomatoes and delicious cauliflower. Several homes were built on the Pai Pai (stone platforms) Melville would have seen as the base of the native homes.
With Mike and Karen from 'Chapter 2', we hiked into the hills above the valley to an ancient ceremonial site. Following a muddy horse trail, we arrived at a large clearing with two large Pai Pais and a dozen mostly intact tikis, which had escaped the destructive censorship of Catholic missionaries. One of the tikis was the spitting image of a 'South Park' cartoon character with its squat fat body and round grinning head set directly on the heavy stone shoulders.
Rani led us further up the hill to what she hoped would be a look-off. Instead we found another Pai Pai buried deep in the woods on the edge of a copra plantation. We had glimpses up the valley to a 700 foot waterfall, but the trail only led to the copra plantation. Incidentally we have been told that the gathering of copra (which is dried coconut meat used, for example, in making cosmetics and oil) is subsidized by the government. One family we talked to said that they receive about $300 for a wheel barrow load of this, the production of which takes a skilled worker little more than an hour. The family would go to their plantation and gather and process a barrow load or two whenever they needed some money.
The next day we walked the road to a neighboring village through some of the most beautiful scenery I have ever seen. The winding road ran along our bay and then over a ridge on which was a concrete cistern that supplied the village from a stream in the hills. As we descended into the valley, we passed coconut and banana plantations, pistache trees, and orchards of mangos. Orderly homes with colourfuul hedges and yards full of fruit trees lined each side of the road. We saw stone pai pais, overgrown with lichens, in every yard, testimony to the fact that this had been a village site for hundreds of years. Most of the houses were now built on separate foundations or on concrete posts, but a few still rested directly on their pai pai.
The road meandered past a little wooden church and then curved sinuously around a stream that spilled into the ocean at a large and sheltered bay. A horse grazing on the sward beside the stream completed this bucolic picture. We lunched on the sand beach under a shady tree, watching Polynesian children playing in the surf. It was May 1 - a holiday in France and its dependencies, and there were several families at the beach, picnic'ing and barbecuing.
That night a large easterly swell began to roll into the anchorage - a low pressure system over the Tuomotus had been causing unsettled weather. We pulled up the anchor and motored and sailed 20 miles to Anaho Bay on the north side of the islands, where we will spend a few days hiking and visiting archeological sites and a nearby village.
Monday, April 30, 2012
Why Are We Doing This?
Sometimes, perhaps when we are stuck in a rolly anchorage, our tempers fraying as our floating home swings violently and annoyingly from side to side, I question why it is we are doing this. Why - when it takes great effort just to make it from settee to the galley without acquiring another bruise? Or when we are dealing with yet another gear failure, or when a squall strikes on a night passage and we run off in blinding rain, desperately hanging on, eyes locked on the compass, hand steering to avoid a destructive gybe.
I also question why we are out here when I have the luxury to ponder. We are approaching Nuku Hiva now in the pre-dawn, after a long but quiet night passage that began almost 12 hours ago. As I took my turn on watch at 3 am, I had the leisure to think about why it is we are doing this. The answers I came up with in the early hours of the morning are:
1. Because we can.
2. Because it's there.
3. Because what we are doing suits our personalities.
Because we can - We have the resources to do this trip from rental income and other small investments. When we cruise on Ladybug, it costs us about half what it would to live in our house, the main savings being house expenses such as taxes and utilities (these are now part of the rental income equation), running a vehicle, and additional clothing and entertainment expenses (plus we don't need to save for the annual vacation!). We also enjoy good health and we have no dependents or commitments - we have no children and our parents are healthy.
Because it's there - and it won't always be... We spent four seasons cruising in Mexico before leaving for the Pacific crossing. We could have and probably should have left earlier - but fear of the unknown and the ease of cruising in the Sea of Cortez bound us. There is so much to see - so many amazing places and peoples that staying in one place for years makes little sense. Many of the most remarkable places are also threatened by environmental and human pressures - the coral reefs, rain forests, and oceans in general, so we want to see them now before they are changed forever.
Because this suits our personalities - I think everyone has a level of change and stress at which they thrive. Both of us are keen travelers, enjoying changing scenery and not minding too much that we wake up in a different place each day. Admittedly, having the boat as our base gives us a sense of continuity, even though we are on the move every week or two. Not having a permanent land-base to return to is something we can deal with - at least for a while.
I also question why we are out here when I have the luxury to ponder. We are approaching Nuku Hiva now in the pre-dawn, after a long but quiet night passage that began almost 12 hours ago. As I took my turn on watch at 3 am, I had the leisure to think about why it is we are doing this. The answers I came up with in the early hours of the morning are:
1. Because we can.
2. Because it's there.
3. Because what we are doing suits our personalities.
Because we can - We have the resources to do this trip from rental income and other small investments. When we cruise on Ladybug, it costs us about half what it would to live in our house, the main savings being house expenses such as taxes and utilities (these are now part of the rental income equation), running a vehicle, and additional clothing and entertainment expenses (plus we don't need to save for the annual vacation!). We also enjoy good health and we have no dependents or commitments - we have no children and our parents are healthy.
Because it's there - and it won't always be... We spent four seasons cruising in Mexico before leaving for the Pacific crossing. We could have and probably should have left earlier - but fear of the unknown and the ease of cruising in the Sea of Cortez bound us. There is so much to see - so many amazing places and peoples that staying in one place for years makes little sense. Many of the most remarkable places are also threatened by environmental and human pressures - the coral reefs, rain forests, and oceans in general, so we want to see them now before they are changed forever.
Because this suits our personalities - I think everyone has a level of change and stress at which they thrive. Both of us are keen travelers, enjoying changing scenery and not minding too much that we wake up in a different place each day. Admittedly, having the boat as our base gives us a sense of continuity, even though we are on the move every week or two. Not having a permanent land-base to return to is something we can deal with - at least for a while.
Friday, April 27, 2012
Pakalolo and the Kindness of Strangers
We were returning from a long walk along the coast to the town of Hapatoni when a man gestured to us from under a generous awning spread beneath the trees in his yard. We walked over to where a group of young and middle aged men were sitting around a table. Hino, whose house it was, bade us sit down. He gave us two pamplemousse, offered us cups of coffee, and cut up an orange for us to enjoy as we introduced ourselves to his friends.
Hino had worked for 10 years on the inter-island boats and had traveled as far as Papeete, which took three days from here with a stop in the Tuamotus. He was now enjoying life at his home in the heart of Vaitahu. He was not married and his house appeared to be the social center for many of the young men and boys. There was a pool table and a foosball table under the giant awning as well as a swing for the youngsters.
The men were all quite friendly - chatting to us in French as they prepared salsa de mangue chinoise - prepared with under-ripe mangoes, sugar and a Chinese plum powder (a little spicy). Hino was also surrounded by animals - a 4 year old pet sow named Pakalolo and her three piglets, three dogs, an aquarium of fish, and many hens and roosters. Some no doubt were intended for the table but he was clearly fond of them all - referring to them as his family. The piglets and hens all came over when he called them and rooted in the earth where he sprinkled rice.
On our walk across to the other village we had been picked up by a couple in a pickup about half way there (after we had done most of the hard climbing, unfortunately). They were artisans who lived in Hapatoni, a village comprised almost entirely of carvers and jewelry makers. We had not realized it was so far between the villages (about 7 kms of steep ups and downs) and were grateful for the lift.
At Hapatoni we saw the carvers working and looked over their pieces in an artisan's exhibition. There were some very fine carved bone necklaces including a wonderfully carved octopus, tikis of bone with wooden end pieces, and some very intricate pirogue paddles, intended for display. We had not brought much money with us or we would have returned with more jewelry and maybe a paddle (the latter being coveted by Rani). Nobody pressured us to buy anything and one of the carvers - a handsome younger man with half his body tattooed - chatted to us about his carving and how he flew twice a year to Tahiti to exhibit and sell his work.
On the walk back we met Arthur Burns, whom we had seen earlier in Vaitahu (his name was tattooed on his upper arm, perhaps in case we should have trouble pronouncing it?) His family owned a plantation of more than 100 hectares in the hills between the villages with coconuts, mangoes, fei (plantain), and bananas. Arthur told us he had 10 children and was 64, although he looked barely 50. With a wickedly sharp machete, he helped us open a coconut we had found on the road and told us about himself as we strolled down the hill on our way back to the boat.
A little later another pickup truck stopped to offer us a lift the remaining couple of kilometers into town. The Marquesans have been very warm and open with us and the attitude here to life is refreshingly relaxed, even when compared to what we experienced in Mexico!
Hino had worked for 10 years on the inter-island boats and had traveled as far as Papeete, which took three days from here with a stop in the Tuamotus. He was now enjoying life at his home in the heart of Vaitahu. He was not married and his house appeared to be the social center for many of the young men and boys. There was a pool table and a foosball table under the giant awning as well as a swing for the youngsters.
The men were all quite friendly - chatting to us in French as they prepared salsa de mangue chinoise - prepared with under-ripe mangoes, sugar and a Chinese plum powder (a little spicy). Hino was also surrounded by animals - a 4 year old pet sow named Pakalolo and her three piglets, three dogs, an aquarium of fish, and many hens and roosters. Some no doubt were intended for the table but he was clearly fond of them all - referring to them as his family. The piglets and hens all came over when he called them and rooted in the earth where he sprinkled rice.
On our walk across to the other village we had been picked up by a couple in a pickup about half way there (after we had done most of the hard climbing, unfortunately). They were artisans who lived in Hapatoni, a village comprised almost entirely of carvers and jewelry makers. We had not realized it was so far between the villages (about 7 kms of steep ups and downs) and were grateful for the lift.
At Hapatoni we saw the carvers working and looked over their pieces in an artisan's exhibition. There were some very fine carved bone necklaces including a wonderfully carved octopus, tikis of bone with wooden end pieces, and some very intricate pirogue paddles, intended for display. We had not brought much money with us or we would have returned with more jewelry and maybe a paddle (the latter being coveted by Rani). Nobody pressured us to buy anything and one of the carvers - a handsome younger man with half his body tattooed - chatted to us about his carving and how he flew twice a year to Tahiti to exhibit and sell his work.
On the walk back we met Arthur Burns, whom we had seen earlier in Vaitahu (his name was tattooed on his upper arm, perhaps in case we should have trouble pronouncing it?) His family owned a plantation of more than 100 hectares in the hills between the villages with coconuts, mangoes, fei (plantain), and bananas. Arthur told us he had 10 children and was 64, although he looked barely 50. With a wickedly sharp machete, he helped us open a coconut we had found on the road and told us about himself as we strolled down the hill on our way back to the boat.
A little later another pickup truck stopped to offer us a lift the remaining couple of kilometers into town. The Marquesans have been very warm and open with us and the attitude here to life is refreshingly relaxed, even when compared to what we experienced in Mexico!
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