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8th June – 24th June 2005
Marquesas Islands breaking our horizon, and replacing our familiar ocean panorama of
endlessly shifting seas and skies with lovely lush tropical-green scenery.
We arrived at dawn on the morning of 7th June into the picturesque setting of Taiohae Bay on
Nuku Hiva – the largest of this group of 10 remote islands that form the north-easternmost
territory of French Polynesia – and anchored in the middle of this deep bay, formed from the
heart of an old volcanic crater, with the mountains rising dramatically up on three sides to high
jagged ridges and summits, all covered in a verdant tropical jungle.
Having run a ‘dry’ ship during the passage, it was high time to celebrate our safe arrival with a
bottle of rum, shared with the crew from the yacht 'Last Call' – whom we have tracked from
Cartagena, through Panama and Galapagos – then the luxury of our first full nights sleep in 3
weeks! We spent the next couple of days decompressing from the long passage, cleaning the
boat up, folding the sails, doing laundry, checking emails at a local internet café (we had just lost
our onboard Iridium Satphone connection), and scrubbing off the accumulation of thick green
slime colonizing our hull (see Journal 21 for photos).
Then as planned on the 9th we had new crew to welcome – Torben Mottes (our great rugby
friend from Hong Kong, and more recently San Francisco) and his Austrian girlfriend, Barbara
Kuri. They are undertaking their own 8-month world tour, and we’d coordinated itineraries to
enable them to join Skardu for a 6-week leg through French Polynesia back to Tahiti. They flew
in from New Zealand, and arrived in style via helicopter for the last leg from the remote airport
across the island. However somewhere on the way over Torben must have lost a fight with a
bottle of peroxide because we had trouble recognizing him as he landed.
In Taiohae Bay we admired our first taste of the traditional stone-carved tiki sculptures on the
waterfront, and watched the local dance group practicing for an upcoming festival – lots of war-
like jumping about and foot stomping to the beat of drums! Before departure we brought our
website up to date at the local internet café (it took 2.5 hours to upload the data on the slow
connection!), and despite the remote location, we were thankful to be able to do a limited amount
of reprovisioning - sugar, meat, and French baguettes from the local store, then some fruit &
vegetables, croissants, and tuna sashimi from the weekly market at 4.30am Saturday morning!
From there we sailed around to another anchorage on Nuku Hiva called 'Daniel's Bay'... scene
of the recent Survivor Marquesas TV series! We apparently have a knack for landing on
“Survivor Islands” (see Journal 19), and this was no exception. It was a lovely enclosed setting
with just a couple of huts ashore - home to a friendly local named Daniel and his family - from
where we hiked up a lush tropical valley to swim in fresh-water pools at the base of the world's
3rd highest waterfall. This was the real scene of tropical paradise, with water cascading down to
cool clear pools at the bottom of a deep and slender valley, set between rock faces rising
vertically on all sides to high volcanic peaks above. It obviously caught Hollywood’s attention too,
because we heard that some of the early scenes from the film “Jurassic Park” where filmed
here. The stream from the waterfall had a few interesting inhabitants - pesky shrimp that nibbled
our toes but were too quick to catch by hand, a HUGE conga eel whose head was some 6
inches in diameter, and thousands of voracious no-no's (the local sandflies) whose bites came
up in horrible itchy weeping sores that lasted 2 weeks we had great fun playing “connect-the-
bites” on Barbara’s back! So much for unspoilt paradise!
Heading back into the prevailing wind we then sailed to 3 more of the Marquesan islands – Ua
Pou, Tahuata, and Fatu Hiva – finding locations that were truly off the beaten track. The latter two
in particular were sufficiently remote, and without air connections, that few travelers ever get this
far, leaving the discovery of their unspoilt beauty to the hundred or so yachts cruising through
these waters each year.
In Fatu Hiva in particular, the isolation has led to a delightfully relaxed way of life for the islanders
and we received a warm and hospitable welcome from almost everyone. Although imported
provisions are limited to what arrives on the weekly supply ship, people didn’t seem to be lacking
for much. Trees in backyards would be groaning under the weight of tropical fruit, the staples of
taro, breadfruit (made famous by Captain Bligh of the ‘Bounty’) and coconuts were plentiful, and
the seas and valleys were teeming with fish, wild boars and goats.
The true measure of their isolation was evinced by the fact that money holds little practical value
here, and the islanders were much more eager to trade for items of rarity or practical use that we
might have on board. Notable requests were for: fishing hooks, lines or rods; old ropes;
ammunition, bottles of rum (worth ten to fifty times what we paid for them in Panama!); make-up,
lipstick and perfume for the women (we don’t stock much of this onboard!); and t-shirts or caps.
At each port we traded with the locals for fruit picked direct from their trees. We got lots of limes,
oranges, papaya, and yummy sweet pamplemousse (as good as the tastiest Caribbean
grapefruit!) and tied entire banana stalks to the backstay. You’d have to be sure you liked
whatever you were trading for, because inevitably you’d get massive sacks of the stuff. Torben
soon became a genius at inventing a multitude of creative dishes and cocktails to serve up the
fast-ripening bananas before they went to waste, and his “Banana Cyclone” soon became a firm
favourite for breakfast!
To give an idea of the extent of the trading mentality, if you went to the one tiny store on Fatu Hiva,
Daniel, the owner, would ask if you had anything to trade for his wares. This created counter-
intuitive scenes where cruisers would bring in an assortment of left over tin-cans in exchange for
fresh bread or the few supplies Daniel had in stock: cake mix, flour and biscuits. We even went
“shopping” in his backyard and collected a large sack of limes and pamplemousse in exchange
for a travel-size pack of shampoo and talcum powder!
Despite the simplicity of life here, there were still some glaring signs of the encroachment of
modern civilization. On the newer edges of the villages, almost everyone seemed to have the
same cookie-cutter prefab house: a boxy number set a few feet above the ground with a handful
of rooms. The houses themselves were simple and devoid of most furniture; however it was
readily apparent that everyone’s savings went into buying luxury goods. Countless times we
were invited into houses to look at carvings or paintings only to find a near empty room except for
a table stacked high with entertainment equipment: large TV, stereo, DVD player, satellite TV box
etc. It then became clear that the high prices they were asking for their wares were fueled by
their love of home entertainment systems and western films and music!
However, despite this encroachment of modern civilization, we failed to find a single operable
internet connection, and so remained blissfully cut-off from the outside world for a few more
weeks.
On each of these islands we hiked up valleys and hills to find beautiful vistas, visited more
impressive waterfalls in the depths of the jungle, found a picturesque and entirely deserted bay to
ourselves on Tahuata, dived into deep-blue clear water, dug our toes into fine yellow-sand
beaches, and collected coconuts galore (to satisfy Barbara’s relentless demands for sun-
downer cocktails), but the highlight had to be going to the Fete de Papa (Father’s Day)
celebrations back on Fatu Hiva. It started with Sunday morning mass at the little village church,
at which the whole populace was belting out choral hymns. We couldn’t understand most of the
service because it was in the local Polynesian patois, but the singing was mightily impressive,
and it was quite the service: everyone was turned out in their finest outfits, and the women were
adorned with elaborate flower arrangements in their hair. After church, everyone walked next
door to the village school where all the children were dressed up in traditional costumes and
performed a series of dances to local tunes. In keeping with the progress of “civilization”, the
music was provided primarily by a large stereo blasting out world beats, which probably pleased
the laid-back fathers greatly as that meant less work for them on the drums! By comparison, the
children were energetic and incredibly cute; and a couple of the youngest girls were so
impressive with their gyrating hips and winnable smiles that they captured our hearts forever
(sorry to all you hopeful ladies back home!). The mountainous backdrop created a dramatic
setting for an unforgettable experience: the whole event lasted a couple of hours, we were treated
as special guests, given front-row seats with the other yachties, and served freshly baked
cakes, before Torben and Quintin were dragged into the finale dance to perform with the
Mothers' troupe. These are the sort of unexpected memories that make this whole sailing
adventure worthwhile.
The following day our time in the Marquesas was up, and it was time to head off into the setting
sun. Initially favorable winds soon died, and we had a slowish 570Nm sail to the Tuamotu
Archipelago, with conditions varying between dead calm to tons of squalls. Torben and Barbara
were now getting used to the rhythms of the cruising life, taking a joint night-watch together
(although it’s rumoured Torben slept through nearly all of his!), dealing with the unfamiliar (and
unwelcome?) rolling-motion from the open-ocean swell, and disappearing into their cabin for
some extra shut-eye at every opportunity. In the face of one mean squall the clew-ring on our
No.1 Genoa ripped out of the sail, forcing us to hoist our much smaller storm jib for the
remainder of the trip. By contrast, one starlit evening when the wind all but died on us, we brought
the laptop into the cockpit and watched an hour of Monty Python's ‘Flying Circus’ sketches… it
was fantastic to have such an open starlit cinema!
Despite all the changes in weather, the 5 day passage gave us plenty of time to prepare
ourselves for the change in scenery from the dramatic volcanic islands of the Marquesas to the
flat palm fringed atolls of the Tuamotus.
