We've arrived in Rarioa - the island on which Thor Heyerdahl landed with Kon Tiki. Position 16deg02.316S 142deg28.229W. We are anchored in water but our navigation charts show us anchored on land.....
We were a bit nervous about making our first entry into a lagoon through an atoll pass. Tides can produce 8 kts of current, particularly if there is only one channel in and out, and this is one of those. Slack tide can be calculated from moon rise and set, not necessarily by high and low tide as it depends on the way the water runs over the reef. So as you can imagine we weren't sure we had got it right. We only have tide tables for the major islands in the area. We did get the timing right as far as the sun was concerned, as it was fairly high and behind us, so good visibility. Also we knew it was a fairly wide pass and well marked. It was a bit hairy at one point as about 4 kts of current (with us) was pushing us sideways, so it was full power on the engines, and consequently rather fast as we tried to work out which was the next marker to head to. Once in though it was calm and blue and gorgeous, with channel markers all the way to our anchorage off a small village. It was nice to see that there is one other boat here, we weren't expecting anyone. It's a catamaran from Guernsey with one of the owners and a couple of Kiwi crew on board. The village probably has a population of less than 100, so it was surprising to see a brand new airstrip with smart buildings, lots of new solar panels on the wood and tin houses, and channel markers flashing red green and white after dark. There is no doubt that a good dollop of French investment has been made here recently! The main source of income is from farmed pearls, and we had offers to visit the pearl farm - and to buy pearls yesterday, but were a bit tired to appreciate it, and now it's weekend. No doubt we'll have the same opportunities in other islands, or here on Monday. Today there is evidently some sort of celebration going on in the village, so we'll be going over to have a look. More news tomorrow.
May 31, 2008
May 26, 2008
Tales of the Marquesas
At the moment we are tucked up in a sheltered narrow inlet with steep green slopes on both sides. Last night we watched hundreds of fish and the occasional shark and ray feeding around the boat, visible because of the trail of phosphorescence they caused. This afternoon there are half a dozen manta rays feeding nearbye, they have a 'wingspan' of at least six feet, and strange horn-like flaps on each side of their mouths. They feed on plankton, so swim with their mouths wide open as they filter the water.
On land all is activity too. There is a very small settlement at the head of the inlet, and this afternoon the mayor has called for a party (at least we can find no other reason for the celebrations). Yesterday a temporary shelter was being beautifully decorated with plaited palm leaves, and long tables had fringes of palm fronds along the edges. This morning huge red ginger flowers and multicoloured leaves were being tied around the support poles. A pig was being baked, whole, in a pit, evidently covered with aromatic leaves. Beside it a calf was roasting on a framework over a glowing fire. There is a big boom box, but the music playing is quite quiet and tuneful, we have never heard loud music playing in any of the towns or villages, in huge contrast to the Caribbean islands where one house will compete with the next.
We spent the morning walking up to a 'marae' or old meeting place with several stone tikis or statues. Tikis, both old and new, are scattered around all these islands, and with a good supply of rosewood and other hardwoods, and suitable stone, carving and sculpture are at a very high standard among these very artistic people. This site consisted of a platform of large stones, with the tikis standing guard around the edges, and marking the corners of the surrounding walls. There was a good, well maintained path up to the site, but it was difficult to find - necessary to go up to three houses, and then stop a passing truck. We disturbed a couple of wild pigs on the way up, but they were very shy and ran off fast. These islands have very few tourists, a few visitors come on the supply boats, and there are quite a lot of sailing boats, but that's it. And the locals don't really want more - there were plans to build a Club Med on one of the bays we've visited, but it was firmly opposed as it was felt it would disrupt the traditional way of life of the inhabitants. Hence the lack of signposts or info, everyone is very helpful and willing to provide instructions, you just have to ask.
The Marquesas are the home of tattooing (though some say it came from Samoa originally). It used to be part of the rites of the onset of manhood, and of social status, as well identifying which island group someone was from. Now, it is enjoying a revival as everywhere else, and traditional designs and patterns are used with great artistry - no hearts and arrows and "I love Tracy" here.
On a more practical note, we have at last been able to buy onions and potatoes - the first since leaving Galapagos. The supply boat only comes in every few weeks, and all supplies were running low in the two grocery stores in the main town of Taiohae - no butane in the island for example. No problem for the locals who cook on wood burning stoves, but quite a few sailing boats were getting a bit worried. The shops don't sell any fruit and vegetables. There is a small market at 4.30am on Saturdays - well before dawn - which sells locally produced vegetables, wonderfully fresh. So in order to buy a lettuce it is necessary to set the alarm, take a 5 min dinghy trip, climb a 6-ft quay wall on a very rusty ladder, and use a torch to sort out notes and coins in local francs which have an alarming number of zeros. However it's possible to be back in bed by 5am! Fruit is another matter. Everyone has fruit trees in their gardens, so no one needs to buy. Consequently you just have to ask the locals if they will sell you some lemons, mangoes or grapefruit.
There are quite a lot of sailing boats, like ourselves making their way to New Zealand or Australia. Both boats and owners encompass the full variety of boats and sailors. There are the tiny boats strung around with fuel and water tanks and all the other things that there is no space for inside. Many have no frig, though most, these days do at least have GPS, and are not reliant on sextants. At the other extreme are large smart boats with generators to run everything from microwaves to washing machines and satellite communiations. In between are the rest of us who live quite comfortably, but still have to wind the winches and pump the toilets! At a fairly typically mixed pot luck dinner on a beach last week we were in the company of a young French couple with an 8 month-old baby, a retired French couple who had been sailing for years all over the world, a NZ couple who had been living in London for 10 yrs and are returning home the slow way with 2 children, and an American couple, both lawyers, on a year's sabbatical. One of the great pleasures is meeting up again with boats and friends last seen in the US or Bahamas or Panama, who happen to turn up in the same anchorage at the same time as us. We compare notes on routes, weather, speed of travel, and fish caught with tales getting taller as the evening progresses.
In a few days, when the winds look as though they are blowing in our favour, we will be making the 3 or 4 day crossing to the Tuamotos. Coral atolls, very different from these steep volcanic islands.
May 9, 2008
Nuku Hiva
We made a move at last yesterday. Geoff is back to normal thank goodness, and we are pretty sure that the problem arose from the meal we had in a home in Fatu Hiva as we met someone else who had the same symptoms. So we left at 3am yesterday morning for the 80 mile trip to Nuku Hiva, the northernmost island of the Marquesas group. Our position is now 08 54 S and 140 06 W.
Entering this deep narrow bay just before the sun set was a beautiful sight. Steep craggy rocks with caves, arches, and spires, all hazy in the setting sun. There is a small town here, and actually some traffic on the road. About 30 boats in the anchorage too. The perfume of frangipani trees drifted across after nightfall.
Today we managed to check in at last. A very friendly young gendarme who spoke very good English. One form to fill in, no cost, what a change from Ecuador and Panama. We have a 3-month permit which can be extended for another 3 months. Non-EU residents have to deposit a bond of US$ 3,000 or show a return air ticket, and then only get 30 days which can be extended to 3 months.
Unknown to us, today is Armistice Day, and a public holiday here, so except for a small grocery store everything is closed. So after a walk around the neighbourhood, with the fantastic perfume of frangipani and jasmine everywhere, and fruit just dripping off the trees, we have returned to the boat to smoke some of the yellow-fin and blue-fin tuna we caught yesterday. Before leaving here we have to stock up on fruits, as the next group of islands, the Tuomotos are coral atols, and grow very little apart from coconuts. The lushness of these volcanic islands is wonderful. The stores don't sell any fruit as all the locals have plenty of their own, so to get fruit you just have to ask people if you can have some from their gardens. Either to buy, or to trade, and often they just give it away.
There are some lovely walks to do here, and we look forward to exploring either from here or from the other anchorages around the island.
Entering this deep narrow bay just before the sun set was a beautiful sight. Steep craggy rocks with caves, arches, and spires, all hazy in the setting sun. There is a small town here, and actually some traffic on the road. About 30 boats in the anchorage too. The perfume of frangipani trees drifted across after nightfall.
Today we managed to check in at last. A very friendly young gendarme who spoke very good English. One form to fill in, no cost, what a change from Ecuador and Panama. We have a 3-month permit which can be extended for another 3 months. Non-EU residents have to deposit a bond of US$ 3,000 or show a return air ticket, and then only get 30 days which can be extended to 3 months.
Unknown to us, today is Armistice Day, and a public holiday here, so except for a small grocery store everything is closed. So after a walk around the neighbourhood, with the fantastic perfume of frangipani and jasmine everywhere, and fruit just dripping off the trees, we have returned to the boat to smoke some of the yellow-fin and blue-fin tuna we caught yesterday. Before leaving here we have to stock up on fruits, as the next group of islands, the Tuomotos are coral atols, and grow very little apart from coconuts. The lushness of these volcanic islands is wonderful. The stores don't sell any fruit as all the locals have plenty of their own, so to get fruit you just have to ask people if you can have some from their gardens. Either to buy, or to trade, and often they just give it away.
There are some lovely walks to do here, and we look forward to exploring either from here or from the other anchorages around the island.
Land Ahoy- Fatu Hiva
After 21 days at sea we have got to safe harbour in Fatu Hiva, in the Marquesas. Quite an eventful last few days at sea as we had to go to the assistance of a boat that had lost steering and was drifting quite helpless. The boat, a catamaran, had hydraulic problems, and no alternative way of steering the boat by motor or manually. Either we had to try and tow them, or they had to abandon ship. So we took them in tow, and luckily had good wind and seas for most of the next 2 days and nights. One night a squall hit, and after a very scary few minutes their bridle broke. We just had to heave to for the rest of the night, and keep them in sight. Boats in the Fatu Hiva anchorage were alerted that we were going to arrive in the middle of the night and would need assistance, and there were lights for us and dinghies to take over the catamaran. After 200 miles of towing, we were very glad that both boats had arrived safely.
The next morning we woke to the wonderful sight of the Fatu Hiva anchorage. A small, steep sided bay, with rock pinnacles and narrow gorges. It's one of those places that you can really only get to by boat. The copra boat calls in to another bay, but there is 17km of steep dirt road between the two settlements. To get to the small jetty it is necessary to brave the swell which breaks on the narrow bit of beach - several dinghies have been flipped over en route.
The town is tiny, but has a school (it's a French island so gets some French support), a church, a very small store (which only gets supplies when the copra boat comes in) and concrete roads but we haven't seen any traffic at all. It is green and lush, full of hibiscus, frangipani, and fruit trees. Breadfruit, limes, grapefruit, mangoes, papaya, bananas and lots of nonni fruit (not sure how it's spelt) which is evidently the in thing as a super tonic/heal-all in the US so I suppose they export it. Their main product is copra from the coconuts, and there are big drying platforms beside the roads. The well-kept houses have chickens and often a pig or two plus fruit trees, quite self-sufficient as there's plenty of fish in the waters round about. We passed a group of men with dogs going hunting up in the hills - wild boar and goats they said.
This is French Polynesia, and the people are very different from the African mix found in most of the Caribbean islands. Very friendly, and we are managing to communicate reasonably well with some very rusty French. Today we traded a cap, a little box of coloured pencils, some nail varnish, and a length of cord for a large quantity of fruit! They all ask for perfume samples which we don't have - should have kept all those little airline bags of shampoo and cream etc. they love those. We don't have any of the local currency (no bank, no ATM, no internet cafe, no cafe at all!) but they are very happy to trade for things that they can't get easily.
One local family cooks meals for the boats at anchor, and they take euros or dollars. 10 of us had a delicious meal on their terrace - fried fish, marinaded raw fish, chicken, breadfruit, carrot and green papaya salad, cooking banana, grated coconut, and rice. With large jugs of homemade lemonade. The husband gently strummed his guitar, their little daughter danced for us, and mum, after her efforts with the food, sat back and watched television! Then of course, on a dark dark night, we had to brave the swell in our dinghies to get back again - just as well there was only lemonade to drink.
When arriving in a new country, we have to check in for customs and immigration. The (one and only)local gendarme allows boats to stay for three days in Fatu Hiva before moving on to Hiva Oa which has a larger settlement, and the necessary officials. However, today is May Day, tomorrow Ascension Day, and then the weekend, so there will be no official on duty until Monday morning. Our yellow 'quarantine' flag will have to continue flying for a few more days. So we are moving on to the little island of Tahuatu for the weekend.
We are now nine and a half hours behind GMT. The Marquesas is only place in the world (to our knowledge) where the time changes by half an hour. Evidently a throwback to the time when the British and French were vying for control of world time, and the French system was 30 mins different.
The next morning we woke to the wonderful sight of the Fatu Hiva anchorage. A small, steep sided bay, with rock pinnacles and narrow gorges. It's one of those places that you can really only get to by boat. The copra boat calls in to another bay, but there is 17km of steep dirt road between the two settlements. To get to the small jetty it is necessary to brave the swell which breaks on the narrow bit of beach - several dinghies have been flipped over en route.
The town is tiny, but has a school (it's a French island so gets some French support), a church, a very small store (which only gets supplies when the copra boat comes in) and concrete roads but we haven't seen any traffic at all. It is green and lush, full of hibiscus, frangipani, and fruit trees. Breadfruit, limes, grapefruit, mangoes, papaya, bananas and lots of nonni fruit (not sure how it's spelt) which is evidently the in thing as a super tonic/heal-all in the US so I suppose they export it. Their main product is copra from the coconuts, and there are big drying platforms beside the roads. The well-kept houses have chickens and often a pig or two plus fruit trees, quite self-sufficient as there's plenty of fish in the waters round about. We passed a group of men with dogs going hunting up in the hills - wild boar and goats they said.
This is French Polynesia, and the people are very different from the African mix found in most of the Caribbean islands. Very friendly, and we are managing to communicate reasonably well with some very rusty French. Today we traded a cap, a little box of coloured pencils, some nail varnish, and a length of cord for a large quantity of fruit! They all ask for perfume samples which we don't have - should have kept all those little airline bags of shampoo and cream etc. they love those. We don't have any of the local currency (no bank, no ATM, no internet cafe, no cafe at all!) but they are very happy to trade for things that they can't get easily.
One local family cooks meals for the boats at anchor, and they take euros or dollars. 10 of us had a delicious meal on their terrace - fried fish, marinaded raw fish, chicken, breadfruit, carrot and green papaya salad, cooking banana, grated coconut, and rice. With large jugs of homemade lemonade. The husband gently strummed his guitar, their little daughter danced for us, and mum, after her efforts with the food, sat back and watched television! Then of course, on a dark dark night, we had to brave the swell in our dinghies to get back again - just as well there was only lemonade to drink.
When arriving in a new country, we have to check in for customs and immigration. The (one and only)local gendarme allows boats to stay for three days in Fatu Hiva before moving on to Hiva Oa which has a larger settlement, and the necessary officials. However, today is May Day, tomorrow Ascension Day, and then the weekend, so there will be no official on duty until Monday morning. Our yellow 'quarantine' flag will have to continue flying for a few more days. So we are moving on to the little island of Tahuatu for the weekend.
We are now nine and a half hours behind GMT. The Marquesas is only place in the world (to our knowledge) where the time changes by half an hour. Evidently a throwback to the time when the British and French were vying for control of world time, and the French system was 30 mins different.
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