Galapagos to Marquesas 4th – 24th March
Marquesas Cruise 25th March to 5th April
Nuku Hiva was the last stop in the Marquesas before we headed 500 miles southwest firstly to the Tuamotos Islands (where I am posting this backlog from the atoll of Rangiroa), and then on to the Society Islands (Tahiti etc), thus taking in three of the five archipelagos that make up the massive ‘Europe-sized’ French Polynesia.
Our landfall, as eighth boat into the Marquesas, was the high and lush volcanic island of Hiva Oa after twenty relatively easy days at sea covering 3000 miles. Shortly out of Galapagos, Sara on Makena took a poll of ‘Pacific Virgins’ within the fleet and it turned out that most of the circa 55 skippers and crew, including us, qualified – the exceptions were one skipper who had crewed on a Challenge yacht, another who had crossed with the US Navy and a skipper and crew who had both crossed during careers in the merchant navy.
Due to our ongoing internet challenges this has all been reported in our regular worldcruising.com logs which are now collated below: the first seven logs cover the Pacific crossing (days 53-72) and the last four the Marquesas cruise (days 73-82).
Days 53 to 56 – pointed at Hiva Oa
Three hundred miles out from the start of Leg 4 on Wednesday 4th, we altered course to starboard yesterday afternoon (Friday) and Exody is now pointed at Hiva Oa, a mere 2600 miles away as at noon today! If we continue at our typical 140 miles per day, we will arrive on Wednesday 25th or Thursday 26th March after three weeks at sea.
All good so far- the start of the leg went well with the fleet giving a colourful sail display and farewell to Galapagos- Exody was fourth across the start line. The first days have been relatively quiet and several boats had to motor to find the wind as we all headed south or southwest to pick up the trades – it never continues to surprise me how 16 boats on the same route can experience such different wind conditions whilst still fairly closely distributed!
We motored through calm seas for just under 6 hours on Thursday night and now on Saturday 7th have reached the ‘proper’ wind zone at 5 degrees south and are trucking along on a broad reach at nearly 7.5/8 knots through the water- we hope to pick up favourable current to add a knot and arrive earlier than forecast. So far we have missed the squalls that have dogged some of the fleet – they all seem to just miss us- particularly today as there are plenty of them around – real pity as we have been looking forward to showers from the sky – swimsuits and shampoo at the ready!
As on earlier legs, the radio net is a great source of information, camaraderie and company. Exody was net controller for the first day on Thursday 5th and we were lucky to have a ‘full house’ of responders plus some informal chat and quiz questions.
Before Wednesday night was out I had to dismantle the Aries self steering clutch mechanism which had become partly seized – maybe through two weeks disuse, and then on Friday morning a similar job on the port genoa winch which had seized. Both essential kit and fortunately fairly easily fixed. Thanks to Nigel Calder’s book for excellent guidance and drawings of winch anatomy, no parts were lost or put back together wrong. The wind instrument has also died – this one is non-essential so its back to feeling it on our faces, ticklers everywhere and estimating the speed from the Beaufort descriptions.
On the domestic front, Petter has ‘given up’ smoking for the fourth time since joining the boat in Panama and we suspect it will be just for our benefit not his and that the first Marlborough shop in Hiva Oa will get his business once again!
We have changed from a two hour to a three hour watch system so each one of the three of us gets six hours sleep and this also means that the times of day for each person cycle through so we all get turns at dawns, moonrises etc and the alternating galley duties also fit in neatly.
It will be interesting to see of there is much new to say on future logs as it feels like its going to be – just keep going and doing the same for 18 more days !
Days 57 to 59 – “an area to be avoided”
So says the World ARC Cruising Notes about the 250,000 square mile area of Pacific Ocean that we and the rest of the fleet are making our way through! I have now had the time to re-read these notes carefully and it advises this large patch as having a reputation for frequent unsettled weather conditions. However we are all in the zone necessarily to catch the SE Trades, now filled in as we are south of 5 South but we have had one day of continuous squalls and resultant variable winds, then one of puffy cloud tradewind skies and then today a mixture of both and we haven’t seen much of the sun!
It’s great to still be on a broad reach and the last three days (Sunday 8th to Tuesday 10th) we have logged noon to noon runs of 183, 165 and 161 – ie an average of 7 knots. For the last two days we have had full sail up and winds have been a comfortable 10 to 15 knots. We are just six days in and by tomorrow will have passed the 1000 mile, third way, mark – only 2000 to go! The seas are relatively quiet, and completely empty – no mammalian life yet spotted, one fishing boat in the early morning distance today, one yacht light night before last. Flying fish – the bigger ones thudding the side of the boat as they knock themselves senseless, and sea birds, often hovering over our bow (we think to catch the flying fish taking off from our bow wave) are our only company.
Life on board is settling into a routine as the sunsets and happy hours seem to come round sooner each day. Following the mid-morning radio net, I always plot the positions and tracks on graph paper so we have our onboard ‘Blue Peter’ equivalent of the tracker you can all see on the website at the push of a button – always interesting to see how we are placed (330 miles behind lead boat and 190 miles ahead of the last at noon today) – but we have not had any boats within VHF or AIS range since the first 24 hours. I seem to find odd jobs to fill the day or keep watch on other folks’ watches – whilst Marian and Petter find solid time for reading in between watches and galley duties. I aspire to read in due course! The fresh fruit, even the green/unripe ones, have started to ripen and our anticipation of Marian’s banana bread yesterday were dashed when we discovered insect infestation in all our flour supplies – so it was banana porridge this morning in lieu!
Following Sunday’s wall to wall grey skies, our batteries ended up rather low so we have deployed our towing generator – a simple device with a heavy propeller on a half metre shaft trailed on the end of a long rope attached to an alternator – it delivers a solid 5/6 amps (enough for the fridge and the instruments) but takes half a knot off our speed – does not sound much but equates to one to two extra days on a long passage like this – so it will be out the water when the sun is back out more solidly to feed our solar panels!
We have been able to email correspond with both of our daughters- one working in London and limbering up for the marathon, the other volunteering in India for six months and realise that we are now about as far away from each other as we possibly could be as a family! But it is good to be able to connect via the same ‘bandwidth -challenged’ SSB radio system that is submitting this blog.
Days 60-63 – Halfway point – Pam’s not for us
Cyclone Pam is apparently the top news story today and folks at home are worried for us – but she is the best part of 5000 miles away to the west and the World ARC route and timing is of course carefully designed to avoid such seasonal threats! When we get to Vanuatu in July (after the cyclone season), we hope to find the damage not too severe – World ARC participants past and current will be doing whatever they can to support the locals. Yesterday evening (Friday 13th) at 21.00 hours boat time (UTC minus 7 hours) we passed the halfway mark – 1500 miles down after nine days and ten hours, 1500 to go. As I write this (Saturday 14th, 14.00) its down to 1400 miles – it feels good to be counting down now to the finish – it’s a vast place this Pacific Ocean!
We are into a third day of mostly clear skies and settled weather with 15 to 20 knot winds from the east south east giving us a broad reach directly toward Hiva Oa – Exody eating up the miles with an average days run over the last 4 days of 170 miles, and, since the beginning of this leg ten days ago, 160 miles, both much better than my forecast of 140.
Tuesday night had seen a close encounter with a brightly lit Japanese fishing boat – we had to motor to pass her bow as these boats have long lines of up to several miles from their sterns. They also do not apparently alter course for yachts and do not answer the VHF !
Wednesday’s mood was coloured with the sad news that a good university friend had died in a tragic accident on his farm last week. This made us all take stock and for me reinforced the ‘carpe diem’ philosophy behind our doing this trip in the first place. Late in the evening we finally saw a sail which turned out to be Pentagram, a 41 foot Oyster, who is normally well ahead of us – we kept the lights in view most of the night and are still pacing each other on a similar course.
The steering line for the Aries self-steering chafed through on Thursday morning – duly replaced with a spare and whilst reorganising the pulleys a wave came over the rear quarter and I was lucky only to loose a U bolt and not my spanners. With the cockpit cushions floating in the partly filled cockpit, Marian below witnessed a small waterfall into our aft cabin soaking the foot of the cushions – we realised that the steering pedestal that had taken a belt in a gybe several weeks ago must need it’s base re-sealed to the cockpit floor.
We were under single reefed main and genny all day and the wave risk meant all hatches closed and foulweather gear for the night watch. Despite the fairly robust conditions, Marian produced a superb beef curry that Petter summarised as ‘advanced’ ie in comparison to the simpler fare that he is more comfortable delivering on board!
Friday saw me reading my second only book since leaving home port in July – a good sign that things are generally under control and that I might be relaxing a bit!
Days 64-66: There is life out here !
Well at least there was irridescent blue life in the 1.1m blue marlin (we think!) as we flipped our third catch into the cockpit on Monday afternoon (16th March)! A baby as marlins go (or maybe something different with very similar features) but a good size for us – two or three meals worth. We had only started fishing the previous day as we neared the end of our fresh-fridged protein – so thanks to the reel and kit supplied by Marian’s brother David.
Dolphins finally made an appearance on Sunday evening – such a commonplace in home and European waters yet so rare here! It was a treat to have the company of quite a large school frolicking at the bow and some leaping clear, the last few individuals hanging in for well over an hour. We got the identifier book out too late but Marian reckons in retrospect that they might have been rough toothed dolphins – distinctive white lips.
Mothers Day messages were exchanged in both directions on Sunday, with the short emails connecting us with our far flung family. One daughter had dipped her toes in the Indian Ocean, where we will be in a few months and the other had just done a 20 mile run in preparation for the London marathon in six weeks – reckon she runs at about the rate we sail! My mother is settling into a retirement home in northern Scotland..
Monday saw the end of our long and happy broad reach – not bad after 2000 miles. A slight wind shift required us to gybe and pole out the genny goosewinged to maintain our heading for the last 900 odd miles to Hiva Oa. We hope it will shift again but in the meantime are getting used to the slightly slower speeds and the extra vigilance this point of sailing needs by the watchkeeper. We seem to be doing OK in our midfleet position, especially as we are only using ‘white sails’ when we know others are flying spinnakers, chutes, code zeros and all the rest!
We set our clocks back a further hour today so Exody time is now UTC -8 hours (French Polynesia is -9.5). Otherwise more of what we have written about before- beautiful clear skies yesterday morning prompting a Paul Simon ‘not a cloud was in the sky….etc’ rendition.
This is our 13th day at sea on this leg and we are beyond the two thirds way point. Petter is into his Soduko + Kindle, Marian still into her books/Kindle + creative (or ‘advanced’ as Petter would have it) galley enterprises and we have all been checking out the exotic names and places in the charts and guides so as to understand and carefully plan our coming six week cruising period in French Polynesia.
Day 67 -“…..and zero engine hours over”
So have ended most of everyone’s daily updates to each other on the morning SSB radio net for the last two weeks at sea. I think I detect a sense of pride and satisfaction in the way these words are spoken since we are all well aware(rally though this is not a race!) that our ranked position will depend materially on the engine hours penalty applied by World ARC to our overall elapsed time. Apart from the first 72 hours, and then the occasional short burst to avoid a fishing boat or a squall, the whole fleet have regularly been reporting zero engine hours but today with the trades weakening in some areas, two boats reported engine use this morning.
Midafternoon today Wednesday 18th, Exody too succumbed, having spent half the night with the sails flogging about and making well under 5 knots partly in the wrong direction, then most of the morning under four knots, recording our lowest noon to noon run of the leg (132 miles, and then finally dropping to under three knots of boat speed with only four knots of wind!
We have 760 miles to run almost due west and still hope to get in next Monday/Tuesday sometime. Saw our first cargo ship in a fortnight last night – the New Pacific headed for Chile – seemed like quite an invasion of the privacy of ‘our’ ocean!
Two weeks into the trip, the culinary challenges change – we are eking out some items – (half a pepper, half a carrot) and we still have 1 tomato, 2 potatoes, six onions, 2 oranges, 7 apples. Cheese, bacon, sausages and ham all still keeping well in the small fridge. The baked fish last night was a treat and the remains will go into a kedgeree tonight – the line goes back out tomorrow. A pizza was made from first principles yesterday with mostly non-perishable ingredients and we are rediscovering all that we bought and stowed in the depths of our lockers and working out how to combine them for best effect!
Days 68/69 – Power and Water
Lucky to be making 5.5 knots as the winds have stayed down at under 10 knots and are forecast to stay like this – fortunately the direction has gone slightly to the north so we are not quite dead downwind and have both sails out to port. Today many other boats in the fleet have submitted engine hours. We have improved yesterday’s 119 noon run (with engine) to today’s of 133 (without engine). The two frontrunners of the fleet, 400 miles ahead will reach Hiva Oa today Friday 20th and the next batch of three Saturday sometime. Even with lower winds (+ some engine use)we are still targeting daylight on Tuesday 24th – with just over 500 miles to run.
More blue sea and sky, one more dolphin visitation, no more fish – though we lost a prize lure yesterday evening – actually seeing the culprit (a Dorado) jump clean out the water in his successful attempt to bite it off. We now reckon incidentally that the previously reported Marlin was in fact a Sailfish- same family.
We made water today as we do every other day – usually 5-10 litres which takes up to two hours- used for drinking as it tastes better than the tank water and saves the filter! Watermakers need to be regularly used to avoid the need for ‘pickling’ of their fine mesh membranes with biocide chemicals. Only four out of 15 boats took on water at Galapagos showing that the rest of the fleet are self sufficient with their larger capacity watermakers plus diesel generators to feed them. The highest capacity one in the fleet could fill Exody’s tank and spare water jerrycans about 300 litres- in just over an hour. For boats so equipped, daily showers are the norm, the toilets freshwater-flushed and the deck hose ‘available’ for use. I think we would like such water liberation on Exody !
We make the water when the sun is high and the solar panels have already refilled the batteries after the night’s effort in keeping the fridge going, an effort that often needs to be supplemented by the towing generator, especially when very light winds increase our dependence on the electrical autopilot to keep a direct course. The hungry SSB Radio is also used when the sun is high and all charging of handheld devices is limited to the same few hours. So far we have avoided putting the engine on just to charge the batteries.
Days 70-72 – Last Lap
Thankfully normal trade wind business seems to have been resumed today Monday 23rd as we are back to 6 knots wing on wing pointing direct to Hiva Oa 150 miles away planning to arrive in time (just!) for nightfall Tuesday 24th. It has seemed a long haul this last 500 miles- on the one hand you think you are nearly there, but on the other, 500 miles is a significant distance in itself and even more so when the winds reduce Our last three noon runs have been 116, 135 and 110 – several boats have reported 24 hours engine use in 24 – our max was 18.5 day before yesterday.
The Pacific has been very benign these last few days- we have had all hatches and windows open day and night – great to have some air through – but it still reached 32 degrees inside the cabin today. The nights, with new moon and generally clear have been magical as we orient ourselves toward the southern hemisphere view of the constellations. Saturday night we motored on an oily smooth sea – on the several occasions we turned the engine off to try for wind the silence (ie with no sea running, no wind noises etc) was incredible.
The fish are still escaping Marian’s enticing lures so we have enjoyed chilli con carne (corned beef), quinoa with bacon, toad in the hole for our last few meals – mainly from the non-perishables stock. The first canned tuna threatens tonight if still no joy on the lines!
We are growing a small garden of goose barnacles and weed on our transom, sugar scoop and stern counter- and other boats have reported much more extensive hull-barnacling slowing their progress. Hopefully ours is localised since it is only 11 weeks since we antifouled Exody in Carriacou and 5 weeks since her bottom was cleaned before Galapagos!
We have been warned that all internet in French Polynesia is via satellite (ie slow) and that bandwidth is likely to be further constrained by the arrival of a 15 strong internet-hungry fleet – so it may be a while before we get our main blog at https://exody.wordpress.com updated and photos uploaded !
Days 73-75 – Hello Hiva Oa
Late afternoon 24th, our 20th day at sea we crossed the finish line with our waterproofs on under the clouds over the towering green caldera-type shape that forms the backdrop to the bay at Atuona on Hiva Oa – a place strongly associated with painter Gauguin who spent his last few years here before his death in 1903.
Tucked in behind the breakwater of the busy anchorage which we are thankfully allowed to use the whole of because the next supply ship does not come until 5th April – by when we’ll have moved on. The swell is substantial – all boats are moored fore and aft to keep bow or stern into the swell and to optimise space within the anchorage. At one side of the bay there are regularly 30m high spumes and spray as the swell hits the rocks and on this ‘sheltered’ side the two dinghy docks are still a major challenge in the swell, not only to get ourselves and gear safely in and out but also to ensure the parked dinghy does not self destruct against the dock or adjacent rocks – stern anchors therefore essential.
We were garlanded as a Pacific welcome when we landed at six and were then driven to a spectacular hotel venue for happy hour and dinner overlooking the sea – along with the crews of Hugur, Ayama and Exocet Strike. The tropical smells and verdant landscape were all a welcome contrast to the last three weeks – not to mention fresh food and cocktails!
This set us up for a wonderful and mostly uninterrupted night’s sleep though the constant movement of the boat and the noise of the water against the adjacent quay had me regularly reckoning in my semi-consciousness that we were still rolling along at a comfortable 6 knots!
Clearance formalities were efficiently completed on Wednesday morning as we were driven into the gendarmerie in the nearby village by the ARC agent Laurent. All very spic and span with the evident French funding and investment resulting in no visible poverty – the economic mainstay of the island apparently being self-administration!
In search of internet we had little luck at a cafe and were soon in a 4WD on the way up multiple hairpin bends to Alex’s Place – which most of the fleet have now discovered as a home from home- he collects and returns us, gives open access to his pool, operates a serve yourself honour system for drinks and his wife serves set lunch and dinner dependent on what’s available. Mangoes and bananas available on the table for free – but best of all, though the satellite signal is still a bit dodgy, is the free internet! We came back later for dinner and of course internet. A congenial and convivial evening was had in the company of Hugur, Ayama, Aretha and Pentagram who had just arrived that day about 24 hours behind us.
We took the ARC organised shuttle bus into the village on Thursday morning and spent an interesting hour at the Gauguin centre understanding the coincident and interwoven histories of his life and the ‘acquisition’ of these islands by the French – and also being reminded of how relatively prolific he was in his short 55 year life. Reprovisioning at the well-stocked supermarket was not as eye-wateringly expensive as we had expected – though we did avoid the punishingly priced spirits. After a taxi ride back to the harbour via a vegetable van, we lunched on fresh produce and baguettes, napped, refuelled by jerrycan and then Petter cleaned the other half of the grossly weeded and goose-barnacled waterline, my having done one side the day before.
Karma Wins arrived today Thursday 26th and there are still four boats at sea with the next arrivals due Saturday. We have booked an island tour for tomorrow Friday 27th before moving on to the Bay of Virgins at Fatu Hiva on Saturday 28th.
Day 76 – Pifa O’Connor
…….is descended from Irish famine migrants – his great grandfather having married, as he put it in his own words, a ‘savage’ – we think he meant ‘native’! Pifa and his siblings have the large framed build of the Polynesians but the surname was a giveaway as to the heritage. The O’Connor clan seem to own a fair amount of the north east part of Hiva Oa with ranch lands and other property away from the main township of Atuona.
Pifa was our English-speaking guide (studied in Utah, Mormon religion) for a guided full day tour of Hiva Oa, his sister driving the second vehicle and his brother leading a separate French- speaking group that we coincided with. We were joined by the crews of Hugur and Ayama. The day was focused around several archaelogical sites, tikis- stone carving representations of dead chiefs and a very long drive around incredibly winding roads, at least half of which were not properly surfaced. The precipitous geography, lush vegetation, abundant fruit trees (the tradition is to always plant fruit trees when you build a house) surrounding sea and nearby islands made for stunning views. We learnt of the fascinating but grisly cannibalistic and sacrificial habits of their forebears, with clear evidence in the associated structures and sites that we were shown. Pifa and his brother demonstrated the Haka dance at one of the sites (ref their Maori cousins) and his sister got the women doing a bird dance.
Every car we passed or person standing at the roadside was waved or talked to and the majority were related in some way to Pifa. There are only 1800 inhabitants of Hiva Oa – they do big families here- he is one of eight- four boys, four girls, two others having died at an early age- surprising we thought these days, but perhaps medical support is still thin even when the islands are substantially supported economically by France. We stopped at a cousin’s house by a small black rock beach where there were bone (from cattle!) and wood carvings for sale and fruit free for the picking from the trees- we now have limes for the next round of rum punch!
Back at the harbour there was a superb traditional dancing display put on primarily for World ARC (6 boats here, 4 already moved on, 5 still at sea) along with splendid local food – a great way to finish this third and last day (Friday 27th March) of our stopover in Hiva Oa.
Days 77-82 – Fatu Hiva +Tahuata
Allegro, the last World ARC boat arrived in the delightful(ie first with classic sand, turquoise water,palm trees etc versus black boulders!)Baie Hanamoenoa at the northwest of Tahuata at midnight last night Wednesday 1st April (8 days after ourselves) and all boats here (APlus2, Aretha, ourselves) convened on Makena to give them an early morning welcome before they headed across the channel to Hiva Oa to formally clear in. From the ‘viewing platform’ of Makena we had a great view of the five local manta rays, a lone turtle and a small school of dolphins. Juno had left early on for the 500 mile crossing to the Tuamotus and we have since been joined here by Ayama and Afar 6. It’s been good to reconnect with the front of the fleet and the rear. We plan to leave tonight for an overnight 85 mile sail to Nuku Hiva in the northern Marquesas where we’ll spend a few days and restock -free cruising now for three weeks until the 23rd April rendezvous in Tahiti.
We left Hiva Oa on Saturday 28th after some difficulty with our tripping line (adjacent French catamaran had to partially lift his kedge) – for a close hauled sail south to the iconic anchorage of Hanavave (Bay of Virgins) on Fatu Hiva. The dramatic volcanic towers surrounding the anchorage with lush hills behind and very little swell contribute to its deserved reputation. Though holding is reported poor, our anchor held. We saw the church-going procession ashore and heard the singing in the distance but spent Sunday on board tackling odd boat jobs. Hugur hosted ARC happy hour to celebrate a 40th wedding anniversary and we went ashore for a locally home-produced meal (poisson cru, barbecued chicken, stewed goat). The night was showery but nothing compared to the torrential showers that continued for the whole of the following day (Monday 30th) and night, breaching a dammed river ashore ,turning the blue water brown and bringing much floating debris- the like of which we haven’t seen since the ‘tormentas’ in Tenerife. Our plan to hike to the nearby waterfall was abandoned both days and we spent most of Monday availing ourselves of the newly discovered pay as you go internet hotspot serviced by aerials high up on the nearby cliff.
The World ARC rendezvous at Tahuata was scheduled for 09.30 on Wednesday 1st so we set off on Tuesday after Ayama and Aretha for the 40+ mile reach back north – a good sail and we were pleased to maintain pace with Aretha (53 feet to our 39!). Anchored at the north end of Hapatoni bay we spent an edgy night with the multidirectional >30 knot downdrafts from the adjacent high cliffs and mountains – I was up from 03.30 on anchor watch but she seemed to be well dug in and we were reasonably comfortable to leave for the several hours of South Pacific welcome festivities ashore a couple miles south. Others weren’t so lucky with some boats dragging in the adjacent bay and some having difficulty getting their anchors satisfactorily set.
We were welcomed ashore at the quay with a traditional Polynesian welcome – singing and live music, garlanded and treated to local dance displays in national dress (grass/leaf skirts and adornments). This followed by helpful explanations of the culture and history, handiwork and craft displays and a whole lot more dancing and music some of it by children as young as three and four – altogether a touching welcome from an island with only 200 inhabitants. We saw the Marquesan oven (hot rocks in a hole in the ground) where our goat,pork and local vegetables had been cooking in multiple banana leaf baskets all in a larger metal basket that took four men to lift. After the skippers briefing on cruising in French Polynesia, few of us had the energy for games of Petanque and lessons in weaving baskets – so we took the water taxi back to Exody mid afternoon and concurred with APlus2 and Juno that a more relaxed night might be had at Hanamoenoa three miles away where we came in at the beginning of this log.
Days 83-87 – Nuku Hiva – Melon Heads, Garden of Eden
Six coconuts, six grapefruit, twelve oranges, five starfruit, one green papaya, a half hand (about 50-60) of green bananas and a half branch of bird pepper. That was our haul of fresh fruit purchases (2950 polynesian francs=circa 25 euros)after spending an hour with a local and his wife at Hakau – a collection of homesteads rather than a village – at Hakatea Bay (also called Daniel’s Bay) in Nuku Hiva. Rightly billed in the book as a ‘must stop’, we arrived here yesterday Easter Monday April 6th midday via an early 5am start excursion to the other end of the island – 4 miles beyond Cap Tikapo – where we had gone in successful search of melon head whales. We found a substantial pod of about 50, some of which tracked and played alongside Exody folowed by bottle nosed dolphins which stayed with us most of the 10 miles to here. In this perfect natural harbour, fairly free of swell with a backdrop of 500 metre high volcanic mountains, and with a sandy beach at the head, we saw several large manta rays circling the bay in the afternoon. After Marian expertly cut my hair, I spent the last hours of daylight stripping and servicing the second of our primary winches which had seized earlier in the day – just like its port-side sister had about a month ago, one day out of Galapagos.
We had arrived at Taiohae Bay, the large and reasonably well protected main anchorage in Nuku Hiva on Easter Friday morning, April 3rd, after a quiet 85 mile overnight sail from Tahuata where we had been anchored at Hanamoenoa (or Steven’s after a lone local who lives ashore)Bay. About 30 boats at Taiohae altogether including Exocet Strike who had arrived a few hours earlier. Anchored a fair hop from the dinghy dock, we went ashore to the village of the same name to find fruit and craft stalls (of which there were a large number) open but shops closed and varying reports about Easter weekend opening, though we were told that there would be fish and fruit/veg display/market , especially for Easter, from 04.30 to 11.00 Saturday. As elsewhere in Marquesas, the town was clean and tidy but seemed to host a rather large population of stray dogs!
Marian and Petter went shopping Saturday morning early and found most of what we needed. I nursed some kind of 24 hour bug and laid low. Aretha hosted happy hour that evening with Pentagram and Afar 6 now arrived. Sunday opening allowed me to do the remnants of the shopping then Petter and I enjoyed live local music with our coffees and internet at the dockside cafe before rejoining Marian for another of the customary (at least for here) baguette based lunches! I spent a couple of hours cleaning the rust and other staining from Exody’s transom – amazed at how quickly these build up when at sea in the tropics. We bit the bullet and bought 100 hours of French Polynesian hotspot internet for about 100 Euros hoping that our connectivity might thereby be a bit better for the remaining four weeks that we are in French Polynesia. Our three nights here were all a bit rolly with some heavy showers to add to the discomfort (get up to close hatches, no breeze in the boat, get too hot, get up to open hatches after rain shower….repeat etc etc…)
Left early o’clock Easter Monday for the Melon Heads and today, Tuesday 7th we joined Casper and Caroline from Aretha at 7am to tackle the walk to the reputed third highest waterfall in the world, tucked in between massive vertiginous volcanic buttresses after a magical two and half hour hike up the valley with two river crossings (no bridges!). The most memorable part of the day however was meeting the local and his wife before the walk, and then, on the way back, walking with them through their bountiful fruit laden ‘garden of eden’ which they tend with their extended family of ten people in all. Muscular, fit and traditionally tattooed, he had the attributes I imagine of his warrior forebears – talking to us – (principally about the fruit and the amount of very hard work he did) in kind of staccato outbursts (think Haka) reminiscent of war cries. All of us were personally instructed by name to attend specific fruit pickings or to taste things – for example the purple pistachio fruit – littered on our path (now I know why Pistachio ice cream tastes nothing like the nuts!). His wife much more serene but fully on the case with writing up our (very good value!) bills. They both helped us back to the dinghies parked in the river with our full sacks of produce and have assured us that their spring water is of the best and could be bottled and sold, so we’ll be back to take the dinghy upriver to fill our jerrycans at highwater this evening before we leave this particular paradise.
Cruising and liming 