Which, in and of itself, is freaking awesome! However when I took this picture I had this weird sense of déjà-vu. Now I’d never been here before (duh) and I don’t remember seeing any movie that was ever filmed here and since I have a hard time remembering the name of the place while standing on it, it’s unlikely I ever googled it…but it nagged at me. This remained a mystery for some time until a while later when I was looking through my photos and happened on the Microsoft vista sample backgrounds.
This is Microsoft’s photo.
Holy cow I was living in a Microsoft windows background!! I’m still deciding if this is the most awesome thing ever or proof positive that no matter where you go, Bill Gates will find you.
The North pass is the main village of Fakarava (ooooh, look honey, a grocery store!) and they also have an ACTUAL hotel with guests and stuff. It’s attached to the dock we’re anchored off.
And the ACTUAL hotel has an ACTUAL bar, with ACTUAL drinks…and a really inventive “green” bug deterrent system.
Also, the art at the bar documents what can only be described as the Polynesian predecessor to the Jackass television show. Submitted for your approval as the ballsiest way for mankind to travel…ever:
I’ll stick with just the wind, thanks.
They also have passable (for Polynesian standards) internet in the hotel lobby and in their good, kind, warm hearted, Polynesian naiveté they offered to let us use it FOR FREE (gasp! It is unheard of!) So this is our office for the next few days:
Random uninhabited beach, central Fakarava, Tuamotu, French Polynesia
Figuring out that US $67.25 doesn’t even buy a single dinner out for Tiffany and myself at any restaurant on the island (seriously, crazy expensive here), my career as a professional dare taker comes to sudden, if not awesome, end.
Not that I won’t take dares. Please, by all means.
We hauled anchor and headed up the Coast, well, the coast on the inside of the island, which isn’t very far from the other coast on the outside of the island. Here let me show you what I mean:
Yeah, that’s really it. Think about that for a second, they live on an island no wider than a few football fields in the middle of the Pacific. There is a certain reassurance that large land mass provides, a reassurance that until now I had not ever noticed before. It is something very disconcerting about being able to see both coasts at the same time of the only land for about 100 + miles. Something in the back of your mind that says: hey, if there’s a tidal wave buddy, or maybe a hurricane, this island ain’t gonna do much more than trip it up a bit. You’re basically screwed…
…it gives one pause.
Dropping anchor for the night, we went ashore and decided to have a “genuine natural Polynesian island beach experience.” What does this mean? More coconuts!
Few points here:
1) What did Tiffany and Greg learn from their last coconut experience? Not a DARN thing, thank-you very much!
2) Actual Polynesians are not in any way interested in “genuine natural Polynesian experiences.” I met this dude a few days later:
Huh, a fire axe. Don’t see that in too many beach movies eh? Just in case you are wondering, they cut open the coconuts and let them dry because the milk is worthless. It’s the coconut oil that is the cash crop.
The evening culminated with a perfect sunset barbecue, though more ended up being on the menu than was originally scheduled:
Did you know that when Sharks get into large groups (say like 50 plus) they school, like fish?
So we learned something new today.
More of that in a minute, let’s get down to brass taxes: Brad Kellogg owes us $67.25.
For those of you who are not friends with us on Facebook, you should be. Mainly because that’s where most of the commentary for the blog happens each week. Why is this? Probably because thanks to the miracle of the friend finder, all our old smart aleck friends from our previous lives have connected with us and form some form of hybrid “metamind / advice giving / peanut gallery” thing.
So enters Brad, good friend from high school and expert at egging Greg on. Actually, good at egging anyone on. The guy’s got a gift. If he ends up a senator, I called it.
After my last post about the sharks, Brad comments to Greg: “5 bucks float with the sharks for 5 minutes, and I’ll toss in an extra quarter for each shark ya can count, double dog dare ya!”
Ok, I’m a worshipper of A Christmas story. I’ll even spot you the Triple Dog Dare.
(If you don’t understand the Christmas story reference, you OBVIOUSLY don’t watch TBS on Christmas…and your life is poorer for it 😉
Now, you may be saying to yourself, “Wait Greg, there was a MAX of 7 sharks in that video, assuming every new cut was with new sharks.” So that’s $6.50.
Yes, that. Here’s the rest of the 250 sharks we went swimming with (dive masters best estimate, not mine.) Oh, and the highly lethal stonefish which doesn’t count for an extra quarter but could kill you just as dead.
Now we were in the water for about 45 minutes but since there was no repeating stipulation on the bet, I won’t advocate for the $605.25 I could potentially claim. 😉
The South Pass was not all just highly lethal sea creatures. I mean really, 250 sharks aren’t just going to hang around unless there’s food nearby and wow, was there. A smorgasbord of every color and type of tropical reef fish, coral, you name it. Amazing does not describe what we saw: this video hardly gives you a taste of the varied and beautiful sea life that surrounded us every time we got in the water.
(PS – thanks to Serge & the guys from Fatu Hiva for the awesome music!)
OK, the UN was right (really, how often do you here THAT on a daily basis? 😉
This place rocks.
Did you see that coral!? Did you see that water!? It all looks like that. All of it.
We headed into the south pass village & dive shop because everyone wants to do dives here, obviously. Upon reaching the dive center we were greeted by what for Fakarava must pass for the overly friendly pet dog…
It was hard to believe that this was an actual fish and not some animatronic robot designed to impress the locals. No, really, it was a fish. A really big fish. That will swim up and boink you on the shin.
At the dive shop they also crack and gut coconuts. Here, despite their primitive appearance, the inhabitants show that they know a heck of a lot more about coconutting than some gringo and his dull machete.
(and if you don’t know what the gringo & machete comment was about, go back to entry called “gringos & coconuts”. One of my more amusing moments…)
An interesting point: the south pass is an old village but you can probably hear the hammers in the background. About 5 – 20 people are here from outside French Polynesia building the dive shop for the South Pass and serving as dive masters. The UN giving your island a super stamp of approval is good for business.
Also, they have sharks here. They have a lot of sharks here. No, you don’t seem to understand, they have A LOT of sharks right here, on the reef.
We haven’t even gotten in the water yet! And for some strange reason most of them still want to.
I don’t feel like I am giving a fair scope for the distance between these islands. I could tell you about each voyage of about 100 miles from remote isolated desert island to remote even more desolate island but really, that would get boring. If you want to know what it’s like sailing the high seas, look at the blog entries about us crossing the Pacific Ocean to the Marquesas. It’s like that. FYI, my ukulele and French continue to improve and I’m learning stuff about Solomon I never knew before.
I do not wish to bore you with the details while I also do not want to deceive you that these transits are just afternoon “hops” from one island to the next. Typically, a trip between islands typically takes a day and can take as many as 5.
The trip to Fakarava took 1 day but during that day we broke into another can of butter.
You see, Polynesians and cruisers have a similar problem: we both don’t have a ton of refrigerator space so we both minimize what needs to be put in there as much as possible. Did you know that as long as you never refrigerate your eggs in the first place that they actually don’t require refrigeration? Neither did I. How about butter can be preserved for long periods of time in a can? And that certain kinds of milk don’t need to be refrigerated until the carton is opened? I have learned on this trip that Americans refrigerate way too much stuff.
The coral reef of Fakarava was very exciting for all of us because it the only Tuamotu to be designated a UNESCO world heritage site. Tiffany knows more about this than me but the short of it is that the UN thinks that this place is awesome and should be preserved for it’s natural significance. Translation: Awesome stuff here, come check it out without destroying it.
(Again, I got this off a picture of the visitor center’s map. Don’t use this to navigate. Buy a chart.)
The voyage in was another hair raising experience where we were stationed on the bow watching for coral heads in the perfect crystal clear blue water. Just to add a little spice to the mix, we had currents flowing around the pass to make our lives extra interesting. Now maybe you think after our Kauehi adventure we had relaxed about the whole sailing over a coral reef thing. Let me point something out to you:
Narrow channel + Sharp coral reefs on both sides + lateral currents going every direction = nervous crew.
Upon completing our transit of the channel we discovered the “south pass village” that would be our home for the next few days as we indulged ourselves in figuring out just exactly what the UN thought rated this place international recognition and protection.
Also, we got invited over by one of our fellow cruising boats to experience one final taste of the Marquesas: a goat dinner.
The Marquesians raise goats to eat and they are very good at this particular skill. A fact I learned regrettably after I had left the Marquesas…
Ok it’s, uh, pretty and all. Really, really pretty but what do you DO there?
Well all throughout the village and along the islands are coconut crabs. Which are crabs. That eat coconut. They also live in little burrowed holes in the beach sand and the islanders are good at catching them for supper.
If catching your next meal gets old and/or frustrating (fast little buggers) you can always go for a swim. Remember how I said Kauehi had clear water? Yeah, and lagoons are breeding grounds for everything from tropical fish to coral to the most colorful clams I have ever seen.
If the lagoon gets old, you can wander down the road (“the” as in singular. As in the only one on the island) to the other beach. It’s not like it’s a long walk.
Since the island is an atoll surrounding a lagoon, it has beaches on both sides. The “inside” beach has sand but no waves. The outside beaches, which face out to the ocean, would be really great for surfing or boogie boarding except for one tiny detail.
**20100510A – archive – Kahuei beach**
Allan is really excited because he has dragged his board, sails and gear all the way from California in order to go windsurfing in the Tuamotu. The barrier reef islands provide a good shelter from the ocean waves but are also low enough to the water to allow the wind to blow full force over the lagoons. Big wind but no large waves creates an ideal windsurfing environment.
I know I said this before back in Mexico but it bears repeating. Allan loaded all of this gear onto his sailboat. He then proceeded to sail his boat from California to the middle of the South Pacific. We have been sailing for months now to get here. So we sail here, on a sailboat, using the wind to sail our sailboat to this lagoon and the thing Allan wants to do here? After all that? He wants to go sailing on a smaller sailboat…
…really?
He insists it’s different. It goes faster or something. Me, I know addiction when I see it.
So that’s the city sign. Guess they don’t exactly have a city line, being as there aren’t a lot of other cities out here to butt up against.
So the semi-obvious question I left out of the previous entries (I ran out of space!) was, “Greg, I get how the islands got there, how did the PEOPLE get there?!?”
Good question, and the short answer is…no one actually knows for sure.
Some people say they sailed from South America. Some dude name Thor (no, really, it’s his name) sailed a raft from South America to prove this theory. He made it to the Marquesas, so, it possible. However, the current popular theory is that the ancient Polynesians came from Asian stock:
(thanks to httpthe.honoluluadvertiser.com)
The summary version is that the Polynesian people were beyond comprehension badasses at seagoing navigation. They were human sextants capable of determining their exact position on the largest expanse of bleak nothingness on the planet Earth (the Pacific Ocean) by doing things such as watching the stars, checking the angle of the waves, looking at birds in flight and…no that’s it. That’s what they did. I am not a Polynesian. I use a GPS because I suck with a sextant, much less reading the angle of a wave bounced off an island 100 miles away (not making this up or exaggerating here.) So these people sailed against the current and upwind in what amounted to two canoes tied together by some wood and some sails lashed on top. Why did they sail against the wind and current? So that if, while exploring, they failed to find any land, they could easily get pushed back home once all the food and water was used up onboard. Doesn’t that just sound swell? Well it sure did to them because they got really, really good at it. Therein how they found, charted and settled all these islands long before we Europeans with our clunky tall ships (and syphilis! Let’s not forget what we brought to share!) showed up on the scene.
As for Kauehi city, well, city is a generous term. Here’s me in the center of town, which also doubles for their beach:
They have a “store” (it may one day grow up to be a 7-11) where they sold baguettes!
Our elation at being able to resupply our junkie fix for awesome fresh French bread was short lived when we found out that the baguettes were frozen. It did lead us to wonder though: are they frozen because they got shipped here? Or do they just turn on the bread baking over once a month to save energy? Unfortunately my limited French skills did not cover such complex topics of conversation. I did manage to find ice cream though. Hey, if they can freeze bread they can have ice cream. More importantly, I can have ice cream.
The main structure of the town is the church. We were lucky enough to be here on a Sunday and we attended a Catholic mass in Tahitian. Though we couldn’t understand the service, we did get to meet the entire town (maybe 100 people in total) and they were really nice to us. Also, the percussion instrument in the choir was an Alhambra water jug. I felt that it would be disrespectful to tape this guy playing during mass but man, WOW. You’d be amazed how good people can get at playing an empty plastic water jug when it’s the only instrument available for 600 or so miles.
They have a dinghy dock and yacht anchorage. The monthly resupply ship, their only semi-reliable (weather depending) means of contact with the outside world, stays offshore and sends in small tender vessels with supplies for the residents. No exports that I am aware of or could find evidence of are taken back out to the ship. With only 100 people on the island and about 30 yachts a year that visit, they have an almost untouched natural beauty and crystal clear blue water right up the edge of the dock.
These people LIVE here. Perched on this tiny ring of coral in the middle of the ocean. They fish, collect rain water to drink and they have been doing it for hundreds of years.
And so there we were, sailing through a coral reef, hundreds of miles from any possible source of rescue, all in the name of good times. We chose to do this, for fun, I might add. Funny thing happens when you loose about 4 miles worth of sea depth in the span of a few feet…you get some odd wave activity. Go figure.
After that little bit of oceanographic adventure we proceeded down what I like to call the “Transit of TERROR.”
(Yeah, just in case you are lazy enough to use a photo with PowerPoint arrows on it to steer through a reef, this is not a chart for navigation. Exact ship track line may vary in actual practice 😉
You see, the people who settled this little oasis of land decided to found their village on the largest spit of land they could find, which makes sense being as the majority of the island’s width would not allow for an arena football field (50 yards to the uninitiated). Downside is the spit of land is on the exact opposite side of the friggin’ lagoon from the only navigable entrance! Remember this tropical “lagoon” is actually a ship’s minefield of jutting rocks and coral heads that hang just below the islands surface. Just low enough to not be seen and just high enough to go though your fiberglass hull like a spear though butter. No, not a knife, a spear. There is a chart of the lagoon that shows where the clear water is, but yeah right, how accurate is that? Personally, I don’t see a lot of oceanographic survey ships making regular rounds of these islands so for all we know, good ol’ Capt Cook provided this information with his lead line a few hundred years back and my guess is that the coral has grown since then.
The end result is that for the next 3 hours Allan drives the boat while the three of us peer over the bow in the vain hope that we will be able to see any uncharted rocks, shout a warning and turn the boat before we all sink.
Again…we did this for fun…really. It was great.
In the end though, our fears were largely unfounded. The chart was pretty accurate and by that I mean we didn’t crash into any unexpected rocks, though a few did loom frighteningly close out of the depths. (water magnifies things, FYI, makes ‘em look closer). We got in, dropped the hook and departed to explore the village of people who call this place home.
The transit from the Marquesas to the Tuamotu was fairly uneventful. Being the ocean crossing salty dogz (yes, with a “z”) that we are, we scoffed at the idea of a 3 day sail to the next island chain as if such paltry transiting now barely even merited our attention. I mean, goodness we scarcely had to provision for this trip. OK, we bought some extra baguettes and some pamplemousse but that’s basically about it.
Have I mentioned pamplemousse yet? Picture grapefruit…ok now picture it actually tasting really, really good. I mean crazy good. Like you could easily eat yourself sick on it. Yeah, that’s pamplemousse. They grow it out here. It’s better than the mangoes. Notice you don’t see any pamplemousse rotting on the ground with the mangoes…there’s a reason for that.
(From our friends on SV Mulan)
The sail across did have one interesting highlight though:
Yes, a spider crawled out of my armpit. Well, fell out really. I screamed, it died. I screamed some more. I’d rather not dwell on the experience.
The Tuamotus are in and of themselves, an interesting story. Imagine, if you would, hundreds of square miles of open ocean a few miles deep. Ok, now in the middle of that, stick a ring of islands that reach no higher than 3-10 feet above sea level. It’s kind of like the Florida keys, minus the mainland nearby. Oh, and the big lagoon in the center of each…
People live on these things. Which is amazing, but where do the islands come from? Well, Darwin (yes, THAT Darwin) apparently had a second theory that drew a little less fire from the Christian coalition than his evolutionary ponderings. Darwin’s Theory of Atoll Formation states:
(from www.geocaching.com)
Stage 1: islands form from either exploding volcanoes or by the earth’s crust jutting up (like mountains) (the Marquesas are an example of stage 1)
Stage 2: coral, which is apparently just floating around the ocean looking for a place to live, latch onto these islands. There they are supplied with a place to live that is close enough to the surface to allow for sunlight. Coral grows around the islands and form a barrier reef.
Also during this stage the volcano goes dormant and the island starts to sink back into the ocean. Basically, the combined weight of the large mountain jutting literally miles up from the surface of the sea floor is a bit much for the crust to take, so it sinks. Also erosion starts to take affect. The coral keeps growing though, so the difference between the receding island shoreline and the barrier reef becomes a protected lagoon. (The Society Islands are an example of stage 2)
Stage 3: The island sinks below sea level, leaving a lagoon anywhere from 0 to 100 feet deep. The coral keeps growing and forms tiny islands (or “motu” in Tahitian) made completely from the coral. The motu grow on top of the barrier reef which is also constantly growing, so it does not sink despite the sinking of the island. In the end the barrier reef islands are all that remain.
The islands we have just entered are examples of this final stage.
Now while that is all very well and good, lets move on the practical application portion of our little science lesson here: sailing THROUGH a coral reef in order to effectively get swallowed up by an island where you sail on an underground mountain that juts up at unidentified locations just below the water line is, shall we say, a source of some concern for the average yacht owner. Especially when the nearest repair facility is oh, say, 700 miles away, give or take.
There is a waterfall lagoon in the center of this island (Nuku Hiva) that is known for it crystal clear waters and abnormally large eels. Naturally, everyone thought it would be a good idea if we went swimming with them. Apparently this is what one does at Daniel’s bay. Hike for two hours, eat lunch, toss some baguette to the eels the size of my arm (literally) to draw them out, then go swimming with them. Good times. Oh and yes, eels have teeth. So after leapfrogging over rivers, sauntering through canyons hundreds of feet deep, climbing through ancient Polynesian ruins and scaling some fairly large boulders…
You know what? Describing natural perfection week after week is hard. Here’s what we saw; you should watch it:
The eels were smart. They grabbed the baguette, saw kids and got right back under those rocks before anyone got in the water.
Like I said above we also saw some ancient ruins and genuine historic tikis. Much like the mangoes, these people have their history just scattered about them. However, unlike mangoes, their history is not overly abundant. Due to lack of funding & personnel, much of these ancient ruins are simply left.
Also the flowers. I mean, wow, the flowers are everywhere.
Overall a great hike and yet another example of the fantastic beauty these islands have to offer. This is the end of the Marquesas for us and we are off to the Tuamotu island chain. We’re leaving behind our “Buddy Boat”, PROXIMITY, here at Nuku Hiva. There are so many islands out here, which is shocking to me because my perception of the South Pacific was “ya know…there’s Hawaii, Tahiti, Guam, Bora Bora…and a couple more. Ok, so here’s some numbers for you:
There are tens of thousands (yes, that’s plural) of islands in the Pacific Ocean. In the South Pacific there are 3 “regions” of islands, of which Polynesia is one. The Polynesian region is about the size of Canada & the US combined. It’s big. The other regions are also lacking smallness (kind of a theme out here). French Polynesia is one of the larger countries in Polynesia and is about the size of the continent of Europe (yes, the continent). In French Polynesia, there are 141 islands and they give you 3 months before they kick you out, unless you’re European, then you can stay way longer (thanks France… :P) I know 90 days sounds like a lot, but really, it isn’t for so much space…and this is probably the first, last and only time you’ll ever get out here. So this is your one shot to have an amazing life experience. Here’s the dilemma: You want to stay and meet people and make friends and have awesome cultural experiences. You also don’t want to miss any of the other cool stuff on the other 140 islands in this country…and let us not forget that our boat needs to be through the entire area in 90 days or less. Important to remember those boats are slow and a couple of hundred miles between each island does make a significant difference. You should also add in about a week or two for boat repairs, supplying, customs, etc. What we’ve done so far has used up about 20 days. It goes fast.
Everyone has a different way of dealing with this. There is no way you’re going to be able to explore every island in 90 days so ultimately, you have to pick and choose. How much time do you want to spend finding the out of the way more remote islands like Fatu Hiva vs. enjoying the people and culture of more developed main islands like Nuku Hiva? Ok, and by “main island” remember I am talking about 2200 people on this entire island. So a tiny US farm town population…it’s isn’t exactly crowded. For the really adventurous, the Gambier island chain is a few hundred miles south and while it’ll eat a ton of time and there aren’t a lot of people there, you get a see a grand cathedral made entirely of coral, by hand (crazy priest, thousands of locals die in the construction, it’s a long story.)
Everyone says they want “off the beaten track” but we’re basically doing that by being here. So how far off do you want to go?
Rod & Elizabeth from PROXIMITY are staying in Nuku Hiva to enjoy the culture of the Marquesas and make some friends. Rod helped me learn the ukulele and they are both a lot of fun. We will miss them and hope to see them down the line. They expect to hit maybe one island in the Tuamotus before heading to Tahiti. As for us, we want to see some of these coral reefs floating out in the middle of the ocean, so we’re heading out.
I know, we have to “rush” though French Polynesia because we only have 3 months living here. It’s a heavy cross, but I bear what I can 😉
