Tiffany and Greg Around the World
Taha’a, Society Islands, French Polynesia
Hey see that name up there? Yeah, you try and say that on your own and you’ll understand exactly where Greg is coming from in this video.
Aside from having a deceptively difficult name to pronounce in the English language, Taha’a shares a reef with Raiatea and therefore the same volcanic soil. Continue reading “How well can Vanilla really age?”
Huahine, Society Islands, French Polynesia
In French Polynesia, the boys may get a bay, but the ladies get a whole island, as Tiffany explains
As this island is not a famous as her sisters, the real joy of Huahine is that she provides a sample of what “normal” Society Island life is like. Setting out on a hike to do a bit of exploring, we saw some amazing sights, Continue reading “Overly Friendly Locals in Polynesia”
Moorea, Society Islands, French Polynesia
Like we said, we’re moonlighting as “normal tourists” in the Society islands. So what do normal tourists do? No, that isn’t rhetorical or a clever way to intro this blog entry. Really, what do they do?
While we are, at this point, arguably at least relatively well traveled, we really haven’t done a lot of “tourist-ing.” (is that a word?) Packaged tours aren’t really our forte and why pay for a walking tour of Venice when you can wander around it all by your dang self to find the local’s dance club? Our method of exploring a place is best compared, in Greg’s twisted gamer mind at least, to a random encounter roll. A hold over from his Dungeons and Dragons days…
Tiffany: “Oh, look Greg, there went half the freaking audience in three words or less!”
Greg: “No, no wait, it’s cool!” Continue reading “Experiments in Tourism”
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:
I swear dude, it was suicide. I have witnesses.
Kauehi, Tuamotu, French Polynesia
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.
-Greg
Time for a nature hike kids!
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 😉
~Greg
I would have included this entry into the last one except that I noticed you all have been asking for / demanding / threatening bodily harm if I fail to deliver some sweet, sweet pics of the Islands. So here you go:
Daniel’s Bay is picture perfect and just 5 miles from the largest town in the Marquesas, Taiohae Bay, by boat. Apparently a season of “Survivor” was filmed here. I can see why.
Just for a moment, let’s picture the crew chiefs in charge of filming the show and providing for the film crew, etc coming upon this place.
Crew chief 1: Wow this place is perfect!
Crew chief 2: Yeah, so remote, so tropical island in the middle of nowhere looking!
Crew chief 1: One problem, where we gonna go get a beer after we’re done filming for the day?
Local walking by: La bier et la pizza est huit kilometers pour ton bateau
(translation): Beer and pizza is 8 kilometers (5 miles) for your boat
Crew chief 1&2: oh really…
There see, even tossed in a little French lesson for ya. Anyway, if you watched that show and were concerned about the well being of the competitors, know that they were about 30 minutes from a piping hot pizza, prepared in a stone pizza oven I might add, at any given moment. This assumes 10 minutes for actually ordering and cooking the pizza. I am concerned about the residual effects on the local community however…
Now as we have said before, there is an overabundance of coconuts, flowers, plants, bananas, and any tropical fruit or plant that you can really think of. However, me telling you this just doesn’t convey the abundance these people have come to live with. Tiffany was shocked to find that these people literally have more high quality fruit then they can possibly handle.
Let’s continue on with our exploration of the unrelenting awesomeness that is this flora of this island as we hike up to the much talked about waterfall on the island.
-Greg
coastguardcouple.com
So we have left the southern part of the Marquesas and are now in the more populated Northern Islands. By “more populated” I mean a total population of 5,000 spread out over four islands vice a total population of 3,000 spread out over four islands. Needless to say, a total population of about 8,000 people is a small, small amount for an island chain that has it’s own flag, identity and has considered being a separate country than the rest of the other four major island chains in French Polynesia. The other French Polynesian chains are the Tuamotu Islands, Society Islands, Gambier Islands, and Austrial Islands chains. Tahiti and Bora Bora are part of the Society Islands, FYI. I was curious about this odd independence of such a small amount of people and did a little reading and asking around at the tiny museum in Nuku Hiva, which is where we are now.
Let me say this and don’t laugh at me when you hear it, but the Ruskies have got absolutely nothing on the Polynesians when it comes to putting up with difficulty. These people have been plagued (syphilis), cannibalized, colonized, converted, warred upon, beaten down, re-plagued (smallpox) and then one of their islands in the Tuamotus was hit by 141 atomic bombs (let me say that again: One hundred forty one atomic bombs, 6 of which were hydrogen bombs!) by France when they were conducting nuclear testing. In the Marquesas alone the population was devastated by a whopping 95% before people stopped dying in droves and they were able to begin rebuilding their society. According to one book, The Marquesas alone started with 800,000 people at the start of the 19th century and dropped as low as 2,000 at one point! Now, to be fair, before us Westerners got here, they weren’t exactly a peaceful people with everything going on perfectly; islands were constantly at war with each other, raids for human sacrifices occurred and cannibalism most assuredly was practiced. Still these people took a beating and are starting a long bounce back from pretty dire straights. Despite all this they are the nicest people you have ever met, they put up with me bumbling through a language that isn’t theirs but that they adopted in addition to their own in order to better communicate with their sponsor country / people who colonized them. All in all, I respect the heck out of ‘em.
So we were going to stop at Ua Pou, another major island in the Marquesas but we gave it a quick flyby instead. Tiff explains:
We did get some awe inspiring pictures of the giant spires formed by dormant volcanoes that this island is known for. Spires like this are all over the island and are so high many are enshrouded in clouds.
We pressed onto Nuku Hiva and into Taiohae Bay, which with a population of 1,700 is the “big city” and capital of the Marquesas. We were greeted with sights of civilization such as pizza, crepes and a grocery store. What I describe below is by far the most advanced cruising port in the Marquesas.
I would include internet in the list of modern conveniences; however, when I say “internet” I would think most people would picture things like Facebook, YouTube, Wikipedia, email and the like. If I said I had internet you may write me nasty emails saying, “Hey, why haven’t you responded to my Facebook message I sent you!?” This would because it is, for your reference purposes, a 60 minute process to download and read a 2 line text email. Pictures and videos ain’t happening. Web 2.0? Right, we’re working on web 0.3 here. Little perspective on Marquesian internet access for ya: I asked one of the locals and they told me that the internet is in fact satellite based – but wait, here’s the bad news – the ONE SERVER for the ENTIRE ISLAND CHAIN is in Tahiti. Remember that island that’s about 2,000 miles away? Ya, that’s where the ONE server is. You thought dial up AOL was slow? Lightning compared to what we can get here.
On the up side, by giving up all hope of accessing the web, I get a lot more time to wander about, get in trouble, get humiliated by high school kids in volleyball and find interesting things for this blog, like a local tiki park created for cultural preservation (though the locals spell it “ti’i”). This one is my favorite: a naked tiki holding a war club in one hand and the head of another tiki in his other hand. Why do I call the Tiki a he? Nope, no assumption here, lets just say this guy could easily fit in at a particular bay on the island of Fatu Hiva. It should be noted that of all the islands in French Polynesia, the Marquesas are known for their exquisitely detailed and precise tikis…
In addition to the Tiki park, it first must be said that this place is simply gorgeous. Not just this town, all the islands we’ve come to so far have been jaw-droppingly amazing. These people live out their lives within mother nature’s personal art gallery. No words can accurately describe the abundance of picture perfect plants that surround us on a daily basis. The flower bush in this video was just on the roadside. It is not overly unusual, I just picked it to give you an example visual assault of perfection that we are bombarded with on a typical day:
Speaking of natural beauty, as it were, I also discovered that if you think that school clothing regulations in the US educational system are lax, you will have a very different perspective once you see what these kids wear at recess:
-Greg
Tahuata was going to be a quick, overnight anchorage on the way from Fatu Hiva to Ua Pou (all still in the Marquesa group of French Polynesia). Hardly worth noticing, probably about a sentence or two in the next blog post. We pulled into the first anchorage and set down for the night not expecting the quiet little island a stone’s throw from Hiva Oa to have much for us in the way of lasting memories.
…and then we woke up early the next morning to go swimming with the wild dolphins who had just popped by to say hi and handle some business.
That little comment by Tiffany at the end make you feel a bit voyeuristic? Imagine being 15 feet from them and watching. I was serious about them handling some business.
Now I apologize. Dolphins are faster and more maneuverable than me in the water and I’m still getting used to the whole “filming rapidly moving objects in the water while bobbing like a cork on the surface and unable to see my display screen because it’s in a waterproof bag” thing. I will endeavor to improve. Please bear with me.
So after what was agreed on by all to be a most auspicious start to our day we thought it could not possibly get any better, but you’d think after our first shocker we’d stop underestimating this little island of nirvana-like joy.
We sallied forth onto land and found the picture perfect village of Hapatoni. The whole island’s population is around 650 and this is the tiny village next to the big town, so I do mean small.
You may have noticed during that video that there was a streetlight above the street Tiffany and I were on. This may lead you to the question, “Gosh Greg, how do they have power out there?” Tiffany and I were curious so we took a look around and found the island (or at least the village’s) main and only power plant.
We also saw a really nice little local church. Did I mention that French Polynesia is by overwhelming majority Catholic? They have a couple of assorted Protestant churches and, interestingly enough, one island that is predominantly Mormon. Ha ha! Yes, I learned French, I play the ukulele and I’m Catholic. I’m almost a local!
– Greg
(Continued from previous post… Fatu Hiva, French Polynesia)
Secondly, speaking of local kids, getting humiliated by the locals in an afternoon volleyball game. I feel no need to elaborate on this point. They play this every day. Some of the women also do what appears to be Jazzercise, so how’s that for Americanization?
Thirdly, hiking. Fatu Hiva is an amazingly beautiful place, though it is not without it’s dangerous predators
Assuming you have the wit and the skill to overcome these dangerous jungle creatures (oh yeah, and the heat – bring water, a lot of water) then you are in for a visual smorgasbord. With sights that easily rival Ireland in lush greenness, a 2 hour hike through to the waterfall in Fatu Hiva does not disappoint.
Not to mention, you can take your lunch with you and picnic at your own private 100 foot waterfall. This is merely a bonus. (We didn’t go swimming because not only had we heard about the eels and the crawfish living in the water, there was some sort of scummy foam on the top of the pond. Bummer 🙁 ~Tiff)
As Tiffany mentioned at the end of the video and as you might surmise about the topography of an island formed by a volcano, this place is steep. We found out how steep when we decided the next day, without any idea what the heck we were signing up for, to hike to the top of one of the mountains. We also found out why all the travel guide books say that only 4×4 vehicles are allowed in the Marquesas.
There were no flat parts, by the way. After crawling up this mammoth for 3 hours and gaining a new appreciation for the Fatu Hiva roadwork department, we finally got to a pinnacle that provided the views we were looking for:
-Greg
