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 😉
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.
As we had a short respite here in order to prepare for our wanderings into the 100 or some odd remote (even by Polynesian standards) islands of the Tuamotus, we decided to take care of some of the day to day chores that had built up.
Like, defrosting the freezer with our hair dryer, because apparently this is an important part of the cruising lifestyle
And hand carrying diesel fuel to fill the boat back up (last gas station was Hiva Oa, remember?)
We also bought food and in a French colony that means we acquired fresh baguettes. I find that I have yet to devote the proper space in this blog to the natural wonder of the world that is real French bread. As a native of Northern California I will go toe to toe with anyone who claims the superiority of French wine or cheese, but ladies and gentlemen, when it comes to bread these people have us beat.
Since we are talking of chores, I should take a moment and discuss showering. Yes, showering. Not that we didn’t shower before, it’s just that we didn’t shower for the amusement of the local athletic establishment prior to this anchorage.
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:
(Continued from previous post… Tahuata, French Polynesia)
As we continued to travel north along the island to our next anchorage, Hanatefau, reportedly the 3rd prettiest in Polynesia, we saw some spectacular waterspouts along the shoreline.
Upon arriving we found that the anchorage was indeed gorgeous. Beautiful living reefs no more than 10 feet below the surface on each side of the anchorage, a pristine white sandy beach, crystal clear water with 30-50 feet of visibility, and gorgeous sunshine. A Manta Ray swam right past our stern. It was amazing. Tiff started off the day helping out a fellow cruiser by free diving 30 feet straight down to get a dropped piece of equipment, which is a rather impressive feat. (Actually, I started it by swimming some banana bread over to Rod and Elisabeth on Proximity, and when I swam back, I saw the Manta Ray fly past our boat! ~Tiff)
As thanks for helping them out, Michael and Gloria of Paikea Mist, a beautiful Beneteau Custom 50, (www.PaikeaMist.com) invited us out to go snorkeling with them. Now, again, I am still learning how to use this camera well underwater. That being said, there are some absolutely amazing parts of sea life just wandering around a few feet below the surface. This is a taste of what I saw:
Unfortunately for us with this much unrestrained beauty below us, perfect warm, clear water all around us and a baking sun above us, it is quite easy to lose track of time. We did just that, much to both of our extreme regret.
Let me tell you, it hurts. It hurts a lot. A LOT! I took a shower, used a wash rag and some warm water by accident two days later and was laid out on the bed for a good hour writhing in pain as it felt like someone was jamming broken glass into my spine. It took two ice packs and not moving much for the rest of the day to bring me back to a degree of normalcy. Needless to say, a bottle of waterproof sunscreen has been permanently added to my ashore backpack. But such are the risks for living in paradise.
Needless to say the tiny island of Tahuata was supremely amazing, well beyond any of our expectations or even our imaginations.
(Continued from previous post… Tahuata, French Polynesia)
Finally, Tiffany made the discovery that lead us down the path of our second great adventure for the day: six coconuts laying about on the island. Actually, they’re lying all over the place, you actually have to work to avoid tripping over them as you walk around. However, it was Tiffany’s idea to bring them back to the boat and attempt to open them. This next video illustrates a fairly simple Polynesian math equation:
1 coconut + 3 gringos + 1 dull machete = hilarity
I remind you all of that footage was from the first coconut. Now, being Americans, we decided that the best way to proceed with the other coconuts is to both increase the number of tools at our disposal and increase the amount of power those tools put out. This met with slightly better results…kind of.
Finally, we took a moment to regroup and figure out what we had learned. Drawing out lessons from our experience so far as: “use a sharp blade over a dull one” and “take the protective husk off first” we refined our process and found some success with the third coconut.
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!
(Continued from previous post… Fatu Hiva, French Polynesia)
I wandered out into the village our last night in town with my trusty ukulele and by using equal parts luck and my limited knowledge of the French language, ended up finding a group of guys hanging out by their pickup truck playing music while their spouses served dinner to some other cruisers. The words “restaurant” and “living room” are rather synonymous here.
Not being part of the dinner group I sat down with the guys and lent one of them my ukulele, which they in turn informed me they called a “Kamaka”. Their ukulele is actually an 8 stringed instrument (4 paired strings) that sounds somewhat similar to a banjo, except with an island flair.
Ok, so you heard them at the end of the video, they wanted me to play. Play my ukulele (kamaka, whatever) with a group of people who invented the instrument on a tiny little island in the middle of the South Pacific? Can you say once in a lifetime brag-to-other-people’s-kids-because-I-don’t-have-any-of-my-own opportunity? Heck ya! Only one minor SNAFU. You have to understand, I started learning this instrument a month ago. I’m mostly self taught (though my friend Rod did give me a heck of a boost to get started and Tiffany assisted when I wasn’t too embarrassed to ask.) This is my first instrument…I can’t even read music! (Likely they couldn’t either, but that’s aside from the point) and this is exactly the second time I’ve played with someone else. Notice I opted to not cover the previous little “incident” in the blog.
But there was no way I was letting this opportunity pass me by. If these guys voted me off the island, then so be it, at least I’d swung the bat…or strummed the kamaka as the case may be. Overall, I think I did OK. I’m playing the lead (and speaking broken French) at the beginning.
There, it may not have been great but you know what, how may of you have been told by a Polynesian musician in response to your playing, “good music”? That’s what I thought. Obviously, I still need practice and for a guy who learned strumming about 2 weeks ago, I think I did OK.
We wrapped up the evening with the leader of the group, Serge, showing me that some songs are universal. There was a little Eagle Scout inside me that was very happy to hear this,
