Marquesas Islands
Ten islands and numerous rocks and islets compose the group which has an area of approximately 1400 square miles. These high, volcanically formed islands have steep, black, cliff-edged coasts indented by many valleys. The total population is about 9,000, the descendants of proud and warlike Polynesian tribes that once numbered approximately 100,000 when Captain Cook visited the island in the 18th century. These islands were the first islands that we reached upon our arrival from Mexico. We visited Hiva Oa, Fatu Hiva, Tahuata, Ua Pou and Nuku Hiva – you should here the local island kids’ giggle as we try to say all of these names.
It is here in the Marquesas where you will experience the Polynesian culture where it is probably the most intact and where the native tongue, Marquesan, is spoken as the primary language. You still see tattoos carved onto the skin of men symbolizing the legends and customs of these people, women adorning themselves with flowers in their hair and men going out in their outrigger canoes as part of their daily ritual. These islands are very remote, rugged and hard to get to, but the islander’s prefer it that way to keep their culture from being spoiled from too much outside influence.
Hiva Oa
Our first island in the Marquesas was sweet Hiva Oa. Hiva Oa is the 2nd largest of the islands in the Marquesas, has a population of about 2,000 people and is also the burial site of Paul Gauguin.
We picked this island as our first stop only because we needed to check into French Polynesia and this was where our customs agent was located. We arrived on a Sunday and found that everything was pretty much closed up – the Marquesan’s are very devout Catholics and they observe their day of rest. Actually, all of the schools in the Marquesas Islands were shut down for a two week Easter holiday – very religious culture.
Bright and early on Monday morning, our customs agent, Sondra, greeted us and took us directly to the local gendarme to properly register our boat, and to check all of us into French Polynesia. She also picked up our laundry and recommended a wonderful place for dinner – Pension Alex. Dinner at Pension Alex was a superb feast blending the best of the French and Marquesan cuisines – lovely tomato and cucumber salad, seared tuna with a nice array of vegetables, and a fantastic rum cake with whip cream frosting for dessert. Alex was in the French military during the days of French nuclear testing, settled in Hiva Oa, and married a Marquesan woman. They have a beautiful family of 3 girls and one boy. That evening, there were guests from France staying at the pension who Dennis managed to whip in billiards – after four games with the pool shark, the young French men, said Enough!
Sondra hooked us up with Mary Jo, a tour guide who happens to speak a little English, for a grand tour of Hiva Oa. We found this oh-so-mellow island to be a picturesque mix of lush jungle, sea-smashed coastal cliffs cascading into picturesque bays, and lofty volcanic peaks. Mary Jo arranged a brief stop in one of the quaint villages to purchase fruit from William who just happen to have the only “yacht” club in the Marquesas – this consisted of a boat register which contained the names of many cruisers.
We also visited one of the best-preserved archaeological sites in French Polynesia, the “Lipona” archaeological site, on the outskirts of Puamau. After taking in the archeological site, we lunched at the only restaurant in Puamau – a delightful, timeless village located on the sea. The Marquisan lunch consisted of freshly baked baguettes, raw fish marinated in lime juice and coconut milk (poisson cru), a platter of fried red bananas and breadfruit, coconut shrimp with rice, and fresh tropical fruit for dessert – enough food to last us for a week. Our guide spent most of the luncheon talking in the Marquisan language with two local women who were dressed in traditional Polynesian clothing. While feasting, several of the friendly local kids visited, played with us and entertained us very nicely. After touring the island for the day, we returned exhausted to our boat anchored at Atouna.
Atouna, a very small town that is quite easy to miss, has a few stores and some services, including a post office, grocery and hardware stores. (The Mobil station located at the port also has a small store with the best fish sashimi and marinated fish salad dishes to-go.) Atouna was about a 4k (or 2.5 mile) hike into town. We replenished supplies, purchased prepaid phone cards at the post office, and found out about WiFi for the internet. But we struck out on diesel and had to wait for the ship to arrive before we could purchase any diesel from the Mobil station. The ship stops at Atouna every two weeks. Once the ship was offloaded on Thursday, we were able to purchase diesel on Friday. There’s no place to tie off your sailboat at the harbor so Dennis and RB made four trips to shore via dinghy to transport 80 gallons of diesel back to Lardo. We had no luck with propane as we forgot that we needed an adapter; hopefully we can find one along the way or else we’ll end up eating lots of cold cereal and sandwiches. No gas – that arrives on the following Wednesday and after a week on Hiva Oa, we’re eager to explore the beautiful Marquesas islands – hopefully we’ll find gas for our dinghy at another island.
Our last evening in Hiva Oa, we were treated to cocktails on board Andy, Monica and Jake McKaskle’s “Savannah”. Fellow puddle jumpers “SongLine” (Fred and Cinda), and Sarah Jean (Beth and Norm) also joined us. It was so nice to meet these folks after listening to them every evening on the “Puddle Jump” net!
Fatu Hiva
After loading up with diesel, we took off early on Saturday morning to Fatu Hiva, one of the hardest-to-reach islands in French Polynesia. This was an all day trip bashing against the swells; we arrived just at sunset.
Fatu Hiva has a population of just under 700 people. It was certainly an island where you could play castaway for a few days. When arriving by boat, the scenery is a visual shock. Wrinkled cliffs and towering basaltic cones tumble into the coast and splendid bays, including the iconic Bay of Virgins (also referred to as Baie Hanavave), where we anchored. When the missionaries first arrived at this bay, it was originally named “Bay des Verges” (Bay of Phalli) by the early explorers because of the shape of the rocky pillars. Supposedly the missionaries disapproved, and inserted the “i” making it “Baie des Vierges” which translates to Bay of Virgins. The water in this bay was very clear and warm (80 degrees) - we loved jumping off the boat into this water. This is what the South Pacific is all about!
This was certainly one of our most majestic anchorages and I never tired looking at the rocky spires that surrounded us. The valley was lush with tropical vegetation, including palm trees, bird of paradise, orchids, gardenias, jasmine. We ate lunch at a local’s home who was selling some freshly barbecued chicken and skewered meat dishes – ate early as this place was only open till 11:00 a.m. on Sunday morning. After a hearty lunch, we proceeded on our hike into the valley to the waterfall - this was a very long hour hike up a steep hill – didn’t quite make it but at least we could see the waterfall from the road – next time we’ll start earlier before the heat of the day. We about all collapsed by the time we made it back to town – just in time to watch the main town event of the day – the local women’s volleyball team versus the other village island team – these teams from these very small villages have some great players – guess volleyball is the key activity in some of these villages. They play power volleyball with bump, set, spike the norm.
Next day, we paid a local to take us to the next village located in Baie Omoa, a quaint little town with friendly people. After we met the school teacher (a surfer who has spent some time in Santa Cruz, CA); he asked two little girls to be our guides to the petroglyphs. These barefooted little girls took us on a very narrow trail winding through the jungle but never quite found the petroglyph – we loved their eagerness and determination and probably had more fun spending the afternoon with them than finding the petroglyphs.
Tahuata
We spent two days at this island across from Hiva Oa. Not much more than 650 people in this island. The first day was at Vaitahu village where you can see much of the village from your boat, including the school, volleyball court and the seafront stone Catholic Church – commemorating 150 years of Catholic missionary service on the islands. We arrived in the late afternoon and were treated to a lovely cocktail hour onboard Storm Haven with our very gracious host Don and Paulie. Their boat is a Nordavn 46, which is a powerboat long range cruiser…..very comfortable! They so far are usually about a day ahead of us in their cruise of the Marquesas’ and have offered great advice on what to see and do throughout the islands.
Only a few boats anchored at Vaitahu as the landing into the village is very rough. I said to Dennis, no way am I getting off here with this swell crashing onto these rocks; so the next day we went around the corner and anchored in the idyllic Hanamoenoa Bay - sandy beaches and crystal clear blue water where you could see clear to the bottom. Easy to spend the day on your boat just jumping on and off for a leisurely swim in this beautiful bay. No one was in a rush to leave this bay that has been rated as one of the most beautiful anchorages in Polynesia.
Pulling anchor was a little dicey as we managed to snag a huge 200 pound piece of coral – we needed to take the dinghy off the boat in order to remove the coral. After struggling for nearly an hour, we succeeded in getting this stubborn piece of coral off the anchor and headed out to our next destination, Ua Pou.
Ua Pou
Our next destination in the Iles Marquises was Ua Pou with approximately 2,000 inhabitants. This volcanic island has many soaring mountain spires and towers, and scenic bays indenting the coastline.
We anchored at Baie d’Hakahau so that we could be close to the village of Hakahau, the main settlement of the island with approximately 1,000 residents. I think what caught our attention was the decent anchorage with a breakwater/wharf and nearby Rosalie’s Restaurant, featuring Marquisan foods such as poisson cru, breadfruit, curried goat, barbecued rock lobster, taro, octopus, green mango, tapioca and sweet red bananas. Well, we found Rosalie but it never seemed to be opened so we ate at another local “no-name” restaurant and each of us had a terrific meal – steaks for the guys and a Marquisan style fish with vegetables dish that was excellent; so good we went back the next day. The village also has a post office, stores and a bakery.
Met French man and single hander - Jean onboard Senta - who bought his boat in La Paz, Mexico where his son worked at the French consulate office. Jean was also a Puddle Jumper who completed his crossing all by himself in 28 days.
That afternoon after lunch, RB and I remained in town to check it out, visit St. Etienne with the beautiful wood carvings and to buy bananas from a local directly from her banana patch with about 20 trees. When buying bananas, be prepared as you must buy the whole bunch (or about 10 kilo’s that I had to fit into about 4 buckets). Right now I’m thinking that these green, hard bananas might never ripen.
While RB and I were touring around in town, Dennis was boarded by the French Polynesian customs officials, very friendly but they forgot to tell us that we were in the swing line of the freight ship; that night literally about five minutes before the freight ship arrived in port, the customs boat official, as his boat was suddenly leaving the dock, shouted to us to get out of the way of the freight ship – here we had been in port for a day and a half and they finally got around to telling us. We struggled most of the evening with the anchorage and at 11:30 that night, we re-positioned our boat – finally at 12:30 a.m. we went to bed knowing that we were securely anchored.
On Saturday, we toured the island with Xavier, a Frenchman who spoke English – we met Xavier who swam daily in the bay – chatting to local cruisers. During the tour, we felt like we were in an Indianapolis Jones movie as we were tramping about the island in Xavier’s four wheel drive with two us stuffed into the converted back seat staring out at the road behind us and bouncing around on these rugged dirt roads. For sure Xavier’s car would be illegal in the states, had no shocks and certainly never had any tender loving care. My back and joints are living proof. I almost did not want to go in his vehicle but Dennis talked me into it – we had a lot of fun four wheeling about the island, no worse than doing nine knots on bumpy seas or the roller coaster in Santa Cruz.
Off to Nuku Hiva on Sunday, April 17th.
Nuku Hiva
Nuku Hiva is the largest in French Polynesia after Tahiti and is sparsely populated with approximately 2600 inhabitants. We timed our visit right smack in the middle of the rainy season and we sure got a lot of heavy downpours. This island boasts a fantastic terrain, with razor-edged basaltic cliffs pounded by crashing waves, deep bays blessed with Robinson Crusoe beaches, dramatic waterfalls and timeless valleys that feel like the end of the world. The main town of Taiohae, the ‘capital’ of the Marquesas, has managed to hold on to that slow-down-it’s –the South-Pacific feeling. It is this town that we had some of our sail boat parts shipped to and we waited an extra week or so to get them.
We spent a little over a week exploring this island, waiting for our parts to be shipped to “Dennis Millard - General Delivery - Post Office – Taiohae – Nuka Hiva, and replenishing our supplies and provisions. We loved our tour around the island, especially all the archeological sites. Our local tour guide, Richard Temarama was fantastic – great English and fantastic knowledge about the Marquesas, including its rich ancient history and tropical plants (temarama.tour@hotmail.fr).
Dennis bonded with our guide Richard, a fellow hunter, and was in awe over his method of hunting wild pigs. Richard shared with us the Marquesan style of hunting – absolutely no hunting rifles. The Marquesan traditional way is to stalk the pig, creep up on it with a large hunting knife in hand, quickly grab the pig and then immediately attack it with the knife - praying that they are quick enough before the wild pig turns on them.
Fortunately, our visit coincided with the Easter holiday festivities. At night, we sat on our boat listening to the rhythmic beat of the drums as the Marquesan’s prepared for the festivities. We attended a local festival where we watched Polynesian dancers and feasted on pork slowly roasted in the ground and complimented with breadfruit and cooked red bananas. The dancers were quite moving and dressed in traditional Polynesian grass costumes.
We also attended a Polynesian style Easter service – lots of singing, bongo drums and tropical flowers. As I entered the church, I was immediately struck by the heavenly scent of the gardenia flower lei’s. The church was tastefully decorated with tropical flower displays, bird of paradise, palms and leis – all done by locals as there’s no florist on this island. It was fun to see the women dressed “Polynesian” style – white missionary dresses or colorful Polynesian print dresses and of course flowers in their hair.
Better be off to the “boulangerie” and farmer’s market at 6:00 a.m. for bread and produce – otherwise it’s all gone before 7:00 a.m. The other few stores at least are open all day but are always closed for two to three hours for a decent lunch break.
Summary
All in all, we spent about 3 weeks in the Marquesas with Nuku Hiva our final destination in the Marquesas. We must continue through French Polynesia before our 90 day limit given by the French government is up and head on south to the Tuamotu Islands (French Polynesia), the next set of islands on the way to the Society Islands which include Tahiti. We ate lots of wonderful tropical fruits (mango, papaya, banana, breadfruit, and grapefruit) that grew abundantly all over the Marquesas Islands and will miss that daily part of our diet. For now after three plus weeks in the Marquesas, we must say goodbye to these islands that truly host the wonderful Polynesian culture. That’s all for now until we get to the Tahiti as there’s limited internet access along the way.
