The Marquesas Islands

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I wish I had paid more attention in English class or was a little better read.  My problem is that I don’t have a good enough command of the English language to do justice to the beauty of the Marquesas. Mind you I have some hard acts to follow since Herman Melville, Robert Louis Stevenson and Jack London have all spent time here and written about the islands.  Jacques Brel and Paul Gauguin also lived and died here. I have heard that Gauguin was actually re-buried in France some years ago but found no mention of that in the Gauguin museum on Hiva Oa.

The Marquesas is made up of an archipelago of 12 or so islands.  The Galapagos to Marquesas finish line was just outside the bay of Atuona, on Hiva Oa. We stayed there for about 5 days, recovering from the trip, celebrating with the other boats as they came in, touring the island and stocking up on fresh fruit and veg – and of course French wine, cheeses, pates etc.

We arrived at dawn. Once we got the boat settled on anchor and had a chance to look up and around us we were blown away by the lush vegetation, fruit laden trees and vibrant flowering shrubs and plants.  At first I thought I was just suffering from an overload of the senses having seen nothing other than blues and greys for 21 days.  However, we are here 10 days or so now, have visited 2 other islands and I continue to be overawed by the beauty.

There are no restaurants as such in the islands – mainly because they are not on the tourist trail.  When we eat on land it is usually by arrangement with a family who cook for visitors. Sashimi, breadfruit cooked in various ways and lots of fruit. I’m not making it sound very appealing but in fact the food is great – with the possible exception of breadfruit disguised as mashed potatoes.  Breadfruit soaked in coconut milk is gorgeous.

Arc boats at anchor in Atuona Bay - centre of photo (click to enlarge)

 

Atuona village - busy huh?

While we were in Hiva Oa John rented a 4X4.  The car rental guy’s name was also O’Connor.  We found out that there are 150 or so O’Connors living in one valley in Hiva Oa.  So we had to go check this out.  The islands are all volcanic and therefore consist of steeply rising ridges with lush valleys in between.  Each valley has its own tribe/extended family.  To get to the O’Connor valley we had to drive along a narrow trail around cliffs with 300 meter drops on either side. Some bends were so tight we couldn’t make them in one turn and had to backup a little before getting around. Luckily, the only time during this trip that we met an oncoming car was when we had pulled into a small lay-by to take photos.  5 minutes later and we would have been absolutely screwed as the track only had room for our wheels, the sides of the 4X4 hanging over the edge. Somebody would have had to reverse along the track.

On the way we came through a valley that had some quite intact Tiki statues. In ancient times these were carved from stone and represent important tribal chiefs.  They remind me somehow of Sile-na-Gigs, even though they have nothing to do with fertility.

 

O'Connor Valley

 

After 5 days onHiva Oa, with all but 3 Arc boats in the bay, we left for the tranquillity of Tahuata – a small island to the south. Here we had our first experience of how difficult it is going to be to go ashore in all but the 2 main islands.  There is a huge swell here with crashing waves at the shoreline.  This means jumping out of the dinghy when still in waist-high water or staying in the dinghy and risking being tossed out or washed over by waves.  Either way it is not possible to get ashore without getting wet.  I have a water-tight bag but cannot fit my good camera safely in it so a lot of the photos I’ll be taking will be with my not very good point-and-shoot camera. On the upside, since we are the only ones stupid enough to attempt these landings, we tend to have long, golden, palm tree lined beaches all to ourselves.

Our next stop was the Bay of Virgins on Fatu Hiva.  A tranquil island with grapefruit, lemons, papaya, bananas, coconuts etc literally falling off the trees.  There are about 10 houses in the bay along with a church and a small school. We spent a couple of hours walking around and only saw one car. The local people love to talk to visitors and my French is improving by the day.

 

Bay of Virgins

Not very virginal!!

A local man knocked this fruit from the trees with a big pole for us to take

 

While I am writing this we are in a bay on the island of Nuku Hiva. Yesterday, after another wet landing, we found what I can only describe as the Garden of Eden.  About 200 meters from the shore, hidden by the dense vegetation, is a village of about 5 houses.  Each house is surrounded by fruit trees and beautiful flowers.  All neat and tidy (but in a wild way as opposed to an English country garden way). I hope John is writing about this in his Arc log as he will be able to describe it better than I.

We found a house where the lady would have lunch prepared for us if we came back in an hour. When we finished, she sent us away with a bag of at least 50 limes she had just picked up from the ground around her house. And my favourite thing in the world at the moment – white pineapple.

There are just 3 boats in the bay – the other 2 being Arc boats as well.  So we put the limes to good use last night.  We invited the crews of the other boats on board and made Caiparinas, played loud music, eat a lot of our French produce and had a blast. Not feeling too good today though!!

Main road to garden of Eden

The Banyan tree has it's roots on the outside

As you can imagine there is very little phone coverage, never mind wifi, in these parts. When there is phone coverage I can use 3G with a dongle to access the internet but this is too slow and too expensive to use for posting blogs. We are due to spend 2 more days on Nuku Hiva. One of the bays here has wifi and we will sail there this afternoon and try to make contact with the outside world.  In a couple of days, we will take off for the archipelago of Tuamotu, 4 days south of here. The Tuamotus are even more remote than the Marquesas.  We are due to spend 2 weeks there before heading toTahiti.  So, it is possible that the next blog will not be for about 3 weeks.  Bear with me…..

 

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